Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt Podcast, your guide to
Speaker 1: the whitetail Woods, presented by First Light, creating proven versatile
Speaker 1: hunting apparel for the stand, saddle or blind. First Light
Speaker 1: Go Farther, Stay Longer, and now your host, Mark Kenyon,
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired.
Speaker 2: To Hunt Podcast.
Speaker 3: This week on the show, I'm joined by Whitetail Addictions
Speaker 3: team member Steve Pinkston to discuss the tried and true
Speaker 3: tactics that he's used to kill mature bucks.
Speaker 2: Over the last four full decades.
Speaker 3: All right, welcome back to another episode of the Wired
Speaker 3: to Hunt podcast, brought to you by First Light in
Speaker 3: their Camo for Conservation initiative, which sends a portion of
Speaker 3: every sale of First Light's whitetail gear and their spector
Speaker 3: cam Camo. A portion of every one of those sales
Speaker 3: is donated to the Nash Deer Association to aid in
Speaker 3: their mission to protect and conserve the future of deer
Speaker 3: and deer hunting well into the future. So that's something
Speaker 3: I'm pretty dang happy about. But I'm also happy about
Speaker 3: the fact that today we have an absolute great podcast
Speaker 3: for you, perfect for this end of October time period
Speaker 3: leading into the rut there's a lot of us that
Speaker 3: are still trying to kill our target bucks, and our
Speaker 3: guest today is an expert at this. I think that's
Speaker 3: the big thing that makes Steve Pingston our guests today
Speaker 3: stand out, is that he is a specialist at killing
Speaker 3: one or two mature bucks that he's set his sights
Speaker 3: on for the given year. He knows how to pattern him,
Speaker 3: he knows how to find them, he knows how to
Speaker 3: study all the little interesting things about them. So, whether
Speaker 3: you've got one individual deer, or maybe there's three or
Speaker 3: four of these different target bucks that you have over
Speaker 3: across a multitude of different permission properties or across the
Speaker 3: public land you hunt, or maybe you've got one big
Speaker 3: farm and there's just a handful of good deer and
Speaker 3: you're trying to figure this one out. Whether it's the
Speaker 3: end of October or November or right into the late season.
Speaker 3: Steve has ideas that can help you get it done
Speaker 3: right now. And Steve has been doing this for decades.
Speaker 3: He's not one of these young guns just figured this
Speaker 3: out in the last five to ten years, which you know,
Speaker 3: those folks can have good ideas too. But Steve killed
Speaker 3: his first specific mature bucks so the first time he
Speaker 3: had an individual deer he was trying to kill and
Speaker 3: figured him out and did it. He did that in
Speaker 3: nineteen eighty four, and he's been doing it ever since
Speaker 3: I was born in nineteen eighty seven. Steve has been
Speaker 3: doing this for more years than I've been alive. So
Speaker 3: I know that I can learn a lot from him.
Speaker 3: I'm pretty sure that you can too. And I'm very
Speaker 3: excited for our conversation today because we get into all
Speaker 3: the good stuff topics I've not heard him talk about
Speaker 3: anywhere else before. We dive deep into his general, high
Speaker 3: level kind of scouting process. He's he puts a strong
Speaker 3: emphasis on seeing things with his own eyes, So how
Speaker 3: he observes deer from afar, how he uses his glass,
Speaker 3: how he uses trail cameras, how he keeps track of
Speaker 3: all these things, organizes this information, analyzes this information, uses
Speaker 3: all of it to develop patterns or ideas how he
Speaker 3: can make a target strike on one of these deer.
Speaker 3: He's after we discuss all of that a whole lot more,
Speaker 3: and again, this is stuff that can help you right
Speaker 3: now in late October, but then also right.
Speaker 2: On through the year.
Speaker 3: So I'm very excited for us to get into it.
Speaker 3: I will not be labor the point too much longer.
Speaker 3: Just want to give you a couple very quick heads
Speaker 3: ups and pointers. Number one, if you haven't seen my
Speaker 3: film about the Hunt for the Wide nine, going over
Speaker 3: to the med Eater YouTube channel and to keep on
Speaker 3: bugging you about that one, it's called the four Year
Speaker 3: Hunt for the Wide Nine. Very proud of it, hope
Speaker 3: you enjoy it. Number two, I want to let you
Speaker 3: know that, in addition to this podcast, hopefully you are
Speaker 3: aware that they're many other shows across the meat Eater
Speaker 3: network of podcasts that will probably be right up your alley.
Speaker 3: Of course, there's the other shows on the Wired to
Speaker 3: Hunt feed. We've got Foundations with Tony Peterson every Tuesday.
Speaker 3: He's giving you a quick kind of concentrated dose of
Speaker 3: info once a week, straight from the crazy mind of
Speaker 3: Tony Peterson. Every Wednesday, of course, we have our ret
Speaker 3: Fresh Radio with Casey and Tyler talking to guys all
Speaker 3: across the country getting the scoop on what's happening right
Speaker 3: now in the White Tail Woods. So definitely be listening
Speaker 3: to those. But then we've got a terrific conservation minded
Speaker 3: show over there on Kl's feed. You've got the Media
Speaker 3: to podcast, You've got Media to Trivia, You've got Cutting
Speaker 3: the Distance with Jason Phelps. You have, of course the
Speaker 3: Element podcast. You've got Oh gosh, I'm gonna be forgetting
Speaker 3: something here and I'm gonna feel bad for it. Of course,
Speaker 3: you can't forget Bear Grease and all the good stuff
Speaker 3: that Clay and Brenn are doing. So check out all
Speaker 3: the podcasts across the meator feed. Whether you want tactics
Speaker 3: and and ideas for how to kill deer other animals,
Speaker 3: or just some good stories, we've got something for whatever
Speaker 3: you're feeling.
Speaker 2: That said, let's get to the show.
Speaker 3: I do want to take note I did not mention
Speaker 3: this at the top, but what you should know about Steve,
Speaker 3: other than the fact that he's done this incredibly well
Speaker 3: over the years, is that he also is a member
Speaker 3: of the Whitetail Addictions crew, So you can watch some
Speaker 3: of his hunts over on the lone Wolf Custom Gear
Speaker 3: YouTube channel. So if you want to learn some more
Speaker 3: about Steve, you can check out some of his hunts there.
Speaker 3: And then also he runs hardcore e cycle so he
Speaker 3: has an e Byke company, you know, gearing towards hunters
Speaker 3: people like us, the kinds of products we need, the
Speaker 3: bikes we need, so check that out as well. So
Speaker 3: that's it for my intro. Let's get to my conversation
Speaker 3: today with mister Steve Pinkston. All right here with me
Speaker 3: now on the line is Steve Pinkston. Steve, thank you
Speaker 3: so much for being here.
Speaker 4: Thanks for having me. I've enjoyed listening to you for
Speaker 4: a few years here. It's fun to be a part.
Speaker 2: Of this man right back at you.
Speaker 3: I've gotten to listen to you on a couple shows,
Speaker 3: and I've heard a lot about you from our mutual friend.
Speaker 2: Justin and and that's maybe where I want to start.
Speaker 4: With that too loud.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he's he's trouble right, but but this is this
Speaker 3: is what Justin told me once, and this is a
Speaker 3: big reason why I want you to come on the
Speaker 3: show here today. He said, and I quote, Steve's ability
Speaker 3: to document and keep track of bucks is unlike any
Speaker 3: other person I know. Now, that's that's saying something coming
Speaker 3: from Justin Hollinsworth, one of the best deer hunters out
Speaker 3: there today. Do you feel that that is a strong point?
Speaker 3: Would you say that Justin is accurately describing your specialty.
Speaker 4: Well, that's definitely a fair statement. I'm obsessed with it.
Speaker 4: I'm sure my family would tell you something similar when
Speaker 4: it comes to that, without the understanding that Justin has.
Speaker 4: When it comes to the passion, my wife think some
Speaker 4: a nutcase sometimes, you know, laying in the beanfield and
Speaker 4: ninety degree heat and trying to slide up on one
Speaker 4: to get pictures and things like that. Yeah, I'd say
Speaker 4: that's an accurate statement. I mean, I don't know anybody
Speaker 4: quite as nutty as I am about it. But in
Speaker 4: the last ten years or so, that has been an
Speaker 4: evolved practice of mine to learn as much as I
Speaker 4: can about him, as often as I can about him.
Speaker 4: I spend a lot of time, take a lot of
Speaker 4: time away from the family, frankly, and spend that time
Speaker 4: studying and making a plan, always making a plan. So
Speaker 4: I hope that answers that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, In Krim, if I'm wrong here, but I think
Speaker 3: I heard you once say that the first deer that
Speaker 3: you specifically targeted, like an individual deer, figured him out
Speaker 3: and went after him. That was in the eighties, Is
Speaker 3: that right?
Speaker 4: There's nineteen eighty four. Actually, I killed that deer in
Speaker 4: November twenty second and it was a it was a
Speaker 4: it was frankly a defining moment for me when it
Speaker 4: comes to the direction that I was going to go
Speaker 4: with white tails, you know, and I can't stress to
Speaker 4: you how different it was then than what it is now.
Speaker 4: And you know, I made this comment to a couple
Speaker 4: of friends here a couple of days ago. Guys my age.
Speaker 4: You know, I feel like I'm a little bit jypped
Speaker 4: because the white tail era, so to speak, that's really great.
Speaker 4: I mean I didn't get to spend much time in it,
Speaker 4: so to speak. I mean, I'm I'm enjoying the daylights
Speaker 4: out of it now. But I got to tell you,
Speaker 4: the first twenty five years were different than where they
Speaker 4: are now, way different. You know, I could we could
Speaker 4: spend hours talking about that.
Speaker 3: So well, we'll tell me about that first buck, that
Speaker 3: kind of defining buck there in nineteen eighty four, that
Speaker 3: started it for you when it comes to killing a
Speaker 3: specific target buck. You didn't have fancy cell cameras back then,
Speaker 3: you didn't have e bikes back then, you didn't have
Speaker 3: any kind of predictive app Is there any of the
Speaker 3: fancy schmancy stuff we have now, how'd you kill that deer?
Speaker 4: Well, it was binoculars back then, a makeshift spotting scope.
Speaker 4: I will never forget. I rattled that deer in and
Speaker 4: in a real nasty thicket that I was hanging in,
Speaker 4: and and homemade tree stands that we'd welded up in
Speaker 4: a very close friend of mine shop, Jim Baty, as
Speaker 4: a matter of fact, he's a farmer that got us
Speaker 4: involved with that at the beginning. And I'll never forget.
Speaker 4: I beat those horns together. And there was a railroad
Speaker 4: track just to the to the south of me, and
Speaker 4: that deer came over top of that railroad tracks and
Speaker 4: I heard him hit the rocks, and I turned and
Speaker 4: I hung the rack, hung the antlers up, and I
Speaker 4: grabbed my bow and we shot fingers back in those days,
Speaker 4: and I turned. I'll never forget him come over top
Speaker 4: of that hill. That rack was just just chocolate looming.
Speaker 4: Matter of fact, he's hanging right there that anyway, and
Speaker 4: he came argin down and in the middle of this thicket.
Speaker 4: And I'll never forget. I had absolutely no shot at him.
Speaker 4: This is two years before I killed him, and I
Speaker 4: had no shot. There's no way in the world. I
Speaker 4: could get an arrow to him. I couldn't have got
Speaker 4: a bullet to him, I don't think, truthfully. But he
Speaker 4: sat there and he tore up a tree and just
Speaker 4: ripped it up. And I'm searching for a place to shoot,
Speaker 4: and I'm shaking like a leaf. I had killed a
Speaker 4: few deer before that, obviously, but nothing like this deer.
Speaker 4: It was just a giant to me. And he ended
Speaker 4: up getting away. He turned and walked straight away from me,
Speaker 4: and I got to tell you, Mark, I was hooked
Speaker 4: right then. It was. It was way done for me.
Speaker 4: I was that's the buck that I wanted to shoot.
Speaker 4: I ran traps back in those days, and I was
Speaker 4: quite a infatuated with trapping as well. I grew up
Speaker 4: Tom Randa and I grew up together. As a matter
Speaker 4: of fact, we grew up in the same elementary school,
Speaker 4: the same high school. We trapped together, and it was
Speaker 4: just infatuation with me, and it basically ended my infatuation
Speaker 4: with trapping and again a lifelong chase for white tails.
Speaker 3: So, so, how did you end up so you couldn't
Speaker 3: give him that year? He said, two years later, you
Speaker 3: ended up killing him. How did you end up closing
Speaker 3: the deal on.
Speaker 4: I had a close call with him the year after
Speaker 4: that and in a in an early set in the beans,
Speaker 4: and I didn't get a shot at him. The following
Speaker 4: year after that, I had set a one of my
Speaker 4: homemade tree stands up in a tree line that was
Speaker 4: bordered by corn and beans, and it was November twenty second.
Speaker 4: I was getting late, and we didn't know a whole
Speaker 4: lot back then. I had had lots of conversations with
Speaker 4: you know what I would call a local legend in
Speaker 4: the business, Roger Rothar, a long time friend back then,
Speaker 4: and he basically said, you just got to stay after him.
Speaker 4: You know, you just got to stay after him. So
Speaker 4: I was out every chance I could get. I paid
Speaker 4: as much attention to win that I could understand then.
Speaker 4: But I was literally sitting in that tree stand, in
Speaker 4: that tree line, in a naked tree line, with a
Speaker 4: standing corp core cornfield on the other side of me,
Speaker 4: and I shot an no nighty eagle back in those
Speaker 4: days with fingers and I'll just never forget the moment
Speaker 4: with it. I looked up and he was traveling down
Speaker 4: the tree line straight to me, about ten yards away
Speaker 4: on the other side of the tree line, and I
Speaker 4: had just enough time to pull that bow off, get
Speaker 4: the fingers on draw and send that roth arsnoff for
Speaker 4: right through him, and he went about sixty yards down
Speaker 4: the tree line and folded up. I didn't know that
Speaker 4: at the time, but that that was just it's a memory.
Speaker 4: It's one of those memories that you just never forget.
Speaker 4: It was very impacting as far as the future for me.
Speaker 4: It also set me up to chase specific deer, you know,
Speaker 4: And I was practicing back then what I tell guys
Speaker 4: not to do now. I mean, you know, don't go
Speaker 4: targeting one specific buck until you've you know, killed a
Speaker 4: bunch of them. Go have some fun, Have guys stop
Speaker 4: in the shop here all the time and show me
Speaker 4: deer this day passed. I'm like, how many of you
Speaker 4: killed like that? You know? Well I haven't. Why don't
Speaker 4: you kill a few before you just start passing them
Speaker 4: for crime. But it was definitely a life changing but
Speaker 4: not for me truthfully.
Speaker 3: So what was true back then in the eighties or
Speaker 3: nineties when it came to what you needed to do
Speaker 3: to kill big deer?
Speaker 2: That's still true today?
Speaker 4: Well, the work, for sure, there's no doubt that if
Speaker 4: you put the time in. I mean, I tell people
Speaker 4: all the time, this isn't rocket science. It's killing deer.
Speaker 4: It's not caring cancer. You know, it's it's it's killing deer.
Speaker 4: If you spend the time to understand their social aspects,
Speaker 4: try to figure them out, you know, versus just walking
Speaker 4: out hanging a tree, stand in a random spot. It
Speaker 4: becomes more fun and more focused. But that's that's the
Speaker 4: real difference. A lot of guys that they just they
Speaker 4: go hunting, and you know, they don't necessarily have the
Speaker 4: results they want because they don't don't have time or
Speaker 4: they don't have the drive to put the work in.
Speaker 4: But the work is is definitely the same and some
Speaker 4: other items that are the same. As deer love the
Speaker 4: bean fields back then, they still love them today and
Speaker 4: that's where you can learn a lot about them. Obviously,
Speaker 4: crops are a very important part of what they do. Acorns,
Speaker 4: all those things have not changed.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 4: What has changed in our area is you know, baiting
Speaker 4: has become a very large topic. And it's it's you know,
Speaker 4: you take it or leave it, so to speak, as
Speaker 4: far as that's concerned. But it's a huge factor here
Speaker 4: and it's definitely changed what we do. We'd never there
Speaker 4: was no such thing as that back in the eighties
Speaker 4: and the nineties, even in the early two thousands, there
Speaker 4: was nothing in reference to bating. Now you've got you've
Speaker 4: got corn stations everywhere. I mean, guys can pull up
Speaker 4: with their pickup truck and load their truck with a
Speaker 4: you know, with a load of corn. I mean, it's
Speaker 4: it's a business. So if that ever changes, you know,
Speaker 4: that could, I'm sure that'll that'll have an impact on
Speaker 4: all of the hunting ability.
Speaker 2: How do you deal with that?
Speaker 3: So it sounds like you don't bait, right, so I do?
Speaker 2: How so how do you how do you battle that?
Speaker 3: I guess when you've got all these deer that are
Speaker 3: so focused on everybody else's bait piles all around you,
Speaker 3: but you don't have that, and you don't want to
Speaker 3: do that from a tactic standpoint, what do you have
Speaker 3: to do to to make it still work?
Speaker 4: I set up bait stations between where where other guys
Speaker 4: are setting them up and the you know, the main
Speaker 4: part of the farm. I do large food plots to
Speaker 4: try to hold deer and it does a very good job.
Speaker 4: But no matter what, the corn piles are going to
Speaker 4: get their attention sooner or later, and you're going to
Speaker 4: lose a deer there, here and there, and and that's
Speaker 4: just how it works most places. I've got pretty good
Speaker 4: relationships with the guys that are that are up on
Speaker 4: the borders and uh and they're you know, they shoot
Speaker 4: a deer, they call me and I, you know, help them,
Speaker 4: you know, the system and getting their deer. But it's
Speaker 4: definitely an issue. It definitely impacts the travel patterns. We
Speaker 4: never had to deal with that back in the day,
Speaker 4: and it's something you have to have to deal with.
Speaker 4: Cameras help me keep track as far as that's concerned,
Speaker 4: just like now I don't have a tag. Unfortunately, I've
Speaker 4: already taken my deer here here in Ohio and I'm
Speaker 4: still running, you know, twenty cameras, so trying to keep
Speaker 4: track of them taking pictures.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so that's a perfect segue to where I wanted
Speaker 3: to maybe go next, which was seeing if you could
Speaker 3: describe for us how you killed this buck this month already,
Speaker 3: and maybe that's a great example we can use to
Speaker 3: kind of pick apart how you learn these individual deer
Speaker 3: and plan a hunt for them. Could you get into
Speaker 3: the details of that one for us.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, this buck is really interesting, dear. I've known him
Speaker 4: for three seasons, and he lives in the area where
Speaker 4: I don't have access. He doesn't typically show up until November.
Speaker 4: He's just a gorgeous, really wide heavy I think he
Speaker 4: you know, and I'm speculating on age because I don't know,
Speaker 4: but I'm guessing him to be seven because I've known
Speaker 4: him for three seasons and he was a pretty darn
Speaker 4: good buck the first year. But anyway, I this past season,
Speaker 4: I got rewinded a little bit to shed season of
Speaker 4: last year I took. I took my deer early last year.
Speaker 4: I wasn't interested in this buck. I had another buck
Speaker 4: I was interested in. I was lucky to tag him
Speaker 4: early as well. Later on in the season when he
Speaker 4: made his move on to me. My neighbor and I
Speaker 4: actually have access to joining properties there, and this particular
Speaker 4: buck would cross from his property over to mine and
Speaker 4: I would start to get a few pictures of him.
Speaker 4: He turned out to be very cell cam shy. I
Speaker 4: can go into that here in a little bit. It's
Speaker 4: really interesting. Frankly, it was. It was It was a
Speaker 4: point about this, dear, that taught me a lot, but anyway,
Speaker 4: I wasn't looking for him the first part of the season.
Speaker 4: I had a buck that I had two deer that
Speaker 4: I was interested in early if I could get shots
Speaker 4: at them early. One was the one that Justin just tagged.
Speaker 4: As a matter of fact, I had gotten a pretty
Speaker 4: good look at that deer and I had made a
Speaker 4: move to kill that deer when this particular book showed up,
Speaker 4: and it was very unusual for him to show up
Speaker 4: where he showed up this early. He literally stood in
Speaker 4: front of the camera at eight thirty last Tuesday morning,
Speaker 4: and the moment I got to picture, I said, Wow,
Speaker 4: he's in real trouble. He's in real trouble because the area,
Speaker 4: the access that I have there is relatively small, but
Speaker 4: it's a great travel corridor between Betting and the Beans.
Speaker 4: And all I had to do was get in there
Speaker 4: and get my rigs set up, and I was odds
Speaker 4: were pretty good that I'd get a look at him.
Speaker 4: So I even chuckled about that Justin's probably going to
Speaker 4: take a breath, because I was pretty beamed in on
Speaker 4: the other deer. As a matter of fact, I gave
Speaker 4: him a couple ideas on where to set up on
Speaker 4: the deer, and he ended up tagging that deer, which
Speaker 4: is good for him. But this afternoon, I rolled in
Speaker 4: there about one thirty and very carefully hung my stand.
Speaker 4: And I'm not as fluid hunting or you know, putting
Speaker 4: the stands up these days. I used to take a
Speaker 4: lot of pride and just make it one single trip
Speaker 4: up the tree. I'm a little older guy these days,
Speaker 4: and it's just not as easy. It took me a
Speaker 4: few trips to get the stand set, and uh, I
Speaker 4: as long as I got the stand set, I was
Speaker 4: going to be okay with him. I knew it because
Speaker 4: either didn't have to go past me to get to
Speaker 4: the beans or to get to any kind of food source.
Speaker 4: The camera that I had set up there was on
Speaker 4: a trophy rock, and uh, he literally took I got
Speaker 4: two pictures of him, and I knew I wasn't going
Speaker 4: to get any more pictures of him because he was
Speaker 4: so self camera shy. But anyway, about four o'clock that afternoon,
Speaker 4: I literally watched him stand up. I was that close
Speaker 4: to him. I watched him stand up and I turned him,
Speaker 4: I turned, got the camera on, and he closed the
Speaker 4: distance to me, you know, pretty quick, and I was
Speaker 4: able to put put a good shot on him and
Speaker 4: watch him go down and uh and that was it
Speaker 4: that I mean, I was just it was that fast.
Speaker 4: I mean we literally it was one set up and
Speaker 4: getting it done. Last year, this particular deer would show
Speaker 4: up on my neighbor's camera, who does not use cell cameras,
Speaker 4: uses just regular card cameras. I got to set this
Speaker 4: up for remark, because it's really interesting. My neighbor, Clint's
Speaker 4: great deer hunter and I've killed a lot of deer
Speaker 4: together over the years. But Clint's a smoker. He smokes
Speaker 4: a lot, okay, And this was a card camera, and
Speaker 4: we're talking about February, okay, where the deer are getting
Speaker 4: ready to lose their antlers. Clint is checking that camera
Speaker 4: every single day. He's walking in there every single day
Speaker 4: pulling that card. Okay. He'd run over here to the
Speaker 4: office and we'd look at it here sometimes sure, you'd
Speaker 4: take it home or whatever. I had. I had moved
Speaker 4: my cell cameras four different times on the property that
Speaker 4: I had access, and my access had the betting area
Speaker 4: and food. Clint's had a corn pile, okay, and it
Speaker 4: was just it was driving me crazy that deer would
Speaker 4: show up for my camera one or two pictures and
Speaker 4: I wouldn't get him again. So I'd moved the camera
Speaker 4: and he'd show up for one or two pictures, going
Speaker 4: past it never see him again. I finally got I said, Clint,
Speaker 4: I think this deer's got an issue with cell cameras.
Speaker 4: I said, I'm going to move right next to your
Speaker 4: corn pile if you don't mind, I said, I'm gonna
Speaker 4: come over to your property. I'm gonna put a cell
Speaker 4: camera up there. He said, I don't care. So I
Speaker 4: literally put this can I swear mark, I'm hu exaggerating
Speaker 4: seventy five yards away from Clint's corn pile camera. That's
Speaker 4: a card camera that my smoking best friend is walking
Speaker 4: right into every single day pulling the card. Okay, and
Speaker 4: the first picture I get on this camera is this
Speaker 4: big deer, and I never get another picture of him again.
Speaker 4: I'm like, what in the world is going on with
Speaker 4: this deer? It says absolutely, it drove me nuts. But then,
Speaker 4: to make matters worse, two weeks after that, he shed
Speaker 4: one antler and we get a picture of him well
Speaker 4: on Clint's camera with one antler. Okay, two hours later
Speaker 4: we get a picture of him again, and the next
Speaker 4: day he's got new antlers. So these handlers have to
Speaker 4: be somewhere close. Clint went one way with his daughter.
Speaker 4: I took my property, and with that way, I put
Speaker 4: twenty four logged miles on Onyx and I never found
Speaker 4: either one of those antlers, and neither today and to
Speaker 4: this day we don't. And I don't know where that
Speaker 4: deer shed. Just an interesting buck. But but the phenomena
Speaker 4: of cell cameras, I believe, is becoming something that is
Speaker 4: that's going to be impacting pretty soon. I think, I
Speaker 4: don't know if it's genetically, they're starting to pass down
Speaker 4: that you know, there's whatever that whatever's bothered them, the
Speaker 4: cell waves. Andre and I Andrea cost I've had this
Speaker 4: conversation many times. He's a firm believer that that cell
Speaker 4: cameras put off something that that some deer you know,
Speaker 4: don't care for.
Speaker 5: And I'm I'm only I'm a total believer at this point.
Speaker 2: Interesting.
Speaker 3: Interesting, So you know this year it was a one
Speaker 3: hunt and you went in and you killed him because
Speaker 3: he showed you he was there earlier than usual. Was
Speaker 3: there anything from the previous two seasons with him that
Speaker 3: gave you the information you needed or that helped it all.
Speaker 4: This year, everything the information that learned about this year
Speaker 4: in the last three seasons is what got him shocked.
Speaker 2: So can you.
Speaker 3: Describe those key things that ended up being the puzzle
Speaker 3: pieces that mattered this year?
Speaker 4: Sure, the vetting area that he ended up using that
Speaker 4: day was a betting area that he developed a liking
Speaker 4: to because it's really really tight in there. You couldn't
Speaker 4: approach him from any direction, okay without a perfect wind.
Speaker 4: I had to have a northwest wind to do anything
Speaker 4: with that deer in that location. And when the morning
Speaker 4: he showed up there, he's not going anywhere From eight
Speaker 4: thirty in the morning, it's well daylight for two hours,
Speaker 4: and he's not about to get out of there. He's
Speaker 4: not the kind of buck. He's seven year old deer.
Speaker 4: He's not going to go walking across the wide open
Speaker 4: to go back to his betting area. So I knew
Speaker 4: he would be there, But that comes from watching him
Speaker 4: for the last three years. I have pictures of him
Speaker 4: in both the beanfields. This little betting area is kind
Speaker 4: of a triangular funnel between two beanfields and last year,
Speaker 4: it got a little more complicated because the area got
Speaker 4: developed between my neighbor Clint's property and mine, so there
Speaker 4: was a break there in the cover. He had to
Speaker 4: get there another way, So I ended up figuring out
Speaker 4: that he was coming on the other side of the road.
Speaker 4: He would come up and then cross the road at
Speaker 4: night to get in where I'm at. And whenever he'd
Speaker 4: show up where I'm at, he's going to be there
Speaker 4: for the day because he's not moving through there any
Speaker 4: other way. But it was food and bedding that moved
Speaker 4: him here and to where I killed him. Only only
Speaker 4: whenever the food and bedding where he was living was
Speaker 4: either pressured because it was a it was a base
Speaker 4: camp leasing piece of property that he was on, and
Speaker 4: those guys there were a couple of guys from Michigan
Speaker 4: that were hunting it, and when when I noticed their
Speaker 4: trailer showing up, this book would show up someplace else,
Speaker 4: you know, where I could see him. But I could
Speaker 4: take his picture in the summertime and follow him in
Speaker 4: the summertime to know where he lived, and then developed
Speaker 4: a pattern as to where he was going to go to.
Speaker 4: As November approached this year, he just made the move
Speaker 4: really early in October. Now, who knows if he stayed
Speaker 4: there and not. He just didn't get a chance to
Speaker 4: because I was in a situation where I could react,
Speaker 4: which is pretty much my game plan.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 3: A lot of folks would point to summer behavior and say, well,
Speaker 3: that's not very relevant once you get later into October,
Speaker 3: because a lot of these deer shift home ranges, they're
Speaker 3: on different food sources, their bachelor groups have broken up,
Speaker 3: et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 4: That's right.
Speaker 2: How do you take.
Speaker 3: Info that you picked up in the summer from watching
Speaker 3: these deer feeding in the summer evenings? How and how
Speaker 3: much of that and how do you make that useful
Speaker 3: even in October or November.
Speaker 4: Well, with me, in my situation, I watch that transition happen.
Speaker 4: I'm literally, I don't this is not something I start
Speaker 4: in October. I'm literally in the bean deals when they
Speaker 4: start to get this tall and the deer start to
Speaker 4: love them. I'm starting to watch them then, and I'm
Speaker 4: watching where they're coming from. I'm paying close attention on
Speaker 4: a daily basis, and if not on a daily basis,
Speaker 4: at least every three or four or five days. I mean,
Speaker 4: I run a lot of times with the camera. I mean,
Speaker 4: I take pictures. I love to take pictures, and it's
Speaker 4: become a real infatuation with me. But that will allow
Speaker 4: me to keep track of the deer. And that's in
Speaker 4: that the last five or six bucks that I've killed
Speaker 4: over the last couple of years has been has been
Speaker 4: because of that. I mean, I literally have a file
Speaker 4: that I keep on the different tier that I think
Speaker 4: I may have an interest in, and by the end
Speaker 4: of the end of the summer season, what I call
Speaker 4: velvet season, I'll pick what I'm going to chase. So
Speaker 4: this particular year was was good, one of the better
Speaker 4: years in the past five or six years. Frankly, I
Speaker 4: had three bucks I was interested in, right.
Speaker 3: And so then you can how long do you continue
Speaker 3: this almost every night long distance glass and that keeps
Speaker 3: on going right through September up until the season starts, right,
Speaker 3: and then and then A is that correct? And then
Speaker 3: B when the season opens? Are you continuing to just
Speaker 3: keep on doing that until you get these little moments
Speaker 3: where you realize I can strike or how do you
Speaker 3: approach that?
Speaker 4: Well, that's a great question. It's probably difficult to believe,
Speaker 4: but yes, it doesn't I'm on them all the time,
Speaker 4: afternoons and mornings when it gets closer, like we just
Speaker 4: had a real cold front come in. I don't have
Speaker 4: a tag, and I'm up this morning at daylight watching
Speaker 4: a beanfield that just recently got cut to see if
Speaker 4: there's one particular deer I have an interest in, and
Speaker 4: at this point is sheds. And I have a guest
Speaker 4: coming in later on the season that I might try
Speaker 4: to help to help them with as well. But no,
Speaker 4: it doesn't stop. And whenever I make a move and
Speaker 4: to hang a tree stand, I'm doing it for a
Speaker 4: different reason than what I did fifteen years ago. You know,
Speaker 4: fifteen years ago you hung a tree stand and you
Speaker 4: went in it and you were hoping you were going
Speaker 4: to see what you were after. I mean, I hang
Speaker 4: a tree stand now because I saw something the last
Speaker 4: couple of days, either with my camera personally with my
Speaker 4: camera or with a trail camera that tells me where
Speaker 4: I need to be. And I'm very focused on each
Speaker 4: move that I make when it comes to that, because
Speaker 4: the type of deer don't they don't tolerate a lot
Speaker 4: of pressure, so you have to be pretty precise. And
Speaker 4: I'm also dealing with a lot of deer. So most
Speaker 4: of the time I'm trying to put myself in a
Speaker 4: position where I'm going to get winded the least amount
Speaker 4: of times before my target shows up.
Speaker 2: That makes sense sense, it does? So how do you
Speaker 2: pull that off? Though?
Speaker 3: In season when I gotta believe maybe there's some spots
Speaker 3: he can go where you're on the road and you're
Speaker 3: far from where this deer are. But but I'm wondering
Speaker 3: maybe sometimes to get into where these are, where this
Speaker 3: deer are, to see them, you have to kind of
Speaker 3: get in there a little bit. How do you manage that,
Speaker 3: if at all, to maintain low pressure but still see
Speaker 3: what you need to see.
Speaker 4: Well, if I'm on the road, it's a I'm going
Speaker 4: to just figure it out. I'm going to jump in there.
Speaker 4: If I bust them, I bust them. A lot of
Speaker 4: people believe that, you know, you bust a deer and
Speaker 4: they leave the county. I'm not that guy. I don't
Speaker 4: believe they if you pressure them over and over again,
Speaker 4: you'll make a move. But I believe that you've got
Speaker 4: plenty of any of leeway when it comes to that,
Speaker 4: and you try to be smart about it by approaching
Speaker 4: where you can all the tools that we have today,
Speaker 4: I mean, with the maps that we have on these phones.
Speaker 4: It's just amazing. Like I said, I'm jealous that I'm
Speaker 4: old as old as I am and I don't have
Speaker 4: as many years to chase them as as these young
Speaker 4: guys do with all this great you know, these great tools.
Speaker 4: But here at home, Mark, I know the farms. I
Speaker 4: know the farms I'm hunting. I've been hunting some of
Speaker 4: these farms for twenty plus years, and I know how
Speaker 4: to move around them where the deer are going to
Speaker 4: tolerate my movement. You know that I'm not a threat
Speaker 4: at those situations. And when I do move in to
Speaker 4: hang a tree stand, by the time they figure that out,
Speaker 4: hopefully I've got a shot at the target. I'm trying
Speaker 4: to get.
Speaker 2: So so so question about this.
Speaker 3: That's I'm going to use a personal example of mind
Speaker 3: to see what you would do in a situation where
Speaker 3: where I'm kind of trying to do something similar to
Speaker 3: what you do, and that I'm trying to observe, learn
Speaker 3: and collect data and then strike at the right moment.
Speaker 3: But right now, my observations and my intel is not
Speaker 3: getting me what I need so I have two bucks
Speaker 3: on a particular set of properties that coming into the
Speaker 3: coming into the fall, I was interested in targeting. One
Speaker 3: of them disappeared on September third. I haven't gotten pictures
Speaker 3: of him or seen him since the second one. I
Speaker 3: have not gotten pictures of or seen since October fourth,
Speaker 3: so just about eleven days since I last saw him
Speaker 3: or go out pictures of him. And he used to
Speaker 3: be quite active. I've been out glassing a number of nights.
Speaker 3: I hunted the first two nights of the season and
Speaker 3: then have glassed a handful of other nights in addition
Speaker 3: to that, in spots where I can see a decent,
Speaker 3: decent area, I've got cell cameras running throughout his property
Speaker 3: hoping to get sign of him, hoping to get something
Speaker 3: that's going to give me an indication of whether or
Speaker 3: not I should strike or how I should strike. Now,
Speaker 3: all that said, haven't got what. I haven't seen what
Speaker 3: I've wanted to see. We have a cold front that's
Speaker 3: pushed through right now. It is October. It's mid October
Speaker 3: when we're talking right now, and I kind of wanted
Speaker 3: to take a strike at him, but I haven't seen
Speaker 3: them in eleven days with glass or with cameras, and
Speaker 3: I'm starting to wonder is he doing something different than
Speaker 3: usual or is he even alive? And so tonight I
Speaker 3: was playing hunting. I am gonna hunt. But the thought
Speaker 3: has been, do I push into an area of the
Speaker 3: farm that I don't have eyes on yet that I've
Speaker 3: not been able to see with my long distance glassing?
Speaker 3: But would be more aggressive? And would you know, potentially
Speaker 3: you know, educate more dear about my presence. Or do
Speaker 3: I stick to like an exterior stand where I can
Speaker 3: see a decent bit. It's very safe to get to,
Speaker 3: it's very safe to get out of. But the downside
Speaker 3: to it is that I wouldn't be able to see
Speaker 3: as much new stuff. I would see some new stuff,
Speaker 3: but a lot of it I could see from the
Speaker 3: old when I've been glassing.
Speaker 4: Thoughts on that, Well, what you're doing at this point
Speaker 4: in time from from me listening to you is not working.
Speaker 4: You're not seeing him. He's not showing up on any
Speaker 4: of your cameras. So you need to do something different.
Speaker 4: You need you need to obviously be smart with the wind, okay,
Speaker 4: but put yourself in a position where you can see more. Now,
Speaker 4: what what what that means on your property. I would
Speaker 4: have to know, you know, where where the food is,
Speaker 4: where the acorns are, like right now, the acorns are
Speaker 4: a huge factor here. I mean they're an enormous factor here.
Speaker 4: I was just telling justin you know, the other day
Speaker 4: with the deer that they were keen highly on acorns.
Speaker 4: He shot that deer, you know right there where those
Speaker 4: deer were just going to that hot tree. Now where
Speaker 4: we're at right now, all the trees are hot. We
Speaker 4: had a very dry year and acorns are literally dropping.
Speaker 4: You can get hit in the head, you know, hanging
Speaker 4: right now in the woods here. So acorns are probably
Speaker 4: a factor and what you're dealing with with your with
Speaker 4: your deer, but you have to change what you're doing.
Speaker 4: You can sit back if you want, but if you
Speaker 4: wait another two weeks, your neighbor's going to kill your
Speaker 4: deer if he's still alive.
Speaker 2: Of course, there's a point.
Speaker 4: It's exactly what you just described. It was a few
Speaker 4: years ago a buck that I had three sets of
Speaker 4: sheds too, and was committed to that particular deer, and
Speaker 4: he just went missing, just totally went missing. And I'm like,
Speaker 4: what the hell happened? I was able to see this deer.
Speaker 4: You know pretty much what I wanted. I love to
Speaker 4: I live with a spotting scope in my face, and
Speaker 4: I just couldn't get it done. And Mark literally one afternoon,
Speaker 4: I'm like, what am I doing here? I'm sitting in
Speaker 4: my truck or I'm on my bike, sitting on you know,
Speaker 4: a place watching. I've been doing this for six nights
Speaker 4: and I'm not seeing him. I got to do something different.
Speaker 4: I literally threw a stand on my back and I
Speaker 4: rolled in there. And I'm hard to believe. I mean,
Speaker 4: when when a plan comes together, It really wasn't a
Speaker 4: plan to kill the deer. It was a plan to
Speaker 4: find the deer. But I went in and I positioned
Speaker 4: myself where I could see or I couldn't see before, Okay,
Speaker 4: and it and literally at go time, I looked to
Speaker 4: my right and he's walking toward me. I mean, and
Speaker 4: I shot that there at eight yards. But my whole
Speaker 4: point is if you don't change what you're doing, you're
Speaker 4: gonna get the same results. Now, you may get away
Speaker 4: with it. You may very well get away with it
Speaker 4: and just stay patient, but you know what your neighbors are,
Speaker 4: and you know I could not afford to do that.
Speaker 4: In my situation I have, I'm surrounded with corn piles,
Speaker 4: and if I don't do something, I mean, I'm gonna
Speaker 4: be regretting not doing something. So I make a move. Now,
Speaker 4: how aggressive you are is going to depend on how
Speaker 4: how your property lays out. But I love to put
Speaker 4: myself in positions where I can see so great advice.
Speaker 4: That's what I would do.
Speaker 3: You brought the acorn thing, which reminded me of something
Speaker 3: else I heard you say once, which was that in
Speaker 3: correct me?
Speaker 2: If if I've got this.
Speaker 3: Wrong, but I think I remember you saying that if
Speaker 3: you had to choose, you would rather know what they
Speaker 3: want to feed on right now, like the food source
Speaker 3: is more important to you than the betting area when
Speaker 3: trying to kill a buck?
Speaker 2: Is that right?
Speaker 3: And if so, can you just elaborate on that a
Speaker 3: little bit?
Speaker 4: Oh, it's no, it's hugely important. With my style, I
Speaker 4: do not penetrate betting areas very often at all, if
Speaker 4: if ever, truthfully, if I'm on the road, I mean,
Speaker 4: I may do it to figure out what's going on
Speaker 4: in an area, but I stay away from betting areas
Speaker 4: because that's a that's a dependable thing in the properties
Speaker 4: that I'm on. The food source is something that you
Speaker 4: can visit when they're not there, okay, and and and
Speaker 4: get away with it. It's not often that you're going
Speaker 4: to get away with especially in season, getting into a
Speaker 4: betting area without a big deer knowing you've been there,
Speaker 4: and a lot of guys you know will hunt the
Speaker 4: betting areas. You better get it done. You just better
Speaker 4: get it done when you're when you're in there. I
Speaker 4: don't like my odds on that. Now. If I have
Speaker 4: to do that, if I'm on the road or whatever,
Speaker 4: I would probably pursue that. But the food is everything
Speaker 4: to me. I pay much more attention to the food
Speaker 4: obviously before November. Okay, once November rolls around, then you're
Speaker 4: paying attention to where the does are feeding, okay, and
Speaker 4: then where the boys will follow. But but yeah, that's
Speaker 4: an impacting thing for me. Is acorns are very dependable.
Speaker 4: If you've got a farm that has limited oaks, man,
Speaker 4: oh man, that's narrowing it down, really narrowing it down.
Speaker 3: So do you ever get out and walk some of
Speaker 3: these areas to determine where those hot oak trees are?
Speaker 3: Or are you determining most of this from spots you
Speaker 3: can glass from afar and just zeroing in based on
Speaker 3: using your glass.
Speaker 4: No, no, I watch with the glasses from a distance.
Speaker 4: And then once we start to get close, and you know,
Speaker 4: it's always before the season comes in here that you
Speaker 4: can get in and you can look at your oak trees.
Speaker 4: Matter of fact, I got a whole phone full of
Speaker 4: pictures of them, you know, kind of get an idea
Speaker 4: of which trees are going to be dropping first, where
Speaker 4: my white oaks are and uh and in the in
Speaker 4: years of history, you know, tells me which ones they like. Uh.
Speaker 4: And unfortunately they don't always you know, one oak won't
Speaker 4: always have acorns every year. Some of them go one, two,
Speaker 4: three years without them. And fortunately you're and recently we've
Speaker 4: had repetitious years of good acorn crops. But which has
Speaker 4: helped me keep deer in uh in the farms that
Speaker 4: I'm on. But yeah, I get right in there to
Speaker 4: find out what if they're falling.
Speaker 3: Okay, something I'm curious about. As I listened to you
Speaker 3: describe you know, how you're doing this, I got to wonder,
Speaker 3: do you have a rough guestimate of what percent of
Speaker 3: your available sits so like like an evening or morning
Speaker 3: that you can go out. What percent of those are
Speaker 3: just glassing like observing versus actually getting in a tree
Speaker 3: stand and hunting.
Speaker 4: Well, if I'm getting in a tree stand and hunting,
Speaker 4: I've seen something that is triggering me to get there.
Speaker 4: So I guess I'm gonna try to answer you this way.
Speaker 4: I'm scouting every day, every day. It's one of many
Speaker 4: properties that I have access to. Sometimes I'm visiting multiple
Speaker 4: properties at different times because I've got a history with deer.
Speaker 4: But for me, scouting is way more than hunting. You know,
Speaker 4: I'm making a specific move when I'm hunting and when
Speaker 4: I'm hanging a tree stand and hunting night. I can't
Speaker 4: struss enough that the difference between now and fifteen years
Speaker 4: ago or whatever. My expectations when I hang a tree
Speaker 4: stand are so much higher, and it's just based upon
Speaker 4: what I've observed. And I don't think I'm anything special
Speaker 4: when it comes to that. I can observe something just
Speaker 4: the same as anybody else can. I'm just doing it
Speaker 4: more often than most guys are. And you know, guys
Speaker 4: get a kick out of me when it comes to that.
Speaker 4: I mean, I'm out, I try to make it every day.
Speaker 4: I try to make it every day. That's it's a
Speaker 4: it's it's a passion, and it's you know, I'm looking
Speaker 4: now for the next two years, two years out. You know,
Speaker 4: I don't have a tag for Ohio, so I'm trying
Speaker 4: to figure out what's who's gonna make it.
Speaker 2: I love it.
Speaker 3: See it sounds like ninety seven percent of your available
Speaker 3: days you're glassing, observing, scouting, and then maybe three percent
Speaker 3: actual intry stay in hunting or something like that.
Speaker 2: Right, it's dramatically more.
Speaker 4: I couldn't give you an accurate statement on that, but
Speaker 4: I I'd say that's fair. I mean, my my dashboard's
Speaker 4: got two sets of binoculars on it, and right next
Speaker 4: to my passenger seat is a spotting scope, and I've
Speaker 4: got a tripod in there, and I carry my camera
Speaker 4: and and I unload that crap every night and loaded
Speaker 4: every day. I mean, it's it's just it is it.
Speaker 4: It's it's what I do, and my business, you know,
Speaker 4: what I'm in now allows me to have some of
Speaker 4: that time. You know, I'm in the kind of I'm
Speaker 4: in the hunting business now with the with the bikes
Speaker 4: and the batteries, and and and it allows me to
Speaker 4: have that kind of time and talk to guys like
Speaker 4: us all day too, which is pretty cool.
Speaker 2: That's incredible.
Speaker 3: Now, I know you also, you've talked about it, and
Speaker 3: I've heard you talk in other places about how you
Speaker 3: use cameras to supplement those observations. Is there anything you're
Speaker 3: doing unique when it comes to the cameras that's helping
Speaker 3: you drill down these patterns with these deer? Well, I
Speaker 3: guess what I'm getting is what's the Steve you know,
Speaker 3: what's the Steve Pinkston approach to using cameras to learn
Speaker 3: these individual deer?
Speaker 4: Well, I guess I can tell you one factor that
Speaker 4: came into play this year. For example, I mean, everybody's
Speaker 4: using corn piles, you know. And a few years back,
Speaker 4: for example, one of the bucks that I was able
Speaker 4: to tag, he got past me the first night when
Speaker 4: it was I had my I was very cocky. I
Speaker 4: was going in there to kill that deer, and I
Speaker 4: had my big camera with me, and I had it
Speaker 4: hung up next to me because there were several other
Speaker 4: bucks in there, and I was going to take some
Speaker 4: pictures of the other bucks, and I was going to
Speaker 4: shoot this other deer when he showed up when he
Speaker 4: came through the gap in front of me, and I
Speaker 4: literally was stuck with my camera and I was taking
Speaker 4: pictures of this one buck and I heard something off
Speaker 4: to my left side and it was the big deer
Speaker 4: that I was chasing, and he actually got through the
Speaker 4: gap on me and went off to and got away
Speaker 4: from me. That night, I was pretty disappointed to myself,
Speaker 4: you know, I made that move and I had to
Speaker 4: get out of there now. Well, the next day, where
Speaker 4: he came through that gap, I put a little pile
Speaker 4: of this I can't even remember the name of it,
Speaker 4: but it had a notre to it, okay, And I
Speaker 4: needed to stop him right there, and I dropped a
Speaker 4: little pile of that stuff right there, And man, did
Speaker 4: that ever do the job for? It? Was just something different,
Speaker 4: is what I'm getting at. Now. I've taken that same
Speaker 4: thing I learned that year and used with my cameras.
Speaker 4: I don't just put corn out there. I throw a
Speaker 4: trophy rock out there, and I'll take other stuff that
Speaker 4: has different that maybe my guys around me aren't using.
Speaker 4: And I have found that to draw more attention to
Speaker 4: those cameras and maybe even keep deer closer on my properties.
Speaker 4: I don't know, I'm convinced. I don't know if it's
Speaker 4: real or not. But like this year, for example, I
Speaker 4: stopped at a at a guy's got apples up here,
Speaker 4: and he happened to have a bunch of pears, and
Speaker 4: I got the pears and I threw the pears out.
Speaker 4: I don't use apples very often because coyotes really pick
Speaker 4: up those apples. But anyway, this one buck I could
Speaker 4: see on my camera he really liked those pears. And
Speaker 4: I'm in tractor supply here one time, about two weeks ago,
Speaker 4: and there's this bag of pear dust and I'm like,
Speaker 4: that's interesting. So I bought it and I threw that
Speaker 4: pear dust around his corn. Holy smoke, I mean the
Speaker 4: activity around that camera just tripled. I mean it was
Speaker 4: absolutely it was amazing. So I started throwing it around
Speaker 4: some of the other cameras try sake. I had deer
Speaker 4: all over that. But the interesting thing is my point
Speaker 4: is I just change it up every now and then
Speaker 4: when it comes to the camera aspect of it, now
Speaker 4: I do the same. I'll do scrape cameras as well.
Speaker 4: And I've got some areas that I know are travel
Speaker 4: corridors that I do card cameras on, and I'll go
Speaker 4: pull those every two or three weeks and take a
Speaker 4: look and see if I'm right on my guests. But
Speaker 4: all of it comes together, comes together as you evaluate it.
Speaker 4: Does that make sense?
Speaker 2: Yeah? It does.
Speaker 3: And that brings me to the real trick I think
Speaker 3: for a lot of us, which is how you document
Speaker 3: and then how you actually analyze all this information gather.
Speaker 3: So I guess number one question. You're going out every
Speaker 3: day and watching these deer. You've got cameras running all
Speaker 3: over the place, You've got thousands of trail camera pictures.
Speaker 3: How do you actually keep track of all this stuff
Speaker 3: and organize all this information? Do you have a journal
Speaker 3: where you write down what you see every day? Do
Speaker 3: you have a spreadsheet? Do you have notes? Do you
Speaker 3: have any way to keep track of it so you
Speaker 3: can look back on an individual deer? And then also
Speaker 3: do you do anything like that with pictures like trail
Speaker 3: camera pictures.
Speaker 4: I used to organize my trail camera pictures. It got
Speaker 4: to the point where it's just too many. Okay, So
Speaker 4: I and a friend of mine made a comment online
Speaker 4: here a couple of months ago about him taking pictures
Speaker 4: of specific pictures in his phone. I now do that.
Speaker 4: I took that, took that little trick out of his
Speaker 4: playbook and I and I do that. I organized that
Speaker 4: in my in my picture files. I do keep a
Speaker 4: written journal on every deer that I'm interested in. When
Speaker 4: they when they make key changes, when something happens, you know,
Speaker 4: they show up at a different area. I write it down.
Speaker 4: I write the date, I write the wind, and I
Speaker 4: pay close attention to that stuff and I use it.
Speaker 4: I pay the buck I killed this year. I mean,
Speaker 4: he should never have been where he was. That's just
Speaker 4: totally out of character for that deer. That would have
Speaker 4: been if it wasn't in season, I'd have been writing
Speaker 4: that down. You know. Since it was in season, I
Speaker 4: was able to. I was prepared to make a move
Speaker 4: and rolled in there and made that different behavior count.
Speaker 4: And I do. I write that stuff down all the time,
Speaker 4: and I reference it. So how do you do it
Speaker 4: all deer? I only do it do on deer ometric today.
Speaker 4: It's got to the point where it's too monotonous.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker 3: So when you're when you're sitting down trying to think
Speaker 3: through when to take a strike or how to take
Speaker 3: a strike at a given deer, And you have several
Speaker 3: years worth of journal entries of this deer doing different things,
Speaker 3: and you've probably got hundreds of camera photos trail camera photos,
Speaker 3: and you're sitting there trying to make sense of it all.
Speaker 3: It's like you've got like a puzzle, a whole set
Speaker 3: of puzzle pieces out in front of you, and you've
Speaker 3: got to make sense of it. How do you go
Speaker 3: about trying to make sense of it? And what matters
Speaker 3: to you? You know, with some people, they just want
Speaker 3: to see, like what did the deer do yesterday? And
Speaker 3: I'm going to try to go see him do the
Speaker 3: same thing. And then there's other people that try to
Speaker 3: tie the wind direction when he moved in daylight last year,
Speaker 3: and the time of the year when he moved last year,
Speaker 3: or what was the barometric pressure and the weather like
Speaker 3: on this day that he daylighted last year? And when
Speaker 3: will I get the same conditions today and I'll hunt
Speaker 3: him on that day?
Speaker 2: You know, how how deep do you get with it
Speaker 2: on that front.
Speaker 4: Mark that that's a lot right there, what you just said,
Speaker 4: I mean as a whole bootloa and some of the
Speaker 4: stuff I could catch real quick that I would that
Speaker 4: do key for me. You know, weather changes. I pay
Speaker 4: very close attention to the moon. I pay the attention
Speaker 4: to the moon rise and to the moon set. The
Speaker 4: moon rise is very important to me. However, it's not
Speaker 4: a not a huge factor unless it coincides with a
Speaker 4: weather event. When it coincides with a weather event, it
Speaker 4: makes I mean, I change plans to be where I
Speaker 4: think I need to be when that particular thing happens.
Speaker 4: Barometric pressure is typically that's cold front. That's the weather
Speaker 4: factor that I'm that I'm that we're talking about. I
Speaker 4: don't give wind direction as much credit as a lot
Speaker 4: of people do. And the reason I don't is because
Speaker 4: I have watched years, in years, I've watched deer behave
Speaker 4: with the wind to their butt. Okay, I've watched it happen.
Speaker 4: I mean, they say big deer only move into the wind.
Speaker 4: That's not that's just not true. It's just it's not
Speaker 4: even close to accurate. Now, if you're in a highly
Speaker 4: pressured area, maybe that's more so true. But just consider
Speaker 4: trying to live your life. You know, only go in
Speaker 4: the direction that the wind works for you. That just
Speaker 4: doesn't make any sense.
Speaker 3: To me going around circles.
Speaker 4: Just I mean that's that I'm going to live in
Speaker 4: a box, so to speak. But the factors on farms
Speaker 4: that I know, Okay, I don't do the maps anymore
Speaker 4: as far as that's concerned. I know those properties like
Speaker 4: the back of my hand. When I see something happen,
Speaker 4: I typically already have seen that over the years, and
Speaker 4: I know where I need to be. I might even
Speaker 4: know a specific tree. I don't leave stands in trees
Speaker 4: a mobile hunter. I carry a stand with me, either
Speaker 4: on my bike or whatever, and and I hang where
Speaker 4: I need to be. Now do I prepare trees? Absolutely?
Speaker 4: I mean I'm in there and you know, throughout the summer,
Speaker 4: I'll take you know, my wife got me one of
Speaker 4: these battery powered pruners. Man, best investment I've ever had.
Speaker 4: Things awesome. It'll literally cut a limbit's big around to snap,
Speaker 4: and I carry that with me. It's it's on my
Speaker 4: bike when I'm in there, and I'll and I'll shape
Speaker 4: some stuff up. And that's the planning that I do.
Speaker 4: I know I'm going to be in this area if
Speaker 4: this happens, if this certain thing happens, I'm going to
Speaker 4: be here, and I'm going to try to have as
Speaker 4: best of a shot opportunity as I can have, because
Speaker 4: my style of hunting doesn't allow me to prune trees.
Speaker 4: Whenever I get entry, I deal with the shot that
Speaker 4: I've got, and that's a downside, But the asset from
Speaker 4: that is way more important than the downside. The surprise
Speaker 4: factor of being there right then the first time. I mean,
Speaker 4: I may not have a perfect shooting lane, but if
Speaker 4: I if I'm patient long enough, I'll probably get that.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I'll ask you a follow up.
Speaker 3: One of the when it comes to knowing when to
Speaker 3: strike and a discussion of you know, when do you
Speaker 3: actually go in for the kill. Justin and I were
Speaker 3: actually talking earlier this year. I think about how both
Speaker 3: of us have fallen prey to chasing cell camera pictures
Speaker 3: where we would be waiting and watching and waiting watching,
Speaker 3: and then we get a daylight picture of him yesterday,
Speaker 3: and then we try to go right in there the
Speaker 3: next day and kill him, and then you end up
Speaker 3: chasing your tail because you're a day behind him all
Speaker 3: the time. What's your thoughts on that and whether or
Speaker 3: not a daylight sighting yesterday or a daylight camera picture
Speaker 3: of him yesterday is something that you absolutely should chase
Speaker 3: and go to today or not.
Speaker 4: I don't chase him. It's something that I even had
Speaker 4: that conversation with Justin as far as that's concerned, that
Speaker 4: that information doesn't necessarily mean it's going to happen again,
Speaker 4: and you don't know what the circumstances were because you
Speaker 4: weren't there unless you had Now he likes to use video,
Speaker 4: and that's pretty helpful, but I would much if I'm
Speaker 4: going to make a move, I make it off of
Speaker 4: what I see now a trail camera picture this morning. Okay,
Speaker 4: like just what just happened to me this year. That's different.
Speaker 4: I mean, that's totally different. That's real time. I'm looking
Speaker 4: at my phone. I'm going I know where I'm going
Speaker 4: to be in about four hours. I mean, that is
Speaker 4: the unfairness of a cell camera, so to speak, if
Speaker 4: that's the way you want to look at it. But
Speaker 4: yesterday's information is yesterday's information to me. Now, if there's
Speaker 4: a reason for him to be there, like he likes
Speaker 4: that oak, or he likes that he uses that travel
Speaker 4: corridor to get where he's going, that's a whole different story.
Speaker 4: I'll make the move based upon that, for sure, but
Speaker 4: I'm not going to what would I do on a
Speaker 4: camera picture that I got yesterday or the day before
Speaker 4: or whatever.
Speaker 3: Okay, that's helpful, So how about this scenario. Then, Let's
Speaker 3: say you, Let's say you see a deer with your
Speaker 3: own eyes do something. And I know you're not usually
Speaker 3: hunting unless you actually have a really strong reason behinting.
Speaker 3: So let's say you're observing from an observation post of
Speaker 3: some kind, you see your target buck do something. Can
Speaker 3: you just walk me through what all you're paying attention
Speaker 3: to and thinking about as you watch that deer, because
Speaker 3: I'm sure you're trying to pick some key piece of
Speaker 3: information from this observation, and then discuss for me how
Speaker 3: you would go about deciding whether or not you'll hunt
Speaker 3: him tomorrow and how you would go about that.
Speaker 4: Well, there's where I do take some factors into play.
Speaker 4: I'll play I'll look at it look like not this
Speaker 4: year's deer, but last year, the year before that, and
Speaker 4: the year before that. I watched with my spotting scope,
Speaker 4: and the deer made the same generalized, generalized move for
Speaker 4: three nights in a row before the seasons came in
Speaker 4: and I was able to put myself where I needed
Speaker 4: to be. Last year was opening day. The year before that,
Speaker 4: it was like the third or fourth day of the season.
Speaker 4: A year before that it was like the fourth or
Speaker 4: fifth day of the season. It's worked well for me
Speaker 4: to watch and then make a reactive move from that. Now,
Speaker 4: like last year, for example, we had like three days
Speaker 4: of the exact same unusual wind for us this time
Speaker 4: of year. It was a northeast wind, and I was
Speaker 4: pretty cocky, Mark. I'll tell you that I was absolutely,
Speaker 4: very very confident. I rolled in there at two o'clock.
Speaker 4: I hung that tree stand and I totally expected to
Speaker 4: kill him right behind me walking to my food plot,
Speaker 4: and I had a northeast wind. Let's just say it's
Speaker 4: going this way, because that's what I was doing. Is
Speaker 4: I was facing this way, and that deer was coming
Speaker 4: out off to my right and walking across my food
Speaker 4: plot to get to a standing cornfield, and I positioned
Speaker 4: my tree to catch him walking through my food plots. Okay, well,
Speaker 4: what I didn't know is he was coming from this
Speaker 4: direction and he was walking there, and he was hooking
Speaker 4: and going back in, and I thought I was beat
Speaker 4: I thought he'd beat me fair and square. I literally,
Speaker 4: when I looked off to my left and I saw him,
Speaker 4: I didn't even reach for my bove. I literally just
Speaker 4: I leaned back against the tree and I said, you've
Speaker 4: been you've been smoked. You've been smoked. And the thermals
Speaker 4: protected me right then, and he ended up getting in
Speaker 4: front of me and I shot him right there. So
Speaker 4: I can act like I still knew what I was doing,
Speaker 4: But the truth of the matter was he where I
Speaker 4: thought he was coming from this way, he was actually
Speaker 4: button hooking and coming into that food plot from that
Speaker 4: other direction. So my whole point is I made the
Speaker 4: move from what I could see, but I got lucky
Speaker 4: from what I could not see. So you know, I'll
Speaker 4: take a little luck anytime I can get it. But
Speaker 4: when I guarantee you that evening he was going to
Speaker 4: do the same thing he that I had just watched
Speaker 4: him do, does that make sense. I mean, I've just
Speaker 4: watched him from four hundred yards do that three nights
Speaker 4: in a row on that wound, so I'm pretty confident
Speaker 4: where he's going. I just didn't know the whole story,
Speaker 4: and I got lucky.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So how long do you think that these observations
Speaker 3: that lead to a pattern which lead to you striking
Speaker 3: how long does that hold true? At what point in
Speaker 3: the calendar do you start thinking, Eh, you know, he's
Speaker 3: probably you know, what I saw him do last night
Speaker 3: or the last two nights very well might be different
Speaker 3: the next day. I'm wondering if you know, once you
Speaker 3: get into November, if that changes in your mind or
Speaker 3: when that when that is for you absolutely.
Speaker 4: All through, Like if you come in in September, you
Speaker 4: can put it in the bank all through pretty much
Speaker 4: what everybody calls the October lull, you can. You can
Speaker 4: put it in the bank. They're they're there. Once they
Speaker 4: start to get the itch, you get this cold front
Speaker 4: coming in, things change and that's why deer get killed
Speaker 4: on the neighbors okay, or you can't see him sometimes
Speaker 4: or just gone because that's what happens. They just get
Speaker 4: on their bike and they move. And but what what
Speaker 4: the beautiful thing about that is is you get to
Speaker 4: see the neighbors deer. It's the same time. So just
Speaker 4: put yourself in the middle of it. And in my pinion,
Speaker 4: my this might be a different view than most people think.
Speaker 4: Oh when when that November time comes, I pay little
Speaker 4: attention to the wind. I get out there and I
Speaker 4: hunt because I don't know where he's coming from. You know,
Speaker 4: I'm the first guy to tell you that I haven't
Speaker 4: got a clue. I just want to see them, you know.
Speaker 4: So I'm going to get out there and I'm going
Speaker 4: to hunt. But the beautiful thing is after that starts
Speaker 4: to fade, they go right back to a predictable pattern,
Speaker 4: and you got a predictable pattern all throughout the rest
Speaker 4: of the season. And those predictable patterns take time. They
Speaker 4: take time and diligence, and you have to persevere through.
Speaker 4: You know, I didn't see anything this afternoon, you know,
Speaker 4: but I got I know, I know they're there. But
Speaker 4: once you start seeing them and you start to get
Speaker 4: a pattern down, you can make a move.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: One last question on that specific pattern style in you know,
Speaker 3: whether it be October or December right or January right,
Speaker 3: when they're on that kind of patternable.
Speaker 2: Type behavior.
Speaker 3: We talked about, you see them do something and you
Speaker 3: know if they're doing it for a reason, If you
Speaker 3: know that reason is consistent, you'll go in there and strike.
Speaker 3: What if the wind direction is completely different the next day,
Speaker 3: or if the weather is going to be completely different
Speaker 3: the next day.
Speaker 2: So if everything else.
Speaker 3: Told you, hey, this should be good, but today it
Speaker 3: was a north wind and tomorrow it's the south, does
Speaker 3: that change your calculus at all? Or vice versa. If
Speaker 3: the day you saw him move yesterday was a great,
Speaker 3: big cold front day, but then the next day it
Speaker 3: warms up and is still.
Speaker 2: Is that going to impact your thoughts?
Speaker 4: Absolutely, because it does impact. Now if you're in the
Speaker 4: November time and he's with a dough, that's not going
Speaker 4: to change anything. He's going to still be doing the
Speaker 4: same thing. Now, you know October early October, when you
Speaker 4: get into December and January, those actors will definitely change.
Speaker 4: They might make them move earlier, they may make them
Speaker 4: move later. You just have to You're going to take
Speaker 4: your shot at that point in time. I guess you know.
Speaker 4: My game plan, especially in recent years, is to be
Speaker 4: done before all that changes. And if I'm focused enough, okay,
Speaker 4: and I'm willing to work at it and pay attention,
Speaker 4: I can put myself in those positions to at least
Speaker 4: get a shot or get a look. But it does
Speaker 4: work later on in the season as well as a
Speaker 4: matter of fact, the later, the later the season, in
Speaker 4: the season it gets here in Ohio, food becomes a
Speaker 4: very very patternable thing. It's just a matter of when
Speaker 4: they're going to get there because that's where they're going.
Speaker 4: They got to eat, and as the food sources dwindle,
Speaker 4: they become more and more focused.
Speaker 3: Now, now, god forbid, let's say somehow the deer or
Speaker 3: the couple deer that you were after, it doesn't come together.
Speaker 3: In October, member hits and you're still after one of
Speaker 3: these handful of deer.
Speaker 2: But it's the rut.
Speaker 3: Now, you mentioned that you're not worried about wind, You're
Speaker 3: just out there hunting. What does the Steve Pinston rut
Speaker 3: strategy look like outside of what you just told us.
Speaker 4: I want to find that, I want to know where
Speaker 4: the girls are. I want to find the girls, and
Speaker 4: I want to be as close to the girls as
Speaker 4: I can because that's where the boys are eventually going
Speaker 4: to be. And that just doesn't change. It's it's been
Speaker 4: that way forever. That's when we talked earlier about what's
Speaker 4: changed from the eighties. That hasn't changed. You know, Bucks chase,
Speaker 4: they chase does, and when you get into November, anything
Speaker 4: can happen, and you just want to find yourself as
Speaker 4: close to travel corridors that the does are going to
Speaker 4: be using, because the boys are going to be in them,
Speaker 4: that's for sure. They may not be you know, they
Speaker 4: may be outside the behavior what they normally do, but
Speaker 4: their heads not in the same place. You know, their
Speaker 4: heads in a very foggy, cloudy spot, and you know
Speaker 4: you see him do things that you never get to
Speaker 4: see him do in September and October, which is a
Speaker 4: cool part of the rut.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So if you still have a tag in your
Speaker 3: hand at that point of the year, you're just out
Speaker 3: there hunting. You're not doing your glassing from a far
Speaker 3: thing anymore. You're just out there correct.
Speaker 4: Most of the time, you know. I mean, if i'm
Speaker 4: if I'm between things or whatever, I may glass a
Speaker 4: little bit to see where the does are. But most
Speaker 4: of the farms that I'm hunting here at home Mark,
Speaker 4: I know him really well, and I know where I
Speaker 4: need to be in November or in the chase mode,
Speaker 4: you know, and I'm I'm there, you know. If it's
Speaker 4: a target deer that I'm interested in, I'm hoping, which
Speaker 4: is a part I hate. I hate the hope. Okay,
Speaker 4: I don't like that part of it, but I'm hoping
Speaker 4: he's still on the property because the key properties that
Speaker 4: I have have a lot of doe and that gives
Speaker 4: them a chance to stay home, you know, and gives
Speaker 4: me a chance to see some of the neighbors deer too.
Speaker 3: Right, It's something we haven't talked about yet that I
Speaker 3: know is really important to you, is access, being able
Speaker 3: to get in and getting out without bothering deer. And
Speaker 3: I know you use an e bike to do that.
Speaker 3: Can you just talk to me a little bit about
Speaker 3: your unique approach to getting in and out without bothering
Speaker 3: deer and why that's so important for you.
Speaker 4: Well, the e bike has added a new dimension to that,
Speaker 4: and I'll just talk about e bikes in general, not
Speaker 4: necessarily my brands, but e bikes will give you a
Speaker 4: chance to approach from a different area where you don't
Speaker 4: have to work yourself up a big sweat to get there.
Speaker 4: If the wind's different for an area and you still
Speaker 4: want to hunt it and you have the access, you
Speaker 4: can go around and position yourself. And my bike is
Speaker 4: typically at the base of the tree that I'm in.
Speaker 4: If it's not at the base of the tree. It's close.
Speaker 4: It's in the closest cover. I've never had a deer.
Speaker 4: I have had one buck over the years. As a
Speaker 4: matter of fact, he's up over my right shoulder here.
Speaker 4: That spooked to my bike, and I was actually lucky.
Speaker 4: I kind of believe that if I had a set
Speaker 4: of horns on the bike at that particular time, because
Speaker 4: I rattled him out of the corn and he'd come up.
Speaker 4: I couldn't figure out what he was looking at. I
Speaker 4: just had him. I was hooked up and ready, and
Speaker 4: he's forty five yards away and he just stopped. He
Speaker 4: just looked, and I'm like, what the hell's going on?
Speaker 4: I kept thinking there was another deer. Well, it turned
Speaker 4: out to be I left my bike on the kickstand
Speaker 4: and I've not done that since. You know, you got
Speaker 4: to You have to make sure you're covering your your
Speaker 4: way in your way out. Don't do something dumb like
Speaker 4: leaving on a kickstand like I did. But anyway, the
Speaker 4: bike has been a huge factor as well as far
Speaker 4: as knowing your area. You have to try to have
Speaker 4: your exit routes so that if you don't get it done,
Speaker 4: you're going to be able to get out of there
Speaker 4: without disturbing what's going on. You know, I like to
Speaker 4: hunt my food plots, and I like to hunt the
Speaker 4: cornfields the bean fields. And if I've got enough time
Speaker 4: where the deer are going to get past me, I've
Speaker 4: got to figure out how I'm to get out of
Speaker 4: there clean, you know, and so that I'm not blowing
Speaker 4: things up for you know, because obviously sometimes you don't
Speaker 4: get it done. You know, you have to be able
Speaker 4: to you know, be stealthy enough to get out of
Speaker 4: there and come back another time. So you have to
Speaker 4: have an exit plan.
Speaker 3: So yeah, So when you have the e bike at
Speaker 3: your disposal, do you ever just buzz by the field
Speaker 3: on it if you have no other way to do it?
Speaker 3: And look at that as a less damaging exit because
Speaker 3: you're on the bike.
Speaker 4: There's no doubt that that it's it's very similar to
Speaker 4: a piece of farm machinery. Maybe I really I don't
Speaker 4: know what to compare it to, but I over the
Speaker 4: years I've ridden past deer, not on purpose, you know,
Speaker 4: just look over and boom, there's one land there, and
Speaker 4: don't don't stop. You just got to keep right on going.
Speaker 4: And if you do stop, it creates a reaction. How
Speaker 4: I've ridden up on strutting turkeys, you know, same exact way.
Speaker 4: But if you if you use the bike as what,
Speaker 4: it's not unusual in my area for people to be around. Okay,
Speaker 4: it's got farm equipment, and you know, in some areas
Speaker 4: there's some homes and on some of the lots and
Speaker 4: kids making noise and places. I mean, it's not totally
Speaker 4: unusual for deer to see or hear people. Now, when
Speaker 4: they stop and they notice that you're noticing them, that's
Speaker 4: a whole different result that you're gonna get. But I
Speaker 4: can't tell you how many times I've ridden past beda
Speaker 4: deer and got my tree stand hung and had a
Speaker 4: good evening, good afternoon, good morning, whatever it was.
Speaker 3: So one of the things I've always wondered about is
Speaker 3: the sound of a bike compared to the sound of
Speaker 3: me walking in. And there's been situations where there's been
Speaker 3: situations where I've had a spot where I knew I
Speaker 3: would need the bike to get out because I knew, like,
Speaker 3: there's there's a couple of spots to hunt where I
Speaker 3: just I have to go buy fields to get out,
Speaker 3: And so I very rarely hunt evenings in the back
Speaker 3: of this property because I know I'm gonna have to
Speaker 3: buzz out of there on a bike, so I save
Speaker 3: those times. But when I do it, what I wonder is, Okay,
Speaker 3: I know that I can take the bike out is
Speaker 3: you just described, and it won't be as impactful on
Speaker 3: the way out, But on the way in, I'm wondering
Speaker 3: to myself, geez, should I just walk in and like
Speaker 3: handhold the bike because I can more carefully walk my
Speaker 3: way in with the bike and not make a lot
Speaker 3: of noise. Or should I ride the bike in even
Speaker 3: though it makes a sound it's you know, it's not
Speaker 3: a human sound. It's not footsteps, it's just a just
Speaker 3: you know, just the wheels on the leaves. And I've wondered,
Speaker 3: is that bothering them? Or do they just hear this
Speaker 3: thing pass by and they have no idea what it
Speaker 3: is because it doesn't sound like feet, and then they
Speaker 3: just get past it.
Speaker 2: Have you ever thought about that?
Speaker 4: Well, I've just come to the conclusion that I'm going
Speaker 4: to do it and I'm going to deal with the results.
Speaker 5: Now.
Speaker 4: I think that that the I think you're much less
Speaker 4: impacting is if you're on the bike and you're moving
Speaker 4: at a at a speed when you're walking, I think
Speaker 4: that there's first off, you're putting boots on the ground,
Speaker 4: and I think that is something that some deer are
Speaker 4: very sensitive to, not all of them, but some deer
Speaker 4: are very sensitive to that. But when you're cruising past
Speaker 4: on a bike, I don't think you're having anywhere near
Speaker 4: the impact that you are walking, whether you're pushing the
Speaker 4: bike or walking by yourself, I think there's a there's
Speaker 4: a threat determined there. I don't want to give the deer.
Speaker 4: I don't want to give them the credit that they're thinking, Okay,
Speaker 4: that'll stop me from even ever going hunting, you know,
Speaker 4: But I will tell you that I believe they react,
Speaker 4: and I think they react to pauses when you stop
Speaker 4: or you pause, you go wow, you know you're surprised,
Speaker 4: and they surprised, and they make eye contact. I think
Speaker 4: there is there is going to You're going to get
Speaker 4: your reaction. Then the bike allows you to keep right
Speaker 4: on going. In most cases. Now, talking specifically about bikes,
Speaker 4: center driven bikes do make noise. They make a dear
Speaker 4: noise that that dual hub bikes do not. I build both.
Speaker 4: You know, I'm just telling you there's a difference between
Speaker 4: Like a dual hub bike is dead quiet, makes no noise.
Speaker 4: Center driven bike does make noise. The gears are turning
Speaker 4: and you can hear it. Even as bad as my
Speaker 4: ears are, you can definitely hear it. So there is
Speaker 4: there's a difference there as well. Now I'm not going
Speaker 4: to tell you how impacting that is because I've never
Speaker 4: studied it, but I knew if I can hear it.
Speaker 4: If I if I can hear it, that tells me
Speaker 4: that you know, it's there's there's a factor there. No
Speaker 4: how important it is.
Speaker 3: I don't know, right, And to your to your earlier point,
Speaker 3: they probably don't associate that with any kind of danger
Speaker 3: or human related thing, right, just like farm machinery.
Speaker 4: I was, That's what I would associate it to, you know,
Speaker 4: somebody running along on a gator or something like that.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: Interesting, all right, Steve, I want to I want to
Speaker 3: wrap this up with one final question. Sure I heard
Speaker 3: you say once that failure is a stepping stone to success. Absolutely,
Speaker 3: I'd love you to elaborate on that for us.
Speaker 4: Well, if you're not out there screwing up, okay, you're
Speaker 4: never going to get any better. And when you learn
Speaker 4: from what you screwed up, you just keep polishing your tools.
Speaker 4: You know, your toolbox gets smaller, okay, because you're you
Speaker 4: use less of them because you're understanding how to use
Speaker 4: them better. I mean, I can't tell you how many
Speaker 4: times I've messed up over the years, and I'm going
Speaker 4: to continue to mess up.
Speaker 2: I hope.
Speaker 4: I mean, but I learned each time what I did.
Speaker 4: And I'll tell you something else. Every deer is not
Speaker 4: the same. I mentioned to you earlier about a real
Speaker 4: sensitive deer that I've that I've noticed to trail cameras.
Speaker 4: I've had one other deer in my career that I
Speaker 4: noticed had a sensitivity to trail cameras. The talent here
Speaker 4: is understanding that and using that. So did I screw
Speaker 4: up by using that cell camera? And do I learn
Speaker 4: that I'm observing that he has an issue with trail cameras,
Speaker 4: then I change my plan. That's where you you've screwed
Speaker 4: up and you've learned from it. And there's so many
Speaker 4: things like that. You know, how you use the wind,
Speaker 4: you know, you learn how to use the wind, how
Speaker 4: you use the thermals I mean, nonrmals are in my opinion,
Speaker 4: are extremely misunderstood. Very few people understand them because they're
Speaker 4: reading about what they're supposed to be. Like, well, if
Speaker 4: you go out and get in a tree and see
Speaker 4: what they do, you learn a lot more and you
Speaker 4: can repeat that exercise for future success. And bumping your
Speaker 4: heads not a bad thing, it's just not. I mean,
Speaker 4: if you learn something from it and apply it later,
Speaker 4: I mean, I'm going to keep failing and I'm going
Speaker 4: to keep figuring it out. So I hope that makes sense.
Speaker 2: It does, and it rings so true.
Speaker 3: And something else that I recall from hearing in another
Speaker 3: conversation you had was just the fact that you used
Speaker 3: to be afraid of screwing up a long time ago,
Speaker 3: and I was the same way. I was always worried
Speaker 3: while if I do that, I'll probably spook the bucker.
Speaker 3: If I do that, I'll probably educate this year. And
Speaker 3: I was always worried about what I might do screwing
Speaker 3: things up. And at some point, a handful of years ago,
Speaker 3: I realized that you just have to take risks and
Speaker 3: you have to go for it, and you have to
Speaker 3: take those swings, otherwise you'll never get in a position
Speaker 3: for success. And it seems like you've proved that out
Speaker 3: for for a whole lot longer than I have now to.
Speaker 4: Well, it's something that I'm gonna I'll never say I
Speaker 4: know it all. I mean, you know a lot of
Speaker 4: those things that you know never and always don't belong
Speaker 4: in a deer conversation. They just don't. I mean, you know,
Speaker 4: when you when you jump out there and experiment, you learn,
Speaker 4: and you find out what works for you, and then
Speaker 4: you just start you expand on it, it gets really
Speaker 4: get goosebumps talking about it. It's just it gets really
Speaker 4: really exciting, you know. Like I got to tell you
Speaker 4: when I killed that deer. The other day, I did
Speaker 4: a little interview I'm doing some filming on this, and
Speaker 4: I found myself just so juiced up. I mean, I've
Speaker 4: been doing this for forty five years, okay, and I
Speaker 4: was just so I mean so three years working on
Speaker 4: this deer and he made one mistake and I capitalize
Speaker 4: on it. It's just so cool to do that, you know.
Speaker 4: But you don't get there by being perfect. Every time
Speaker 4: you bump your head all the way through and you
Speaker 4: pick up little things that you're not going to repeat
Speaker 4: down the road because you've learned and you've been out
Speaker 4: there doing it. You don't get that out of a book.
Speaker 4: You get that out of a tree.
Speaker 3: Really, really great place to end this and great words
Speaker 3: for assault to remember as we head out.
Speaker 2: To the field ourselves.
Speaker 3: So before I let you go, Steve, could you let
Speaker 3: us know number one? You know, where might we be
Speaker 3: able to see some of these hunts? I know there's
Speaker 3: at least one of them online we can watch and
Speaker 3: it sounds like you were filming this latest one, So
Speaker 3: where should we stay tuned for that kind of stuff?
Speaker 3: And then number two, could you give us the scoop
Speaker 3: on hardcore e cycles where we can learn more about
Speaker 3: your bikes than anything else like that?
Speaker 4: Thank you very much, it's very nice to you. I
Speaker 4: do I provide white Tail Addictions some footage every now
Speaker 4: and then. I'm not the best at it, so to speak.
Speaker 4: I'm never going to be one of those guys that's
Speaker 4: the movie star. First. I spent two or three years
Speaker 4: chasing it deer. If I can get the shot, I'll
Speaker 4: get it. If I can't, still going to try to
Speaker 4: kill it. That's just how I do it. This particular year,
Speaker 4: I got good footage. Last couple of years I haven't
Speaker 4: given them footage, but they're going to get that footage.
Speaker 4: I've got some good footage coming for that. When it
Speaker 4: comes to so white tail addictions. You can see some
Speaker 4: of my stuff my Facebook page. I put a lot
Speaker 4: of videos, and I take a lot of pride in
Speaker 4: taking pictures these days. I really I get out there
Speaker 4: and I'm trying my best to get better at taking pictures.
Speaker 4: And I will tell you that getting better at taking
Speaker 4: pictures has made me a much better hunter. I mean,
Speaker 4: I spend a lot more time getting close to big
Speaker 4: deer to get pictures, and it makes me just stone
Speaker 4: cold when it comes to the situation where it's there
Speaker 4: to kill them. But as far as hardcore recycles, dot
Speaker 4: com is our hunting bikes. We do specifically hunting bikes
Speaker 4: designed by me. I don't do single power bikes anymore.
Speaker 4: All my bikes are dual wheel powered in the front
Speaker 4: and the back, because that's how I believe I need them,
Speaker 4: and that's how I believe very needs them. So anybody'd
Speaker 4: like to talk to me, my phone numbers on there,
Speaker 4: I'd be more happy to discuss it with them. If
Speaker 4: they're in the market for a bike, I'll help them
Speaker 4: with my bike or anybody else's bike. I'll be happy
Speaker 4: to do that. But the bottom line is the bike
Speaker 4: will help you get better, so we choose to use one.
Speaker 4: I'd love to help you.
Speaker 2: That's awesome.
Speaker 3: Well, Steve, thank you so much for taking this time
Speaker 3: talking with us here today.
Speaker 2: I've got some new ideas.
Speaker 3: I've got a little bit of extra confidence in my
Speaker 3: plan for tonight and how I'm going to adjust, and
Speaker 3: hopefully I have something to share here soon coming from this.
Speaker 2: So thanks Steve. We're all going to be definitely benefiting
Speaker 2: from it.
Speaker 4: Thank you very much. You've made this very easy. I've
Speaker 4: been very enjoyed, enjoyable conversation talking to you.
Speaker 2: Right back at you, all right, and that's a wrap.
Speaker 2: Thank you for being here. Appreciate you tuning in. Good luck.
Speaker 2: This is it.
Speaker 3: These are the days we've been looking forward to for
Speaker 3: the last nine to ten, eleven, twelve months. We'll finally here,
Speaker 3: the ruts about to explode. Good things are going to
Speaker 3: be happening if they haven't already, and it's gonna be
Speaker 3: a lot of fun. So be safe, have fun, and
Speaker 3: until next time, stay wired to hunt.