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Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your home for

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Speaker 1: deer hunting news, stories and strategies, and now your host,

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Speaker 1: Mark Kenyon. Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. I'm

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Speaker 1: your host, Mark Kenyan, and this episode number two oh three,

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Speaker 1: and today on the show, we're joined by Hell Blood

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Speaker 1: of Northern Maine to discuss hunting and tracking big mature

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Speaker 1: bucks in big woods settings. All right, folks, welcome to

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Speaker 1: the Wired to Hunt podcast, brought to you by Sitka Gear.

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Speaker 1: And today on the show we are talking big woods

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Speaker 1: deer hunting, and we're joined by one of the most

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Speaker 1: well known experts on this topic on hunting the big

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Speaker 1: woods of the Northeast, Mr Hale Blood. And uh my

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Speaker 1: wife thought that was a pretty apt name. By the

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Speaker 1: way she heard that, She's like, well, of course that

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Speaker 1: guy hunts. Yeah, it's bad ass. Yeah it is, it is.

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Speaker 1: And Hell in addition to having a great name, he

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Speaker 1: is the author of Hunting Big Woods Bucks Volume one

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Speaker 1: and two and Tracking White Tail Bucks. He is the

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Speaker 1: president of the educational company and website Big Woods Bucks.

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Speaker 1: He's a seminar speaker, a registered Master guide in the

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Speaker 1: state of Maine, and based off the many emails I've

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Speaker 1: gotten over the years requesting him as a guest. He

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Speaker 1: is a very well respected and revered hunter who I

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Speaker 1: think is gonna have a lot to offer when it

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Speaker 1: comes to you know, not just helping people that hunt

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Speaker 1: in the same place as he hunts, like up in

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Speaker 1: the Northeast, but you know, after you know, hearing more

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Speaker 1: about him. And actually I have already recorded the interview

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Speaker 1: with him, so I know what he does talk about.

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Speaker 1: And UM, he just has a lot of stuff that

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Speaker 1: he's interesting and applicable to me in what I do

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Speaker 1: here in Michigan. And I think, even like you Dan,

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Speaker 1: hearing this kind of stuff, I think there's stuff we

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Speaker 1: can learn from his attention to detail, his attention to tracks, UM,

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Speaker 1: a lot of stuff like that that I think can

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Speaker 1: be applied anywhere. So I'm excited for people to hear

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Speaker 1: this one. UM. I found it really interesting and UM

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Speaker 1: in last week's podcast, UM, I talked about a trip

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Speaker 1: I'm taking up to the boundary waters of Minnesota, and

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Speaker 1: I think a lot of the stuff the hell talked

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Speaker 1: about in this one I can apply to that kind

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Speaker 1: of hunt too, So just a lot of cool stuff.

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Speaker 1: I think it's it's unique compared to a lot of

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Speaker 1: our conversations. Um, but before we get to that, we

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Speaker 1: do need to have our pregame show, because Dan, you

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Speaker 1: were able to carve out some time in between family

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Speaker 1: emergencies and all sorts of crazy stuff too, to at

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Speaker 1: least let us catch up a little bit. So how

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Speaker 1: the heck are you? Man? I tell you what, this year,

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Speaker 1: as everybody hears on the news, is like the year

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Speaker 1: of the flu. Right, everybody's got the flu. Well it's

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Speaker 1: not necessarily the serious flu that's gone through our house,

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Speaker 1: but with three kids, just it's a numbers game, right,

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Speaker 1: someone's gonna be sick throughout the wintertime and the last

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Speaker 1: two weeks, and part of the reasons why I couldn't

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Speaker 1: be on the podcast and um, which really pisces me

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Speaker 1: off because I like, you know, I like being the

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Speaker 1: co host. But you know, today I had to go

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Speaker 1: into the doctor again and get my youngest breathing treatment

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Speaker 1: because he's he's he's got so much congestion in his

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Speaker 1: lungs and now he's on antibiotics. And the older my

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Speaker 1: oldest one, she's on medicine too because she's, uh, you know,

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Speaker 1: got some kind of sickness going on and it's just

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Speaker 1: been kind of rotating through our house the past couple

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Speaker 1: of weeks with my wife and my kids and myself

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Speaker 1: and and uh, I'm just kind of ready for summer

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Speaker 1: to get here so so we can get rid of

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Speaker 1: all this ship, you know what I mean? Yeah, man,

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Speaker 1: I hear you on. I've had some serious cabin fever too.

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Speaker 1: And I gotta tell you, you worried me a few

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Speaker 1: minutes ago before we started recording when you told me

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Speaker 1: that your son had a broad tosaurus and he has

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Speaker 1: a dinosaur and then you realize that you meant bronchitis. Right,

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Speaker 1: That's right. But like you should see how many simple

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Speaker 1: mistakes I'm making these days because I am not getting

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Speaker 1: the sleep that I need. I think, like full blown

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Speaker 1: dead life dude. Like it sucks because my boss came

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Speaker 1: up to me like three different times in the past

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Speaker 1: two days and he's like, hey, Dan, can you quick

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Speaker 1: change this on the report? And I look, and I

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Speaker 1: got all these numbers and then I have a random

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Speaker 1: word in with all these numbers, which is throwing the

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Speaker 1: entire thing off. And I'm just like, oh, ship, this

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Speaker 1: makes me look bad. But I think is that is

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Speaker 1: the is the random word that's always in there deer

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Speaker 1: or bucks or something like that. I think these days

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Speaker 1: it's probably sleep. Yeah, I can relate. I hear you.

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Speaker 1: I'm I'm I'm learning, so you uh, not all is bad? Right? Then?

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Speaker 1: Had some good stuff happen? Yeah? Yeah, I mean I

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Speaker 1: I got Can you go ahead? Can I say before

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Speaker 1: you tell me? I just gotta tell you that when

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Speaker 1: I saw what happened to you, I was like writhing

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Speaker 1: and jealousy I was. I was like, I hate him

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Speaker 1: so much. You know, we we've talked about this before,

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Speaker 1: but you know how when you flip through Instagram and

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Speaker 1: you see like, oh, this guy shot a giant and

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Speaker 1: there's a there's you know, a majority of it is

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Speaker 1: congratulations of that person for shooting a big bucket, but

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Speaker 1: then there's that little sliver that just kind of the

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Speaker 1: thought sneaks in that's just like that bastard, Like, you know,

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Speaker 1: like I hate him. I hate that guy, and uh

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Speaker 1: happy for exactly. But dude, I had one of those

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Speaker 1: walks where you just you just run into shads man

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Speaker 1: and it was awesome walk us through it because that

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Speaker 1: was pretty unbelieving. Right. So, for the first thing is

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Speaker 1: the stars kind of all aligned, right, and the goal

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Speaker 1: was to just quick go out, take a tree stand

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Speaker 1: down and get back and get home. But um, my

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Speaker 1: daughter had a birthday party with a friend, so my

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Speaker 1: daughter took or my wife took my daughter and the

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Speaker 1: baby to this birthday party, and my son stayed home

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Speaker 1: with grandma because she didn't have to work. So I

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Speaker 1: had time where if I wanted to, I could go

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Speaker 1: do something without having any kids with me. So I

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Speaker 1: went real fast, took down this tree stand. Found a

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Speaker 1: shed while I was taking down my tree stand. Um.

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Speaker 1: Then I'm like, you know what, I'm gonna go walk

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Speaker 1: this field. It's a real easy walk. It's a place

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Speaker 1: you've walked actually before. And um, I think on this

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Speaker 1: field I found a shed and Corey fall found a shed.

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Speaker 1: Uh this is the big crop field with strips on it. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: the buffer strips in it. And I'm like, you know what,

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Speaker 1: if there's gonna be sheds here or you know, anywhere,

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Speaker 1: that's a real easy walk that I can cruise real

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Speaker 1: fast and not take up an a ton of time.

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Speaker 1: I'm gonna walk this field. So I walk into it

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Speaker 1: and the first shed of the day that I find

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Speaker 1: is laying right on a fence in a in a

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Speaker 1: little tuft of grass that looks like you know, these

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Speaker 1: deer are um going and eating and then they'll have

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Speaker 1: their like their night bed, you know what I mean,

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Speaker 1: where they'll they'll basically just sit and chew all the

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Speaker 1: food that they ate. Right. Um, So that was the

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Speaker 1: biggest shed sixty five and five eights inches what I

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Speaker 1: measured it out at um and that was a four

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Speaker 1: point side was four point side, so give or take.

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Speaker 1: And I gave him. I gave him a seventeen inch

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Speaker 1: inside spread, which I think it's probably being conservative, so

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Speaker 1: it's like a hundred forty seven inch eight pointer, which

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Speaker 1: is I got. I got pictures of him two years

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Speaker 1: in a row, um, and he's definitely on the he's

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Speaker 1: a hitless buck. And uh so you know that walk

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Speaker 1: then turned into me kind of slowing down and really

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Speaker 1: scraping the area really good. And uh in the first

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Speaker 1: buffer strip, I found three sheds, and in the next

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Speaker 1: buffer strip, I found another three sheds. Um and then

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Speaker 1: I'm trying to think I found I found eight sheds

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Speaker 1: in that field. Uh. One one of them was a

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Speaker 1: match set. And then, um, dude, it just just kind

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Speaker 1: of happened, you know, what I mean, And every one

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Speaker 1: of them was in the grass and I was just

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Speaker 1: kind of cruising looking for the cherry pick. But I

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Speaker 1: swear this weekend, Um, if I don't go to the

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Speaker 1: Iowa Deer Classic, I think I'm gonna go shed handing

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Speaker 1: again with my wife and we're gonna walk that cornfield

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Speaker 1: in the rows and just kind of real slow, methodically

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Speaker 1: go through it because I have a feeling I missed

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Speaker 1: a lot in that that are just kind of sitting

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Speaker 1: out in that field. Yeah, there's that many just in

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Speaker 1: the buffer strips right right along there, and then it

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Speaker 1: wasn't almost all right sides. Yeah, And that's the funny thing.

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Speaker 1: So of the nine sheds I found, and by the way, uh,

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Speaker 1: I dropped a shed walking back to the truck that

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Speaker 1: I didn't notice because I had I didn't have a

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Speaker 1: backpack because I was like, this is just gonna be

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Speaker 1: a quick walk. I found all these sheds, so I

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Speaker 1: had to carry them all by hand, and I think

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Speaker 1: I dropped one of the smaller ones. So it's still

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Speaker 1: it's still out there somewhere. Um that do you count

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Speaker 1: that as twice? Is that two sheds? If you found

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Speaker 1: it and then you find it again. Hopefully my wife

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Speaker 1: finds it there you go. So but yeah, man, I mean, um,

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Speaker 1: and that was only half the field too. I didn't

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Speaker 1: get to the timber line because I time, I slowed

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Speaker 1: way down, time expired, the grass was a little taller.

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Speaker 1: I was going back and forth and all these trails

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Speaker 1: just trying to see what else was there. I was,

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Speaker 1: you know, looking for beds and um, but I found

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Speaker 1: the food source that they've they've been hitting the past

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Speaker 1: couple of weeks, and I don't know, it just made

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Speaker 1: me excited to get out and do more shed hunting.

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Speaker 1: That's awesome. When you hit the jackpot like that, that's

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Speaker 1: pretty incredible. I've never had I've never had a day

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Speaker 1: like that. That just sounds nuts. And that's two let's see,

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Speaker 1: that's a tie. I found nine sheds. That's a tie

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Speaker 1: for the most, I think the most sheds I found

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Speaker 1: in a day. And that was only and that's crazy

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Speaker 1: because that was only too. Like if you if you

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Speaker 1: add in the first shed I found when I was

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Speaker 1: walking through the timber and you know, because I took

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Speaker 1: the like a back way in to get my tree

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Speaker 1: stand down. Um, just so I was kind of looking

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Speaker 1: for sheds the entire time. Uh if you if you

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Speaker 1: don't count that, I've only walked for two hours and

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Speaker 1: found nine sheds, so that's pretty good. And I've had

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Speaker 1: days where I've walked ten hours and found zero sheds. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: well you found that all happened to what was that Sunday? Yep, Sunday. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: So during the week prior to that, I think I

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Speaker 1: spent like two evenings or afternoons, maybe I put in

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Speaker 1: like four or five hours, maybe more than that. Maybe

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Speaker 1: we'll say four to six hours during the week. And

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Speaker 1: then Friday afternoon and a good chunk of Saturday and

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Speaker 1: a good chunk of Sunday I put probably put on

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Speaker 1: another fifteen hours, so we'll say maybe twenty hours of

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Speaker 1: shed hunting last week in Michigan. And I found zero.

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Speaker 1: And so then I saw you had your two hour

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Speaker 1: nine shed day, and I said to myself, man, why

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Speaker 1: are you shed hunting in Michigan? So then guess what

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Speaker 1: I did? You went to Ohio. I went to Ohio.

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Speaker 1: Can I tell I? Can I tell you about that?

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Speaker 1: I want you to tell me about it. So I

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Speaker 1: got my buddy further and we went on down to

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Speaker 1: Ohio yesterday and um, long story short. On that walked

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Speaker 1: our property, Josh found a nice shed um in a

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Speaker 1: spot where I've always thought we would find sheds but

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Speaker 1: we never have. But pulled the nice I think it's

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Speaker 1: probably a three year old buck, young youngishu um, but

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Speaker 1: great potential. He had a busted G two but hiss

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Speaker 1: G three is like ten inches long. Um, so he's

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Speaker 1: definitely a deer that will look a little uh little

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Speaker 1: grown to something special probably by next year. So that

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Speaker 1: was cool. Um. And then there's another property we have

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Speaker 1: shed hunting permission on, so we went there and um

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Speaker 1: stopped by the landowner's house to say hi. We always

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Speaker 1: like to chat, and the landowner says, I got something

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Speaker 1: for you, Mark and picks up off of the lawnmower

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Speaker 1: a gigantic shed, hands it to me and I just

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Speaker 1: about flipped out. I think it is I'm holding it

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Speaker 1: right now. I haven't measured it yet, but it is

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Speaker 1: the most massive shed that I have now in my collection. Um,

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Speaker 1: and it could be like a seventy inch side, I mean,

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Speaker 1: just super duper mass. And as I was looking at him,

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Speaker 1: like I know this buck. This is a buck that

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Speaker 1: we have referred to as Blades. I saw him as

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Speaker 1: a three year old, further saw the next year as

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Speaker 1: a four year old. We've had we didn't see him

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Speaker 1: at all last year as a five year old, but

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Speaker 1: we've had pictures of him for three years straight now

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Speaker 1: and now I have his shed in my hands. So

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Speaker 1: that was amazing. So he's gonna be a six year old.

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Speaker 1: He's gonna be a six year old this year. You go,

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Speaker 1: so when you saw him? How far away was he

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Speaker 1: from you when you saw him? Uh? Well, this is

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Speaker 1: when I When I saw him was as a three

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Speaker 1: year old, um, and I I watched him from maybe

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Speaker 1: a hundred yards away. That's crazy. Yeah. But now we say, okay,

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Speaker 1: we're gonna go for our walk. So we go start

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Speaker 1: walking and we're walking this fence row and within three

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Speaker 1: to five minutes of leaving the landowners house, I look

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Speaker 1: on the edge of the field in the fence row

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Speaker 1: and there's a shed and I go running over and

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Speaker 1: grab it and it is the match side to Blades

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Speaker 1: And that's this that's the this year's shed, right, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: this is this year's shed. Um. And that shed again,

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Speaker 1: I mean, they're they're just amazing. This the one side

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Speaker 1: that was given to me is a five point side,

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Speaker 1: just a clean, really heavy five point side. The side

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Speaker 1: I picked up is a five point side plus a

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Speaker 1: really big sticker point coming off the base of the

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Speaker 1: brow time that's maybe four inches long. Um So technically

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Speaker 1: I guess on the eleven pointer I would I would

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Speaker 1: probably put him at maybe a one sixty something inch

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Speaker 1: buck five year old last year. Um so that was incredible.

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Speaker 1: That was the biggest shed I've ever found. That was

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Speaker 1: bigger than the Mark Kenyon shed I found with you.

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Speaker 1: Um So, yeah, I dude found the biggest shed ever

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Speaker 1: and was given the match side two minutes or five

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Speaker 1: minutes before that. So that was pretty That was pretty awesome.

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Speaker 1: So I haven't found many sheds, but the sheds that

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Speaker 1: have found have been like really big, really cool, uh

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Speaker 1: special sheds. So I'm a happy shed hunter so far.

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Speaker 1: I cannot complain anymore. And it's like our friend further Man,

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Speaker 1: that should be like a Netflix series, our friend for friend.

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Speaker 1: You know this time I was joking with him about

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Speaker 1: this yesterday. I'm like, dude, you should. You can't complain

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Speaker 1: about the fact that everyone refers to as further Not

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Speaker 1: because as you know, he works for the QT may.

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Speaker 1: So he gets lots of emails from people, like official

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Speaker 1: work emails, asking, you know, talking about different events or

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Speaker 1: different things like this, and people are emailing him and

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Speaker 1: referring to him as further. Oh, man, I hope he

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Speaker 1: doesn't flip out mentally and kill you. I'm telling he

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Speaker 1: should be thankful because like he is the only man

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Speaker 1: in the hunting industry now, the only person in the

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Speaker 1: hunting industry who goes by one single name. Like he's

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Speaker 1: like the Kobe, He's the Kobe of the hunting world.

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Speaker 1: Now he's just he's not he's not a he's not

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Speaker 1: a public figure. He's an icon. That's he's just further.

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Speaker 1: That's right. So I smell a T shirt coming. Oh

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Speaker 1: that would be good, Yeah, that would be good. So yeah, man,

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Speaker 1: it was a lot of fun. We had a good day.

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Speaker 1: And he found though too, right, Yeah, I mean he

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Speaker 1: found that good one, that three year old that told

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Speaker 1: you about. And then he found another small one that

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Speaker 1: actually I think might be actually the it's it's a

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Speaker 1: busted off piece of a nailer. It's not a shed on,

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Speaker 1: so I think it's the end of a main beam

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Speaker 1: that must have been from a pretty good buck too. So,

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Speaker 1: um yeah, dude, it was a good day. And um,

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Speaker 1: I'm excited to keep walking. I'm back in Michigan now

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Speaker 1: I'm going to do some more walking probably this weekend

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Speaker 1: and off to Iowa next weekend, right right, chance there's

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Speaker 1: a chance I might be able to join you for

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Speaker 1: that too, Yeah, dude, work on that schedule. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's gonna take some work. It's gonna take like a

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Speaker 1: date night, I think, and that kind of you know,

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Speaker 1: like maybe like two or three backrubs. And then these

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Speaker 1: days that ship really doesn't pay off anyway, because then

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Speaker 1: no matter what I do, my wife is still at

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Speaker 1: home with three kids. Yeah, but I I here's here's

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Speaker 1: something funny. So I I texted our other good friend,

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Speaker 1: Ross Hossman today, Oh, Ross, and I said, dude, is

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Speaker 1: your wife gonna come hunting? Because you know, like I

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Speaker 1: love my wife to death, right, but if your wife's

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Speaker 1: like can I come? And it's like last year, if

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Speaker 1: my wife came, I'm pretty sure there would have been

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Speaker 1: a lawsuit that would it came out of that that,

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Speaker 1: you know, those those conversations after she sell what Peter

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Speaker 1: do you? Yeah? Exactly exactly. So um so, so I'm like, hey, dude,

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Speaker 1: is your wife gonna come with us? Because my wife

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Speaker 1: kind of wants to come to And he's like, well,

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Speaker 1: I don't know yet, So I don't know. There may

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Speaker 1: be there may be some females joining us. Maybe al right, well, hey,

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Speaker 1: it probably wouldn't be a bad idea for us to

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Speaker 1: act like upstanding citizens for once, right, right, But I

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Speaker 1: think there is there's something positive about men scraping the

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Speaker 1: bottom of the barrel every once in a while just

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Speaker 1: to get it out of their system, that there's something

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Speaker 1: to be said about that too, right, right, And I

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Speaker 1: feel like you've you've taken that to the extreme for

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Speaker 1: many years. Absolutely so yeah, And I'm just like you, man,

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Speaker 1: I am ready to get out and do some more

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Speaker 1: shut hunting. There's something about at the end of the day,

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Speaker 1: your legs and your back are sore, and it just

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Speaker 1: feels good. Yeah, it's a good feeling. And then it's

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Speaker 1: an especially good feeling if you can sit back in

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Speaker 1: the couch afterwards and holding your hand a piece of

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Speaker 1: a piece of bone hand, spin it around and touch

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Speaker 1: it and look at it, and I don't know, I know,

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Speaker 1: you're just like made. That's just something special to hold

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Speaker 1: that and look at it and think about it, and

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Speaker 1: I was cool first human being to ever touch that angler,

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Speaker 1: which is I find I find it awesome. Yeah, it's wild.

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Speaker 1: I mean when you think about that was a piece

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Speaker 1: of this like living animal, and maybe it's a deer

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Speaker 1: you hunted, a deer you've seen before, encountered, and to

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Speaker 1: now like hold some piece of that, that's I don't know.

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Speaker 1: I I gotta kick out of it. So one question,

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Speaker 1: I know, and I know we're on time, but have

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Speaker 1: you ever killed a deer that you have found sheds too? Yes? Yes, okay, yeah,

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Speaker 1: um six shooter the buck I killed in Michigan two

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Speaker 1: thousand thirteen, I have one of his antlers. Um, that

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Speaker 1: might be the only one though until until holy Field

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Speaker 1: this year. Right, for as many sheds as I found,

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Speaker 1: and as you know, the deer that I've killed, I

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Speaker 1: have yet. I'm looking back and I have yet to

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Speaker 1: kill a deer that I have found a shed too.

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Speaker 1: I think it's pretty hard to do, except in those

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Speaker 1: situations where people have like these really big managed properties, right,

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Speaker 1: but by permission small properties are are kind of situations.

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Speaker 1: In most cases, it's a tough cell. It's it's tough

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Speaker 1: to pull off, right, but maybe maybe the tides attorney,

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Speaker 1: maybe you're gonna kill this mega eight pointer this year.

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Speaker 1: Man who knows I I'd love to He's a he's

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Speaker 1: a good he's a good buck. He's almost a nine.

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Speaker 1: He's got a little crab claw. That's awesome. Well, here's

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Speaker 1: my advice for you to kill this big this big

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Speaker 1: a pointer. Um. Stick around for the rest of this podcast.

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Speaker 1: As I know you you couldn't be here in the interview,

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Speaker 1: but stick around for this one. Here what Hall has

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Speaker 1: to say about tracks and how we can tell how

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Speaker 1: fresh tracks are, and how we can tell how big

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Speaker 1: a buck is by a track and by his stance

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Speaker 1: and his gate um, and then apply that to this

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Speaker 1: year in Iowa when you're looking at like tracks in

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Speaker 1: the mud, and that might help you better identify where

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Speaker 1: this big burley buck is hanging out or walking. And

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Speaker 1: I feel that this tracks are something that I'm getting

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Speaker 1: more and more interested in. It's kind of overlooked a

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Speaker 1: lot of times today. We focus so much on tild

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Speaker 1: cameras and all that kind of stuff. But I think

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Speaker 1: that there's something to be said about paying attention to

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Speaker 1: what's actually on the ground. So, um, we cover some

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Speaker 1: of that stuff today. It's pretty interesting. I'm ready, all right. Well,

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Speaker 1: then let's take a break for our sick gear story

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Speaker 1: of the day and then we'll get right to hell Blood.

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Speaker 1: For this week's sick of story, we're joined by Seth Healy,

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Speaker 1: who tells us about checking trail cameras with his son. Well,

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Speaker 1: it was about the beginning of October and the summertime.

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Speaker 1: I got my little boy out with me checking cameras,

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Speaker 1: you know, velvet bucks, and uh, I started hunting some

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Speaker 1: and what much going on, and the weather was started

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Speaker 1: to cool off, and I thought, well, that would be

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Speaker 1: a good time to get him out with me and

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Speaker 1: kind of get him in the woods a little bit

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Speaker 1: and uh check some more cameras. So we go out.

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Speaker 1: The previous card pools hadn't been too good. It was

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Speaker 1: getting pretty slow, you know, October law was starting to hit,

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Speaker 1: and so we go out and go to my favorite

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Speaker 1: area of our family farm, and uh go to check

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Speaker 1: a couple of cameras and I let him, you know,

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Speaker 1: I opened and opened the cameras up for him and

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Speaker 1: let him pull the cards out and put new cards in.

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Speaker 1: And he was just I mean super excited to be

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Speaker 1: out there, and it was for a moment for me

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Speaker 1: that you know, I had never got to do that

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Speaker 1: with my dad, and for me to be able to

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Speaker 1: share just getting him out there and doing something that

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Speaker 1: I love was super special for me. Um, I don't

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Speaker 1: even I can't even describe how to be whenever I

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Speaker 1: actually get to take him hunt with me, you know,

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Speaker 1: because he's only three. It was just I don't know,

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Speaker 1: it was even though we didn't kill anything or you know,

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Speaker 1: anything like that, it was still a special moment to

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Speaker 1: get my kid out there with me and and uh

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Speaker 1: let him enjoy everything that I enjoy about the outdoors.

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Speaker 1: On seth Son, he was wearing Sickest Fanetic hoodie. If

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00:22:36,520 --> 00:22:38,360
Speaker 1: you'd like to create a Sickest story of your own,

419
00:22:38,760 --> 00:22:41,720
Speaker 1: or to learn more about SITYS technical hunting apparel, visit

420
00:22:41,800 --> 00:22:45,679
Speaker 1: sitkey gear dot com. Alright with me now on the

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Speaker 1: line is hell Blood. Thanks for joining us. Hell, Hey,

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Speaker 1: you're welcome, glad to be here. Yeah, I'm I'm excited

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Speaker 1: to excited to have this chat. I've been following some

424
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Speaker 1: of your your articles and different things you've posted over

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Speaker 1: the years. Um, kind of from a distance and kind

426
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Speaker 1: of always been aware of some of the things you've

427
00:23:04,320 --> 00:23:06,080
Speaker 1: been doing. And I've heard a lot about you and

428
00:23:06,119 --> 00:23:08,480
Speaker 1: some other folks up in your neck of the woods

429
00:23:08,960 --> 00:23:11,040
Speaker 1: as far as how you guys hunt, but I haven't

430
00:23:11,080 --> 00:23:13,280
Speaker 1: done a good job of getting anyone on the wire

431
00:23:13,359 --> 00:23:15,919
Speaker 1: Dune podcast to talk about this stuff, to talk about

432
00:23:16,520 --> 00:23:20,000
Speaker 1: the big woods, to talk about tracking deer um. So

433
00:23:20,320 --> 00:23:22,720
Speaker 1: you are filling a big gap for us. Hell, so

434
00:23:22,720 --> 00:23:25,760
Speaker 1: so thank you for doing that. And before we get

435
00:23:25,800 --> 00:23:28,800
Speaker 1: too far into that stuff, I'd like to hear from

436
00:23:28,840 --> 00:23:32,160
Speaker 1: you first a little bit about yourself. What's your story? Hell,

437
00:23:32,280 --> 00:23:34,359
Speaker 1: how how did you get into all this? And how

438
00:23:34,400 --> 00:23:37,760
Speaker 1: did you get to where you're right now? I think

439
00:23:37,800 --> 00:23:42,600
Speaker 1: I got a crazy story. So I I started deer

440
00:23:42,680 --> 00:23:45,040
Speaker 1: hunting when I was ten years old, which is when

441
00:23:45,080 --> 00:23:46,680
Speaker 1: you can start. And me and you've gotta be ten

442
00:23:46,760 --> 00:23:49,280
Speaker 1: to hunt. Well now they change it. But and my

443
00:23:49,400 --> 00:23:52,920
Speaker 1: father was my father dea hunted. He wasn't a big

444
00:23:52,960 --> 00:23:55,120
Speaker 1: dea hunter as far as you know, like an expert

445
00:23:55,200 --> 00:23:58,160
Speaker 1: or anything, but he'd like to go and every every

446
00:23:58,200 --> 00:24:00,639
Speaker 1: once in a while he shoot ada, you know. And

447
00:24:00,720 --> 00:24:02,639
Speaker 1: I grew up in the southern part of Maine, and

448
00:24:02,920 --> 00:24:06,160
Speaker 1: and there wasn't there weren't a lot of dia back

449
00:24:06,200 --> 00:24:10,240
Speaker 1: then in southern Maine. The northern forest w was was

450
00:24:10,280 --> 00:24:13,960
Speaker 1: where the dea were the most heavily populated because southern

451
00:24:14,000 --> 00:24:18,439
Speaker 1: Maine was reverted farm country. It was reverting when they

452
00:24:18,520 --> 00:24:22,240
Speaker 1: let the farms go by, and they just hadn't populated

453
00:24:22,280 --> 00:24:24,399
Speaker 1: in I guess, but it was a back then. I

454
00:24:24,440 --> 00:24:27,080
Speaker 1: remember back in the I started hunting in the late

455
00:24:27,200 --> 00:24:31,120
Speaker 1: sixties and and uh, you know, it was a big

456
00:24:31,119 --> 00:24:33,040
Speaker 1: deal if you shot a deer and you could shoot

457
00:24:33,080 --> 00:24:35,480
Speaker 1: either sex back then, you know, as anything goes and

458
00:24:36,040 --> 00:24:37,639
Speaker 1: you know, it was a big deal, a big saying.

459
00:24:37,680 --> 00:24:39,560
Speaker 1: It was always, you know, to get your dea because

460
00:24:40,400 --> 00:24:43,240
Speaker 1: it was a big deal to get one. So anyway,

461
00:24:43,240 --> 00:24:45,560
Speaker 1: that's where I started. But I actually shot my first

462
00:24:45,560 --> 00:24:48,280
Speaker 1: one when I was twelve, and I show it when

463
00:24:48,280 --> 00:24:51,960
Speaker 1: I was thirteen, and I skipped a couple of years

464
00:24:51,960 --> 00:24:54,240
Speaker 1: because I really didn't get to go that much anyways.

465
00:24:54,280 --> 00:24:59,480
Speaker 1: But then when I was sixteen, my my relatives invited

466
00:24:59,480 --> 00:25:02,440
Speaker 1: me to come down to there their hunting lodge, which

467
00:25:02,480 --> 00:25:05,400
Speaker 1: was an old farmhouse and it was it was more

468
00:25:05,920 --> 00:25:08,600
Speaker 1: to the northeast of us, still kind of near the coast,

469
00:25:08,640 --> 00:25:11,840
Speaker 1: but I got to go up there and spend a week.

470
00:25:12,200 --> 00:25:15,880
Speaker 1: And uh that was a big deal for me because

471
00:25:16,000 --> 00:25:19,880
Speaker 1: I would go on Saturday of Thanksgiving us something before then.

472
00:25:19,920 --> 00:25:22,480
Speaker 1: But and there was quite a few more deer up there.

473
00:25:22,560 --> 00:25:24,560
Speaker 1: You know. It was calming to see some deer every

474
00:25:24,640 --> 00:25:29,000
Speaker 1: day up up there. So I started shooting some deer

475
00:25:29,119 --> 00:25:30,880
Speaker 1: up there. And then I went in the Marine Corps.

476
00:25:30,840 --> 00:25:32,639
Speaker 1: As soon as I turned eighteen, I got out of

477
00:25:32,680 --> 00:25:34,960
Speaker 1: high school. I went in the Marine Corps for a stint.

478
00:25:35,720 --> 00:25:38,720
Speaker 1: An idea hunted down in North Carolina where I was stationed,

479
00:25:39,760 --> 00:25:43,200
Speaker 1: and uh, I drought a bunch of deer down there.

480
00:25:43,240 --> 00:25:46,720
Speaker 1: The limit was four years, I think down there. But

481
00:25:46,800 --> 00:25:48,920
Speaker 1: I was always crazy about it, and and I was

482
00:25:49,000 --> 00:25:51,439
Speaker 1: crazy about tracking, even though I didn't know it that

483
00:25:51,560 --> 00:25:53,720
Speaker 1: much then because in southern Maine we didn't have much

484
00:25:53,760 --> 00:25:56,439
Speaker 1: for snow during da season, but I used in the wintertime.

485
00:25:57,280 --> 00:25:59,920
Speaker 1: Me and a couple of buddies, we tracked rabbits around

486
00:26:00,000 --> 00:26:03,159
Speaker 1: of snowshoe hares there and we tracked them to ourselves.

487
00:26:03,200 --> 00:26:05,720
Speaker 1: But and then when I got out of the Marine Corps,

488
00:26:05,760 --> 00:26:07,720
Speaker 1: I had to get a job. I wanted to be

489
00:26:07,760 --> 00:26:11,159
Speaker 1: a game wouldn't but they weren't taking applications. So I

490
00:26:11,280 --> 00:26:13,720
Speaker 1: just got a job in a grocery warehouse, and not

491
00:26:13,880 --> 00:26:16,119
Speaker 1: to bore you with all us, that only lasted a

492
00:26:16,160 --> 00:26:19,600
Speaker 1: couple of years. But the only vacation pick I could

493
00:26:19,600 --> 00:26:24,399
Speaker 1: get was up north in the season opened a week early,

494
00:26:24,440 --> 00:26:26,560
Speaker 1: So I got that pick, and I talked my father

495
00:26:26,640 --> 00:26:30,760
Speaker 1: into going. That was me and my father. We had

496
00:26:30,800 --> 00:26:33,439
Speaker 1: this little pop up camp and we borrowed and we

497
00:26:33,560 --> 00:26:37,360
Speaker 1: headed to the North main Woods to an area it's

498
00:26:37,400 --> 00:26:40,280
Speaker 1: where I live now, and settled into because we used

499
00:26:40,280 --> 00:26:42,960
Speaker 1: to go fishing their Memorial weekend and I always saw

500
00:26:43,000 --> 00:26:45,359
Speaker 1: a da So I said, well, that'll be a place

501
00:26:45,440 --> 00:26:48,360
Speaker 1: to try anyways, And and it was kind of ironic

502
00:26:48,440 --> 00:26:54,200
Speaker 1: the first trip I made north after that week up north,

503
00:26:54,880 --> 00:26:57,520
Speaker 1: I felt it was hard to go back and hunt

504
00:26:58,080 --> 00:27:00,320
Speaker 1: in southern Maine. I don't know why it was, but

505
00:27:00,840 --> 00:27:03,159
Speaker 1: it was just like something in my mind. It was

506
00:27:03,760 --> 00:27:05,960
Speaker 1: It's like I got a love for it in one week.

507
00:27:06,840 --> 00:27:09,600
Speaker 1: It was big. You know, it's a bigger area than

508
00:27:09,600 --> 00:27:12,240
Speaker 1: I've ever been in. And you know, you see that

509
00:27:12,320 --> 00:27:15,440
Speaker 1: big buck sign and I've seen We had some little

510
00:27:15,440 --> 00:27:17,480
Speaker 1: bit of snow that week off and on, and I

511
00:27:17,640 --> 00:27:20,560
Speaker 1: followed a few big buck tracks and I just got

512
00:27:20,600 --> 00:27:23,800
Speaker 1: intrigued by it. So I did still have to hunt

513
00:27:23,840 --> 00:27:26,800
Speaker 1: down in southern Maine for a little bit more off

514
00:27:26,840 --> 00:27:30,440
Speaker 1: and off and on. But I did take my time

515
00:27:30,480 --> 00:27:32,560
Speaker 1: every year when I could get it. By then I

516
00:27:32,560 --> 00:27:37,520
Speaker 1: had started UH only I only uh after that first

517
00:27:37,680 --> 00:27:43,280
Speaker 1: two trips up north, I UH. I ended up going

518
00:27:43,320 --> 00:27:46,000
Speaker 1: with my father in law. He was a lobsterman, and

519
00:27:46,040 --> 00:27:47,800
Speaker 1: I helped him for a couple of years as a

520
00:27:47,840 --> 00:27:50,600
Speaker 1: stern man. And then I bought my own boat and

521
00:27:50,680 --> 00:27:54,520
Speaker 1: went lobster and on my own. And then I periodically

522
00:27:54,560 --> 00:27:56,760
Speaker 1: got some time to go north every year. But that's

523
00:27:56,760 --> 00:27:59,200
Speaker 1: the only place I wanted to go when I hunted.

524
00:27:59,200 --> 00:28:02,840
Speaker 1: I'd drive up all three hours the hunt for two days,

525
00:28:02,880 --> 00:28:06,040
Speaker 1: you know, and then go back and go back lobster.

526
00:28:06,160 --> 00:28:10,080
Speaker 1: And so anyway, I told my wife back then, I said,

527
00:28:10,080 --> 00:28:12,680
Speaker 1: I want to I wanted. I always wanted to think

528
00:28:12,680 --> 00:28:15,560
Speaker 1: of something I could do to make a living in

529
00:28:15,600 --> 00:28:19,680
Speaker 1: the you know, being part in the woods. So I said,

530
00:28:19,760 --> 00:28:25,600
Speaker 1: let's let's start a sporting camp and guide people and stuff,

531
00:28:25,640 --> 00:28:28,760
Speaker 1: you know. So just ran on that dream, that's all.

532
00:28:28,880 --> 00:28:31,760
Speaker 1: And I lost it for nine years. And then we

533
00:28:31,880 --> 00:28:36,080
Speaker 1: sold that business and built our built up business up here,

534
00:28:36,240 --> 00:28:40,920
Speaker 1: you know, and outfitting business, and ran that for twenty

535
00:28:40,960 --> 00:28:43,840
Speaker 1: two years. I think we sold that four years ago,

536
00:28:43,920 --> 00:28:50,560
Speaker 1: now be five years actually in December. So meanwhile I

537
00:28:50,640 --> 00:28:54,440
Speaker 1: started guiding the hunters, the deer hunters, and and uh,

538
00:28:56,440 --> 00:28:58,360
Speaker 1: you know, got to learn a lot from that about

539
00:28:58,400 --> 00:29:00,880
Speaker 1: people and and deer as well, because it got me

540
00:29:00,920 --> 00:29:03,560
Speaker 1: in the woods, you know, every day of the season

541
00:29:03,640 --> 00:29:09,200
Speaker 1: for years and years and years, and and then uh,

542
00:29:09,680 --> 00:29:12,680
Speaker 1: that led into I decided to write a book about it,

543
00:29:12,680 --> 00:29:14,800
Speaker 1: because my hunters kept saying, once you write a book

544
00:29:14,800 --> 00:29:17,240
Speaker 1: about this stuff, I'd be telling stories at the table

545
00:29:17,280 --> 00:29:19,040
Speaker 1: every night, you know, when the hunters would come in,

546
00:29:19,080 --> 00:29:21,840
Speaker 1: you know. And so I did. So I wrote my

547
00:29:21,960 --> 00:29:26,640
Speaker 1: first book and I titled it, uh Hunting Big Woods Bucks.

548
00:29:27,320 --> 00:29:30,120
Speaker 1: And that was a that was a term that I

549
00:29:30,280 --> 00:29:32,560
Speaker 1: coined back then, back I think that was in two

550
00:29:32,600 --> 00:29:36,920
Speaker 1: thousand and five, I think when I wrote my first book.

551
00:29:37,640 --> 00:29:41,880
Speaker 1: And now you see it, you see it everywhere, you know,

552
00:29:41,960 --> 00:29:43,960
Speaker 1: you see big woods bucks everywhere. It used to be

553
00:29:44,040 --> 00:29:50,040
Speaker 1: northern the north Woods and Northern Woods and northern deer

554
00:29:50,080 --> 00:29:53,400
Speaker 1: and all that, but everybody uses big woods bucks now.

555
00:29:53,480 --> 00:29:56,680
Speaker 1: So but anyways, and that's that's how my I started

556
00:29:56,720 --> 00:30:00,880
Speaker 1: my business with a partner after that. It was a

557
00:30:00,920 --> 00:30:04,360
Speaker 1: buddy of mine, a client, Chris Dalty, and he said, hey,

558
00:30:04,400 --> 00:30:06,440
Speaker 1: what do you think about getting the camera and filming

559
00:30:06,480 --> 00:30:08,560
Speaker 1: some of this stuff you do when I go, yeah, sure.

560
00:30:08,640 --> 00:30:12,800
Speaker 1: So we just kind of started that way and and

561
00:30:12,920 --> 00:30:15,280
Speaker 1: uh kind of moved it along to where it is now.

562
00:30:15,360 --> 00:30:17,000
Speaker 1: You know, it was a slow stock because I had

563
00:30:17,040 --> 00:30:21,760
Speaker 1: my other business going on, guiding and stuff. So but anyways,

564
00:30:21,840 --> 00:30:24,880
Speaker 1: that's kind of what happened. Just kept kept in the

565
00:30:24,880 --> 00:30:29,000
Speaker 1: woods and studying. I was always a a student of

566
00:30:29,040 --> 00:30:31,360
Speaker 1: the woods anyway. So the time I remember when I

567
00:30:31,400 --> 00:30:34,840
Speaker 1: was six, seven, eight years old running around the woods

568
00:30:34,880 --> 00:30:37,160
Speaker 1: all day. Back in those days, my mother would kick

569
00:30:37,200 --> 00:30:39,160
Speaker 1: your out of the house, you know, and be back

570
00:30:39,240 --> 00:30:42,920
Speaker 1: for supper and that was it. So I ran around

571
00:30:42,960 --> 00:30:46,040
Speaker 1: in the woods and stuff most every day. Not that

572
00:30:46,080 --> 00:30:49,280
Speaker 1: we had huge woods, but big enough to roam around

573
00:30:49,360 --> 00:30:53,360
Speaker 1: in and see things. You know, they always feel pretty

574
00:30:53,360 --> 00:30:57,200
Speaker 1: big when you're that young too, right, Oh yeah, yeah,

575
00:30:57,280 --> 00:31:02,600
Speaker 1: for sure. It was a relative. So, UM, I guess

576
00:31:02,600 --> 00:31:05,560
Speaker 1: that's go ahead. I was gonna say. I heard you

577
00:31:05,600 --> 00:31:09,600
Speaker 1: say once speaking of this big woods hunting. Um, I

578
00:31:09,680 --> 00:31:11,920
Speaker 1: heard you say once that you either love it or

579
00:31:11,960 --> 00:31:14,480
Speaker 1: you hate it when people try this kind of hunting

580
00:31:14,560 --> 00:31:18,160
Speaker 1: or hunting in this kind of place. Um, why is that?

581
00:31:18,760 --> 00:31:20,200
Speaker 1: And why is it that you ended up loving it

582
00:31:20,320 --> 00:31:26,280
Speaker 1: so much? Well, I loved it so much just because

583
00:31:26,360 --> 00:31:28,600
Speaker 1: I always loved the woods, and the bigger the better.

584
00:31:29,080 --> 00:31:32,560
Speaker 1: And I was never I was never afraid in the woods.

585
00:31:32,560 --> 00:31:36,640
Speaker 1: And I think back now on that. Uh when I

586
00:31:36,720 --> 00:31:40,680
Speaker 1: used to first start at hunting, I never thought about

587
00:31:40,720 --> 00:31:43,360
Speaker 1: being lost. I never thought that I needed to be

588
00:31:43,520 --> 00:31:46,640
Speaker 1: right with somebody else. Even at ten years old, I

589
00:31:46,680 --> 00:31:50,000
Speaker 1: started rabbit hunting with my grandfather. He had beagles when

590
00:31:50,000 --> 00:31:52,480
Speaker 1: I was ten years old, and I'd roll them around

591
00:31:52,480 --> 00:31:55,000
Speaker 1: by myself. My snowshoes were taller than I was, and

592
00:31:55,720 --> 00:31:57,960
Speaker 1: I'd catch up with him during the day, you know,

593
00:31:58,080 --> 00:32:00,400
Speaker 1: and we get a rabbit running. If I didn't know

594
00:32:00,400 --> 00:32:03,360
Speaker 1: where he was, go find his make a circle, find

595
00:32:03,360 --> 00:32:06,320
Speaker 1: my grandfather's track, and follow it until I caught up

596
00:32:06,320 --> 00:32:10,280
Speaker 1: to him. And but never, never ever thought about being lost.

597
00:32:11,040 --> 00:32:14,880
Speaker 1: And uh so when I got to the Big Woods,

598
00:32:14,920 --> 00:32:16,840
Speaker 1: I was the same way. The first couple of years

599
00:32:16,880 --> 00:32:20,440
Speaker 1: I went up north, I never even carried a compass.

600
00:32:21,400 --> 00:32:23,080
Speaker 1: And then I got a little turned around in the

601
00:32:23,160 --> 00:32:25,760
Speaker 1: snowstorm one day, and I said, you know, compass probably

602
00:32:25,760 --> 00:32:28,720
Speaker 1: would be a handy tool to have up here. And

603
00:32:28,920 --> 00:32:31,560
Speaker 1: back then there was not as many logging roads as

604
00:32:31,600 --> 00:32:34,280
Speaker 1: there is now. Ei there were some some really huge

605
00:32:34,320 --> 00:32:37,920
Speaker 1: pieces of woods with no logging roads. But so when

606
00:32:37,960 --> 00:32:40,800
Speaker 1: I started to I just figured everybody would like it.

607
00:32:40,840 --> 00:32:42,920
Speaker 1: You know, I just was like, I liked it. So

608
00:32:42,960 --> 00:32:45,240
Speaker 1: you know how you are, you typically tend to think

609
00:32:45,920 --> 00:32:47,960
Speaker 1: everybody kind of maybe thinks a little bit of like

610
00:32:48,120 --> 00:32:53,400
Speaker 1: all hunters maybe anyway. But um, when I started to

611
00:32:53,480 --> 00:32:57,200
Speaker 1: realize that not everybody liked it is when I started

612
00:32:57,200 --> 00:33:01,520
Speaker 1: guiding clients and I could see even the ones that

613
00:33:02,040 --> 00:33:05,400
Speaker 1: I took, some of them that I took, they wouldn't

614
00:33:05,480 --> 00:33:07,520
Speaker 1: they were they were there for that year, and then

615
00:33:07,560 --> 00:33:10,280
Speaker 1: they it wasn't their cup of tea and they'd never

616
00:33:10,360 --> 00:33:13,440
Speaker 1: come back. And then I saw it a lot more

617
00:33:13,560 --> 00:33:17,120
Speaker 1: with guides that clients that weren't guided, they come up

618
00:33:17,160 --> 00:33:19,680
Speaker 1: to they just rented a cabin and went and did

619
00:33:19,720 --> 00:33:24,640
Speaker 1: their own thing. Ah, some of them would leave halfway

620
00:33:24,640 --> 00:33:27,320
Speaker 1: through the week, even some of the guided ones, you know,

621
00:33:27,400 --> 00:33:30,560
Speaker 1: by Wednesday or Thursday, they'd pack up and go home.

622
00:33:31,520 --> 00:33:33,480
Speaker 1: And you know, they would never tell you the real

623
00:33:33,560 --> 00:33:37,080
Speaker 1: reason why. But but it boiled down to a couple

624
00:33:37,080 --> 00:33:39,200
Speaker 1: of things, and one of them it shouldn't have been,

625
00:33:39,760 --> 00:33:43,640
Speaker 1: was the low deer densities. Because we always told them,

626
00:33:43,680 --> 00:33:46,400
Speaker 1: if you're gonna come up north, I always would was

627
00:33:46,440 --> 00:33:49,600
Speaker 1: honest with people, you're not gonna see a lot of deer,

628
00:33:49,640 --> 00:33:52,920
Speaker 1: because they used to be all the deer up north.

629
00:33:53,000 --> 00:33:56,160
Speaker 1: But when they started back in the seventies and eighties

630
00:33:56,160 --> 00:33:58,560
Speaker 1: and even through the nineties, when the log and really

631
00:33:58,600 --> 00:34:01,840
Speaker 1: accelerated with mec and I his equipment, they cut a

632
00:34:01,880 --> 00:34:05,360
Speaker 1: lot of the deer winnering areas are actually most of them,

633
00:34:05,400 --> 00:34:09,879
Speaker 1: and the deer herds plummeted up north. Meanwhile they were

634
00:34:09,920 --> 00:34:13,120
Speaker 1: recovering in the south, they were building up. So now

635
00:34:13,160 --> 00:34:15,759
Speaker 1: it's opposite all the deer in southern Maine now and

636
00:34:15,840 --> 00:34:18,920
Speaker 1: the the deer if you were in further between the

637
00:34:19,040 --> 00:34:22,520
Speaker 1: northern Maine. And but I would always tell people that,

638
00:34:22,719 --> 00:34:24,600
Speaker 1: you know, if you I told I used to tell people,

639
00:34:24,640 --> 00:34:27,600
Speaker 1: if you see five or six deer in the week,

640
00:34:27,920 --> 00:34:31,960
Speaker 1: you've had a good week up here. Because if you

641
00:34:32,040 --> 00:34:34,600
Speaker 1: might see the one buck you want to see and get,

642
00:34:34,640 --> 00:34:37,600
Speaker 1: you know, it's this is an area where you can

643
00:34:37,600 --> 00:34:39,600
Speaker 1: shoot a buck of a lifetime you know, a big,

644
00:34:39,640 --> 00:34:43,799
Speaker 1: heavy body buck with heavy antles and stuff, and that

645
00:34:43,920 --> 00:34:47,399
Speaker 1: was kind of like the mystique of most people loving it.

646
00:34:47,960 --> 00:34:49,759
Speaker 1: They didn't care if they didn't see him any deer,

647
00:34:49,880 --> 00:34:52,560
Speaker 1: but they knew they were there. They saw the buck

648
00:34:52,640 --> 00:34:55,960
Speaker 1: sign that you on huge trees and the huge tracks,

649
00:34:56,480 --> 00:34:58,960
Speaker 1: and they'd see him at the tagging station. Other guys

650
00:34:59,000 --> 00:35:01,520
Speaker 1: getting them are on the game poll at camp, and

651
00:35:01,560 --> 00:35:04,279
Speaker 1: they knew they were there, and they were willing to

652
00:35:04,840 --> 00:35:08,520
Speaker 1: put the time into for their chance of getting one

653
00:35:08,560 --> 00:35:12,399
Speaker 1: of those once in a lifetime bucks. So that's how

654
00:35:12,440 --> 00:35:15,080
Speaker 1: I got to learn that they either loved her they

655
00:35:15,120 --> 00:35:18,720
Speaker 1: hated it. But the bottom line with most of it

656
00:35:18,840 --> 00:35:22,120
Speaker 1: was fear. And I've written that in my new book

657
00:35:22,400 --> 00:35:26,520
Speaker 1: fear is the biggest obstacle people have the hunting in

658
00:35:26,560 --> 00:35:29,640
Speaker 1: the big woods, and the biggest fear is being lost,

659
00:35:30,360 --> 00:35:32,360
Speaker 1: which I never related to it. Like I told you,

660
00:35:32,440 --> 00:35:36,239
Speaker 1: I never thought about it. But you know, I realized

661
00:35:36,280 --> 00:35:40,880
Speaker 1: that even with people I guided, that they were nervous

662
00:35:41,239 --> 00:35:43,360
Speaker 1: being right with me. You know, would be on a

663
00:35:43,400 --> 00:35:45,560
Speaker 1: one on one hunt track and a buck of something,

664
00:35:46,200 --> 00:35:48,799
Speaker 1: and when they started asking you, you know, how far

665
00:35:48,960 --> 00:35:52,920
Speaker 1: out are we and which weighs back. You know, they're nervous, right,

666
00:35:54,080 --> 00:35:57,320
Speaker 1: So that's how I got to figure out that people

667
00:35:57,320 --> 00:36:01,920
Speaker 1: were basically scared of the woods. Spit scared of being lost,

668
00:36:02,000 --> 00:36:04,719
Speaker 1: a scared of spending the night in the woods. And

669
00:36:04,800 --> 00:36:08,160
Speaker 1: that was a limiting factor. So it still is to

670
00:36:08,239 --> 00:36:10,960
Speaker 1: this day. Most people don't get even up here a

671
00:36:11,040 --> 00:36:13,920
Speaker 1: quarter of a mile from the roads, any of the

672
00:36:14,000 --> 00:36:16,200
Speaker 1: logging roads, or anything a quarter of a mile about

673
00:36:16,239 --> 00:36:20,160
Speaker 1: it for most people. What do you what do you

674
00:36:20,239 --> 00:36:23,080
Speaker 1: consider big woods? Like? What are the kinds of places

675
00:36:23,120 --> 00:36:26,080
Speaker 1: that you hunt? Um? And I guess also, I know,

676
00:36:26,160 --> 00:36:27,880
Speaker 1: I think you've mentioned you've hunted a number of other

677
00:36:27,960 --> 00:36:30,120
Speaker 1: states too. I'd be curious to hear kind of where

678
00:36:30,120 --> 00:36:34,120
Speaker 1: all you've experienced that's kind of hunting to Okay, what

679
00:36:34,360 --> 00:36:40,520
Speaker 1: my definition of the big woods is anywhere that deer

680
00:36:41,640 --> 00:36:48,120
Speaker 1: don't have access to agricultural crops or suburban areas with

681
00:36:48,280 --> 00:36:51,000
Speaker 1: his neighborhoods where they can eat shrubs and stuff. In

682
00:36:51,000 --> 00:36:55,120
Speaker 1: other words, not really contact with people on a on

683
00:36:55,160 --> 00:37:00,719
Speaker 1: a regular basis. You know, so because agricultural cross crops

684
00:37:01,040 --> 00:37:05,960
Speaker 1: is what determines what dea do, right, that's where you

685
00:37:06,560 --> 00:37:10,399
Speaker 1: most people all you hear about people talk about when

686
00:37:10,400 --> 00:37:15,279
Speaker 1: the white tailed deer hunting is patterning dea between you've

687
00:37:15,280 --> 00:37:17,360
Speaker 1: got to know where the feeding areas are in the

688
00:37:17,400 --> 00:37:21,760
Speaker 1: bedding areas well. That's only because they're limited to feed

689
00:37:22,200 --> 00:37:24,960
Speaker 1: where the crops are because the woods is all browsed

690
00:37:24,960 --> 00:37:28,400
Speaker 1: out where there is no feed basically in the woods,

691
00:37:28,440 --> 00:37:31,640
Speaker 1: so they have to go to crops, which makes them

692
00:37:31,719 --> 00:37:35,960
Speaker 1: patternable in the big woods. The same food is about

693
00:37:36,040 --> 00:37:38,920
Speaker 1: everywhere in the woods. Now it's different different times of

694
00:37:38,920 --> 00:37:42,120
Speaker 1: the year, but there's all kinds of green plants in

695
00:37:42,120 --> 00:37:45,959
Speaker 1: the woods and mushrooms and nuts, and and they don't

696
00:37:46,080 --> 00:37:49,799
Speaker 1: go to any one place. These da just roam even

697
00:37:49,840 --> 00:37:53,360
Speaker 1: the does you know, they'll be on maybe one ridge

698
00:37:53,440 --> 00:37:56,560
Speaker 1: one day or maybe a week. They feed up and

699
00:37:56,600 --> 00:37:59,840
Speaker 1: down a ridge and then they might cross the ravine

700
00:38:00,120 --> 00:38:02,719
Speaker 1: go on to another ridge of half a mile or

701
00:38:02,719 --> 00:38:05,879
Speaker 1: a mile away and spend a week or a few

702
00:38:05,960 --> 00:38:08,840
Speaker 1: days over there. They just roam around, even the even

703
00:38:08,880 --> 00:38:11,520
Speaker 1: the dos. You're not gonna pattern them. You know, you

704
00:38:11,560 --> 00:38:13,879
Speaker 1: can find deer trails in the woods and stuff where

705
00:38:13,920 --> 00:38:18,319
Speaker 1: you might be a better chance to you know, to

706
00:38:18,440 --> 00:38:20,719
Speaker 1: get one if you were sitting something you're gonna get

707
00:38:20,719 --> 00:38:23,200
Speaker 1: on a stand. Yes, there's places you can do that,

708
00:38:23,840 --> 00:38:27,800
Speaker 1: but it's not because they're going from a feeding area

709
00:38:27,840 --> 00:38:31,360
Speaker 1: to a betting area. They just traveling from one place

710
00:38:31,400 --> 00:38:36,560
Speaker 1: to the next basically. And as far as the states go,

711
00:38:36,840 --> 00:38:41,120
Speaker 1: I've hunted in uh, well, on the east side, you know,

712
00:38:41,160 --> 00:38:45,239
Speaker 1: I've hunted around New England, you know, Maine and New

713
00:38:45,280 --> 00:38:49,560
Speaker 1: Hampshire and mass actually shot my first Massachusetts buck last fall,

714
00:38:49,600 --> 00:38:54,880
Speaker 1: and the Muzzloda hunted the Adirondacks in New York, and uh.

715
00:38:54,960 --> 00:38:58,359
Speaker 1: I hunted like North Carolina and stuff, you know, years ago.

716
00:38:58,480 --> 00:39:02,759
Speaker 1: But far as for track, I have hunted in Montana,

717
00:39:03,520 --> 00:39:11,640
Speaker 1: the up of Michigan, Minnesota, and Ontario Northwest Ontario which

718
00:39:11,680 --> 00:39:15,480
Speaker 1: is right above Minnesota there. But all these places I

719
00:39:15,520 --> 00:39:19,000
Speaker 1: go to, it's for the bigger woods, you know. I

720
00:39:19,040 --> 00:39:23,560
Speaker 1: don't go there to hunt around family, and I go

721
00:39:23,640 --> 00:39:26,080
Speaker 1: to hunt in the big woods, like Montana. The the

722
00:39:26,120 --> 00:39:29,960
Speaker 1: eastern parts all prairie and agriculture. In the west is

723
00:39:30,000 --> 00:39:33,120
Speaker 1: all those big mountains. Well that's where I hunt, you know.

724
00:39:33,920 --> 00:39:42,360
Speaker 1: So uh space, and there's differences in the deer a

725
00:39:42,400 --> 00:39:45,080
Speaker 1: little bit from one area to the next, but it's

726
00:39:45,160 --> 00:39:47,799
Speaker 1: not enough to be hard to figure out. Mostly it's

727
00:39:47,880 --> 00:39:52,680
Speaker 1: because the deer populations are different in those different areas,

728
00:39:52,719 --> 00:39:57,439
Speaker 1: you know, Like what I saw up in the Up

729
00:39:57,600 --> 00:40:02,000
Speaker 1: of Michigan was probably similar amount of deer is back here.

730
00:40:03,280 --> 00:40:05,920
Speaker 1: When we first started hunting Ontario, there was quite a

731
00:40:05,920 --> 00:40:09,959
Speaker 1: few more deer than here. In Montana there is they're

732
00:40:09,960 --> 00:40:12,799
Speaker 1: in pockets, but there's places with his more deer in

733
00:40:12,840 --> 00:40:15,919
Speaker 1: places that's the same. So you just gotta get used

734
00:40:15,960 --> 00:40:19,160
Speaker 1: to the amount of deer, and that controls kind of

735
00:40:19,160 --> 00:40:22,239
Speaker 1: how far the big box will travel, you know. But

736
00:40:24,120 --> 00:40:27,640
Speaker 1: people have asked me what's my favorite place to hunt?

737
00:40:27,920 --> 00:40:30,080
Speaker 1: And it's still right here in Maine, believe it or not.

738
00:40:31,040 --> 00:40:34,399
Speaker 1: I just something about, you've got a chance to kill

739
00:40:34,480 --> 00:40:38,960
Speaker 1: these big bucks, you know that dressed well over two

740
00:40:39,080 --> 00:40:43,160
Speaker 1: hundred and uh the tracks are bigger, you know, everywhere

741
00:40:43,160 --> 00:40:47,200
Speaker 1: else you go the tracks are as big as here. Actually,

742
00:40:47,239 --> 00:40:49,799
Speaker 1: up up in the Up, I found some tracks that

743
00:40:49,880 --> 00:40:53,480
Speaker 1: were big like here. But for the most part then

744
00:40:53,520 --> 00:40:56,560
Speaker 1: on because it's a different The bucks we have in

745
00:40:56,640 --> 00:41:00,400
Speaker 1: northern Maine, northern New Hampshire, right up in New Runswick

746
00:41:00,400 --> 00:41:04,839
Speaker 1: can que back. It's a Northern Borealis white tail, which

747
00:41:04,920 --> 00:41:11,799
Speaker 1: is the largest subspecies, and so they have the they

748
00:41:11,800 --> 00:41:14,319
Speaker 1: have the largest tracks. I know we shot some. My

749
00:41:14,440 --> 00:41:18,160
Speaker 1: heaviest deer I shot was actually in Ontario, but he

750
00:41:18,200 --> 00:41:20,000
Speaker 1: had no ways near the foot is some of the

751
00:41:20,000 --> 00:41:24,239
Speaker 1: big ones here that one dressed to eighty. But it's

752
00:41:24,239 --> 00:41:27,960
Speaker 1: a different subsidies. I think it's the probably the northern

753
00:41:28,440 --> 00:41:32,200
Speaker 1: like probably the the Coda white tails probably spread north

754
00:41:32,360 --> 00:41:36,160
Speaker 1: or whatever up into Ontario because up there where we hunted,

755
00:41:36,200 --> 00:41:40,160
Speaker 1: it's the deer weren't always there, you know, they kind

756
00:41:40,160 --> 00:41:47,960
Speaker 1: of spread north over the years. So so anyways, that's yeah.

757
00:41:48,160 --> 00:41:50,560
Speaker 1: The it sounds like you've been able to kind of

758
00:41:50,600 --> 00:41:55,680
Speaker 1: put your big big woods strategy into action, surprising a

759
00:41:55,680 --> 00:41:58,520
Speaker 1: lot of different places, which is pretty interesting to me. Um,

760
00:41:58,560 --> 00:42:01,480
Speaker 1: So I want to dive into the details of how

761
00:42:01,520 --> 00:42:03,400
Speaker 1: exactly you do that. But one of the things that

762
00:42:03,440 --> 00:42:06,440
Speaker 1: I have kind of wondered about right at the gate

763
00:42:06,760 --> 00:42:09,680
Speaker 1: is when you talk about the you know, deer hunter

764
00:42:09,880 --> 00:42:11,880
Speaker 1: like myself here in southern Michigan, and I hunt a

765
00:42:11,880 --> 00:42:13,759
Speaker 1: lot of the Midwest where I am hunting that kind

766
00:42:13,760 --> 00:42:17,640
Speaker 1: of agg land wood lots and agg fields type landscape.

767
00:42:18,080 --> 00:42:20,480
Speaker 1: Just like you said, there's a lot of that, um

768
00:42:20,520 --> 00:42:22,760
Speaker 1: figuring out where they bed, figuring out where they feed,

769
00:42:22,800 --> 00:42:25,759
Speaker 1: trying to intercept them, patterning deer, doing a lot of

770
00:42:25,760 --> 00:42:29,400
Speaker 1: offseason scouting, hanging tree stands, all that kind of stuff.

771
00:42:29,760 --> 00:42:32,800
Speaker 1: So our off season is full of all sorts of preparation.

772
00:42:33,200 --> 00:42:36,120
Speaker 1: But as a big woods tracker, what do you do

773
00:42:36,160 --> 00:42:38,160
Speaker 1: in the off season? Are you scouting and doing a

774
00:42:38,200 --> 00:42:40,640
Speaker 1: whole lot of preparation or is the hunt for you

775
00:42:40,719 --> 00:42:43,120
Speaker 1: really just getting out there and finding a track and

776
00:42:43,160 --> 00:42:50,120
Speaker 1: going Yeah, that's really what it is. Because Uh, I'm

777
00:42:50,160 --> 00:42:52,120
Speaker 1: not a sitter, never have been. Even when I was

778
00:42:52,160 --> 00:42:54,719
Speaker 1: a kid, I couldn't. I couldn't sit very long. I

779
00:42:54,719 --> 00:42:58,040
Speaker 1: don't have any patience for it. So I'm either still hunting.

780
00:42:58,040 --> 00:43:00,279
Speaker 1: If it's be a ground, I still hunt around. Call

781
00:43:00,320 --> 00:43:03,480
Speaker 1: it scouting now because I don't really want to shoot

782
00:43:03,480 --> 00:43:05,920
Speaker 1: one on bay ground. I'd rather track one down, you know.

783
00:43:06,160 --> 00:43:08,600
Speaker 1: But I go out and go through the motions, and

784
00:43:08,640 --> 00:43:11,719
Speaker 1: I go and like around here, I'm so familiar with

785
00:43:11,760 --> 00:43:14,960
Speaker 1: my area that I just go check some areas I

786
00:43:15,040 --> 00:43:17,920
Speaker 1: might know how to hunted for ten of even twenty years.

787
00:43:17,960 --> 00:43:20,200
Speaker 1: I go back, you know that they might have gone

788
00:43:20,239 --> 00:43:23,560
Speaker 1: downhill from logging or something else. But a lot of

789
00:43:23,600 --> 00:43:26,680
Speaker 1: times those areas they like come full circle and it's

790
00:43:26,680 --> 00:43:30,879
Speaker 1: good again, you know. So I go out in all

791
00:43:31,000 --> 00:43:34,200
Speaker 1: I look for when I'm scouting, even in the spring,

792
00:43:34,520 --> 00:43:38,560
Speaker 1: is basically what I'm looking for is where them big

793
00:43:38,600 --> 00:43:43,759
Speaker 1: bucks travel. I'll incidentally find out where the does are

794
00:43:45,160 --> 00:43:48,120
Speaker 1: hanging out. You know, they always hanging around with the

795
00:43:48,160 --> 00:43:50,920
Speaker 1: best feed is in the woods, which is typically the

796
00:43:51,040 --> 00:43:56,000
Speaker 1: newer logging, you know, the newer cuttings, because that's where

797
00:43:56,000 --> 00:43:59,080
Speaker 1: the best feed grows. And the doors take their their

798
00:43:59,120 --> 00:44:02,760
Speaker 1: fawns there to raise them up, so those will attract

799
00:44:02,800 --> 00:44:06,080
Speaker 1: the bucks later in the season, you know, once the

800
00:44:06,160 --> 00:44:11,040
Speaker 1: rut kicks in. But these big box in the big woods,

801
00:44:11,040 --> 00:44:15,040
Speaker 1: they're real secretive creature. You can't believe how secretive they are.

802
00:44:15,160 --> 00:44:18,399
Speaker 1: There's places they go that without snow, you would never

803
00:44:18,480 --> 00:44:21,279
Speaker 1: find them. You would never you'd never go there to

804
00:44:21,320 --> 00:44:24,720
Speaker 1: find some of the places they go to lay down

805
00:44:24,960 --> 00:44:27,560
Speaker 1: or even and hang out. You know, it could be

806
00:44:27,680 --> 00:44:31,120
Speaker 1: right to the tops of the highest mountains down in

807
00:44:31,160 --> 00:44:36,480
Speaker 1: these swamps. But they're reclusive. They're really reclusive animal. And

808
00:44:37,520 --> 00:44:41,600
Speaker 1: but I'll tell you the key here for me of

809
00:44:41,719 --> 00:44:45,439
Speaker 1: locating the big box is a signpost rub. And that's

810
00:44:45,440 --> 00:44:50,279
Speaker 1: another that's another term that I coined back when I

811
00:44:50,320 --> 00:44:53,200
Speaker 1: wrote my first book, because I kept finding these rubs

812
00:44:53,200 --> 00:44:57,719
Speaker 1: in the woods up here that they look different than

813
00:44:57,760 --> 00:45:01,000
Speaker 1: other ones. And I started studying them a little bit

814
00:45:01,040 --> 00:45:03,920
Speaker 1: because I was always curious any anyways about things in

815
00:45:03,920 --> 00:45:06,680
Speaker 1: the woods. And I could see that the same tree

816
00:45:06,719 --> 00:45:10,080
Speaker 1: had been rubbed year after year. You could see the

817
00:45:10,960 --> 00:45:13,240
Speaker 1: you could see the growth rings where it kept healing

818
00:45:13,320 --> 00:45:15,759
Speaker 1: over and healing over, and it actually someone would be

819
00:45:16,520 --> 00:45:18,799
Speaker 1: brought it right to the middle. They've been rubbed so

820
00:45:18,840 --> 00:45:22,640
Speaker 1: many years. And I call them signposts because what I

821
00:45:22,680 --> 00:45:26,239
Speaker 1: figured that what it is is it's a place where

822
00:45:26,239 --> 00:45:29,720
Speaker 1: they put sent and communicate. And now with trail cameras

823
00:45:29,760 --> 00:45:32,120
Speaker 1: you can I mean I had the theory, I said

824
00:45:32,160 --> 00:45:34,960
Speaker 1: it's got to be that, but now with trail cameras

825
00:45:35,000 --> 00:45:37,880
Speaker 1: you can prove it because you can watch how they

826
00:45:38,000 --> 00:45:41,319
Speaker 1: rub those. They're not rubbing them as much out of

827
00:45:41,360 --> 00:45:45,359
Speaker 1: aggression all the time as they are just to put sent.

828
00:45:45,560 --> 00:45:48,040
Speaker 1: And sometimes they quite frankly, they go buy them and

829
00:45:48,080 --> 00:45:51,360
Speaker 1: they don't rub them. They'll just smell them and keep going.

830
00:45:51,880 --> 00:45:55,880
Speaker 1: They want to see who's there. It's like a communication point. Well,

831
00:45:57,120 --> 00:45:59,840
Speaker 1: a lot of those places there will be several bucks

832
00:46:00,080 --> 00:46:02,800
Speaker 1: overlap right there. That's like the spoke of a wheel.

833
00:46:02,840 --> 00:46:05,359
Speaker 1: Of the hub of a wheel, you know, where those

834
00:46:05,480 --> 00:46:11,120
Speaker 1: different bucks cross paths. And that is a real key,

835
00:46:11,239 --> 00:46:13,400
Speaker 1: I call it. That's the key to unlock in the

836
00:46:13,440 --> 00:46:16,240
Speaker 1: secret of the big woods when you when you locate

837
00:46:16,280 --> 00:46:19,640
Speaker 1: a bunch of those in the woods, you know, and uh,

838
00:46:20,840 --> 00:46:24,120
Speaker 1: they're not necessarily that easy to find until you know

839
00:46:24,160 --> 00:46:27,480
Speaker 1: what to look for. But I mean, I've had guys

840
00:46:27,520 --> 00:46:30,040
Speaker 1: that I've taught and stuff and read my books that

841
00:46:30,120 --> 00:46:34,759
Speaker 1: still never found one. And if I've taken them in

842
00:46:34,800 --> 00:46:37,799
Speaker 1: the woods and showed them or explained it a little

843
00:46:37,840 --> 00:46:40,720
Speaker 1: bit better, they go and find them and they start

844
00:46:40,760 --> 00:46:44,320
Speaker 1: sending me pictures back of the ones they found. And

845
00:46:45,800 --> 00:46:48,799
Speaker 1: excuse me, sorry, I was just gonna say, so, are

846
00:46:48,840 --> 00:46:51,600
Speaker 1: there specific types of places that you usually find a

847
00:46:51,640 --> 00:46:54,759
Speaker 1: signpost rublic? Is it at a junction of some kind

848
00:46:54,760 --> 00:46:56,799
Speaker 1: of different type of terrain? Or where where do you

849
00:46:56,840 --> 00:47:01,160
Speaker 1: find these? There can there be anywhere? Well up here,

850
00:47:02,760 --> 00:47:08,279
Speaker 1: nine five even more per cent of the rubs are

851
00:47:08,360 --> 00:47:11,160
Speaker 1: on a specific tree and it's a brown ash, or

852
00:47:11,160 --> 00:47:12,919
Speaker 1: you'd call if you looked it up in a tree book,

853
00:47:12,920 --> 00:47:17,520
Speaker 1: could be a black ash. And I think it's because

854
00:47:17,640 --> 00:47:20,440
Speaker 1: that black on that tree. It's like balsa wood. I

855
00:47:20,480 --> 00:47:23,399
Speaker 1: think it holds a scent. And I also think it's

856
00:47:23,480 --> 00:47:27,200
Speaker 1: because it's it's a rare tree. It's not like a

857
00:47:27,320 --> 00:47:32,360
Speaker 1: maple tree or a birch tree. It's they don't grow everywhere.

858
00:47:32,400 --> 00:47:36,400
Speaker 1: They grow around wet ground, so they grow around uh

859
00:47:37,960 --> 00:47:42,200
Speaker 1: seed of swamps, spring seeps down through the woods, up

860
00:47:42,200 --> 00:47:44,160
Speaker 1: in the even up in the mountains. They'll grow if

861
00:47:44,160 --> 00:47:46,280
Speaker 1: there's a seep where they've gotta have a lot of water.

862
00:47:47,000 --> 00:47:50,000
Speaker 1: So that's how you find though, so I don't I

863
00:47:50,040 --> 00:47:52,640
Speaker 1: don't go looking in the woods. There's too many trees

864
00:47:52,680 --> 00:47:55,239
Speaker 1: in the woods to look for a signpost rub. So

865
00:47:55,280 --> 00:47:57,960
Speaker 1: I walk the wet areas until I find the trees

866
00:47:58,040 --> 00:48:00,480
Speaker 1: at the rubs most likely on. That's how a scout.

867
00:48:01,120 --> 00:48:04,919
Speaker 1: And if I find these brown ash and I get

868
00:48:04,960 --> 00:48:07,120
Speaker 1: through an area with brown ash, and I don't see

869
00:48:07,120 --> 00:48:09,959
Speaker 1: any rubs on them, there ain't too many bucks around

870
00:48:10,000 --> 00:48:12,040
Speaker 1: because they don't they got to rub them, you know.

871
00:48:13,640 --> 00:48:17,840
Speaker 1: And then when you get down south of here, towards

872
00:48:17,840 --> 00:48:20,400
Speaker 1: the middle of Maine, things change a little bit and

873
00:48:20,440 --> 00:48:24,360
Speaker 1: they start there's different ones you'll find signpost rubs on,

874
00:48:25,080 --> 00:48:32,560
Speaker 1: and it transitions into things like white oak, hemlock, red cedar.

875
00:48:32,600 --> 00:48:35,799
Speaker 1: When you get down beyond Maine and you get into

876
00:48:35,840 --> 00:48:38,400
Speaker 1: southern New England as a red cedar, and red cedar

877
00:48:38,480 --> 00:48:41,440
Speaker 1: goes all the way into the south. I found signpost

878
00:48:41,520 --> 00:48:46,319
Speaker 1: rubs in Tennessee turkey hunting in the spring on red

879
00:48:46,400 --> 00:48:51,160
Speaker 1: cedar trees. You know, when those grow probably about anywhere,

880
00:48:51,239 --> 00:48:55,240
Speaker 1: but you'll see them a lot around abandoned fields and stuff.

881
00:48:55,280 --> 00:48:58,760
Speaker 1: They'll grow up around the edges. So in your area,

882
00:48:58,800 --> 00:49:01,160
Speaker 1: if you know what tree to look for, you go

883
00:49:01,239 --> 00:49:06,040
Speaker 1: look for those trees and you'll find signposts if if

884
00:49:06,080 --> 00:49:10,360
Speaker 1: it's if it's a a big enough woods where bucks

885
00:49:10,440 --> 00:49:14,239
Speaker 1: can grow old, because if they can't grow old, you're

886
00:49:14,280 --> 00:49:17,799
Speaker 1: never gonna find a signpost because it has to be

887
00:49:18,440 --> 00:49:20,879
Speaker 1: rubbed enough he is to make one, right, it makes

888
00:49:20,880 --> 00:49:24,160
Speaker 1: sense to you. So if a if a buck gets

889
00:49:24,160 --> 00:49:27,480
Speaker 1: shot when he's two or three years old, he's not

890
00:49:27,600 --> 00:49:31,160
Speaker 1: really he might have started a rubb. If you rubbed

891
00:49:31,160 --> 00:49:33,799
Speaker 1: two years or three years and then you you kill

892
00:49:33,880 --> 00:49:36,920
Speaker 1: that buck, then it's probably the end of that signpost,

893
00:49:37,000 --> 00:49:40,479
Speaker 1: unless there was already several big bucks making one. Which

894
00:49:40,480 --> 00:49:44,560
Speaker 1: if you you know most places aren't like that. You know,

895
00:49:45,239 --> 00:49:48,880
Speaker 1: you gotta get remote to places that grow enough big bucks.

896
00:49:48,920 --> 00:49:53,480
Speaker 1: Now I know those those places in Iowa and Kansas

897
00:49:53,520 --> 00:49:57,040
Speaker 1: where they shoot all those big bucks. But the reality

898
00:49:57,160 --> 00:49:59,880
Speaker 1: is most of those big bucks aren't really that old,

899
00:50:00,040 --> 00:50:06,400
Speaker 1: you know, So you need old age to create signposts,

900
00:50:06,880 --> 00:50:09,320
Speaker 1: and signposts would be the key in the big woods

901
00:50:09,360 --> 00:50:14,560
Speaker 1: to find in where the bucks travel. So so back

902
00:50:14,600 --> 00:50:18,520
Speaker 1: to the original question, then, which is about the preparation scouting.

903
00:50:18,960 --> 00:50:21,800
Speaker 1: Is there anything else you do on the off season

904
00:50:21,840 --> 00:50:24,319
Speaker 1: other than looking for those signposts, anything else before we

905
00:50:24,360 --> 00:50:29,399
Speaker 1: move on to the actual in season stuff. Nope. If

906
00:50:29,400 --> 00:50:32,239
Speaker 1: I'm gonna scout new areas, I go in the I'll

907
00:50:32,280 --> 00:50:35,880
Speaker 1: go in the spring. As soon as the snow leaves

908
00:50:35,880 --> 00:50:40,359
Speaker 1: the ground late April early May, before it greens up,

909
00:50:40,360 --> 00:50:43,000
Speaker 1: I'll go check some new places because you'll still see

910
00:50:43,000 --> 00:50:47,239
Speaker 1: the rubs and scrapes on the fall, excuse me. And

911
00:50:47,280 --> 00:50:50,600
Speaker 1: then if I'm going to scout in the fall, I'll

912
00:50:50,600 --> 00:50:54,319
Speaker 1: scout the last week before the season, because before that

913
00:50:55,480 --> 00:50:59,520
Speaker 1: they ain't there. They roamed around somewhere else in their territory.

914
00:51:00,040 --> 00:51:03,720
Speaker 1: And what changes them really here is when the leaves

915
00:51:03,920 --> 00:51:09,719
Speaker 1: drop in early October, they move wherever this summer range was,

916
00:51:09,719 --> 00:51:12,000
Speaker 1: where they're feeding in a cot or whatever it was.

917
00:51:12,600 --> 00:51:14,920
Speaker 1: As soon as them leaves drop off in the woods

918
00:51:14,920 --> 00:51:19,600
Speaker 1: opens up, they moved to a different area, they get

919
00:51:19,640 --> 00:51:23,399
Speaker 1: they get back with his green growth. For swamps, they

920
00:51:23,480 --> 00:51:26,680
Speaker 1: just they feel like they're they're out in the open.

921
00:51:26,719 --> 00:51:30,279
Speaker 1: In other words, wants the leaves fall. You know, it's

922
00:51:30,280 --> 00:51:35,480
Speaker 1: the only two times I scout right, If I see,

923
00:51:36,120 --> 00:51:39,600
Speaker 1: I can go hunt there when the snow flies. Now,

924
00:51:39,600 --> 00:51:43,120
Speaker 1: what about before the snow flies, when the season opens

925
00:51:43,560 --> 00:51:46,640
Speaker 1: there's not snow yet? Do you do you try any

926
00:51:46,719 --> 00:51:49,680
Speaker 1: dry ground tracking? Is there anything you do before the snowfalls?

927
00:51:49,719 --> 00:51:53,560
Speaker 1: Or do you just follow the snow or wait for it? No?

928
00:51:53,880 --> 00:51:57,800
Speaker 1: I well, I it's yes to both of them. I

929
00:51:58,280 --> 00:52:02,360
Speaker 1: stay here at home when it's bare ground, and I

930
00:52:03,120 --> 00:52:05,560
Speaker 1: scout around. I go check some of the places where

931
00:52:05,600 --> 00:52:08,279
Speaker 1: I know the signposts, see if they're hit, see what

932
00:52:08,320 --> 00:52:14,799
Speaker 1: it looks like. The best time to track you can

933
00:52:14,840 --> 00:52:18,840
Speaker 1: track on bare ground is very difficult. But the best

934
00:52:18,880 --> 00:52:22,359
Speaker 1: time is right after a rain where it flattens all

935
00:52:22,360 --> 00:52:25,640
Speaker 1: the leaves out, and then you really only have about

936
00:52:25,640 --> 00:52:28,600
Speaker 1: a day and then there's more tracks laid down and

937
00:52:29,320 --> 00:52:30,799
Speaker 1: you can't do it anymore, you know what I mean?

938
00:52:31,360 --> 00:52:33,120
Speaker 1: And then when you do find it, you've got to

939
00:52:33,160 --> 00:52:36,360
Speaker 1: find a track you know, one of those big ones

940
00:52:36,760 --> 00:52:41,160
Speaker 1: that's track is bigger than all the rest of the tracks,

941
00:52:41,160 --> 00:52:43,640
Speaker 1: so it doesn't blend in with them. You know, if

942
00:52:43,680 --> 00:52:47,719
Speaker 1: you've come across the other tracks, it'd be easy enough

943
00:52:47,760 --> 00:52:52,040
Speaker 1: to to sort it out, you know. And typically they'll

944
00:52:52,080 --> 00:52:55,120
Speaker 1: sink in deeper in the leaves and all that. But

945
00:52:55,200 --> 00:52:58,520
Speaker 1: I've tracked the number of one bay ground before and uh,

946
00:52:58,600 --> 00:53:00,760
Speaker 1: it's a lot of fun. It's slower going, you really,

947
00:53:01,120 --> 00:53:03,560
Speaker 1: I'd part is that your your eyes are on the

948
00:53:03,600 --> 00:53:06,480
Speaker 1: ground all the time, so you know, looking around, whereas

949
00:53:06,480 --> 00:53:09,560
Speaker 1: when there's snow you can look out that track sometimes

950
00:53:10,440 --> 00:53:13,120
Speaker 1: ads and you don't have to look at the ground anymore,

951
00:53:13,160 --> 00:53:17,600
Speaker 1: you know, you can look ahead look for a deal. Yeah, well,

952
00:53:17,800 --> 00:53:20,160
Speaker 1: I think now is a good time to take a

953
00:53:20,280 --> 00:53:23,040
Speaker 1: quick break for a word from our partners at white

954
00:53:23,040 --> 00:53:27,000
Speaker 1: Tail Properties. This week. With white Tail Properties, we're drawn

955
00:53:27,080 --> 00:53:30,279
Speaker 1: by Justin Mason, a land specialist out of Illinois, and

956
00:53:30,360 --> 00:53:32,399
Speaker 1: Justin is gonna be telling us about what some things

957
00:53:32,400 --> 00:53:35,960
Speaker 1: are to consider when looking at a property that frequently floods.

958
00:53:37,160 --> 00:53:39,920
Speaker 1: I think the biggest thing to consider when looking at

959
00:53:39,920 --> 00:53:44,480
Speaker 1: a property that floods, there's a misconception that flooded ground

960
00:53:44,600 --> 00:53:47,520
Speaker 1: doesn't hold beer, and I have found that personal on

961
00:53:47,560 --> 00:53:51,320
Speaker 1: my own farm to be false. UM. I had perfect

962
00:53:51,480 --> 00:53:53,680
Speaker 1: video of this just a couple of weeks ago. The

963
00:53:53,760 --> 00:53:56,759
Speaker 1: river got up. Less than forty eight hours later, the

964
00:53:56,800 --> 00:54:00,680
Speaker 1: deer we're back in there. So I think, what if

965
00:54:00,719 --> 00:54:02,960
Speaker 1: you have property that plugs you need to try to

966
00:54:03,000 --> 00:54:06,000
Speaker 1: identify a kind of that high ground and make sure

967
00:54:06,520 --> 00:54:08,560
Speaker 1: you know that the high ground has as much food

968
00:54:08,560 --> 00:54:10,879
Speaker 1: and cover on it as you can get. That way,

969
00:54:10,920 --> 00:54:13,840
Speaker 1: when it pushes those deer out, they have a place

970
00:54:13,880 --> 00:54:16,160
Speaker 1: to go, and hopefully you can still keep them on

971
00:54:16,239 --> 00:54:20,279
Speaker 1: your property without losing them to your neighbor. If you'd

972
00:54:20,280 --> 00:54:22,239
Speaker 1: like to learn more and to see the properties that

973
00:54:22,320 --> 00:54:26,600
Speaker 1: justin currently has listed for sale, visit whitetail properties dot com.

974
00:54:26,719 --> 00:54:31,840
Speaker 1: Backslash Mason that's m A S O N SO. I

975
00:54:31,880 --> 00:54:34,680
Speaker 1: feel like a lot of guys and girls that hunt

976
00:54:35,239 --> 00:54:39,040
Speaker 1: UM in the Midwest or other of these these kind

977
00:54:39,040 --> 00:54:41,400
Speaker 1: of generic deer hunting types examples where most of the

978
00:54:41,440 --> 00:54:45,000
Speaker 1: media and stuff comes out of UM. There's not quite

979
00:54:45,000 --> 00:54:47,480
Speaker 1: as much of a focus on paying attention to deer tracks.

980
00:54:47,560 --> 00:54:51,000
Speaker 1: Everyone wants to focus on trail cameras or food plots

981
00:54:51,080 --> 00:54:54,320
Speaker 1: or whatever might be. But there's been kind of this, uh,

982
00:54:54,400 --> 00:54:57,279
Speaker 1: this lack of interest in tracks in a lot of

983
00:54:57,320 --> 00:55:00,720
Speaker 1: both media and simply help most average guys are hunting.

984
00:55:01,280 --> 00:55:05,719
Speaker 1: So in a bearground scenario, what should the average deer

985
00:55:05,760 --> 00:55:08,000
Speaker 1: hunter know whether or not they're gonna track a buck

986
00:55:08,160 --> 00:55:10,480
Speaker 1: or not? What should they know about tracks? Or what

987
00:55:10,520 --> 00:55:12,400
Speaker 1: can you tell us about tracks that can help us,

988
00:55:12,800 --> 00:55:15,319
Speaker 1: you know, better determine what is a big buck by

989
00:55:15,360 --> 00:55:18,399
Speaker 1: its track or how fresh is it or anything else

990
00:55:18,400 --> 00:55:20,280
Speaker 1: that we should be paying attention to when it comes

991
00:55:20,320 --> 00:55:26,200
Speaker 1: to that kind of sign, Well, again, a track is

992
00:55:26,280 --> 00:55:30,920
Speaker 1: relevant to your area. You know, a track what I

993
00:55:30,920 --> 00:55:35,000
Speaker 1: would call a big track out here, you probably won't

994
00:55:35,040 --> 00:55:38,520
Speaker 1: find one in southern Michigan that size. So you've gotta

995
00:55:38,600 --> 00:55:42,319
Speaker 1: go with what's a big track for your area. So,

996
00:55:42,520 --> 00:55:46,640
Speaker 1: for here, I call it a three by three track

997
00:55:46,800 --> 00:55:50,239
Speaker 1: or a three by three and a half. Typically they're

998
00:55:50,800 --> 00:55:54,480
Speaker 1: a little longer than they are wide. But if I

999
00:55:54,560 --> 00:55:58,080
Speaker 1: find a three by three track, I'm pretty well assured,

1000
00:55:58,520 --> 00:56:01,200
Speaker 1: unless it's late season when they've lost a lot of weight,

1001
00:56:01,239 --> 00:56:05,040
Speaker 1: that that buck is gonna field dress over two hundred pounds.

1002
00:56:05,840 --> 00:56:08,640
Speaker 1: That's the kind of bucks I like to go after.

1003
00:56:08,719 --> 00:56:10,600
Speaker 1: You know you they're going to be a mature buck,

1004
00:56:10,640 --> 00:56:16,760
Speaker 1: you know. But out of your way in southern Michigan,

1005
00:56:16,800 --> 00:56:19,040
Speaker 1: that might be a two bite two and a half track.

1006
00:56:19,120 --> 00:56:22,080
Speaker 1: I don't know, you know, But up in northern Michigan

1007
00:56:22,120 --> 00:56:25,600
Speaker 1: and the up I did see some, you know, some

1008
00:56:25,680 --> 00:56:27,879
Speaker 1: of them three by three and a half tracks. I said,

1009
00:56:27,920 --> 00:56:31,319
Speaker 1: I saw some up there. But you'd have to get

1010
00:56:31,400 --> 00:56:34,560
Speaker 1: used to your own area. What's a normal size, but

1011
00:56:34,640 --> 00:56:38,840
Speaker 1: the biggest, the biggest thing. Anybody in the area is

1012
00:56:38,880 --> 00:56:41,040
Speaker 1: gonna say if they used to see him be a tracks,

1013
00:56:41,080 --> 00:56:44,840
Speaker 1: they're gonna say, wow, that's a a big track. But

1014
00:56:44,960 --> 00:56:49,279
Speaker 1: the mature buck is gonna have the do clause will

1015
00:56:49,360 --> 00:56:53,200
Speaker 1: be no matter what size the print is, his due

1016
00:56:53,280 --> 00:56:57,560
Speaker 1: claws are gonna be set quite a bit back from

1017
00:56:57,600 --> 00:57:01,439
Speaker 1: the back of his hoof, say two inches or more,

1018
00:57:02,320 --> 00:57:08,120
Speaker 1: and it'll be usually a little wider than the hoofs.

1019
00:57:08,160 --> 00:57:11,600
Speaker 1: In other words, where you see those dew claws, those

1020
00:57:11,640 --> 00:57:14,840
Speaker 1: prints will be wider than the than the track itself

1021
00:57:14,840 --> 00:57:18,480
Speaker 1: from the horse, and the dow clause will be turned

1022
00:57:18,560 --> 00:57:25,800
Speaker 1: more perpendicular to the hoof almost ninety degrees, whereas like

1023
00:57:25,840 --> 00:57:29,680
Speaker 1: a dough typically their dew claws are almost in line.

1024
00:57:29,680 --> 00:57:33,080
Speaker 1: They turned a little bit, but not much. The other

1025
00:57:33,200 --> 00:57:36,120
Speaker 1: key thing if you had snow, you'll never know. On

1026
00:57:36,240 --> 00:57:38,520
Speaker 1: bare ground, but even in an inch or two of snow,

1027
00:57:39,960 --> 00:57:44,040
Speaker 1: a mature buck will drag his feet, so you'll see

1028
00:57:44,040 --> 00:57:46,720
Speaker 1: those drag marks. And if you see drag marks in

1029
00:57:46,760 --> 00:57:50,640
Speaker 1: an inch or two of snow, that's an older buck.

1030
00:57:50,760 --> 00:57:53,960
Speaker 1: They just get lazier when they get older, and they

1031
00:57:53,960 --> 00:57:58,120
Speaker 1: don't pick their feet up as much. And that would

1032
00:57:58,120 --> 00:58:01,040
Speaker 1: be anywhere. That would be if if your big bucks

1033
00:58:01,080 --> 00:58:03,760
Speaker 1: in your area dress out a hundred and fifty pounds,

1034
00:58:03,800 --> 00:58:09,400
Speaker 1: like in the Adirondacks, they've got some nice rack bucks,

1035
00:58:09,440 --> 00:58:12,480
Speaker 1: but you know, to shoot a buck over a hundred

1036
00:58:12,480 --> 00:58:15,800
Speaker 1: and eighty pounds is not real calm. And most of

1037
00:58:15,800 --> 00:58:19,320
Speaker 1: those mature bucks, they get way a hundred and fifty pounds,

1038
00:58:19,400 --> 00:58:24,280
Speaker 1: hundreds of sixty pounds, but they'll be dragging their feet

1039
00:58:24,960 --> 00:58:27,160
Speaker 1: all the time. Those older bucks, you know, you get

1040
00:58:27,200 --> 00:58:31,120
Speaker 1: a six nine year old buck, he'd be dragging his feet.

1041
00:58:31,600 --> 00:58:35,480
Speaker 1: So what about the things that tell you how recently

1042
00:58:35,480 --> 00:58:38,000
Speaker 1: a track was made? What are the things you're looking for,

1043
00:58:38,120 --> 00:58:40,920
Speaker 1: whether it be on bareground or snow, what are the

1044
00:58:40,960 --> 00:58:44,880
Speaker 1: things you look for on that Well, that's one of

1045
00:58:44,880 --> 00:58:47,040
Speaker 1: the hardest things for a track, and I have to

1046
00:58:47,120 --> 00:58:50,840
Speaker 1: learn because it's one of the most important things, because

1047
00:58:51,440 --> 00:58:57,200
Speaker 1: how fine you might be behind a buck determines how

1048
00:58:58,480 --> 00:59:04,479
Speaker 1: ask you're gonna go on the track. So I call

1049
00:59:04,560 --> 00:59:07,640
Speaker 1: a fresh track any track made in the night, because

1050
00:59:07,680 --> 00:59:10,280
Speaker 1: I get out at daylight and I'm looking for a track.

1051
00:59:11,480 --> 00:59:14,120
Speaker 1: If I find a track that was made the night before,

1052
00:59:14,280 --> 00:59:17,520
Speaker 1: to me, that's a fresh track. If it's an hour old,

1053
00:59:18,320 --> 00:59:22,439
Speaker 1: eight hours old, that's a buck I'm gonna follow. Now

1054
00:59:22,480 --> 00:59:24,480
Speaker 1: I might. If I'm on an eight hour old one,

1055
00:59:24,520 --> 00:59:26,600
Speaker 1: I might. If I see a fresher one, I'll switch

1056
00:59:26,640 --> 00:59:28,800
Speaker 1: over to it, as long as it's big enough. But

1057
00:59:28,880 --> 00:59:32,400
Speaker 1: I always start somewhere because if you follow one buck,

1058
00:59:32,920 --> 00:59:36,960
Speaker 1: eventually it's probably gonna cross paths with another one. So

1059
00:59:37,720 --> 00:59:39,840
Speaker 1: but it is the hardest thing to determine. But I

1060
00:59:39,880 --> 00:59:42,480
Speaker 1: can tell you one thing about about a track in

1061
00:59:42,520 --> 00:59:46,880
Speaker 1: the snow is is the minute that track is made,

1062
00:59:48,080 --> 00:59:53,960
Speaker 1: it starts to change. It's either freezing and evaporating or

1063
00:59:54,000 --> 00:59:58,560
Speaker 1: it's melting, you know, thawing and melting. Either way it changes.

1064
00:59:58,600 --> 01:00:01,080
Speaker 1: Now it's gonna be a subtle change in the beginning

1065
01:00:01,160 --> 01:00:07,320
Speaker 1: for that first hour, but beyond that you'll you'll you'll

1066
01:00:07,360 --> 01:00:09,200
Speaker 1: notice if you know what to look for, which is

1067
01:00:09,240 --> 01:00:13,520
Speaker 1: basically the edge with a hoof punches through the snow

1068
01:00:14,280 --> 01:00:19,320
Speaker 1: that deteriorates first that sharp edge made in the dust

1069
01:00:19,840 --> 01:00:22,959
Speaker 1: or the wet stuff that's pushed out in front will

1070
01:00:23,000 --> 01:00:27,160
Speaker 1: melt before it melts down inside the print or freezes

1071
01:00:27,200 --> 01:00:30,920
Speaker 1: down in the print. And that's just a guideline. The

1072
01:00:31,000 --> 01:00:36,880
Speaker 1: rest of it depends on temperature. If it's zero, it's

1073
01:00:36,920 --> 01:00:41,800
Speaker 1: gonna deteriorate quicker than if it's five degrees. So you

1074
01:00:41,880 --> 01:00:46,800
Speaker 1: almost gotta have like a an internal calculator, you know.

1075
01:00:46,920 --> 01:00:49,280
Speaker 1: And that's only you're only going to get that from experience.

1076
01:00:49,320 --> 01:00:56,880
Speaker 1: You know. What about what about the bare ground track

1077
01:00:57,040 --> 01:00:59,680
Speaker 1: anything on that front that you look forward to determine

1078
01:00:59,680 --> 01:01:02,200
Speaker 1: the fresh just there is it? Is it similar in

1079
01:01:02,240 --> 01:01:06,880
Speaker 1: that you're just looking for the sharp edges or anything else. Well,

1080
01:01:07,000 --> 01:01:09,520
Speaker 1: you can't see that in the like I said, on

1081
01:01:09,560 --> 01:01:12,720
Speaker 1: the on bare ground, you know, unless you saw one

1082
01:01:12,760 --> 01:01:15,800
Speaker 1: in the dirt, Like if you're some fields, I'm never

1083
01:01:15,920 --> 01:01:18,760
Speaker 1: in there, but in the woods and the leaves, they're

1084
01:01:18,800 --> 01:01:22,800
Speaker 1: just gonna be punch marks and you'll see the since

1085
01:01:22,840 --> 01:01:28,320
Speaker 1: so the rain flattens the the leaves everything's flat. When

1086
01:01:28,320 --> 01:01:31,760
Speaker 1: they punch that in the edge of them, leaves will

1087
01:01:32,520 --> 01:01:35,680
Speaker 1: flip up like straight up. You can actually you can

1088
01:01:35,720 --> 01:01:38,040
Speaker 1: see those for ways down through the woods. No, not

1089
01:01:38,160 --> 01:01:41,640
Speaker 1: fifty yards, but you can certainly see them for and

1090
01:01:41,920 --> 01:01:46,120
Speaker 1: steps ten of twelve steps ahead, you know, and you'll

1091
01:01:46,160 --> 01:01:51,440
Speaker 1: see it's punched up kurt crisp like that. And they'll

1092
01:01:51,480 --> 01:01:54,000
Speaker 1: stay that way even when the leaves dry out. But

1093
01:01:54,120 --> 01:01:56,200
Speaker 1: like I said, the highest problem with the bare ground

1094
01:01:56,320 --> 01:01:59,680
Speaker 1: is every day there's more tracks getting added to the

1095
01:02:00,200 --> 01:02:03,560
Speaker 1: so they start everything starts blending together. That's why you

1096
01:02:03,640 --> 01:02:08,120
Speaker 1: can't really follow them too much after the first day.

1097
01:02:08,160 --> 01:02:10,240
Speaker 1: Now that being said, if you get in an area

1098
01:02:10,920 --> 01:02:16,120
Speaker 1: that there's very few dea, you won't cross as many tracks,

1099
01:02:16,160 --> 01:02:21,000
Speaker 1: so you could possibly maybe go another day. Sometimes I

1100
01:02:21,120 --> 01:02:24,320
Speaker 1: just take a track like that to see if I

1101
01:02:24,360 --> 01:02:27,240
Speaker 1: can get at least get to some new sign. I've

1102
01:02:27,280 --> 01:02:29,680
Speaker 1: done that a lot of times in a new area.

1103
01:02:30,560 --> 01:02:33,919
Speaker 1: Follow a track on bare ground, I might be only

1104
01:02:33,960 --> 01:02:35,959
Speaker 1: able to follow it for a quarter or a half

1105
01:02:35,960 --> 01:02:38,840
Speaker 1: a mile before it gets into some how we call

1106
01:02:38,880 --> 01:02:41,600
Speaker 1: it softwood, you know, you people call it the pines.

1107
01:02:41,640 --> 01:02:44,840
Speaker 1: But in the spruce and fir needles, the tracks will

1108
01:02:44,880 --> 01:02:49,080
Speaker 1: disappear and there, But that track still might take me

1109
01:02:49,120 --> 01:02:53,040
Speaker 1: to a signpost, rob or scrape line, or it might

1110
01:02:53,080 --> 01:02:56,240
Speaker 1: take me to something that shows me where that buck

1111
01:02:56,360 --> 01:03:01,840
Speaker 1: is traveling, you know, m Yeah, going going back a

1112
01:03:01,880 --> 01:03:06,800
Speaker 1: second to um, determining what kind of deer you're tracking? UM.

1113
01:03:06,840 --> 01:03:09,520
Speaker 1: I think I remember. I do remember reading in some

1114
01:03:09,560 --> 01:03:12,800
Speaker 1: different places where people also pay attention to things like

1115
01:03:12,920 --> 01:03:16,920
Speaker 1: the length of the stride or the width of the

1116
01:03:17,240 --> 01:03:20,200
Speaker 1: between the each footstep. Is that something you pay attention

1117
01:03:20,200 --> 01:03:25,560
Speaker 1: to personally? Yeah, I wrote about that my first book.

1118
01:03:25,600 --> 01:03:30,320
Speaker 1: I put some illustrations in that because and and it

1119
01:03:30,400 --> 01:03:33,480
Speaker 1: is a variable in that, because the same dea can

1120
01:03:33,560 --> 01:03:36,280
Speaker 1: walk fast as slow and change his stride like like

1121
01:03:36,360 --> 01:03:40,840
Speaker 1: we could do it so you Sometimes a stride just

1122
01:03:40,920 --> 01:03:44,240
Speaker 1: means he's hurrying, But if you follow one long enough,

1123
01:03:45,320 --> 01:03:48,080
Speaker 1: you will get to figure out what his normal walk is.

1124
01:03:49,120 --> 01:03:56,160
Speaker 1: In the longer stride means it's a longer deal or taller,

1125
01:03:56,480 --> 01:03:59,160
Speaker 1: however you want to put it. He's longer, and a

1126
01:03:59,240 --> 01:04:02,560
Speaker 1: longer deal is gonna weigh more because they're not all

1127
01:04:02,560 --> 01:04:04,360
Speaker 1: built the same. They're not all going to weigh over

1128
01:04:04,400 --> 01:04:08,160
Speaker 1: two d pounds up here. And it's like people or

1129
01:04:08,200 --> 01:04:10,680
Speaker 1: any other animal. You know, you've got long, thin ones,

1130
01:04:12,000 --> 01:04:15,240
Speaker 1: short squat ones, whatever it is, they're all different shapes.

1131
01:04:16,320 --> 01:04:20,520
Speaker 1: And then the I call it the stance, or some

1132
01:04:20,640 --> 01:04:26,520
Speaker 1: people call a stag. How they stagger the width that determines.

1133
01:04:27,240 --> 01:04:30,000
Speaker 1: As a deer gets bigger, that's gonna widen out right

1134
01:04:30,080 --> 01:04:32,920
Speaker 1: his shoulder and his chest. He gets bigger and thicker,

1135
01:04:33,040 --> 01:04:37,440
Speaker 1: So that's normally gonna widen out. But up here I

1136
01:04:37,520 --> 01:04:41,320
Speaker 1: look for I look for a buck that's got eight

1137
01:04:41,360 --> 01:04:45,800
Speaker 1: inches side to side, eight to twelve inches, and uh,

1138
01:04:46,600 --> 01:04:48,760
Speaker 1: that'll be a pretty good buck. Twelve inches will be

1139
01:04:48,760 --> 01:04:52,240
Speaker 1: a real big one. But so yeah, I look for

1140
01:04:52,280 --> 01:04:59,680
Speaker 1: that size of the print, uh, dragging his feet Like

1141
01:04:59,680 --> 01:05:01,960
Speaker 1: I said, it is a real key, because then I

1142
01:05:02,000 --> 01:05:06,120
Speaker 1: know it's it's an old buck. You know, an old buck.

1143
01:05:07,640 --> 01:05:10,440
Speaker 1: When you said the stance you're measuring, you know, twelve inches?

1144
01:05:10,840 --> 01:05:13,600
Speaker 1: Is that from the outside of the print to the

1145
01:05:13,640 --> 01:05:19,120
Speaker 1: opposite outside of the inside inside, Well, I just I

1146
01:05:19,240 --> 01:05:21,480
Speaker 1: just call it from like the center to the center

1147
01:05:21,520 --> 01:05:24,200
Speaker 1: however you want to do it. But it isn't split

1148
01:05:24,240 --> 01:05:26,480
Speaker 1: in his you know, you don't have to split hands

1149
01:05:26,480 --> 01:05:28,600
Speaker 1: with it. But when you look down and it's looks

1150
01:05:28,600 --> 01:05:31,680
Speaker 1: like it's eight inches wide, yet out of the center

1151
01:05:31,880 --> 01:05:34,000
Speaker 1: to the outside, it's that's a good one. And if

1152
01:05:34,000 --> 01:05:37,560
Speaker 1: you get out to twelve it's a big one. Now,

1153
01:05:38,560 --> 01:05:40,960
Speaker 1: when you get into areas where a deer or smaller,

1154
01:05:42,080 --> 01:05:44,760
Speaker 1: they're probably never gonna get twelve inches, you know, eight

1155
01:05:44,760 --> 01:05:47,919
Speaker 1: inches might be the biggest size, and you know five

1156
01:05:48,000 --> 01:05:52,479
Speaker 1: or six might be on the narrow side. You know, yeah, yeah,

1157
01:05:52,720 --> 01:05:58,440
Speaker 1: all relatives. That makes sense. Yeah, that's just I always

1158
01:05:58,520 --> 01:06:03,280
Speaker 1: look at that because out here and in in the

1159
01:06:03,360 --> 01:06:06,880
Speaker 1: lot of the North, people are more interested in the

1160
01:06:06,920 --> 01:06:10,160
Speaker 1: weight than they are in the antlers. Because when you're

1161
01:06:10,200 --> 01:06:12,600
Speaker 1: hunting in the big woods, if you were trying to

1162
01:06:12,680 --> 01:06:15,560
Speaker 1: hunt for a certain box with a certain set of antlers,

1163
01:06:15,960 --> 01:06:18,960
Speaker 1: or only shoot a buck with big antlers, you ain't

1164
01:06:19,000 --> 01:06:22,040
Speaker 1: gonna shoot many bocks, I'll tell you, because you ain't

1165
01:06:22,040 --> 01:06:24,360
Speaker 1: gonna have time usually to even see what it's got

1166
01:06:25,240 --> 01:06:28,720
Speaker 1: when you're tracking. You know, you might he's got a rack.

1167
01:06:28,880 --> 01:06:33,200
Speaker 1: I don't care if it's a basket rack eight point.

1168
01:06:34,320 --> 01:06:37,560
Speaker 1: If he's eight years old and he weighs two and

1169
01:06:37,560 --> 01:06:41,680
Speaker 1: fifty pounds, that's more of a trophy to me than uh,

1170
01:06:42,960 --> 01:06:45,840
Speaker 1: you're in a half year old at scores one fifty

1171
01:06:47,760 --> 01:06:50,000
Speaker 1: we don't appear we don't. I mean, we have an

1172
01:06:50,080 --> 01:06:52,360
Speaker 1: antler club in the state, and yeah it's great. You know,

1173
01:06:52,520 --> 01:06:55,400
Speaker 1: people shoot some big rack box. I look as it

1174
01:06:55,520 --> 01:06:58,440
Speaker 1: is a bonus if you get one with a big

1175
01:06:58,480 --> 01:07:01,280
Speaker 1: body and he's got a rack to go with it,

1176
01:07:01,920 --> 01:07:05,200
Speaker 1: it's just a bonus. I'll hunt for the big deer

1177
01:07:05,320 --> 01:07:11,880
Speaker 1: over the big rack any day, different mindset. Yeah, no,

1178
01:07:12,000 --> 01:07:17,600
Speaker 1: I completely understand that. Um, what does what does a

1179
01:07:17,720 --> 01:07:20,640
Speaker 1: day in the life of this kind of hunting look like? Then?

1180
01:07:21,120 --> 01:07:23,840
Speaker 1: Can you walk us through when you start, how the

1181
01:07:24,000 --> 01:07:28,160
Speaker 1: how the process begins, what your thought processes then throughout

1182
01:07:28,160 --> 01:07:30,919
Speaker 1: the entire Maybe you could like give us a hypothetical

1183
01:07:31,160 --> 01:07:38,400
Speaker 1: scenario you could walk us through. Yeah. I start every

1184
01:07:38,440 --> 01:07:42,560
Speaker 1: morning at daylight. I'm usually driving to where I want

1185
01:07:42,560 --> 01:07:45,240
Speaker 1: to go hunt. I'll pick an area I might pull

1186
01:07:45,360 --> 01:07:47,480
Speaker 1: sometimes I don't know. This is kind of funny, but

1187
01:07:49,360 --> 01:07:52,120
Speaker 1: I drive out my driveway in the morning and sometimes

1188
01:07:52,200 --> 01:07:54,520
Speaker 1: I don't know if which way I'm going. I don't

1189
01:07:54,520 --> 01:07:56,960
Speaker 1: even know where I'm gonna hunt for the day. Now

1190
01:07:57,480 --> 01:08:01,200
Speaker 1: that being said, it might be determined by where the

1191
01:08:01,240 --> 01:08:03,439
Speaker 1: early snow is because a lot of time we got

1192
01:08:03,480 --> 01:08:07,360
Speaker 1: mountains here and sometimes there's only snow in the mountains.

1193
01:08:07,360 --> 01:08:09,760
Speaker 1: You know, you don't have the snow in the bottom.

1194
01:08:09,800 --> 01:08:13,760
Speaker 1: So I gotta go hunt some mountains somewhere up. So

1195
01:08:14,840 --> 01:08:17,320
Speaker 1: I head out, and I'm driving to where I'm gonna go.

1196
01:08:17,439 --> 01:08:21,120
Speaker 1: And if I'm lucky, which I'm not very often, but

1197
01:08:21,160 --> 01:08:25,719
Speaker 1: I might if I see a track crossing the logging

1198
01:08:25,800 --> 01:08:27,599
Speaker 1: road on the way to where I'm going, I get

1199
01:08:27,640 --> 01:08:30,839
Speaker 1: out and I look at it and it's going somewhere

1200
01:08:30,960 --> 01:08:33,120
Speaker 1: where I know there isn't gonna be a bunch of hunters.

1201
01:08:34,200 --> 01:08:36,560
Speaker 1: I'll get right on that one. I've shot quite a

1202
01:08:36,600 --> 01:08:40,200
Speaker 1: few that way. But usually I end up driving to

1203
01:08:40,240 --> 01:08:44,760
Speaker 1: where I want to hunt and then just striking off

1204
01:08:45,240 --> 01:08:47,200
Speaker 1: through the woods, you know, whether it's up over a

1205
01:08:47,240 --> 01:08:50,559
Speaker 1: mountain and down another valley to another, I just strike

1206
01:08:50,600 --> 01:08:57,320
Speaker 1: off trying to find a track I want and stay

1207
01:08:59,200 --> 01:09:01,519
Speaker 1: what's that? Sorry? I was gonna say, are you striking

1208
01:09:01,560 --> 01:09:03,519
Speaker 1: off with like a destination of mind? Or are you

1209
01:09:03,600 --> 01:09:06,360
Speaker 1: heading towards one of those signposts post drubs you found?

1210
01:09:06,400 --> 01:09:08,280
Speaker 1: Or do you just say, all right, I'm heading off

1211
01:09:08,320 --> 01:09:12,000
Speaker 1: into this general region, just gonna see where it takes me. Hey,

1212
01:09:12,000 --> 01:09:16,000
Speaker 1: you're pretty observant. You're keyed in on that signpost, and yes,

1213
01:09:16,080 --> 01:09:18,920
Speaker 1: that's what I do. I'll usually make a route. I'll

1214
01:09:19,000 --> 01:09:21,280
Speaker 1: usually say, I'm gonna hit I'm going up through this

1215
01:09:21,640 --> 01:09:25,920
Speaker 1: side of this mountain, through this notch, the signpost on

1216
01:09:25,960 --> 01:09:28,120
Speaker 1: the back side. I'm gonna check that one. And there's

1217
01:09:28,160 --> 01:09:30,639
Speaker 1: one over in another valley. Then I'll go check that one.

1218
01:09:31,600 --> 01:09:33,600
Speaker 1: And and you're right, if you go to enough of

1219
01:09:33,640 --> 01:09:35,680
Speaker 1: them signposts, if you can check enough for them on

1220
01:09:35,760 --> 01:09:38,320
Speaker 1: any day, you're gonna find a big buck track there.

1221
01:09:39,400 --> 01:09:41,360
Speaker 1: You're lucky you find it at the first one, and

1222
01:09:41,400 --> 01:09:44,000
Speaker 1: if you're not, you might not find a track your noontime.

1223
01:09:44,040 --> 01:09:47,840
Speaker 1: But you know, it's just just the way it goes

1224
01:09:47,880 --> 01:09:52,479
Speaker 1: some days. So when I find my track, I just

1225
01:09:53,160 --> 01:09:54,960
Speaker 1: I start on it, you know, if I know what's

1226
01:09:55,000 --> 01:09:57,880
Speaker 1: made in the night, which and that's another thing to know.

1227
01:09:58,479 --> 01:10:00,320
Speaker 1: Some people say, well, how do you know that was

1228
01:10:00,360 --> 01:10:03,559
Speaker 1: made that night or the night before or three nights ago.

1229
01:10:04,280 --> 01:10:06,760
Speaker 1: Well that's very easy to tell if you get used to,

1230
01:10:07,080 --> 01:10:11,800
Speaker 1: you know, looking at snow the nighttime track. Because once

1231
01:10:11,800 --> 01:10:15,320
Speaker 1: a track goes through one day, it really changes, especially

1232
01:10:15,400 --> 01:10:17,839
Speaker 1: if it was the sun was out the day before,

1233
01:10:18,280 --> 01:10:22,200
Speaker 1: not even if it melted, but um, it changes a lot.

1234
01:10:22,400 --> 01:10:24,559
Speaker 1: It's not that hard once you get used to it

1235
01:10:24,640 --> 01:10:27,960
Speaker 1: to tell what's made in the night. So I just

1236
01:10:28,040 --> 01:10:30,280
Speaker 1: follow that track. And when I get on a track,

1237
01:10:33,000 --> 01:10:35,640
Speaker 1: I'm going with the idea that I gotta catch up

1238
01:10:35,720 --> 01:10:38,599
Speaker 1: to this buck so I can hunt them, because if

1239
01:10:38,600 --> 01:10:40,200
Speaker 1: you don't catch up to him, you're not in the

1240
01:10:40,240 --> 01:10:42,960
Speaker 1: game yet. Too many guys will go out there and

1241
01:10:43,000 --> 01:10:46,400
Speaker 1: get on a track and they find a track and

1242
01:10:46,479 --> 01:10:51,000
Speaker 1: they start hunting that track like Elma Fudd, one step

1243
01:10:51,040 --> 01:10:54,519
Speaker 1: and looking all around. What you chances I you're never

1244
01:10:54,560 --> 01:10:57,920
Speaker 1: gonna see that buck. I mean, just you're not going

1245
01:10:57,960 --> 01:11:01,080
Speaker 1: to because that buck could be he might have You

1246
01:11:01,160 --> 01:11:03,240
Speaker 1: might get lucky and he's laying down a half a

1247
01:11:03,280 --> 01:11:07,040
Speaker 1: mile away, and he might be five miles away, and

1248
01:11:07,120 --> 01:11:09,080
Speaker 1: you don't know that. You get going and see what

1249
01:11:09,120 --> 01:11:12,960
Speaker 1: he's doing, you know, because the story of that buck,

1250
01:11:13,080 --> 01:11:18,120
Speaker 1: whatever buck you track, he's writing his life in the snow.

1251
01:11:18,160 --> 01:11:21,639
Speaker 1: And that's what's so fun about tracking, is he's showing

1252
01:11:21,680 --> 01:11:27,280
Speaker 1: you his life, what he's doing, where he's going, what

1253
01:11:27,439 --> 01:11:30,160
Speaker 1: he's up right now this time of year. It's all

1254
01:11:30,200 --> 01:11:31,920
Speaker 1: written for your in the snow. If you're not how

1255
01:11:31,920 --> 01:11:36,160
Speaker 1: to interpret it right, he starts wandering around he might

1256
01:11:36,280 --> 01:11:39,160
Speaker 1: start chasing does, and even earlier, you know, before the

1257
01:11:39,200 --> 01:11:42,680
Speaker 1: red starts. He might find some doze and they know

1258
01:11:42,760 --> 01:11:44,920
Speaker 1: where all the does are. They can go right from

1259
01:11:44,960 --> 01:11:47,439
Speaker 1: one bunch to the next. They might app here where

1260
01:11:47,479 --> 01:11:51,479
Speaker 1: the populations as heavy. You might get into some areas

1261
01:11:51,479 --> 01:11:54,040
Speaker 1: where there's a little pocket of does. It might be

1262
01:11:54,080 --> 01:11:58,000
Speaker 1: two or three dos, four doz, and the next might

1263
01:11:58,160 --> 01:12:00,519
Speaker 1: bunch might be a mile away. So he just beat

1264
01:12:00,560 --> 01:12:03,559
Speaker 1: feats for that mile till he gets over there. So

1265
01:12:03,840 --> 01:12:05,880
Speaker 1: that's what you gotta do. You gotta keep going. And

1266
01:12:05,920 --> 01:12:09,759
Speaker 1: then when he's done his route for the night, whenever

1267
01:12:09,760 --> 01:12:14,240
Speaker 1: you get done, he's gonna nine times out of ten.

1268
01:12:14,720 --> 01:12:17,280
Speaker 1: Sometimes you get thrown off during the rout. They don't

1269
01:12:17,320 --> 01:12:20,240
Speaker 1: They kind of don't eat as much, but usually they'll

1270
01:12:20,560 --> 01:12:24,840
Speaker 1: they'll eat, feed around, wander around, and then they lay down.

1271
01:12:24,880 --> 01:12:27,000
Speaker 1: They're gonna be if you see that sign where their

1272
01:12:27,760 --> 01:12:30,839
Speaker 1: wandering and feeding around quite a bit in a small area.

1273
01:12:31,720 --> 01:12:34,640
Speaker 1: He's right there. You canna be laying right there, some

1274
01:12:34,720 --> 01:12:36,960
Speaker 1: way close, and it might already be too late, because

1275
01:12:36,960 --> 01:12:41,479
Speaker 1: sometimes he's laid close enough where he he sees you already.

1276
01:12:41,520 --> 01:12:47,000
Speaker 1: Because they always lay watching their backtrack for danger, so

1277
01:12:48,280 --> 01:12:51,640
Speaker 1: that sign will tell you though that I stop immediately

1278
01:12:51,640 --> 01:12:54,960
Speaker 1: and I stopped looking around. He might be right there.

1279
01:12:55,120 --> 01:12:57,120
Speaker 1: He might be up on that ridge up there you're

1280
01:12:57,120 --> 01:12:59,559
Speaker 1: looking at. And then I gotta try to figure out

1281
01:13:00,400 --> 01:13:03,000
Speaker 1: if I can maybe get a chance to shoot him

1282
01:13:03,000 --> 01:13:04,800
Speaker 1: in his bed laying down, or shoot him when he

1283
01:13:04,840 --> 01:13:10,040
Speaker 1: gets out of his bed or something. But sometimes that

1284
01:13:10,160 --> 01:13:13,400
Speaker 1: might not be till afternoon. I've got on bucks before

1285
01:13:13,479 --> 01:13:16,720
Speaker 1: and going rate steady fast as I could walk for

1286
01:13:16,840 --> 01:13:24,439
Speaker 1: five or six hours, never stop, catch up to one fast. Yeah,

1287
01:13:24,439 --> 01:13:27,040
Speaker 1: you're moving as fast as you can go all the

1288
01:13:27,080 --> 01:13:30,160
Speaker 1: way until you see the wandering kind of tracks. Is

1289
01:13:30,160 --> 01:13:34,160
Speaker 1: there anything else that would indicate his time to slow down? Well,

1290
01:13:34,200 --> 01:13:36,320
Speaker 1: if he picks up the dough and gets with a dough,

1291
01:13:36,840 --> 01:13:40,080
Speaker 1: if he starts off staying with the dough, they may

1292
01:13:40,120 --> 01:13:45,040
Speaker 1: not be all that fire again, right, So anything like

1293
01:13:45,120 --> 01:13:49,320
Speaker 1: that is what you've got to look for. But typically,

1294
01:13:50,200 --> 01:13:52,559
Speaker 1: I mean, that's just the life of a buck. You know,

1295
01:13:53,120 --> 01:13:57,639
Speaker 1: he's gonna he's gotta eat, sleep and bread and and

1296
01:13:57,680 --> 01:14:00,720
Speaker 1: watch out for danger, and and it is really as

1297
01:14:00,760 --> 01:14:06,720
Speaker 1: simple as that. That's all they do, right, So you

1298
01:14:06,880 --> 01:14:09,840
Speaker 1: just gotta figure out what he's doing, where he might

1299
01:14:09,880 --> 01:14:13,360
Speaker 1: be and that when I go through my day, I

1300
01:14:13,479 --> 01:14:18,120
Speaker 1: call track and I call it an emotional roller coaster ride,

1301
01:14:18,240 --> 01:14:21,320
Speaker 1: because you're up, you're down, you're up, you're down. You know,

1302
01:14:21,400 --> 01:14:23,599
Speaker 1: you think he's right close, and then oh no, he's

1303
01:14:23,600 --> 01:14:27,120
Speaker 1: struck off again with a fast pace. He's way over

1304
01:14:27,160 --> 01:14:29,760
Speaker 1: the era. You know, it's just you don't know. You

1305
01:14:29,840 --> 01:14:32,880
Speaker 1: gotta turn left here, you gotta turn right there. All

1306
01:14:33,000 --> 01:14:36,479
Speaker 1: kinds of decisions all day. That's why you don't shoot

1307
01:14:36,479 --> 01:14:39,600
Speaker 1: one every day, right? Why it's so fun If you

1308
01:14:39,640 --> 01:14:43,120
Speaker 1: could go out and shoot one in every day, I

1309
01:14:43,120 --> 01:14:47,360
Speaker 1: wouldn't bother going be too easy. Tell me this, Tell

1310
01:14:47,400 --> 01:14:52,080
Speaker 1: me when you when you see that he's slowed down

1311
01:14:53,040 --> 01:14:56,719
Speaker 1: and you think he's close. Now he's been wandering around,

1312
01:14:56,840 --> 01:14:59,840
Speaker 1: maybe you've seen sign of him rebnatory, you're feeding or

1313
01:15:00,000 --> 01:15:03,600
Speaker 1: anything like that. What is your how much time do

1314
01:15:03,640 --> 01:15:05,479
Speaker 1: you spend that at that point, now you think he's

1315
01:15:05,520 --> 01:15:07,880
Speaker 1: slowed down? Do you just do you? Do? You? Now

1316
01:15:07,960 --> 01:15:10,479
Speaker 1: get into that Elmer Fud mode where you glass and

1317
01:15:10,479 --> 01:15:12,200
Speaker 1: then you take a few steps and need glass You

1318
01:15:12,280 --> 01:15:17,679
Speaker 1: take a few steps or what's your process at that point? Well,

1319
01:15:17,800 --> 01:15:23,560
Speaker 1: I don't glass until I spot something I can't recognize

1320
01:15:24,120 --> 01:15:27,719
Speaker 1: because it's I don't take enough time to glass around.

1321
01:15:27,800 --> 01:15:32,880
Speaker 1: Some people do fine, I don't. I look for I

1322
01:15:32,960 --> 01:15:36,080
Speaker 1: look for things out of place, you know, like an

1323
01:15:36,160 --> 01:15:40,200
Speaker 1: ear or an eye. But the first thing I try

1324
01:15:40,280 --> 01:15:43,880
Speaker 1: to do is and again it's because I hunt in

1325
01:15:43,920 --> 01:15:46,759
Speaker 1: the mountains a lot. Usually when they're gonna lay down,

1326
01:15:48,000 --> 01:15:50,320
Speaker 1: if they're up on a ridge somewhere, or they turn

1327
01:15:50,439 --> 01:15:53,960
Speaker 1: up the ridge, they lay down up high so they

1328
01:15:53,960 --> 01:15:58,320
Speaker 1: can look down right easy to escape danger that way,

1329
01:15:58,360 --> 01:16:00,720
Speaker 1: and they usually go up on the edge of the

1330
01:16:00,800 --> 01:16:03,519
Speaker 1: green growth up in the mountain where it's sticker, and

1331
01:16:03,680 --> 01:16:06,400
Speaker 1: lay either on the edge of it or just in it.

1332
01:16:07,280 --> 01:16:10,000
Speaker 1: So if I see a buck feeding around and he

1333
01:16:10,520 --> 01:16:12,839
Speaker 1: he heads up and I can see a green bluff

1334
01:16:12,920 --> 01:16:16,360
Speaker 1: up up there, I'm not going to follow that track

1335
01:16:16,439 --> 01:16:20,320
Speaker 1: up through the open because he's watching that track, or

1336
01:16:20,360 --> 01:16:22,880
Speaker 1: I assume he is. I make a circle down wind

1337
01:16:22,960 --> 01:16:27,400
Speaker 1: around it, go up over the knob around it, and

1338
01:16:27,439 --> 01:16:31,720
Speaker 1: make a complete circle to see if that track comes out,

1339
01:16:31,840 --> 01:16:34,400
Speaker 1: because it won't take me. I won't be losing any

1340
01:16:34,439 --> 01:16:37,759
Speaker 1: time by doing that. So if I've got any doubt

1341
01:16:37,800 --> 01:16:40,800
Speaker 1: to whether I'm not sure if he's laying down, I

1342
01:16:40,920 --> 01:16:44,960
Speaker 1: make a quick loop like that might take me twenty minutes.

1343
01:16:45,439 --> 01:16:49,080
Speaker 1: But now I can confirm if I cut a circle

1344
01:16:49,120 --> 01:16:52,040
Speaker 1: in his track, didn't go out. Guess what. Now I

1345
01:16:52,120 --> 01:16:55,240
Speaker 1: have that buck in a small area in the big woods.

1346
01:16:55,680 --> 01:16:58,400
Speaker 1: He's captive for me. Now I just gotta try to

1347
01:16:58,439 --> 01:17:01,439
Speaker 1: see him. If I cut that loop in his track

1348
01:17:01,520 --> 01:17:04,680
Speaker 1: come out the other side. I just saved myself a

1349
01:17:04,720 --> 01:17:09,479
Speaker 1: lot of time of Elma fuddon, didn't I? Yeah? But

1350
01:17:09,640 --> 01:17:13,040
Speaker 1: some places you can't do that. Some places, the type

1351
01:17:13,040 --> 01:17:18,040
Speaker 1: of woods you're in, you can't make that circle. It's

1352
01:17:18,080 --> 01:17:21,200
Speaker 1: not gonna work either because of the wind the terrain.

1353
01:17:21,920 --> 01:17:23,960
Speaker 1: You can't always do it. But if I can do

1354
01:17:24,120 --> 01:17:27,519
Speaker 1: it and make sense of it where it's not gonna

1355
01:17:27,760 --> 01:17:30,000
Speaker 1: not gonna waste a lot of time, I'll do it.

1356
01:17:32,600 --> 01:17:36,040
Speaker 1: You mentioned wind that you you circled down wind there.

1357
01:17:36,200 --> 01:17:38,960
Speaker 1: Do you think about or factor wind into your strategy

1358
01:17:39,040 --> 01:17:41,599
Speaker 1: at all at any other points of your of your

1359
01:17:41,680 --> 01:17:43,400
Speaker 1: day or is it just at that point where you

1360
01:17:43,439 --> 01:17:47,519
Speaker 1: thinking where is that? Yeah? Just when I think he's

1361
01:17:47,760 --> 01:17:50,559
Speaker 1: if I think, if I think is the buck is around?

1362
01:17:51,120 --> 01:17:53,479
Speaker 1: I started paying attention to the wind. Other than that,

1363
01:17:54,520 --> 01:17:57,800
Speaker 1: then make any difference. The wind blows four directions every

1364
01:17:57,800 --> 01:18:02,760
Speaker 1: minute anyway, he's up in this country. But uh, quite frankly, Sometimes,

1365
01:18:02,760 --> 01:18:05,000
Speaker 1: once you've jumped the buck and he knows you're after him,

1366
01:18:05,040 --> 01:18:07,719
Speaker 1: he'll put the wind right in his back and walk

1367
01:18:07,840 --> 01:18:10,080
Speaker 1: and he knows you're behind him. And you know he

1368
01:18:10,120 --> 01:18:13,200
Speaker 1: knows because he'll be walking along and you'll see he'll

1369
01:18:13,200 --> 01:18:15,400
Speaker 1: make two or three jumps and he'll pick up his pace.

1370
01:18:16,040 --> 01:18:18,559
Speaker 1: He smells you getting closer. There's nothing you can do

1371
01:18:18,600 --> 01:18:22,599
Speaker 1: about it. You just keep going because eventually he's gonna turn,

1372
01:18:22,720 --> 01:18:25,680
Speaker 1: or the wind's gonna change, and you might get a

1373
01:18:25,760 --> 01:18:28,840
Speaker 1: chance again, you know. Yeah, That's what I was gonna ask. Next,

1374
01:18:28,960 --> 01:18:31,800
Speaker 1: is what happens when you do spook a deer? Um?

1375
01:18:31,960 --> 01:18:33,400
Speaker 1: Do you wait a while or do you just get

1376
01:18:33,520 --> 01:18:37,760
Speaker 1: right after it? Or what happens at that point? That's

1377
01:18:37,760 --> 01:18:41,599
Speaker 1: a good question because when I was in my training stages,

1378
01:18:41,600 --> 01:18:43,800
Speaker 1: because I had to teach myself all this stuff, I

1379
01:18:43,800 --> 01:18:46,120
Speaker 1: didn't have it. I didn't have My father didn't hunt

1380
01:18:46,160 --> 01:18:47,880
Speaker 1: up here, you know. I mean he came up when

1381
01:18:47,880 --> 01:18:49,920
Speaker 1: I did, but he wasn't a tracker, and I didn't

1382
01:18:49,920 --> 01:18:53,240
Speaker 1: have anybody to teach me. I just I just rustled

1383
01:18:53,240 --> 01:18:56,840
Speaker 1: to it myself. But your first inclination is to go

1384
01:18:56,960 --> 01:18:59,759
Speaker 1: right after him, because now it's you know, you're close,

1385
01:19:00,680 --> 01:19:02,960
Speaker 1: but it's the worst thing to do in most cases.

1386
01:19:03,040 --> 01:19:07,000
Speaker 1: There's a couple exceptions, but up here where the deer

1387
01:19:07,040 --> 01:19:10,240
Speaker 1: don't get pressured. And again this is why it's different

1388
01:19:10,280 --> 01:19:13,959
Speaker 1: than bigwoods. Deer hunting is different in a lot of respects,

1389
01:19:13,960 --> 01:19:16,320
Speaker 1: and this is one of them. You know, you get

1390
01:19:16,320 --> 01:19:18,839
Speaker 1: in a lot of places where where deer or pressure,

1391
01:19:18,920 --> 01:19:22,280
Speaker 1: they might run along ways when they get spooked. But

1392
01:19:22,439 --> 01:19:27,080
Speaker 1: these deer, typically a buck is gonna he's gonna run

1393
01:19:27,120 --> 01:19:30,280
Speaker 1: off maybe a hundred two hundred three four yards whatever,

1394
01:19:31,200 --> 01:19:33,720
Speaker 1: and he's gonna stop and look back. Nine out of

1395
01:19:33,840 --> 01:19:36,920
Speaker 1: ten times. Once in a while, you get what I

1396
01:19:37,000 --> 01:19:39,880
Speaker 1: call a runner that doesn't do that. His escape mode

1397
01:19:40,000 --> 01:19:43,639
Speaker 1: is the run a mile, and it's only because that's

1398
01:19:43,640 --> 01:19:47,040
Speaker 1: how he Every every buck up here has lived to

1399
01:19:47,200 --> 01:19:53,360
Speaker 1: his age by escaping kyos year round. So once they

1400
01:19:53,439 --> 01:19:57,080
Speaker 1: figure out how to escape a coyo, that's what you

1401
01:19:57,200 --> 01:19:59,880
Speaker 1: are of them, because they ain't used to be in

1402
01:20:00,040 --> 01:20:04,639
Speaker 1: followed by people for the most part. So they're gonna

1403
01:20:04,680 --> 01:20:06,960
Speaker 1: go off and they stop and they wait to see

1404
01:20:06,960 --> 01:20:10,559
Speaker 1: if something's fallen, because probably they might have saw a

1405
01:20:10,600 --> 01:20:15,320
Speaker 1: little motion. They might have heard a twig snap anything

1406
01:20:15,439 --> 01:20:17,559
Speaker 1: like that, and that's what just got them out of

1407
01:20:17,560 --> 01:20:19,639
Speaker 1: their bed, and they just want to make sure it's

1408
01:20:19,720 --> 01:20:22,200
Speaker 1: nothing fall and they want to just put that little distance,

1409
01:20:22,240 --> 01:20:27,719
Speaker 1: you know, So I waited. I started waiting fifteen minutes,

1410
01:20:27,840 --> 01:20:30,240
Speaker 1: and that didn't work very good. So I pushed it

1411
01:20:30,280 --> 01:20:34,560
Speaker 1: to a half an hour. And once I did that,

1412
01:20:34,560 --> 01:20:37,400
Speaker 1: that was the key right there. That's killed more box

1413
01:20:37,479 --> 01:20:40,519
Speaker 1: up here than not just by me, by by me

1414
01:20:40,640 --> 01:20:43,639
Speaker 1: writing about it. I had lots and lots of guys

1415
01:20:43,680 --> 01:20:46,000
Speaker 1: over the ear told me after I wrote my first book.

1416
01:20:46,000 --> 01:20:48,200
Speaker 1: He they said, you know what, I don't know why.

1417
01:20:48,200 --> 01:20:50,559
Speaker 1: I never could figure that out, but it's perfect sense,

1418
01:20:50,600 --> 01:20:53,720
Speaker 1: you said, they tell me. And since they started doing it,

1419
01:20:54,560 --> 01:20:58,639
Speaker 1: they kill more box. You know, because really the best time,

1420
01:20:58,920 --> 01:21:03,360
Speaker 1: your best, hardest time to kill a buck is really

1421
01:21:03,400 --> 01:21:07,000
Speaker 1: if he's laying in his bed watching his backtrack. You

1422
01:21:07,040 --> 01:21:10,439
Speaker 1: think about that, right, He's got all the advantage. He's

1423
01:21:10,479 --> 01:21:13,720
Speaker 1: just laying there watching where he came from, and all

1424
01:21:13,760 --> 01:21:17,080
Speaker 1: he's gotta do is catch a little movement, a flash

1425
01:21:17,120 --> 01:21:20,320
Speaker 1: of something, and he's out of there. You most of

1426
01:21:20,320 --> 01:21:25,360
Speaker 1: the time you won't even see him, So you know,

1427
01:21:25,479 --> 01:21:28,880
Speaker 1: you gotta the next time is your best chance. So

1428
01:21:28,960 --> 01:21:32,160
Speaker 1: if if if you go right after him, what happens

1429
01:21:32,280 --> 01:21:36,320
Speaker 1: is they just confirmed what they thought. Something's after him.

1430
01:21:36,400 --> 01:21:39,040
Speaker 1: Now the chase is on. You're gonna be chasing him

1431
01:21:39,080 --> 01:21:41,200
Speaker 1: all day. Not to say you can't kill him that way,

1432
01:21:41,240 --> 01:21:45,479
Speaker 1: because I have, but but it's a lot hotter and

1433
01:21:45,479 --> 01:21:48,799
Speaker 1: you're gonna put on a lot more miles. But by waiting,

1434
01:21:49,960 --> 01:21:52,080
Speaker 1: that buck's gonna do a couple of things. He's only

1435
01:21:52,120 --> 01:21:55,880
Speaker 1: got two choices. He's gonna lay back down, which means

1436
01:21:55,920 --> 01:21:58,320
Speaker 1: he was not rested or not from he hadn't been

1437
01:21:58,400 --> 01:22:02,880
Speaker 1: laying there long enough, or he's been laying long enough

1438
01:22:02,920 --> 01:22:04,920
Speaker 1: to be rested up. And he's gonna go about his

1439
01:22:05,000 --> 01:22:09,439
Speaker 1: business and start checking scrapes, rubs or whatever he wants

1440
01:22:09,439 --> 01:22:13,559
Speaker 1: to do, and check does And that's the time. The

1441
01:22:13,640 --> 01:22:16,760
Speaker 1: best time to kill a buck is when he's on

1442
01:22:16,840 --> 01:22:21,880
Speaker 1: his feet moving because now he doesn't have the advantage. Yeah,

1443
01:22:21,880 --> 01:22:25,559
Speaker 1: he's gonna always look behind him, but he's moving and

1444
01:22:25,680 --> 01:22:29,320
Speaker 1: you're moving, and but you still your odds are way up.

1445
01:22:29,400 --> 01:22:34,439
Speaker 1: You see how that works. It does, and what really

1446
01:22:34,520 --> 01:22:37,240
Speaker 1: gives you the advantage. I tell people this all the time,

1447
01:22:38,760 --> 01:22:42,599
Speaker 1: just because the snow on the ground doesn't make it

1448
01:22:43,800 --> 01:22:48,400
Speaker 1: a good chance to shoot a buck tracking, because you've

1449
01:22:48,439 --> 01:22:51,599
Speaker 1: gotta have some other things in your favor. Because if

1450
01:22:51,640 --> 01:22:54,519
Speaker 1: you're on a day when it's uh you know them

1451
01:22:54,600 --> 01:22:56,880
Speaker 1: days in the woods where it's definitely still like you

1452
01:22:56,920 --> 01:22:58,720
Speaker 1: feel like you can hear a pinder up like a

1453
01:22:58,800 --> 01:23:02,559
Speaker 1: mile away, that's a hard day to kill a buck

1454
01:23:02,600 --> 01:23:06,920
Speaker 1: tracking because they just even if they're on their feet,

1455
01:23:06,960 --> 01:23:10,120
Speaker 1: they got that advantage. And no matter how quiet you

1456
01:23:10,160 --> 01:23:15,439
Speaker 1: can be, it's very difficult. The best the best weather

1457
01:23:15,560 --> 01:23:18,920
Speaker 1: for killing the buck is wind. I don't care if

1458
01:23:18,920 --> 01:23:24,600
Speaker 1: it's blowing fifty, I don't care if it's snowing. I

1459
01:23:24,760 --> 01:23:28,960
Speaker 1: call those buck killing days because all of all his

1460
01:23:29,920 --> 01:23:33,599
Speaker 1: advantage is gone. He's not gonna smell you, probably not

1461
01:23:33,640 --> 01:23:35,759
Speaker 1: gonna see it because in the wind, you know, everything's

1462
01:23:36,080 --> 01:23:40,400
Speaker 1: the trees are moving, the leaves of rustling things are swaying.

1463
01:23:41,360 --> 01:23:44,160
Speaker 1: They don't pick out your movement as well. Not to

1464
01:23:44,240 --> 01:23:46,160
Speaker 1: mean you're gonna walk up on them. What I'm saying

1465
01:23:46,240 --> 01:23:48,800
Speaker 1: is if you're sneaky in those kind of days, that's

1466
01:23:48,840 --> 01:23:50,280
Speaker 1: the time to get a look at one you know

1467
01:23:52,600 --> 01:23:55,400
Speaker 1: at this point in your I guess we'll call it

1468
01:23:55,400 --> 01:24:00,400
Speaker 1: your hunting career. What what are the what's your show

1469
01:24:00,439 --> 01:24:03,519
Speaker 1: of like actually seeing the buck that you pick up

1470
01:24:03,520 --> 01:24:05,599
Speaker 1: a track on. Like if you if you pick up

1471
01:24:05,640 --> 01:24:08,439
Speaker 1: ten tracks over the course of the season, do you

1472
01:24:08,520 --> 01:24:10,800
Speaker 1: end up seeing eight of those bucks? Do you see

1473
01:24:10,840 --> 01:24:15,200
Speaker 1: one of those bucks? How does that usually end up? Oh?

1474
01:24:15,360 --> 01:24:21,280
Speaker 1: See just to see him? Oh, I don't know. I

1475
01:24:21,360 --> 01:24:25,240
Speaker 1: never figured that out. More than you know, I see

1476
01:24:25,320 --> 01:24:28,639
Speaker 1: more than half the ones I get on and about.

1477
01:24:28,680 --> 01:24:35,920
Speaker 1: It might be just oh you know, that's that varies

1478
01:24:36,000 --> 01:24:37,879
Speaker 1: with the weather, And I'll give you a good example

1479
01:24:37,920 --> 01:24:42,160
Speaker 1: of that. This pass fall. We had a year of

1480
01:24:42,400 --> 01:24:46,080
Speaker 1: crusty snow. Whenever we had snow in rain and it

1481
01:24:46,120 --> 01:24:49,120
Speaker 1: would freeze and make a crust. Even when I went

1482
01:24:49,160 --> 01:24:52,639
Speaker 1: to Montana this year, we had a crust out there.

1483
01:24:52,640 --> 01:24:54,400
Speaker 1: They got a bunch of wet snow and then it

1484
01:24:54,960 --> 01:24:58,760
Speaker 1: got cold and froze. We hunted on crust. I got

1485
01:24:58,800 --> 01:25:03,280
Speaker 1: back here, I hunted on crusted every day, crunched around,

1486
01:25:03,840 --> 01:25:07,720
Speaker 1: and miraculously I still didn't see a few of the

1487
01:25:07,760 --> 01:25:11,559
Speaker 1: bucks that I was on. But nowhere is near what

1488
01:25:11,720 --> 01:25:14,559
Speaker 1: I could have. I know that I had two weeks

1489
01:25:14,600 --> 01:25:16,680
Speaker 1: I hunted like that. The last week of rifle and

1490
01:25:16,720 --> 01:25:21,240
Speaker 1: the week of muzzlo to here, made around here and

1491
01:25:21,320 --> 01:25:24,880
Speaker 1: I saw I saw more big bucks and I've seen

1492
01:25:24,960 --> 01:25:26,639
Speaker 1: in quite a few years. And I think a lot

1493
01:25:26,680 --> 01:25:29,599
Speaker 1: of that was because usually I shoot one and then

1494
01:25:29,640 --> 01:25:31,439
Speaker 1: I ain't hunting around here, you know, more is to

1495
01:25:31,439 --> 01:25:34,760
Speaker 1: see anymore. But I was crunching around, but I still

1496
01:25:34,800 --> 01:25:39,040
Speaker 1: gotta look at four or five. I ended up kind

1497
01:25:39,080 --> 01:25:44,479
Speaker 1: of a crazy thing. I I won't I didn't. I

1498
01:25:44,640 --> 01:25:47,080
Speaker 1: hit one with my muzzload. I just nicked it. But

1499
01:25:47,120 --> 01:25:49,720
Speaker 1: I missed one with my rifle, didn't that much of

1500
01:25:49,720 --> 01:25:52,120
Speaker 1: a chance, just fired when he's going to disappear. And

1501
01:25:52,640 --> 01:25:56,960
Speaker 1: the last day of the season, and then I missed

1502
01:25:56,960 --> 01:26:01,120
Speaker 1: one with my muzzlo to here and and nicked one.

1503
01:26:01,800 --> 01:26:04,840
Speaker 1: And then I saw a couple more that I couldn't

1504
01:26:04,880 --> 01:26:09,479
Speaker 1: get a shot at. And then I I missed one

1505
01:26:09,520 --> 01:26:11,880
Speaker 1: with my muzzleloader and masks and then I shot one

1506
01:26:11,920 --> 01:26:14,719
Speaker 1: down there. But that was actually quiet going. It wasn't crunchy.

1507
01:26:14,760 --> 01:26:19,519
Speaker 1: But so to bring that back around, I don't really know.

1508
01:26:19,680 --> 01:26:22,479
Speaker 1: I don't really keep track of it, but I know

1509
01:26:22,680 --> 01:26:28,519
Speaker 1: back the older I got in my career, the more

1510
01:26:29,720 --> 01:26:32,599
Speaker 1: picky I got about what buck I wanted to shoot,

1511
01:26:33,720 --> 01:26:37,519
Speaker 1: and the older the buck. Those are the hardest ones

1512
01:26:37,560 --> 01:26:39,920
Speaker 1: to kill, so the odds that you know, your odds

1513
01:26:39,920 --> 01:26:41,719
Speaker 1: are tipping the other way. To go out and shoot

1514
01:26:41,760 --> 01:26:44,759
Speaker 1: any buck is not a problem for me on probably

1515
01:26:44,800 --> 01:26:48,360
Speaker 1: any day. But but to try to kill those biggest ones,

1516
01:26:48,439 --> 01:26:50,639
Speaker 1: that's why I like it so much. It's such a challenge.

1517
01:26:51,520 --> 01:26:55,120
Speaker 1: But I know, back when I was guiding full time,

1518
01:26:55,240 --> 01:26:58,080
Speaker 1: I only got the hunt days. Like when I was

1519
01:26:58,080 --> 01:27:01,000
Speaker 1: guiding one on one hunters, if I got him a

1520
01:27:01,000 --> 01:27:03,240
Speaker 1: buck that week, I get to hunt maybe a day

1521
01:27:03,320 --> 01:27:07,000
Speaker 1: or two or whatever. And that's basically what I used

1522
01:27:07,000 --> 01:27:09,439
Speaker 1: to do. I take a day here and a day there,

1523
01:27:09,479 --> 01:27:12,840
Speaker 1: a couple of days. But I remember in my first book,

1524
01:27:12,880 --> 01:27:16,680
Speaker 1: I still remember writing that because I actually did. I

1525
01:27:16,760 --> 01:27:19,760
Speaker 1: think back to how many days I hunted because it

1526
01:27:19,800 --> 01:27:23,240
Speaker 1: was easier because I didn't have many days, and it

1527
01:27:23,400 --> 01:27:31,920
Speaker 1: averaged I shot him. I shot my buck every three days.

1528
01:27:32,040 --> 01:27:34,439
Speaker 1: In other words, it averaged. It took me three days

1529
01:27:34,479 --> 01:27:37,240
Speaker 1: to kill a buck. And they were good bucks, you know.

1530
01:27:38,240 --> 01:27:41,519
Speaker 1: It took me three days. Some of them might have

1531
01:27:41,560 --> 01:27:45,000
Speaker 1: been five. Several of them was the first day I went.

1532
01:27:45,800 --> 01:27:52,040
Speaker 1: But it averaged out to three mm is. And I

1533
01:27:52,040 --> 01:27:54,160
Speaker 1: don't know if this is something maybe you know just

1534
01:27:54,200 --> 01:27:56,080
Speaker 1: from talking to a lot of other hunters in the area,

1535
01:27:56,560 --> 01:28:00,400
Speaker 1: but in the big woods type of situation year and

1536
01:28:00,520 --> 01:28:02,560
Speaker 1: up in northern Maine or maybe in the ed Aroundecks

1537
01:28:02,640 --> 01:28:05,800
Speaker 1: or the upper Great Lakes. Um, do you think that

1538
01:28:05,880 --> 01:28:08,280
Speaker 1: this kind of strategy track and bucks is that the

1539
01:28:08,400 --> 01:28:11,720
Speaker 1: highest odds way to kill buck? Do you think in

1540
01:28:11,720 --> 01:28:15,000
Speaker 1: this kind of area versus sitting around and waiting on one?

1541
01:28:17,200 --> 01:28:21,000
Speaker 1: You know, I say it is, and I know it

1542
01:28:21,040 --> 01:28:24,719
Speaker 1: is for me because I can't sit around. But uh,

1543
01:28:24,760 --> 01:28:27,320
Speaker 1: there is some guys that if you're willing to put

1544
01:28:27,360 --> 01:28:31,800
Speaker 1: the time in sitting on a good place, Yeah, the

1545
01:28:31,880 --> 01:28:34,400
Speaker 1: same thing, you might kill one. The first I've had

1546
01:28:34,439 --> 01:28:36,960
Speaker 1: clients I put on a stand and they kill them

1547
01:28:38,040 --> 01:28:41,160
Speaker 1: the first day out that other you know, obviously most

1548
01:28:41,160 --> 01:28:42,880
Speaker 1: of the hunters will sit all week and they don't

1549
01:28:42,920 --> 01:28:46,040
Speaker 1: see one. But for me, by fire, it is and

1550
01:28:46,040 --> 01:28:50,439
Speaker 1: and and because I know there's a buck at the

1551
01:28:50,560 --> 01:28:53,519
Speaker 1: end of that track no matter what, all I gotta

1552
01:28:53,560 --> 01:28:57,320
Speaker 1: do is get to them. Be That's different than sitting,

1553
01:28:58,040 --> 01:29:00,800
Speaker 1: and it's different than still hunting because you can be

1554
01:29:00,880 --> 01:29:04,240
Speaker 1: sitting and you don't know in that woods where that

1555
01:29:04,280 --> 01:29:07,120
Speaker 1: buck is. You've got no idea. You don't have any

1556
01:29:07,200 --> 01:29:09,800
Speaker 1: idea if there's a buck within five miles of you

1557
01:29:10,920 --> 01:29:13,839
Speaker 1: and you're just being in waiting that one comes along

1558
01:29:13,880 --> 01:29:20,120
Speaker 1: when you're sitting there. But by tracking the buck is there.

1559
01:29:20,200 --> 01:29:22,519
Speaker 1: You just gotta do what it takes to catch up

1560
01:29:22,560 --> 01:29:25,400
Speaker 1: to him and then do what it takes to get

1561
01:29:25,479 --> 01:29:31,959
Speaker 1: your chance at him. Definitely, Yes, odds are better anywhere

1562
01:29:32,000 --> 01:29:36,519
Speaker 1: there's snow. If you learn how to track and you

1563
01:29:37,000 --> 01:29:41,800
Speaker 1: put it into practice, I can guarantee anybody if you

1564
01:29:41,840 --> 01:29:44,720
Speaker 1: stick with it and get good at it, your success

1565
01:29:44,760 --> 01:29:49,640
Speaker 1: will be a lot higher than just sitting around. And

1566
01:29:49,720 --> 01:29:53,280
Speaker 1: again I'm talking about bigwood situations where the deer population

1567
01:29:53,400 --> 01:29:56,160
Speaker 1: tends to be less. You're not sitting in a bean

1568
01:29:56,280 --> 01:29:59,240
Speaker 1: field where you can pass up five bucks a day.

1569
01:29:59,479 --> 01:30:02,120
Speaker 1: You get the one. You weren't talking about that, but

1570
01:30:02,240 --> 01:30:06,640
Speaker 1: in the wood hunting track. And for sure, what is

1571
01:30:06,760 --> 01:30:11,040
Speaker 1: more successful. What if you're tracking all day and you

1572
01:30:11,160 --> 01:30:14,040
Speaker 1: never catch out tune it gets dark. Can you get

1573
01:30:14,040 --> 01:30:17,360
Speaker 1: back on that track the next morning the same at

1574
01:30:17,360 --> 01:30:18,960
Speaker 1: the same place, or do you try to cut it

1575
01:30:19,000 --> 01:30:20,720
Speaker 1: off or is it just a lost cause and you

1576
01:30:21,160 --> 01:30:22,720
Speaker 1: start brand new the next day? What do you do

1577
01:30:22,760 --> 01:30:27,559
Speaker 1: the next day? I started out new I might not

1578
01:30:27,640 --> 01:30:30,240
Speaker 1: even go back to the same place, because after I've

1579
01:30:30,320 --> 01:30:33,400
Speaker 1: left that buck, if I got to start again and

1580
01:30:33,439 --> 01:30:37,759
Speaker 1: he's got all night to travel, I'm starting way behind.

1581
01:30:38,040 --> 01:30:40,640
Speaker 1: I'd rather find one that I might only be a

1582
01:30:40,760 --> 01:30:46,360
Speaker 1: few hours behind. You know, I have. I've shot a

1583
01:30:46,439 --> 01:30:51,799
Speaker 1: few bucks that the track was a couple of days old,

1584
01:30:52,560 --> 01:30:55,559
Speaker 1: and I've taken one only out of necessity because I

1585
01:30:55,560 --> 01:30:59,280
Speaker 1: couldn't find anything else. But the biggest buck I shot

1586
01:30:59,320 --> 01:31:02,840
Speaker 1: here in Maine. When I got on that track, it

1587
01:31:02,960 --> 01:31:05,599
Speaker 1: was two days old, and it was the first week

1588
01:31:05,640 --> 01:31:09,080
Speaker 1: of the season, and that's usually when they don't travel

1589
01:31:09,120 --> 01:31:12,160
Speaker 1: as fact, because it's the ruts not even close. You know,

1590
01:31:12,640 --> 01:31:15,040
Speaker 1: the rut up north. It's probably the same in the Up,

1591
01:31:15,280 --> 01:31:20,799
Speaker 1: but here it's basically the you can market on your calendar.

1592
01:31:20,880 --> 01:31:25,680
Speaker 1: That's when the breeding starts, and I'm sure up is

1593
01:31:25,720 --> 01:31:29,439
Speaker 1: about the same. But it was the first week of

1594
01:31:29,479 --> 01:31:33,360
Speaker 1: the season and and my client had shot It's actually

1595
01:31:33,400 --> 01:31:36,599
Speaker 1: a gallant. She shot her first buck the second day

1596
01:31:36,640 --> 01:31:40,400
Speaker 1: out Tuesday. So she asked me if she could go

1597
01:31:40,439 --> 01:31:42,920
Speaker 1: along with me, and I said yeah, but I said,

1598
01:31:43,720 --> 01:31:45,960
Speaker 1: you gotta you gotta hold back if I tell you

1599
01:31:46,000 --> 01:31:48,679
Speaker 1: that when I'm getting close. I don't want you clumping

1600
01:31:48,680 --> 01:31:52,800
Speaker 1: around behind right behind me. So I finally picked up

1601
01:31:52,840 --> 01:31:57,840
Speaker 1: this track at about eleven o'clock. I'd actually tracked a

1602
01:31:57,840 --> 01:32:01,040
Speaker 1: couple other ones, and one went into the crossed into Canada,

1603
01:32:01,160 --> 01:32:03,200
Speaker 1: and the other one I caught up to when it

1604
01:32:03,240 --> 01:32:06,200
Speaker 1: wasn't big enough. So I got on this big track

1605
01:32:06,280 --> 01:32:07,920
Speaker 1: and had a little We had a dust in the

1606
01:32:08,000 --> 01:32:10,320
Speaker 1: snow the night before and it was in it. I

1607
01:32:10,439 --> 01:32:14,240
Speaker 1: followed it down off this ridge and he rubbed on

1608
01:32:14,320 --> 01:32:16,760
Speaker 1: a brown ash and there was shavings there and they

1609
01:32:16,760 --> 01:32:21,000
Speaker 1: had that dusting, and the way it was headed, I'm like,

1610
01:32:22,000 --> 01:32:25,439
Speaker 1: it wasn't like headed like into any big real back

1611
01:32:26,240 --> 01:32:29,000
Speaker 1: in any bad place. I said, I'm gonna follow this thing.

1612
01:32:30,120 --> 01:32:31,720
Speaker 1: I might be able to catch him, even though it

1613
01:32:31,760 --> 01:32:36,639
Speaker 1: was eleven, you know, And I didn't go. Probably from

1614
01:32:36,640 --> 01:32:38,680
Speaker 1: where I picked that track up, I don't know, as

1615
01:32:38,720 --> 01:32:41,640
Speaker 1: I went much more than a half a mile. And

1616
01:32:41,680 --> 01:32:45,160
Speaker 1: he went in in this little knoll on this ridge

1617
01:32:45,160 --> 01:32:48,000
Speaker 1: and he laid down and he come back out and

1618
01:32:48,080 --> 01:32:51,200
Speaker 1: started down the ridge and he caught up to and

1619
01:32:51,320 --> 01:32:54,479
Speaker 1: I was three or four doors of the smaller buck

1620
01:32:54,560 --> 01:32:59,040
Speaker 1: following around, and he followed those tracks down over the ridge,

1621
01:32:59,040 --> 01:33:00,720
Speaker 1: and I could see where he caught up to him

1622
01:33:00,800 --> 01:33:03,080
Speaker 1: was written right in the snow. They all started running,

1623
01:33:03,720 --> 01:33:07,000
Speaker 1: and he started chasing them back up the ridge, and

1624
01:33:07,040 --> 01:33:11,360
Speaker 1: then they all started walking and they went along. He

1625
01:33:11,479 --> 01:33:14,000
Speaker 1: followed him for a few hundred yards, and then he

1626
01:33:14,080 --> 01:33:17,559
Speaker 1: turned right off and went right down along the top

1627
01:33:17,640 --> 01:33:21,320
Speaker 1: of the ridge and it got into a little bowl

1628
01:33:21,439 --> 01:33:23,760
Speaker 1: up in the ridge with some open hardwoods, and he

1629
01:33:23,800 --> 01:33:29,120
Speaker 1: started feeding there, and then he went across that and

1630
01:33:29,160 --> 01:33:33,880
Speaker 1: it went into an old cutting that was pretty slashy

1631
01:33:33,920 --> 01:33:36,320
Speaker 1: and thick, and he went in there, and I'm like,

1632
01:33:37,080 --> 01:33:40,519
Speaker 1: he's gonna be laying in there somewhere. So I told

1633
01:33:40,520 --> 01:33:43,080
Speaker 1: her to hang back a little bit, keep me out

1634
01:33:43,080 --> 01:33:45,960
Speaker 1: of sight, and I pushed my way in there. It

1635
01:33:46,040 --> 01:33:49,600
Speaker 1: was some little maple whips and stuff. But it was

1636
01:33:49,640 --> 01:33:51,519
Speaker 1: a windy day, like I was telling you about, you've

1637
01:33:51,560 --> 01:33:54,080
Speaker 1: got the wind to help you're out. And there was

1638
01:33:54,120 --> 01:33:56,800
Speaker 1: a few little leaves stuck on a little maples that

1639
01:33:56,840 --> 01:33:59,920
Speaker 1: were rattling in the wind. And I got my gun

1640
01:34:00,160 --> 01:34:02,120
Speaker 1: kind of ready, and I just one step at a

1641
01:34:02,200 --> 01:34:05,160
Speaker 1: time in there, and I don't know how far I

1642
01:34:05,200 --> 01:34:08,679
Speaker 1: went in not fire fifty yards maybe into that thicket,

1643
01:34:09,360 --> 01:34:13,360
Speaker 1: and I come to us a skit of trail where

1644
01:34:13,720 --> 01:34:15,719
Speaker 1: I could you know, there's an would be an opening.

1645
01:34:16,200 --> 01:34:18,719
Speaker 1: And I stuck my head out, looked down that skin

1646
01:34:18,760 --> 01:34:22,120
Speaker 1: of trail that's where his track turned, and he was

1647
01:34:22,200 --> 01:34:27,600
Speaker 1: laying in his bed, looking back over his shoulder at me.

1648
01:34:27,800 --> 01:34:30,280
Speaker 1: You know, he didn't recognize me. I don't know if

1649
01:34:30,280 --> 01:34:32,880
Speaker 1: he heard something and he turned his head, but he

1650
01:34:32,960 --> 01:34:36,080
Speaker 1: was laying facing the other way, which was odd. But anyways,

1651
01:34:37,160 --> 01:34:39,719
Speaker 1: I shot him right there, laying in his bed, tipped

1652
01:34:39,760 --> 01:34:44,400
Speaker 1: him right over right there. It was nineteen paces wow.

1653
01:34:45,400 --> 01:34:48,880
Speaker 1: So that was a two day old track. So you

1654
01:34:48,960 --> 01:34:51,960
Speaker 1: never know. Like I said, there's always a bucket the

1655
01:34:52,040 --> 01:34:54,479
Speaker 1: end of a track somewhere. If you if you get

1656
01:34:54,520 --> 01:34:59,960
Speaker 1: to the end of it right, what do you think

1657
01:35:00,240 --> 01:35:07,479
Speaker 1: there are any consistent traits or anything along those lines

1658
01:35:07,560 --> 01:35:11,160
Speaker 1: that make for a good big woods hunter. If you

1659
01:35:11,200 --> 01:35:13,960
Speaker 1: were to look at all the best big woods hunters

1660
01:35:14,000 --> 01:35:20,120
Speaker 1: that you know, do they have anything in common or anything's? Yeah,

1661
01:35:20,160 --> 01:35:26,120
Speaker 1: of course they do. It's the number one thing is persistence.

1662
01:35:27,200 --> 01:35:30,240
Speaker 1: You don't give up, you don't quit, you just keep going.

1663
01:35:30,680 --> 01:35:33,880
Speaker 1: You've gotta have the stamina, but you've got to be persistent.

1664
01:35:35,400 --> 01:35:38,280
Speaker 1: Too many people and that's just generally, that's a that's

1665
01:35:38,320 --> 01:35:44,400
Speaker 1: a that's a general human trait. You know, people, especially nowadays,

1666
01:35:45,640 --> 01:35:49,160
Speaker 1: they give up on everything too easy when things start

1667
01:35:49,160 --> 01:35:54,200
Speaker 1: getting a little difficult. You know, it's easy to quit, right,

1668
01:35:54,240 --> 01:35:57,040
Speaker 1: It's easy to give up on something. And I just

1669
01:35:57,080 --> 01:35:59,720
Speaker 1: think it's a human trait. But that's a that's the trait.

1670
01:36:00,000 --> 01:36:03,960
Speaker 1: It that that will kill a guy that wants to

1671
01:36:04,000 --> 01:36:06,200
Speaker 1: be a tracker. If you're gonna give up because of

1672
01:36:06,320 --> 01:36:09,920
Speaker 1: buck crossed the stream, he went up a steep hill,

1673
01:36:10,120 --> 01:36:13,200
Speaker 1: or he crossed the road, or I don't know, whatever

1674
01:36:13,240 --> 01:36:15,880
Speaker 1: it is. There's a lot of reasons you could give up.

1675
01:36:15,880 --> 01:36:17,920
Speaker 1: Oh you got into some other DIA tracks and you

1676
01:36:18,000 --> 01:36:21,360
Speaker 1: got tangled up and you couldn't figure it out. That's

1677
01:36:21,360 --> 01:36:23,719
Speaker 1: why people quit, you know, they just say it ain't

1678
01:36:24,560 --> 01:36:26,280
Speaker 1: it ain't worth it to him. So to me, it

1679
01:36:26,320 --> 01:36:29,479
Speaker 1: tells me the the prize at the end isn't worth

1680
01:36:29,520 --> 01:36:34,479
Speaker 1: it to them, so they won't be a tracker. If

1681
01:36:34,479 --> 01:36:38,080
Speaker 1: you're gonna be a tracker, it's all about that that prize,

1682
01:36:38,920 --> 01:36:41,679
Speaker 1: getting to the prize at the end and end killing

1683
01:36:41,720 --> 01:36:43,880
Speaker 1: them is just the end result, you know, it's not

1684
01:36:45,400 --> 01:36:49,320
Speaker 1: you know, that's not why we track. Really, you know

1685
01:36:49,360 --> 01:36:50,960
Speaker 1: if I had to go kill a buck. I've been

1686
01:36:51,000 --> 01:36:53,920
Speaker 1: invited a hundred times to all those places in the Midwest.

1687
01:36:54,880 --> 01:36:58,719
Speaker 1: Clients invited me to, you know, Kansas and all those places,

1688
01:36:58,760 --> 01:37:01,000
Speaker 1: and I just wouldn't go because I knew I didn't.

1689
01:37:01,000 --> 01:37:04,240
Speaker 1: I wouldn't enjoy myself trying to sit in a stand

1690
01:37:04,240 --> 01:37:07,120
Speaker 1: to something and I think, out the buck I wanted.

1691
01:37:07,160 --> 01:37:09,920
Speaker 1: That's to me, that's not a it's not a hunt

1692
01:37:09,960 --> 01:37:12,320
Speaker 1: for me. If I'm not saying it's not a hunt,

1693
01:37:12,320 --> 01:37:16,639
Speaker 1: but for me it's not. I'm more into like trying

1694
01:37:16,680 --> 01:37:19,320
Speaker 1: to outsmart one beat him on his own turf, you know.

1695
01:37:20,600 --> 01:37:23,599
Speaker 1: And I think you would find that that's really what

1696
01:37:25,439 --> 01:37:29,840
Speaker 1: keeps any track of going, is that prize at the end.

1697
01:37:29,880 --> 01:37:32,240
Speaker 1: It's it's going to be worth it for him, you know,

1698
01:37:32,280 --> 01:37:35,439
Speaker 1: it's a it's a big accomplishment. I I tell the

1699
01:37:35,479 --> 01:37:40,280
Speaker 1: new people that start tracking, don't start out tracking the

1700
01:37:40,320 --> 01:37:43,599
Speaker 1: biggest track in the woods you can find, because if

1701
01:37:43,640 --> 01:37:48,400
Speaker 1: that's where you start, you're gonna have a lot of

1702
01:37:48,479 --> 01:37:50,719
Speaker 1: lessons to learn. You're gonna have a lot of failure

1703
01:37:50,720 --> 01:37:54,680
Speaker 1: because those are the hard ones to kill. I just

1704
01:37:54,760 --> 01:37:57,720
Speaker 1: tell him to to track something. Find a track in

1705
01:37:57,720 --> 01:38:00,920
Speaker 1: the woods, and follow it and see what it is.

1706
01:38:01,880 --> 01:38:04,320
Speaker 1: If it's a doe, great, you just saw her dough.

1707
01:38:04,439 --> 01:38:07,559
Speaker 1: Now you know how that doe walked around and how

1708
01:38:07,600 --> 01:38:12,320
Speaker 1: she acted. If it's a spike horn buck, shoot it

1709
01:38:12,439 --> 01:38:15,280
Speaker 1: your first buck tracking. Next year you can look for

1710
01:38:15,320 --> 01:38:17,960
Speaker 1: a bigger one, you know. That's all part of getting

1711
01:38:17,960 --> 01:38:21,640
Speaker 1: the experience of it, if you just try to go

1712
01:38:21,760 --> 01:38:25,720
Speaker 1: after those biggest ones, which I was guilty of when

1713
01:38:25,720 --> 01:38:28,280
Speaker 1: I first started up north. That's all I wanted was

1714
01:38:28,320 --> 01:38:31,479
Speaker 1: one of them big bucks. You know. So when when

1715
01:38:31,560 --> 01:38:35,599
Speaker 1: I was fortunate enough to have snow, which like I said,

1716
01:38:35,640 --> 01:38:37,479
Speaker 1: I didn't back in those US, and I had my

1717
01:38:37,560 --> 01:38:40,759
Speaker 1: lobster and business, I couldn't go as much. I didn't

1718
01:38:40,760 --> 01:38:43,800
Speaker 1: have a lot of days every year with snow, but

1719
01:38:43,880 --> 01:38:48,640
Speaker 1: I always would find the biggest track I could find. Consequently,

1720
01:38:49,640 --> 01:38:53,160
Speaker 1: between that and not heaving a lot of time, it

1721
01:38:53,280 --> 01:38:56,120
Speaker 1: was I was seven years to tell people. Listen now,

1722
01:38:56,200 --> 01:38:58,680
Speaker 1: people who find it hard to believe, it took me

1723
01:38:58,760 --> 01:39:01,280
Speaker 1: seven years to kill my first buck track and once

1724
01:39:01,320 --> 01:39:07,479
Speaker 1: I started, Wow, but I never gave up. I never

1725
01:39:07,520 --> 01:39:11,200
Speaker 1: thought anything of that. I never thought it was I

1726
01:39:11,280 --> 01:39:13,680
Speaker 1: never thought I was failing at it or anything. I

1727
01:39:13,760 --> 01:39:17,040
Speaker 1: was learning all the time I learned what they do,

1728
01:39:17,240 --> 01:39:19,840
Speaker 1: I chase them around. That's when I that's when I

1729
01:39:19,880 --> 01:39:22,280
Speaker 1: figured out, you know how to you know that I

1730
01:39:22,320 --> 01:39:26,519
Speaker 1: needed to wait a half an hour. But once I

1731
01:39:26,600 --> 01:39:32,000
Speaker 1: shot that first one tracking, it was like clockwork. Every year,

1732
01:39:32,880 --> 01:39:35,280
Speaker 1: year after year after year after year from then on

1733
01:39:37,840 --> 01:39:40,720
Speaker 1: something I had to put this seven years. And I

1734
01:39:40,800 --> 01:39:44,240
Speaker 1: try to help people now not have to go through

1735
01:39:44,280 --> 01:39:49,200
Speaker 1: the seven years by teaching them some things. But I

1736
01:39:49,240 --> 01:39:52,240
Speaker 1: hope it's not easy for everybody. Yet they go and

1737
01:39:52,280 --> 01:39:54,559
Speaker 1: I've heard stories of guys tell me the first time

1738
01:39:54,600 --> 01:39:57,560
Speaker 1: they went out to track something, They're walking along and

1739
01:39:57,600 --> 01:39:59,799
Speaker 1: the bucks and stand there looking at and all that stuff.

1740
01:39:59,840 --> 01:40:02,000
Speaker 1: Never it happens to me. I don't know why it

1741
01:40:02,080 --> 01:40:05,640
Speaker 1: happens to Some people are just lucky, you know, But

1742
01:40:05,640 --> 01:40:09,960
Speaker 1: but that luck doesn't stay. You've gotta have the fundamentals

1743
01:40:10,000 --> 01:40:14,400
Speaker 1: and keep at it. And part of that, I guess

1744
01:40:14,960 --> 01:40:18,160
Speaker 1: what came of that, all of that stuff through guiding

1745
01:40:19,320 --> 01:40:23,920
Speaker 1: and all of the stuff over the ears, several people

1746
01:40:24,040 --> 01:40:26,680
Speaker 1: came to me and said, you know, you really have

1747
01:40:26,840 --> 01:40:31,679
Speaker 1: a system of what you do. And I thought about that,

1748
01:40:31,920 --> 01:40:35,000
Speaker 1: and it came from several different people that didn't even

1749
01:40:35,000 --> 01:40:39,080
Speaker 1: know each other. And I got thinking about it, and

1750
01:40:39,080 --> 01:40:43,120
Speaker 1: they were actually right. What I do is a system.

1751
01:40:43,200 --> 01:40:46,720
Speaker 1: Not that I do everything exactly the same every day,

1752
01:40:46,760 --> 01:40:50,200
Speaker 1: but I have a system. From what I wear, what

1753
01:40:50,320 --> 01:40:55,720
Speaker 1: I do, to how I dress. Everything is a system

1754
01:40:55,760 --> 01:40:57,960
Speaker 1: because it's easy. If you have a system, you don't

1755
01:40:57,960 --> 01:41:00,400
Speaker 1: have to think about, well, what am I gonna weigh today?

1756
01:41:00,640 --> 01:41:03,000
Speaker 1: What am I gonna you know, there's there's nothing else

1757
01:41:03,040 --> 01:41:06,840
Speaker 1: to think about. You just follow the system. So that's

1758
01:41:06,840 --> 01:41:10,000
Speaker 1: what in this new book I wrote this past year,

1759
01:41:10,400 --> 01:41:13,439
Speaker 1: which is a story book of twenty five of my

1760
01:41:13,520 --> 01:41:16,200
Speaker 1: bucks I shot tracking up here. We're not just here

1761
01:41:16,240 --> 01:41:19,160
Speaker 1: but wherever. I just started some way. I started with

1762
01:41:19,760 --> 01:41:23,320
Speaker 1: my first tracking buck and I wrote twenty five stories.

1763
01:41:23,360 --> 01:41:26,679
Speaker 1: But the first chapter in it is all about that

1764
01:41:26,840 --> 01:41:32,000
Speaker 1: system I developed from learning how to navigate the map

1765
01:41:32,040 --> 01:41:38,680
Speaker 1: and compass, learning those skills, clothing, everything, everything is a system.

1766
01:41:38,760 --> 01:41:42,000
Speaker 1: And if you follow that, it'll be easier for you,

1767
01:41:42,000 --> 01:41:44,719
Speaker 1: you know, like you don't have to reinvent the wheel.

1768
01:41:45,160 --> 01:41:48,040
Speaker 1: And I tell people put your own personality in the system.

1769
01:41:48,080 --> 01:41:50,880
Speaker 1: Don't don't try to be a clone of me, because

1770
01:41:50,880 --> 01:41:55,639
Speaker 1: that will be painful. But it's a it's a it's

1771
01:41:55,720 --> 01:41:58,160
Speaker 1: kind of a guideline is what I'd say, because everybody

1772
01:41:58,560 --> 01:42:02,639
Speaker 1: gonna address a little different Those bodies regulate heat differently

1773
01:42:02,680 --> 01:42:06,519
Speaker 1: and stuff. You know. Mm hm. Is there anything uh

1774
01:42:06,960 --> 01:42:10,160
Speaker 1: important that we haven't touched on when it comes to

1775
01:42:10,200 --> 01:42:14,639
Speaker 1: your system? Any important? Other strategies or things to think about.

1776
01:42:14,640 --> 01:42:16,679
Speaker 1: Are things that you do during the day or through

1777
01:42:16,680 --> 01:42:22,360
Speaker 1: the course of the season that we haven't covered, uh,

1778
01:42:22,400 --> 01:42:24,960
Speaker 1: not too much. I would just tell people, don't think

1779
01:42:25,000 --> 01:42:31,640
Speaker 1: you gotta um, don't get over analytical people people get uh.

1780
01:42:32,000 --> 01:42:36,559
Speaker 1: I call it analysis paralysis because a lot of people

1781
01:42:36,640 --> 01:42:40,400
Speaker 1: read this stuff, you know, they read either my articles

1782
01:42:40,680 --> 01:42:43,479
Speaker 1: or somebody else's whoever else's right side, I don't know,

1783
01:42:43,960 --> 01:42:46,439
Speaker 1: but they read all this stuff and maybe they've watched

1784
01:42:46,439 --> 01:42:51,920
Speaker 1: some DVDs on it, daught films, and they get so

1785
01:42:52,120 --> 01:42:55,960
Speaker 1: much information in their head that they cannot make the

1786
01:42:56,040 --> 01:42:59,080
Speaker 1: right decision because they've gotta they gotta there's so many

1787
01:42:59,120 --> 01:43:04,000
Speaker 1: things to sort through. I just tell people, don't don't

1788
01:43:04,080 --> 01:43:07,360
Speaker 1: be like that, don't worry about it. Just pick something

1789
01:43:08,000 --> 01:43:11,440
Speaker 1: because there'll be a hundred decisions to make every day.

1790
01:43:11,640 --> 01:43:15,240
Speaker 1: And if you if you have to try to over analyze,

1791
01:43:15,240 --> 01:43:18,040
Speaker 1: which one you're gonna pick? And then if it's the

1792
01:43:18,080 --> 01:43:20,920
Speaker 1: wrong one. You think you failed at it. Don't do that.

1793
01:43:21,720 --> 01:43:25,200
Speaker 1: Pick something and go because you're gonna learn every day

1794
01:43:25,200 --> 01:43:27,280
Speaker 1: on the track. You're gonna learn what worked and what

1795
01:43:27,400 --> 01:43:30,760
Speaker 1: didn't work, and what works one day might not work

1796
01:43:30,800 --> 01:43:34,240
Speaker 1: the next. It doesn't work all the time. But you've

1797
01:43:34,240 --> 01:43:38,240
Speaker 1: got to go enough. If you I'm telling anybody, if

1798
01:43:38,320 --> 01:43:41,519
Speaker 1: you follow a deer track, a buck track long enough,

1799
01:43:44,360 --> 01:43:46,880
Speaker 1: day after day, year after year, I don't care how

1800
01:43:46,920 --> 01:43:50,640
Speaker 1: long it takes, the law of averages is going to

1801
01:43:50,720 --> 01:43:54,120
Speaker 1: catch up to you. It has to, because it's all

1802
01:43:54,160 --> 01:43:56,759
Speaker 1: about catching up to a buck in the right place

1803
01:43:58,080 --> 01:44:02,080
Speaker 1: at the right time in the woods. That's all. That's

1804
01:44:02,120 --> 01:44:06,080
Speaker 1: all killing a buck is. I've gone days and days

1805
01:44:06,120 --> 01:44:09,559
Speaker 1: that I was five minutes late or two minutes earlier

1806
01:44:10,360 --> 01:44:14,320
Speaker 1: my time, and was off in another time. You go

1807
01:44:14,360 --> 01:44:16,519
Speaker 1: out in the next day and your time is perfect.

1808
01:44:16,600 --> 01:44:18,479
Speaker 1: You step up over us and old and you look

1809
01:44:18,520 --> 01:44:22,200
Speaker 1: down the other side the bucks right there. It's all timing.

1810
01:44:22,720 --> 01:44:24,280
Speaker 1: You've got to catch up to him at the right

1811
01:44:24,320 --> 01:44:27,920
Speaker 1: place to be able to to to be able to

1812
01:44:27,960 --> 01:44:33,960
Speaker 1: kill him. I'll tell you what I um. I'm really

1813
01:44:34,280 --> 01:44:38,240
Speaker 1: interested in trying to do this kind of hunting. You know,

1814
01:44:38,280 --> 01:44:41,040
Speaker 1: the more I've read about it and listen to people

1815
01:44:41,080 --> 01:44:45,160
Speaker 1: tell stories like you, it's definitely it definitely seems like

1816
01:44:45,200 --> 01:44:48,040
Speaker 1: a good time and a nice change of pace from

1817
01:44:48,080 --> 01:44:50,800
Speaker 1: sitting in a tree all the time. So um, I'm

1818
01:44:50,800 --> 01:44:55,479
Speaker 1: thinking that my Northern Michigan rifle hunting this year might

1819
01:44:55,520 --> 01:44:59,680
Speaker 1: be more tracking and less sitting. So very helpful stuff. Hell,

1820
01:44:59,800 --> 01:45:04,400
Speaker 1: I really appreciate sharing this with us. And if people

1821
01:45:04,479 --> 01:45:06,439
Speaker 1: want to learn more, if people want you out your

1822
01:45:06,479 --> 01:45:09,240
Speaker 1: books or your website or all the different stuff you've

1823
01:45:09,280 --> 01:45:13,320
Speaker 1: got going on, where can they find that. They can

1824
01:45:13,360 --> 01:45:16,840
Speaker 1: find everything at bigwoods bucks dot com. It's pretty simple.

1825
01:45:17,439 --> 01:45:21,160
Speaker 1: If they want to contact me my emails there, uh

1826
01:45:22,439 --> 01:45:27,040
Speaker 1: Bigwoods Bucks. I've assembled a team of guys that I

1827
01:45:27,120 --> 01:45:30,599
Speaker 1: did that because I knew everybody wouldn't relate to me,

1828
01:45:30,920 --> 01:45:35,200
Speaker 1: you know, the way I on exactly. You know, because

1829
01:45:35,240 --> 01:45:37,240
Speaker 1: I know a lot of guys that I'm doing seminars.

1830
01:45:37,240 --> 01:45:39,519
Speaker 1: They look at me and I'm I'm tall and lanky,

1831
01:45:39,560 --> 01:45:41,600
Speaker 1: you know, and and they go, I don't think I

1832
01:45:41,600 --> 01:45:43,120
Speaker 1: could keep up with him, and I don't think I

1833
01:45:43,120 --> 01:45:45,599
Speaker 1: could go that fast. Well you don't have to. So

1834
01:45:45,640 --> 01:45:48,160
Speaker 1: I got a bunch of guys that a good deal

1835
01:45:48,240 --> 01:45:51,000
Speaker 1: track is too, and good deal Hunters and they're on

1836
01:45:51,040 --> 01:45:53,360
Speaker 1: the team and they write articles and they do a

1837
01:45:53,360 --> 01:45:57,040
Speaker 1: lot of the same stuff, and so there's something there

1838
01:45:57,120 --> 01:46:01,280
Speaker 1: for everybody. So you can find some articles on the website.

1839
01:46:01,280 --> 01:46:05,000
Speaker 1: We're actually we're about the launch within the next week

1840
01:46:05,120 --> 01:46:09,240
Speaker 1: or so here a club side of the website, which

1841
01:46:09,320 --> 01:46:12,920
Speaker 1: is gonna give the hunters a forum to communicate with

1842
01:46:12,960 --> 01:46:16,640
Speaker 1: each other and ask questions and and ask questions of

1843
01:46:16,760 --> 01:46:19,320
Speaker 1: us and stuff, and there'll be a blog on the

1844
01:46:19,400 --> 01:46:23,479
Speaker 1: home page. We're revamping the whole thing. And then all

1845
01:46:23,600 --> 01:46:26,360
Speaker 1: of films, all the short films we produce, are gonna

1846
01:46:26,400 --> 01:46:29,280
Speaker 1: go into that club side and we're gonna chage like

1847
01:46:29,360 --> 01:46:31,439
Speaker 1: three bucks a month of thirty bucks a year for

1848
01:46:31,479 --> 01:46:36,120
Speaker 1: all that to pay for the editing. And then we'll

1849
01:46:36,160 --> 01:46:39,120
Speaker 1: start a podcast here coming right out, and that's probably

1850
01:46:39,160 --> 01:46:41,400
Speaker 1: gonna start within the next week or so too, and

1851
01:46:42,160 --> 01:46:45,120
Speaker 1: that you can find at the website. Actually that will

1852
01:46:45,160 --> 01:46:49,559
Speaker 1: be on iTunes whatever that is, because I don't do it,

1853
01:46:49,600 --> 01:46:53,880
Speaker 1: but I'm told you can get us on iTunes coming up.

1854
01:46:54,960 --> 01:46:58,080
Speaker 1: I'm sure you're on iTunes too, right, yep, that's the

1855
01:46:58,080 --> 01:47:00,960
Speaker 1: place to be. So it's good. You'll have your podcast

1856
01:47:00,960 --> 01:47:04,559
Speaker 1: there too. Yeah, we also got if they get to

1857
01:47:04,600 --> 01:47:08,639
Speaker 1: the website, you know, besides books and DVDs and that stuff,

1858
01:47:09,240 --> 01:47:12,120
Speaker 1: we've got some other products that relate to the system.

1859
01:47:12,200 --> 01:47:16,640
Speaker 1: We We've got our own clothing line designed for tracking

1860
01:47:17,360 --> 01:47:20,920
Speaker 1: the track and jacket and pants and it's actually we

1861
01:47:21,240 --> 01:47:24,839
Speaker 1: had Silent Predator make it with wool rids wool good stuff,

1862
01:47:24,840 --> 01:47:28,160
Speaker 1: so something they have for everybody, not just trackers, but

1863
01:47:28,200 --> 01:47:32,280
Speaker 1: any of the hunters that like to hunt in the

1864
01:47:32,320 --> 01:47:35,680
Speaker 1: big woods or anywhere and whatever. We're just trying to

1865
01:47:35,720 --> 01:47:40,360
Speaker 1: help people learn. Awesome. Well, I certainly think you achieved

1866
01:47:40,400 --> 01:47:43,479
Speaker 1: that goal at least today. Hell, I've learned a lot.

1867
01:47:43,560 --> 01:47:47,479
Speaker 1: I think I think everyone listening has to. So thank you,

1868
01:47:47,520 --> 01:47:49,840
Speaker 1: Hal for taking the time to do this. And I'm

1869
01:47:49,880 --> 01:47:52,880
Speaker 1: gonna I'm gonna hopefully send you a picture in about

1870
01:47:53,840 --> 01:47:57,040
Speaker 1: ten and a half months, maybe have my first big

1871
01:47:57,080 --> 01:48:00,639
Speaker 1: woods track and buck in in northern Michigan. So fingers

1872
01:48:00,640 --> 01:48:06,000
Speaker 1: crossed for that. You better send me a picture. I

1873
01:48:06,040 --> 01:48:10,799
Speaker 1: hope it happens alright, Hal, Thank you, And that's a wrap, folks,

1874
01:48:10,800 --> 01:48:14,840
Speaker 1: so hopefully enjoyed that one. Before we shut this completely down, though,

1875
01:48:14,880 --> 01:48:18,960
Speaker 1: I will just send out my usual ask, which is

1876
01:48:19,040 --> 01:48:20,840
Speaker 1: if you haven't yet, if you could go over to

1877
01:48:21,040 --> 01:48:24,240
Speaker 1: iTunes and leave us a rating or review. It is

1878
01:48:24,280 --> 01:48:27,200
Speaker 1: a very helpful thing for the podcast. It means a lot.

1879
01:48:27,400 --> 01:48:29,840
Speaker 1: We appreciate it, so if you can do that, it

1880
01:48:29,880 --> 01:48:33,960
Speaker 1: takes us thirty seconds. And otherwise, just want to thank

1881
01:48:33,960 --> 01:48:36,479
Speaker 1: our partners who helped make all of this possible. So

1882
01:48:36,560 --> 01:48:41,480
Speaker 1: big thanks to Gear Yetie Cooler's, Matthews Archery, Maven Optics,

1883
01:48:41,520 --> 01:48:44,880
Speaker 1: the White Tail Institute of North America, Trophy Ridge and

1884
01:48:45,040 --> 01:48:49,040
Speaker 1: hunt Terra Maps. And finally, thank you so much for

1885
01:48:49,040 --> 01:48:51,200
Speaker 1: taking the time to be with me today for tuning

1886
01:48:51,240 --> 01:48:54,400
Speaker 1: in hearing us b us about shed hunting, hearing us

1887
01:48:54,400 --> 01:48:57,360
Speaker 1: talk about big woes hunting. Thanks for being a part

1888
01:48:57,360 --> 01:49:01,920
Speaker 1: of it all, and until next time, stay Wired to Hunt.