Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your guide to
Speaker 1: the Whitetail Woods, presented by First Light, creating proven versatile
Speaker 1: hunting apparel for the stand, saddle or blind. First Light,
Speaker 1: Go Farther, Stay Longer, and now your host, Mark Kenyon.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. This week on
Speaker 2: the show, we are chatting with the one and only
Speaker 2: Don Higgins about the habits, personality, traits and behaviors of
Speaker 2: the biggest oldest bucks he's ever hunted. All right, Welcome
Speaker 2: to the Wire to Hunt podcast, brought to you by
Speaker 2: First Light and First Light's Cameell for Conservation initiative in
Speaker 2: which a portion of every sale of their Spector Camel pattern,
Speaker 2: which is their whitetail camera pattern, a portion of every
Speaker 2: one of those sales is going back to the National
Speaker 2: Dear Association to help them on their mission to make
Speaker 2: things better for deer and deer hunters, which is pretty
Speaker 2: darn cool in my opinion, and I think today's podcast
Speaker 2: is gonna be pretty darn cool. Two folks, we've got
Speaker 2: Don Higgins on the show. I'm guessing you know Don.
Speaker 2: He's been on the show a handful of different times
Speaker 2: over the years, including famously a few years back, he
Speaker 2: came on this show and called his shot. He said, Hey,
Speaker 2: this coming season, I'm gonna kill a two hundreds buck
Speaker 2: from this specific blind and here's how'm gonna do it.
Speaker 2: And you know what he did. He went ahead and
Speaker 2: did exactly that. So today he is a perfect guest
Speaker 2: for our series that we're in the midst of, which
Speaker 2: is all about big old bucks. It is about those
Speaker 2: oldest of old deer getting to behind the scenes look
Speaker 2: into the minds of how these mature, mature deer act,
Speaker 2: what they do, why they do it, how they do it,
Speaker 2: and what all that means for us as deer hunters.
Speaker 2: And I think there's the few other people in the
Speaker 2: world that have probably had as much experience with really
Speaker 2: old bucks as Don Higgins. Don has been a very
Speaker 2: long time outdoor writer. He's written about deer and deer
Speaker 2: hunting for years and years and years across a bunch
Speaker 2: of the different popular publications. These days, you can find
Speaker 2: his work pretty frequently in North American whitetail. He has
Speaker 2: now developed a whole series of different content offerings of
Speaker 2: his own. He's got the Chasing Giants podcast, he has
Speaker 2: the whitetail Master Academy online video course. He's got a
Speaker 2: website over there on Higgins outdoors dot com. He's got
Speaker 2: all sorts of stuff that is all framed around sharing
Speaker 2: his experiences hunting and studying and managing and improving habitat
Speaker 2: for big old whitetail deer. And that's the game plan
Speaker 2: today is to kind of get into all of the
Speaker 2: interesting lessons he's learned from those biggest, oldest bucks. So
Speaker 2: he's hunted over the years. What kind of habits have
Speaker 2: they had, what were their behaviors, what were their tendencies,
Speaker 2: what kind of little personality traits has he noticed? And
Speaker 2: you know, how can we take advantage of all that?
Speaker 2: So that's what we're talking about today now. As I
Speaker 2: have mentioned on our previous podcast in this series, I
Speaker 2: want to make it abundantly clear that although today we
Speaker 2: are talking about big old deer and we are celebrating
Speaker 2: how cool they are and how much fun they are
Speaker 2: to try to understand and to chase and to hunt,
Speaker 2: and there's nothing wrong with that. There's also nothing wrong
Speaker 2: with having different goals. There's nothing wrong with wanting to
Speaker 2: kill the first dear you see, or shoot a young buck,
Speaker 2: or shoot a bunch of two or three year olds.
Speaker 2: Whatever it is that lights your fire, whatever it is
Speaker 2: that makes this fun for you. Do that. Do not
Speaker 2: feel any pressure to, you know, chase the same goals
Speaker 2: that somebody else does. Do not feel any pressure to,
Speaker 2: you know, kill a big deer because everybody else seems
Speaker 2: to be doing it. Do your thing, hunt your own hunt,
Speaker 2: and most important, do what is fun. Make sure it's legal,
Speaker 2: make sure it's ethical, make sure it's fun. And I'll
Speaker 2: give an example. I'm actually leaving tonight to go on
Speaker 2: a hunting trip and I'm gonna be hunting deer in
Speaker 2: Wisconsin on a brand new property I've never touched foot
Speaker 2: on before. I don't know what I'm doing out there,
Speaker 2: and I'm just gonna be focusing on having fun. I'm
Speaker 2: not gonna try to kill some big, giant buck. I'm
Speaker 2: not trying to kill a five year old. Hey, if
Speaker 2: I see a deer like that and I get a chance, awesome.
Speaker 2: But I am just gonna be going out there to
Speaker 2: have fun. I want to kill a dough or two
Speaker 2: to help out the landowner, and otherwise I'm just gonna
Speaker 2: see what gets me excited. If there's a nice two
Speaker 2: or three year old buck that comes by, and the
Speaker 2: hunt has been going in such a way that this
Speaker 2: is an opportunity that I can't pass up on, then heck, yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm gonna shoot that deer. I'm gonna be happy. Or
Speaker 2: maybe I'm gonna see a bunch of deer like that
Speaker 2: and I'm gonna say, Nope, that's not what I want
Speaker 2: to shoot right now. Just given where I'm at, what's
Speaker 2: going on, how I'm feeling, maybe I just want to pass.
Speaker 2: Maybe I just want to watch those deer. I'm gonna
Speaker 2: see how the week goes, I'm gonna see how the
Speaker 2: days go, and we're just gonna feel it out, and
Speaker 2: when it comes right down to it, I just want
Speaker 2: this to be an enjoyable experience, getting the deer hunting
Speaker 2: season kicked off, spending some time with some good friends
Speaker 2: and enjoying ourselves and the outdoors and our company being
Speaker 2: out there chasing these critters, learning stuff, and maybe put
Speaker 2: a little vendis in the freezer along the way. So
Speaker 2: I just want to make sure that's really clear. Even
Speaker 2: though we're focusing on these big old bucks, there's a
Speaker 2: lot bigger things here in the larger scheme of things.
Speaker 2: So that all said. If you do like Big Old Bucks, though,
Speaker 2: this is gonna be the podcast for you. Don has
Speaker 2: got a lot to share. We're gonna get right to
Speaker 2: that podcast here after a couple very quick updates. Update
Speaker 2: number one, make sure you're following one week in November
Speaker 2: over on YouTube. That's our new series on the Meat
Speaker 2: Eater YouTube channel. I believe episode four came out this week,
Speaker 2: so you are getting to now see day one, two, three,
Speaker 2: and four of our seven day rut hunt that we
Speaker 2: had last year. And it's following my hunt in Nebraska
Speaker 2: and Ohio and then the hunts of my buddies Tony Peterson,
Speaker 2: Spencer Newhart, Klay Nukomb and Giannis Putellis. And I feel
Speaker 2: like day four was like this kind of day of
Speaker 2: not debauchery, but but debacles, I guess is maybe the
Speaker 2: right word. So if I remember this day right, we
Speaker 2: just had to kind of laugh at ourselves. And so
Speaker 2: be sure to check that one out and all the
Speaker 2: rest that are come over these next couple of weeks.
Speaker 2: Another update, if you haven't yet, make sure you're tuning
Speaker 2: into Reut Fresh Radio, which comes out every Wednesday, in
Speaker 2: which we are checking in with four or five deer
Speaker 2: hunters from across different parts of the country to find
Speaker 2: out what's happening right now, how's the deer activity been,
Speaker 2: how are current conditions impacting deer movement, what kinds of
Speaker 2: tactics they're working right now? You know, what are the
Speaker 2: deer doing, what are they feeding on, how are they
Speaker 2: relating to this weather or whatever it might be. You
Speaker 2: can learn a lot of really fresh hot intel that
Speaker 2: can help you on your upcoming hunts, so make sure
Speaker 2: you're tuning into that. And then finally, I think this
Speaker 2: is going to come out just before I head to
Speaker 2: Missouri or not Missouri, Mississippi for our fifth Working for
Speaker 2: Wildlife Tour event. So I just want to send out
Speaker 2: a big thank you to everyone who's signed up for that.
Speaker 2: I can't wait to see you guys on the twenty
Speaker 2: third in Mississippi. We're gonna be volunteering down there to
Speaker 2: plant fruit trees, plant food plots, removing vasive species, and
Speaker 2: do a handful of other good things on public land
Speaker 2: down there to make it better for wildlife, to make
Speaker 2: it better for hunters and all sorts of critters out there.
Speaker 2: So it's gonna be a good time. It's gonna be
Speaker 2: good work. I'm pumped about it. Thank you for being
Speaker 2: a part of it. Down there, all my Southern folks,
Speaker 2: whether it's Alabama, Mississippi, wherever you're coming from. Let's get
Speaker 2: to work. And now with that out of the way,
Speaker 2: we've got to get to something else, which is this
Speaker 2: really interesting podcast with mister Don Higgins. And I mentioned
Speaker 2: at the top he predicted a few years ago, he
Speaker 2: predicted that he would kill a two hundreds buck from
Speaker 2: a specific stand at a specific time when he was
Speaker 2: on the show back in seventeen or eighteen. I'm gonna
Speaker 2: give you a little preview right now. I asked Don
Speaker 2: to call his shot again, so we do have a prediction.
Speaker 2: At the end of this podcast, Don will make his
Speaker 2: prediction for this season. It's very interesting and I'm excited
Speaker 2: to see whether or not he can prove this one
Speaker 2: to be true as well. Sure you stay tuned in
Speaker 2: all the way to the end this great conversation with
Speaker 2: Don Higgins. Let's get to it all right here with
Speaker 2: me now on the line back again is mister Don Higgins.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Don for being here.
Speaker 3: Well, thanks for having me mark my pleasure.
Speaker 2: It's been a couple of years since you've been on
Speaker 2: the show, and it was well past time that we
Speaker 2: had a reunion here and talk through things. But when
Speaker 2: I was thinking back to those last conversations we had
Speaker 2: on here, I realized that we left things on like
Speaker 2: a really, really high note, because I think the last
Speaker 2: time we did one of our main shows together was
Speaker 2: when you were either discussing the outcome or when you
Speaker 2: were calling your shots on how you were going to say, Hey,
Speaker 2: I'm gonna kill a two hundred inch buck this year,
Speaker 2: I'm gonna shoot it from this blind's gonna happen like this,
Speaker 2: And we might have done one after that when you
Speaker 2: actually did it. But the long story short of it
Speaker 2: is that you called it, you actually killed the buck
Speaker 2: you said you were gonna kill. So with all that
Speaker 2: being said, I feel there's a lot of pressure on
Speaker 2: you now today because you're back and we're all gonna
Speaker 2: be expecting whatever you tell us today to be exactly
Speaker 2: what happens this season. So are you ready for that
Speaker 2: kind of pressure? Done?
Speaker 3: I guess so, you know, I didn't realize it had
Speaker 3: been that long. That was twenty seventeen, and I absolutely
Speaker 3: remember the podcast in the summer before that season, and
Speaker 3: then immediately after I shot the first buck, the two
Speaker 3: hundred and six inch smoky, we did a podcast and
Speaker 3: I said, my odds is seeing my second target buck
Speaker 3: just laying eyes on him. We're about five percent, I think. Well.
Speaker 3: Then a couple of days later, I went hunting and
Speaker 3: I shot him. Yeah, and I seen him for the
Speaker 3: first time ever and got a shot and killed him.
Speaker 3: So you brought me good luck last time. I hope
Speaker 3: you can do that again.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna do my best. I'm gonna do my best.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it feels like that was just like a year
Speaker 2: ago or two years ago. But when I started looking
Speaker 2: into it too, I couldn't believe how fast that time
Speaker 2: has flown. It's all. I've had two children in the
Speaker 2: years in between that, so it's all kind of been
Speaker 2: chaos on my side of least. So well, congratulations, yeah,
Speaker 2: thank you. You know how that goes pretty wild stuff.
Speaker 2: But you came to mind this month because we're doing
Speaker 2: this series all about the biggest oldest bucks, kind of
Speaker 2: getting behind the scenes and into the minds of those deer,
Speaker 2: of those super mature deer, of those old, gnarly kind
Speaker 2: of ghosts, and you're one of those guys who has perfected,
Speaker 2: I think, as close as you can the art of
Speaker 2: chasing that kind of deer. You know, those examples you
Speaker 2: just mentioned being perfect, perfect illustrations of that, you know,
Speaker 2: killing those two deer back in I guess what was
Speaker 2: seventeen you said? And it seems like you're back on
Speaker 2: the same kind of path now again this year. Maybe.
Speaker 2: So my first question before you're done, before we kind
Speaker 2: of dive into the meat and potatoes of all this, is, uh,
Speaker 2: how do you feel about this season coming into it?
Speaker 2: We're just a couple of weeks away from opening day
Speaker 2: there in Illinois. I heard your recent Buck Forecast podcast.
Speaker 2: It sounds like you're a little bit maybe apprehensive, but
Speaker 2: I want to hear it straight from you. How are
Speaker 2: you feeling going in this season as far as your
Speaker 2: situation specifically and maybe the larger you know, your larger
Speaker 2: take two?
Speaker 3: Well, you know, I had a really good buck that
Speaker 3: I passed last year. He's a five year old, and
Speaker 3: I had his sheds for from the two previous seasons.
Speaker 3: In this spring, I wasn't able to find either one,
Speaker 3: but a friend of mine found one side from this spring,
Speaker 3: and he would have scored in the mid one eighties,
Speaker 3: and I was hoping he would have a good jump
Speaker 3: on Antler's score for this year, but he actually went backwards,
Speaker 3: as did just about every mature buck that I was
Speaker 3: I had been following, So, you know, I think that
Speaker 3: was due to the drought. We had an extreme drought
Speaker 3: in May and June when those bucks, you know, are
Speaker 3: really set in the stage for that antler growth for
Speaker 3: the year, and I think that set them all back
Speaker 3: throughout much of the Midwest, because I've been hearing that
Speaker 3: from a lot of guys. But for me, individually, this
Speaker 3: buck that was mid one eighties last year, he's probably
Speaker 3: right there about the one eighty mark, with give or
Speaker 3: take an inch or two one hundred and eighty inches.
Speaker 3: He's six years old. This year, he's We're going to
Speaker 3: get him shot. And I say we because I've got
Speaker 3: two young grandsons that are going to hunt in the
Speaker 3: U season and they'll be able to use a rifle,
Speaker 3: straight wall cartridge rifle and if one of the if
Speaker 3: he steps out in front of one of them boys,
Speaker 3: they're going to get the green light and go ahead
Speaker 3: and put the hammer down, you know. So what I'm
Speaker 3: really excited about is that I've got some young bucks.
Speaker 3: And when I say young, I'm talking four and younger
Speaker 3: coming up on my property. That show at a world
Speaker 3: of potential, and I want to get these older bucks
Speaker 3: off the farm, get them shot, and allow these younger
Speaker 3: bucks to have the run of the place. Ideally, I
Speaker 3: would like to get these bucks shot in October. There's
Speaker 3: two in particular. There's also a big four by four
Speaker 3: that's probably one hundred and seventy inches. So those two
Speaker 3: bucks i'd like to get off the farm in October
Speaker 3: before the rut heats up. And I really don't even
Speaker 3: care if I'm the one that shoots them. I'll have
Speaker 3: guests here, my grandsons. I'm going to keep everybody away
Speaker 3: until that youth season, which I think is about the seventh, eighth, ninth,
Speaker 3: or somewhere in there that weekend in October. But after
Speaker 3: that we're gonna be hitting it hard. If I can
Speaker 3: take a friend or somebody along with me, I will
Speaker 3: and allow them to shoot those bucks. To be honest,
Speaker 3: the whole deer management thing on the farm, I just
Speaker 3: feel like I've taken this farm to a level that
Speaker 3: I never thought I ever could. And these young bucks
Speaker 3: that are coming up. I think, in all honesty, I
Speaker 3: think three of them have the potential to maybe be
Speaker 3: two hundred inches. Now I'm not saying they will, maybe
Speaker 3: none of them will, but I think they've got enough
Speaker 3: going on on their head that they could potentially get
Speaker 3: there with some age. And I want to do everything
Speaker 3: I can to keep those bucks alive. And you know,
Speaker 3: I just turned sixty years old about three weeks ago,
Speaker 3: and I got a wall full of big deer. I
Speaker 3: don't need to pile on a bunch more deer on
Speaker 3: my wall. And if I can, you know, make someone
Speaker 3: season by allowing them to shoot some of these bucks,
Speaker 3: I get a big thrill out of that. I've never
Speaker 3: been a guy that to stack up numbers of deer.
Speaker 3: It's just not been my thing. And nothing against people
Speaker 3: that try to all over the country and you know,
Speaker 3: shoot three or four or five or however many big
Speaker 3: deer every year. That's great for them, if that's their thing.
Speaker 3: It's just never been mine. And uh, I think once
Speaker 3: I shoot a buck, the work starts, and you know,
Speaker 3: then you gotta process that there, get him out of
Speaker 3: the woods and everything else. You're putting pressure on your land,
Speaker 3: and then you gotta you gotta search for your next
Speaker 3: target buck, and I like find. After I've found that
Speaker 3: target buck, that's when I really start having fun. Is
Speaker 3: kind of putting the pieces together, you know, until it's
Speaker 3: actually time to go after him.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so do you think I mean, I know you
Speaker 2: mentioned you want someone to shoot Babe now, but it
Speaker 2: sounds like he's not your target buck as much anymore.
Speaker 2: And you mentioned the big eight pointer and a couple
Speaker 2: others that you know other folks might take a crack
Speaker 2: at or maybe you. But is there any chance of
Speaker 2: like you having a real, real target buck that you're
Speaker 2: obsessing over and chasing after. Is there any possibility there's
Speaker 2: a deal like that out there still or does it
Speaker 2: seem like this gonna be a waiting game for these
Speaker 2: other bucks to get to next year?
Speaker 3: Well? Now I would after the use season, if I'm
Speaker 3: sitting by myself and Babe comes along, I'm shooting him. Yeah.
Speaker 3: I need to get him off the farm before November
Speaker 3: if I possibly can. And uh, I'm as far as
Speaker 3: having a giant target buck now that that one hundred
Speaker 3: and eighty inch Babe is probably my top end for
Speaker 3: this year. And uh, yeah, if I get him great
Speaker 3: if someone else does good for them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, So you mentioned that Babe was a six
Speaker 2: this year. Is that right?
Speaker 3: Yes?
Speaker 2: And and is he the oldest on the farming around
Speaker 2: there or is that big eight point or older or
Speaker 2: what's your what's like the age top end of your
Speaker 2: age structure there right now?
Speaker 3: No, I've got a couple of bucks that show up.
Speaker 3: They typically don't show up till after the ut. They
Speaker 3: show up in the late season for the food when
Speaker 3: the deer start congregating here for the food sources. I've
Speaker 3: got one that's probably I bet he's at least eight
Speaker 3: and a half, if not nine and a half this year,
Speaker 3: I'd have to go back and look at the history.
Speaker 3: He's not a big deer at all. He's probably high
Speaker 3: one thirties one at the top. Just a clean four
Speaker 3: by four. He wasn't when he was younger. He was
Speaker 3: a five by five. But the last two years and
Speaker 3: including that this year, be I guess the third year
Speaker 3: he's lost those G four's on both sides and just
Speaker 3: become a clean four by four. That buck needs shop.
Speaker 3: But he's really not one that's going to put too
Speaker 3: much pressure on these young bucks during the rut because
Speaker 3: he just isn't here during the rut. And then there's
Speaker 3: another buck that shows up late and the weather has
Speaker 3: to be really bad or he doesn't show up. I mean,
Speaker 3: we need some snow and really cold temperatures, and then
Speaker 3: he'll show up for the food, and again he doesn't
Speaker 3: show up till late. So he's not one I'm real
Speaker 3: really too worried about. He's probably maybe one hundred and
Speaker 3: sixty inches and he's probably six seven years old. But
Speaker 3: the big four by four that I mentioned, it's one
Speaker 3: hundred and seventy inches. He's a five year old. But
Speaker 3: he's just never going to be more than what he
Speaker 3: is right now. Yea, So time for him to go.
Speaker 2: So when you look at these deer or the course
Speaker 2: of their life as they mature, is there an age
Speaker 2: when you see a big jump not an antler size,
Speaker 2: but in smarts or behavior, Like when is it when
Speaker 2: they switch from being like a young whipper snapper to
Speaker 2: a ghost? What's that age typically like in your experience?
Speaker 3: Well, I think the toughest bucks to kill are the
Speaker 3: four and five year olds. From from three to four,
Speaker 3: they make a huge jump in you know how hard
Speaker 3: they are to kill. They just become a lot more
Speaker 3: wary and a lot more cautious, And once they hit
Speaker 3: about six, it seems like they become comfortable in whatever
Speaker 3: they're doing and they let their guard down just a
Speaker 3: little bit. I know Bill Wink's wrote about that in
Speaker 3: the past, and I've heard others talk about it, and
Speaker 3: I agree one hundred percent that now it might not
Speaker 3: happen at six with every buck, but six seven, somewhere
Speaker 3: in there, their home range kind of shrinks down. They
Speaker 3: don't cover as much territory. They found their safe zone,
Speaker 3: their sanctuary, if you will, and they start moving within
Speaker 3: that area during daylight a little more than they did
Speaker 3: the two years before. I think the toughest bucks to
Speaker 3: kill are probably four and five year olds.
Speaker 2: So you mentioned a couple of things, but I'm curious
Speaker 2: what are with those four and five year old bucks.
Speaker 2: I guess what's different about their behavior from the six
Speaker 2: seven eight year olds. With the six seven eight year olds,
Speaker 2: I follow you like they're starting to get comfortable. They
Speaker 2: kind of know where they're safe. They've got their really
Speaker 2: tight core area, and so I can see how that
Speaker 2: could become a predictable. What are you seeing with those
Speaker 2: four and five year olds. That is making them so tricky.
Speaker 2: They they're in that sw spot where they're not dumb
Speaker 2: teenagers anymore, but they're not old farts that just want
Speaker 2: to lay on the couch, right. Yeah.
Speaker 3: The biggest thing is daylight movement. That they just don't
Speaker 3: move in daylight as much. And it doesn't make sense,
Speaker 3: but those older bucks, in my experience, seem to move
Speaker 3: more in daylight. But now their home range is a
Speaker 3: lot smaller, so they're they're holding tight to an area
Speaker 3: they're really familiar with, and I think they just get
Speaker 3: over confident in their survival abilities and their ability to
Speaker 3: detect danger. They're not moving in daylight everywhere, but within
Speaker 3: that small core area, they seem to move more in daylight.
Speaker 2: What's the trick? And I've realized there's not a trick,
Speaker 2: But what's the key to getting a buck like that
Speaker 2: to that age and feeling overconfident in his zone. I've
Speaker 2: got some assumptions, but I'd like to hear from your perspective,
Speaker 2: how do we get a buck to that age and
Speaker 2: feeling like, oh man, this is pretty slick. I've got
Speaker 2: it made. I can feel comfortable here. I'm confident and
Speaker 2: seemingly overconfident in your estimation. What gets us there?
Speaker 3: Well, I think that you know, when when bucks are young,
Speaker 3: I don't think there's one buck that's smarter than the other.
Speaker 3: I think a lot of it. Which ones in most
Speaker 3: of the the white tails range, I think it's pretty
Speaker 3: much luck which bucks make it to the older age classes,
Speaker 3: because as those bucks disperse as yearlings, you know, research
Speaker 3: has shown that depending on the type of terrain they
Speaker 3: live in, the more open the terrain, the farther they're
Speaker 3: going to disperse from their birth area. The more densely
Speaker 3: wooded or the more cover, the shorter the distance they're
Speaker 3: going to disperse from their birth area. But I think
Speaker 3: that when those yearling bucks disperse, some of those bucks
Speaker 3: are just lucky, and they happen to disperse to a
Speaker 3: property or a no hunting area or whatever where the
Speaker 3: hunting pressure is not as much and they survive to
Speaker 3: the next age class one percent on luck. And what
Speaker 3: I've tried to do with the management of my property,
Speaker 3: and we kind of got into a little bit earlier
Speaker 3: when I talked about those young bucks, that I want
Speaker 3: to make it. What I've tried to do is make
Speaker 3: my property a place that attracts a lot of those
Speaker 3: young bucks. I want to give them the security so
Speaker 3: they're safe when they get here, they're not going to
Speaker 3: get shot. I want to give them all the food
Speaker 3: they want, a wide variety of food. Food diversity is huge.
Speaker 3: I want to give them the security of freedom of
Speaker 3: human intrusion. I want to give them large blocks of
Speaker 3: sanctuary cover that's never going to have a human step
Speaker 3: foot in it. And I think once a young buck
Speaker 3: finds a place like that, he's got the food he's
Speaker 3: got to cover, and then obviously there's going to be
Speaker 3: does there. I think you can hold a lot more
Speaker 3: of those young bucks. And then from that point it's
Speaker 3: kind of a matter of managing your buck herd. And
Speaker 3: you know, this is one of the things that one
Speaker 3: of the reasons I like doctor Strickland's doctor Bronson Strickland
Speaker 3: from the MSU Dear Lab his research so well is
Speaker 3: because his research absolutely backs up my approach to management.
Speaker 3: And so when we get these bucks staying here as
Speaker 3: yearlings and two year olds, and then once they hit three,
Speaker 3: you've got a pretty good idea of what that buck's
Speaker 3: going to be later in life. I mean, the best
Speaker 3: yearling bucks as far as racks, are going to be
Speaker 3: the best two year olds. Most of the time they
Speaker 3: are going to be the best three year olds. So
Speaker 3: when they hit three, you got a pretty good idea
Speaker 3: of what that buck is going to be when he matures.
Speaker 3: And what I've tried to do is bring in guests
Speaker 3: and shoot a lot of three year olds that are
Speaker 3: at the lower end of their age class, the best
Speaker 3: bucks in each age class, I want to protect them,
Speaker 3: and starting at three years old. Now there's a lot
Speaker 3: of those bucks that I mean, they're wild deer, and
Speaker 3: we can hunt them as hard as we want. That
Speaker 3: doesn't that's no guarantee we're going to kill them. But
Speaker 3: those bucks that are on the hit list as three
Speaker 3: year olds are the worst three year olds. And then
Speaker 3: we allow the best ones in each age class to
Speaker 3: move on up. And you know, that's been my approach
Speaker 3: to you know, having a farm that produces some top
Speaker 3: end bucks, how.
Speaker 2: Much do you worry about educating your up and comers.
Speaker 2: So I'm imagining like you've got a top tier three
Speaker 2: year old or four year old, the buck that you
Speaker 2: really really want to make it. But at the same time,
Speaker 2: I know, like you want to take out these big
Speaker 2: bully bucks or lower end younger bucks. And I'm assuming
Speaker 2: maybe you're shooting some dough sometimes too. If if you're
Speaker 2: trying to do that, do you worry about educating that
Speaker 2: top end three and a half here, Let's say they're
Speaker 2: out in the food source at the same time and
Speaker 2: you've got a dough and he want to shoot some
Speaker 2: does but also your your high potential three year olds
Speaker 2: out there, your high potential four year olds out there.
Speaker 2: Are you worried about shooting a deer while he's out
Speaker 2: there and spooking him off? Same thing with a big
Speaker 2: bully buck, Like, is that in your mind? Is that
Speaker 2: making your shoot or don't shoot decisions in any way
Speaker 2: more complicated?
Speaker 3: That's definitely something I take into consideration. And you know,
Speaker 3: I've I don't know how many tree stands I got
Speaker 3: on this property. I'm gonna guess about let's just say fifteen,
Speaker 3: give or take. I've got certain stands that I absolutely
Speaker 3: will not shoot anything except a target buck. I'm not
Speaker 3: gonna put any pressure on those stands unless it's a giant.
Speaker 3: And most of those are like they're right on the
Speaker 3: edge of the sanctuary, And I don't have any stands
Speaker 3: within the sanctuary. But I've got some stands on the
Speaker 3: edge of the sanctuary that I hunt with various wind directions,
Speaker 3: and there's various terrain features that pinch those deer up
Speaker 3: closer to the edge as they travel throughout that sanctuary.
Speaker 3: And I won't shoot a call buck if you will,
Speaker 3: And I hate to use that term management buck. I say,
Speaker 3: I won't shoot a management buck within the sanctuary that
Speaker 3: they've got to step out of the sanctuary to get shot.
Speaker 3: The sanctuary remains a sanctuary for the bucks that I
Speaker 3: want to raise or want to move on up. I
Speaker 3: want them to always feel safe there and never feel
Speaker 3: pressure there.
Speaker 2: I think what it sounds like you've tried to do,
Speaker 2: and what I think a lot of people want to do,
Speaker 2: is try to maximize the number of top tier mature
Speaker 2: bucks that will spend a lot of time on their property,
Speaker 2: right And I've heard you talk about different ways that
Speaker 2: you might be able to do that, whether it is
Speaker 2: doing what you're just described there, which is trying to
Speaker 2: remove some of the competition, But what else have you
Speaker 2: found can help you maximize the number of mature bucks
Speaker 2: or really good mature bucks that you can stack on
Speaker 2: your piece. In addition to, you know, taking out some
Speaker 2: management up bucks to open up slots I guess we'll
Speaker 2: call them. Is there anything else with habitat or hunting
Speaker 2: that you're doing that allows that to possibly happen to
Speaker 2: get not just one big mature buck, but maybe you
Speaker 2: can get two or three or what's that max? Have
Speaker 2: you found two per one hundred acres or two hundred acres.
Speaker 2: I'm curious about that whole set of ideas well.
Speaker 3: One thing that I've learned about mature box is that
Speaker 3: they're all different. It would be like putting a group
Speaker 3: of mature men around a table. Now, they're all going
Speaker 3: to have certain tendencies, you know, but they're all going
Speaker 3: to be individual also, And it's the same with these bucks.
Speaker 3: And I think that's one of the things that helps
Speaker 3: me anyway to target specific bucks is that as I
Speaker 3: watch these bucks grow up and I put the pieces
Speaker 3: of the puzzle together as they're growing up, by the
Speaker 3: time they're mature, I know what they're going to do
Speaker 3: and before they do it each fall, and that allows
Speaker 3: me to be a step ahead of that buck instead
Speaker 3: of a step behind him when I go to hunting.
Speaker 3: So it comes down to the individual personalities. There's some
Speaker 3: bucks that absolutely they don't want to be here. I've
Speaker 3: got too many deer, too many bucks on my place,
Speaker 3: and I get bucks that come along that don't like
Speaker 3: it here, and so they will go to outlying areas.
Speaker 3: Now they will visit, they'll come through here and look
Speaker 3: for doze, and in the winter when food's tough to find,
Speaker 3: they'll show up. But they really don't like spending a
Speaker 3: lot of time around all these other deer. But there's
Speaker 3: other individual bucks that don't mind it at all. And
Speaker 3: I'm talking a chair box four or five, six, seven
Speaker 3: years old. They'll walk out and it doesn't matter. It
Speaker 3: could be November and two or three of them will
Speaker 3: walk out together into a food plot to look for dose.
Speaker 3: They don't mind each other's company. And those are the
Speaker 3: ones that I think are a lot easier for me
Speaker 3: because I got a fairly small property. If I had
Speaker 3: several hundred acres, it'd be different. And the other thing
Speaker 3: I've tried to do is, besides diversifying my food sources,
Speaker 3: I've really tried to diversify my bedding cover into you know,
Speaker 3: I've got the switch grass fields, I've got well, i
Speaker 3: got three different getting ready to plant next spring, I'll
Speaker 3: plant my fourth different field and switch grass. So you
Speaker 3: know I've got one place on the farm. It's in
Speaker 3: a Actually there's two that I can think of up
Speaker 3: the top of my head that are within these switch
Speaker 3: grass fields. I've always got a good buck betted there.
Speaker 3: One of them is in a corner where two miscantis
Speaker 3: edges form a corner in the switchgrass, and there always
Speaker 3: seems to be a good buck betted there. Another one
Speaker 3: is there there's a kind of a warsh throughout the
Speaker 3: switchgrass field, and on one hillside there's a spot where
Speaker 3: there always seems to be a good buck bed. And
Speaker 3: by breaking it up like that and really thick cover
Speaker 3: helps too, because you know, a buck is betted in
Speaker 3: that switch grass, he can't see, you know, ten feet
Speaker 3: in front of him, and yeah, he knows what's around him,
Speaker 3: and he can smell other deer and whatever, but he
Speaker 3: doesn't see him like he would in like an open
Speaker 3: wooded type cover. So you know, diversity of betting cover helps,
Speaker 3: and then breaking it up, you know, into different sections
Speaker 3: of betting cover so that you know, one buck is
Speaker 3: betted into this switchgrass patch and then over there's another
Speaker 3: switchgrass patch with another buck. And I've I've learned a
Speaker 3: lot since starting to manage this farm thirty years ago
Speaker 3: or put it together, and it kind of blew out,
Speaker 3: blew away some of the ideas that people have in
Speaker 3: regards to the management of bucks. And and that's one
Speaker 3: of the things is I'm holding way more bucks than
Speaker 3: I ever thought I could.
Speaker 2: What would that well, what is that in your estimation?
Speaker 2: Like how many I mean, I recognize its like a
Speaker 2: rough estimate, but how many bucks are you holding? How
Speaker 2: many mature bucks do you think are on that I'm
Speaker 2: just kind of curious what you have achieved given those
Speaker 2: ideas you just mentioned.
Speaker 3: Well, that varies by the time of the season. In
Speaker 3: the summer, I've got none here really. During the rut,
Speaker 3: you know, I will have let's just say bucks that
Speaker 3: are four and older. Typically, I'll have at least a
Speaker 3: half a dozen well for and older bucks on one
Speaker 3: hundred and twenty acres. Yeah, during the late sea in
Speaker 3: when the rut's over and we get bad weather and
Speaker 3: they're concentrated on the food, you know, I can probably
Speaker 3: up that by at least two or three others showing up.
Speaker 3: So I could actually have up to ten bucks four
Speaker 3: years old and older during the late season.
Speaker 2: Wow. Yeah, that's pretty incredible. So you mentioned that one
Speaker 2: of the truisms of old bucks is that they're usually
Speaker 2: all different. They've got those unique personalis just like mature
Speaker 2: old men, Right, We've all got our personality traits and quirks.
Speaker 2: But is there anything that you found to be a
Speaker 2: trend or pretty true across the board when you do
Speaker 2: get to those five, six, seven, eight year old deer?
Speaker 2: Is there anything that does stand out? Is almost as
Speaker 2: close as you get to a rule. I guess you
Speaker 2: mentioned one being like the tighter core area, But is
Speaker 2: there anything else that does stand out is pretty darn
Speaker 2: consistent with those deer?
Speaker 3: Yeah, without a doubt. You know, any mature black desires
Speaker 3: freedom of human intrusion, and the older they get, the
Speaker 3: more important that becomes to them. And when their home
Speaker 3: range shrinks as they get older, it's shrinking around that
Speaker 3: area that they have found the least amount of human intrusion.
Speaker 3: And that's why I think it's so important how you
Speaker 3: manage a property. And you know, I know, Mark, we've
Speaker 3: talked before we started recording here that you just got
Speaker 3: on the Whitetail Master Academy, and we just released a
Speaker 3: video a day or two ago titled the Four Cornerstones
Speaker 3: of building a world class white tail Property, and that's
Speaker 3: exactly what we're talking about here. And I think one
Speaker 3: huge key is, and it's the number one on the video,
Speaker 3: just to give everybody a preview, is the layout of
Speaker 3: the property. And the layout of the property is something
Speaker 3: that you can do nothing about. It's what you're given,
Speaker 3: its terrain features, it's how it connects to other properties
Speaker 3: around it, and that's huge. Every property has a ceiling.
Speaker 3: You know that the top end box that you're ever
Speaker 3: going to grow there is the ceiling. And some properties
Speaker 3: have a lot higher ceiling than others. And when I started,
Speaker 3: I never realized that my property the ceiling is two
Speaker 3: hundred inches plus. I just didn't see that coming. Other
Speaker 3: properties in other areas of the country the top end
Speaker 3: maybe one hundred and twenty inches. And no matter what
Speaker 3: you do as a land manager, you're never going to
Speaker 3: get past that. And that's often due to the layout
Speaker 3: of the property, how it connects with what's around it.
Speaker 3: I mean, if you've got forty acres and you got
Speaker 3: extreme hunting pressure on all sides of you. Guys that
Speaker 3: are shooting anything that walks, you're going to have a
Speaker 3: hard time, you know, getting box past about two years old.
Speaker 3: And you got to start. When you want to build
Speaker 3: a world class property, you got to start with a
Speaker 3: property that lays out good.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So back to something he said second ago, which
Speaker 2: was these really old deer don't want human pressure, right,
Speaker 2: and they find that they seek out those places based
Speaker 2: on the layout. They can find those pockets where they
Speaker 2: feel safe, and as we talked about earlier, they seem
Speaker 2: to find that zone where they build confidence, where they've
Speaker 2: consistently stayed away from humans, they become comfortable there. I've
Speaker 2: wondered with that kind of deer that demands an absence
Speaker 2: of human pressure once they get to that age six, seven,
Speaker 2: eight years old, I'm curious if you've found them to
Speaker 2: be more or less impacted by pressure at that point,
Speaker 2: because part of me thinks, like, well, if a deer
Speaker 2: seven or eight and he's found his little bedding spot
Speaker 2: and his little sanctuary and he's been safe there over
Speaker 2: the years, it might be pretty hard to push that
Speaker 2: deer out of there because he knows this place works
Speaker 2: for him, like it's worked for him for years and years.
Speaker 2: My assumption might be, like, man, if I did have
Speaker 2: to get aggressive, it'd probably take a lot in a
Speaker 2: consistent amount of pressure to finally push deer out of
Speaker 2: there or to blow them out, because the years have
Speaker 2: proven this to be safe for him. So that's one assumption.
Speaker 2: But maybe the flip side is true, which is man,
Speaker 2: they're so sensitive to it, that's the only reason why
Speaker 2: they survived to this point. They're not going to tolerate anything.
Speaker 2: What's your experience been with how a really mature buck handles,
Speaker 2: you know, some kind of intrusion or an aggressive hunt
Speaker 2: into his sanctuary when he's seven, or you make a
Speaker 2: mistake and he smells you on the edge or something
Speaker 2: like that. What have you seen in those situations.
Speaker 3: Well, that really comes back to the individual buck again.
Speaker 3: Some of them will tolerate almost nothing, and others will
Speaker 3: tolerate a lot. I think the big thing with those
Speaker 3: deer is that when you're doing projects besides hunting, working
Speaker 3: food plots, checking trail cameras or whatever, the last thing
Speaker 3: you want to do is slip up on a buck
Speaker 3: and betting or jumping real close to his bed. If
Speaker 3: he can hear you coming on a you know, a
Speaker 3: tractor or whatever. He has time to decide how he
Speaker 3: wants to react. Is he wanted to just put his
Speaker 3: head down to the ground and let you pass by.
Speaker 3: Does he want to you know, skip away, you know,
Speaker 3: keep his head low to the ground and trot into
Speaker 3: the brush. What's he want to do? And as long
Speaker 3: as he escapes that encounter, he feels confident in his
Speaker 3: method that if he lays tight and lets you pass,
Speaker 3: he feels he just gains confidence in that approach to danger.
Speaker 3: And as time goes on, as the years roll by,
Speaker 3: he becomes more and more likely to lay tight and
Speaker 3: let danger pass. If he flees, then he's ben. He
Speaker 3: lives because he fleed, he becomes more likely to flee.
Speaker 3: And I think it's a lot of times these bucks
Speaker 3: are they've got a memory, you know, they remember where
Speaker 3: they encounter danger. For example, they remember where they smelled
Speaker 3: that guy in his tree stand, or they seen that
Speaker 3: guy climbing a tree or whatever, and they file that
Speaker 3: away for later use. And I think to some degree,
Speaker 3: we can turn that around against them. We can condition
Speaker 3: them to certain human activities on a property. And it's
Speaker 3: actually putting no pressure whatsoever. For example, working food plots,
Speaker 3: they hear the guy coming on the tractor and they
Speaker 3: know he's in this one little area for a while
Speaker 3: and then he leaves. You know, they get used to that.
Speaker 3: So I think we can we condition these bucks as
Speaker 3: they're younger and growing up to react in certain ways
Speaker 3: to different forms of pressure.
Speaker 2: Yep, have you taken advantage of that? Then? From a
Speaker 2: hunting perspective, I imagine there are certain ways you've done that.
Speaker 2: But have you been able to over the years condition
Speaker 2: them to certain things that, then you know, not only
Speaker 2: allow you to get a food plot in without blowing
Speaker 2: up your property, but actually have led to hunting success.
Speaker 3: Well, when I go to hunt, I don't want that
Speaker 3: deer to have any idea I'm anywhere around. I want
Speaker 3: to slip in silent and get in my stand or
Speaker 3: my blind or whatever. And because I think once he
Speaker 3: knows there's human activity in the area, he's not going
Speaker 3: to just freely get up and waltz around for a
Speaker 3: period of time. Now, whether that period of time is
Speaker 3: a couple hours or until it's dark can vary by
Speaker 3: buck to buck. So when I go hunting, I want
Speaker 3: to slip into that stand without spooking any deer whatsoever.
Speaker 3: I want to go in silently. I don't want somebody
Speaker 3: dropping me off on a tract or anything like that.
Speaker 3: I want to get in as silent as possible and
Speaker 3: undisturb or and have undisturbed deer you know around me.
Speaker 2: Yeap makes sense. So let's let's paint a picture here
Speaker 2: of no again, knowing that each dear is unique. So
Speaker 2: you're gonna have to bear with me here and generalize
Speaker 2: a little bit. But if you were, let's say, writing
Speaker 2: a book right now, we're painting a picture of a
Speaker 2: day in the life of this supermature buck. We're going
Speaker 2: to talk one of these six or seven or eight
Speaker 2: year old bucks that's made it to the tippy top
Speaker 2: of the mountain. I want to talk about what that
Speaker 2: buck's life looks like, and how he chooses a bed,
Speaker 2: and when he gets up and moves off to feed,
Speaker 2: and how he travels to a food source, how he
Speaker 2: chooses what food source he wants to go to in
Speaker 2: a given day. Can you walk me through a hypothetical
Speaker 2: of what you've seen or learned about how a deer
Speaker 2: like that might operate in a day like that? And
Speaker 2: I guess and one qualifier sorry don specifically king in
Speaker 2: on like how the choices he makes are things he
Speaker 2: does are different than that three year old or four
Speaker 2: year old buck.
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, and I think again that changes throughout the season. Yeah,
Speaker 3: but typically, you know, his bed is going to be
Speaker 3: chosen where he can either where he's he feels he's
Speaker 3: not going to encounter danger. That That could be a
Speaker 3: wide open, you know woods where there's just never been
Speaker 3: any human activity that he's encountered, or human sin on
Speaker 3: the ground that he's encountered. It might be the thickest,
Speaker 3: nastiest stuff. It may be a switchgrass field where he
Speaker 3: can't see three feet in front of his face. But
Speaker 3: he wants to be someplace where he knows the likelihood
Speaker 3: of him encountering danger is very low. And the other
Speaker 3: thing he wants is he wants an opportunity of danger
Speaker 3: does come along to be able to escape that danger,
Speaker 3: so he's got a direction he can flee. I know
Speaker 3: a lot of in more heavily wooded areas, bucks like
Speaker 3: to bed out on ridge points and sit and laying
Speaker 3: up on that ridge point. You know, they can survey
Speaker 3: all the terrain around them, and danger comes from one direction,
Speaker 3: they just bail off the ridge the opposite direction. You know,
Speaker 3: he's covering all his bases and that that's the area
Speaker 3: where he wants to bed. He also when it comes
Speaker 3: to getting up from that bed and heading towards food,
Speaker 3: you know, that's where these older bocks become easier to
Speaker 3: kill because I think if they've never encountered danger on
Speaker 3: their route from their bed to their food, they're more
Speaker 3: likely to take a chance with the wind. And not
Speaker 3: that they do it very often, but you know, maybe
Speaker 3: one day out of the month they'll give up the
Speaker 3: wind to hit that food source. Now, if there's pressure,
Speaker 3: they're never going to give it up. Partly, and when
Speaker 3: he goes to that food he either wants a lot
Speaker 3: of times if there's heavy cover on one side of
Speaker 3: that food source, he will run the down wind edge
Speaker 3: of that food source in the cover, send it as
Speaker 3: the scent blows out of the food source back towards
Speaker 3: him to make sure it's safe. And then at some
Speaker 3: point he'll turn and go right into the wind as
Speaker 3: he hits that food source. But he wants to use
Speaker 3: the wind as much as he can. Know, my favorite
Speaker 3: setup for hunting a buck is, you know, I want
Speaker 3: to kill him on purpose. I mean, there's a lot
Speaker 3: of big bucks to get killed by blind luck every year.
Speaker 3: But I want to negate the luck factor as much
Speaker 3: as possible, and I want to I want him to.
Speaker 3: I want to try to figure what he's going to do,
Speaker 3: because that puts the odds in my favor. And if
Speaker 3: you've got a food source, and you've got a known
Speaker 3: food source where you suspect he's going to go that afternoon,
Speaker 3: and you've got a place where you suspect he's bedded
Speaker 3: that day, he's going to move from from point A
Speaker 3: to point B, and he wants to have the wind well,
Speaker 3: instead of giving him the wind straight in his nose
Speaker 3: as he makes that journey from the bed to the food,
Speaker 3: if he's got a quartering wind, so it's not straight
Speaker 3: in his nose, but it's hitting his nose at an angle. Well,
Speaker 3: that allows me to get off to the side just
Speaker 3: enough where my scent is blowing in his direction, but
Speaker 3: it's blowing off to the side of his direction. So
Speaker 3: he's actually doing everything that a big buck should to
Speaker 3: stay alive. But the wind is just enough in your
Speaker 3: favor that you can be on the right side of
Speaker 3: the trail and him not sent you. Now, if you
Speaker 3: was on the other side of the trail, he would
Speaker 3: catch it for sure. Yeah, but that quartering nose wind
Speaker 3: is the ideal situation for killing a mature bog.
Speaker 2: So I have tried to pull off that kind of
Speaker 2: set up plenty of times over the years. And one
Speaker 2: thing that I have found to be challenging is in
Speaker 2: areas with high deer densities, especially a lot of does,
Speaker 2: and having that wind that knows just barely right, start
Speaker 2: doing a little switching on me throughout the hunt and
Speaker 2: it'll kind of curve over and kind of curve back
Speaker 2: and get that slightly shifting wind and then getting busted
Speaker 2: because there's just too many deer around. Have you found
Speaker 2: there to be a certain wind speed that you need
Speaker 2: to make that work? Do you want it to be
Speaker 2: pretty high and consistent? Do you avoid really low winds
Speaker 2: or does any of that matter when choosing a day
Speaker 2: that you're in a hunt like that? And if that's
Speaker 2: not the thing, is there anything else you've done to
Speaker 2: negate the threat? I'm talking about the risk of getting
Speaker 2: buggered by a dell before your big guy comes in.
Speaker 3: Well, it all starts with where is your scent going,
Speaker 3: and you want that scent and going in an area
Speaker 3: where there's low likelihood that there's going to be deer
Speaker 3: to catch your scent. I like a wind of about
Speaker 3: say ten twelve miles an hour. That's steady. I don't
Speaker 3: want to light and variable wind. But you know, you
Speaker 3: check it three times and it's going three different directions,
Speaker 3: it's the worst I want to Yeah, keep it steady.
Speaker 3: The other thing is thermals come in to play big
Speaker 3: time you as you get into the evening. That really
Speaker 3: becomes a factor, you know, because as things start cooling down,
Speaker 3: that your sense starts dropping and makes it you know,
Speaker 3: a lot more likely than anything down wind is going
Speaker 3: to smell you. But having that your scent going into
Speaker 3: an area with a low likelihood of a deer encountering
Speaker 3: it is huge whether it be an open field, and
Speaker 3: deer can come out in open fields. But you know,
Speaker 3: if you've got a prime food source past you, they're
Speaker 3: they're more likely to go hit that prime food source.
Speaker 3: And you got to have an idea where the deer
Speaker 3: coming from and where they're going, a really good idea.
Speaker 3: But as far as sin elimination products, I think they
Speaker 3: probably most of them work to some degree, but I
Speaker 3: don't trust them at all. It's one percent the wind
Speaker 3: for me. If if a deer, if there's a good
Speaker 3: wind and the deer's not down wind to me, he's
Speaker 3: not gonna smell you. I don't care if you worked
Speaker 3: in a hog barn all day, if he just it's
Speaker 3: not gonna happen.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Speaking of wind and how they use wind when
Speaker 2: when going to feed, you mentioned when they're choosing where
Speaker 2: they want to bed, they want safety and they want
Speaker 2: an escape route. But there's also some theories around how
Speaker 2: they might use wind when choosing where they bed. Do
Speaker 2: you see anything like that? Do you think wind impacts
Speaker 2: where they choose to bed? And it's so how Oh?
Speaker 3: Absolutely? And I've got a video out on that as well,
Speaker 3: where I show real life examples of if a buck
Speaker 3: knows he wants to bed at a certain spot, he
Speaker 3: will first. A lot of times they do this in
Speaker 3: the dark, before it's even daylight. They will run the
Speaker 3: down wind edge of that area they're going to bed
Speaker 3: to scince check it first, and then they will jay
Speaker 3: hook right back into it in bed. I've seen that
Speaker 3: many times on morning hunts. It usually happens right at
Speaker 3: daylight with a mature buck, and like I said, a
Speaker 3: lot of times it happens before the sun's even up.
Speaker 3: We don't even see it happen. But yeah, they will
Speaker 3: run the down wind edge that betting cover. And that's
Speaker 3: one of those deals, you know, where I see and
Speaker 3: hear stories or whatever occasionally where a guy says, well,
Speaker 3: I've found where my target buck is betting, So I'm
Speaker 3: going to go in about three in the morning and
Speaker 3: I'm gonna get in my stand about three in the
Speaker 3: morning and beat him to his bed and I'll go
Speaker 3: and be waiting there for him. Well that's fine and
Speaker 3: dandy until he runs the down wind edge in the dark,
Speaker 3: scent checktion finds you and then vacates the area with
Speaker 3: that you ever knowing it even happened.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah, that's one of those easier said than done
Speaker 2: kind of things for sure. Right, So you mentioned that
Speaker 2: there's maybe like a bell curve with his deer as
Speaker 2: far as the ease of hunting them, And maybe ease
Speaker 2: isn't the right word, but if we're looking at those
Speaker 2: one two three year old bucks being relatively easy because
Speaker 2: they're moving a lot, they're making mistakes, and then they
Speaker 2: hit that four and five year old range and now
Speaker 2: they you know, shrink that what they're doing. They're not
Speaker 2: as active, maybe they're a little less daylight active. But
Speaker 2: then when you reach that other side of the curve
Speaker 2: six seven eight, now they've gotten overconfident. They've found their
Speaker 2: safe area. You mentioned that maybe those deer become easier
Speaker 2: to hunt in a certain way because you know them,
Speaker 2: you've got years of history, you've developed an understanding of
Speaker 2: their personality traits. How do you go about keeping track
Speaker 2: of all that stuff with one of these deer? Is
Speaker 2: it all just in your head? Or do you take notes?
Speaker 2: Do you have a journal? Do you track data and
Speaker 2: pictures and observations and a spreadsheet or anything like? How
Speaker 2: do you make sure this stuff isn't just one ear
Speaker 2: and one out the other.
Speaker 3: Well, it's my life's passion, so a lot of it's
Speaker 3: in my head, but a lot of it is also
Speaker 3: trail camera data that I store. Well, you know, we
Speaker 3: should probably back up just a second mark because I
Speaker 3: don't want anybody to get the wrong idea. When that
Speaker 3: box starts becoming easier to hunt as he gets older,
Speaker 3: he's never gonna be as easy as he was at three.
Speaker 3: A three year old buck is still a pretty easy
Speaker 3: buck to kill. And yeah, he's gonna be easier than
Speaker 3: maybe he was at four and five. But that as
Speaker 3: that bell curve starts to slope off on the other side,
Speaker 3: it's gonna it's not gonna be a sharp drop or
Speaker 3: boom all of a sudden he becomes easy.
Speaker 2: Great point.
Speaker 3: It's gonna be a slow, gradual decline where he becomes
Speaker 3: slightly easier, but he's never going to become as easy
Speaker 3: as he was as a three year old. Yea on
Speaker 3: the other side of that curve.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so yeah, thanks for thanks for clarifying that. So,
Speaker 2: so you're you're tracking your photos, it's got a lot
Speaker 2: in your head when you're sitting down leading into a
Speaker 2: season or leading into a hunt. What's that like analysis
Speaker 2: process look like for you when you're trying to choose,
Speaker 2: like how do I figure out how do I kill
Speaker 2: this buck?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 2: Let's say, you know, let's say Babe makes it through
Speaker 2: you season and you're going to try to get out
Speaker 2: there and get him, get him on the ground, you know,
Speaker 2: and you're thinking through all your years of history with him,
Speaker 2: are you looking back on individual I mean, I know
Speaker 2: your big annual patterns, like are you thinking through man?
Speaker 2: Last year? He daylighted on this date and I don't
Speaker 2: have the right win. But it's the annual pattern like
Speaker 2: can you walk me through your evening before hunt or
Speaker 2: whenever it is where you do this whole. I don't
Speaker 2: know what it looks like for you. For me, it's
Speaker 2: kind of like those detective movies or threo's, like a
Speaker 2: thousand pictures on the wall and strings between all the
Speaker 2: pictures and the guy in the back like pulling his
Speaker 2: hair out trying to figure it out. What's that look
Speaker 2: like for you?
Speaker 3: Well, as I'm watching these bucks mature, I'm It's not
Speaker 3: like I one night, I go in and set up
Speaker 3: my computer and I figure out what I want to do.
Speaker 3: It's the pieces are slowly coming together over years before
Speaker 3: I target that buck. And even like a year or
Speaker 3: two before I'm going to target that buck, I know
Speaker 3: where my best chance is to kill himr Like I'll
Speaker 3: know that I've got two or three stands on my
Speaker 3: farm where my very best odds that killing that deer
Speaker 3: are and I will wait for the perfect conditions for
Speaker 3: those stands and slip in and do it, and maybe
Speaker 3: maybe it's a certain time of the year, you know,
Speaker 3: Like I know once the bucks first week in November,
Speaker 3: the bucks are starting to you know, scrape and move
Speaker 3: a little bit more. I know I can count on
Speaker 3: this buck to be at this particular location. And that's
Speaker 3: he goes back to what I was saying earlier about
Speaker 3: their certain stands. I just won't shoot a management buck
Speaker 3: from because I don't want to booger them up for
Speaker 3: you know, a primary target buck, and so I know
Speaker 3: where I'm going to kill him, that's the big thing.
Speaker 3: And then I just wait for the conditions to be
Speaker 3: perfect for that location. And there may be two or
Speaker 3: three of those locations that take totally different conditions to
Speaker 3: be prime. But whatever it is, I wait for the prime,
Speaker 3: the prime opportunity and the prime location, and I get
Speaker 3: in and get it done.
Speaker 2: If you're willing to share this, I don't know if
Speaker 2: you are or not, But if you're willing to share,
Speaker 2: could you detail for us what you think one of
Speaker 2: those hypothetical prime locations might look like for babe, Like
Speaker 2: I'm what I'm getting at. What I'm getting is like
Speaker 2: trying to get a clear picture of like what is
Speaker 2: one of these bulletproof setups where you can kill a
Speaker 2: six year old buck. That's kind of the idea I'm
Speaker 2: going for here. So if you've got an example you're
Speaker 2: willing to share, I'd love to hear, like the very
Speaker 2: specific details like how you're getting in, how you're getting out,
Speaker 2: what it's set up, why he should come through there,
Speaker 2: when he should come through there, and what makes that
Speaker 2: kind of place unique compared to your average run of
Speaker 2: the mail setup.
Speaker 3: Yep, I gotta I'll just describe perfectly one of the
Speaker 3: stands that I think I have actually a blind in
Speaker 3: this location, a great chance to kill babe, and it's
Speaker 3: on the edge of the sanctuary. But when I've got
Speaker 3: these stands on the edge of the sanctuary, I'm doing
Speaker 3: everything I can to make that stand. I mean, I
Speaker 3: want to do everything I can to turn a good
Speaker 3: stand into a great stand. And sometimes that's using a
Speaker 3: terrain feature or down trees or whatever to push that
Speaker 3: buck a little bit closer to the edge, you know,
Speaker 3: where it's going to push him up to the edge
Speaker 3: where I can slip in and have a stand and
Speaker 3: slip in undetected and hunt that stand. And there's pretty
Speaker 3: high odds that he's going to come within range. Well,
Speaker 3: in this particular location, I've planted a small grove of
Speaker 3: fruit trees in a little opening. It within the sanctuary,
Speaker 3: and it's close to the edge and on the edge
Speaker 3: of the sanctuary. I created a sanctuary twenty five thirty
Speaker 3: years ago, planted pine trees on the edge. There's two
Speaker 3: rows of pine trees which screens his view out to
Speaker 3: the open agfields. And i will walk across the open
Speaker 3: agfield with the wind right in my face. Just as
Speaker 3: soon as i get to that first row of pines,
Speaker 3: I'm going right up the ladder into the blind that's
Speaker 3: situated between those two rows of pines. And then right
Speaker 3: in front of that is a handful of pair and
Speaker 3: apple trees. Probably I'm gonna guess maybe seven or eight trees,
Speaker 3: but they do produce fruit now they're big enough. And
Speaker 3: then beyond that, surrounding that little grove of fruit trees
Speaker 3: is thick prime bedding cover. Well, in previous years, I'll
Speaker 3: keep a trail camera on that grove of fruit trees.
Speaker 3: In previous years, Babe has been there in October in
Speaker 3: daylight quite frequently, eating pairs and apples before he heads
Speaker 3: out to the other food plots or agfields to feed
Speaker 3: after dark. So it's just a prime location where I
Speaker 3: could not I mean, it's a place where you could
Speaker 3: sit and see eight or ten bucks in one afternoon.
Speaker 3: But he's shown me that he's not afraid to come
Speaker 3: in and feed there in daylight an hour before dark,
Speaker 3: especially the pairs. He seems to really like those pear trees,
Speaker 3: as do a lot of deer. But those there's two
Speaker 3: bigger pear trees that are right in front of that blind,
Speaker 3: probably twenty yards, and there is a great opportunity, and
Speaker 3: he's already moved into that area. I'm getting his pictures
Speaker 3: right now around that betting area nice and there's a
Speaker 3: very very good chance that he could be shot right
Speaker 3: there out of that mine. But I need a south
Speaker 3: wind and a fairly steady wind so that if I
Speaker 3: happen to make a little noise climbing up in that blind,
Speaker 3: I mean, he's going to be betted within one hundred
Speaker 3: yards of that blind, in that thick stuff. But a
Speaker 3: steady south wind will allow me to do that.
Speaker 2: Is that a spot where is that south wind going
Speaker 2: to give him the wind a little bit? And he's
Speaker 2: going to feel comfortable heading in there, or is this
Speaker 2: a situation where it's so thick, so screened, he's comfortable
Speaker 2: just moving eighty yards out of his bet or whatever,
Speaker 2: despite the wind not being good for him.
Speaker 3: He's typically going to come in with a crosswind, so
Speaker 3: he's not going to come in with a tail wind
Speaker 3: coming straight from the south with the wind at his back.
Speaker 3: But he's going to come in from one end or
Speaker 3: one side of that that little grove of fruit trees,
Speaker 3: and he's going to have a crosswind. But at the
Speaker 3: same time, he feels he's never been pressured in that
Speaker 3: betting sanctuary. He's never been pressured around those fruit trees.
Speaker 3: That's one of those spots that I'm never going to
Speaker 3: shoot a colbuck there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, sounds dynamite. You mentioned that he was daylight there
Speaker 2: last October? Is that right?
Speaker 3: Yeah? And in fact, if you want, I can send
Speaker 3: you some pictures of him at that par tree for
Speaker 3: your thumbnail or whatever for this podcast or put on
Speaker 3: the screen as we're talking here.
Speaker 2: So that brings to mind one of the things I've
Speaker 2: always wondered about, which is as these bucks get older
Speaker 2: and older and their core range kind of shrinks down
Speaker 2: have you seen that their annual patterns get tighter too, Like,
Speaker 2: do they become even more locked into a routine or
Speaker 2: is that or has that not been the case in
Speaker 2: your experience?
Speaker 3: And you know, I think once they hit about four
Speaker 3: years old, they're pretty much locked in. I don't think
Speaker 3: they lock in anymore. But basically each successive year just
Speaker 3: kind of reaffirms what their annual pattern is.
Speaker 2: Okay, so we talked about this years ago. Your theory
Speaker 2: is around annual patterns, but I guess I'm just curious
Speaker 2: if that's evolved at all, or how you have how
Speaker 2: other variables impact your thoughts on annual patterns, because I
Speaker 2: am constantly studying this now too, and I'm looking back
Speaker 2: at when a deer did something last year and when
Speaker 2: he did it the year before. And one of the
Speaker 2: things I'm debating a lot is trying to understand did
Speaker 2: he do this because of the date on the calendar,
Speaker 2: so is this like a time of year thing, or
Speaker 2: did he do this because of a other variable like
Speaker 2: a weather condition, wind direction, something like that. And So
Speaker 2: what I've found sometimes is I'll be looking at a
Speaker 2: hunt coming up and I'm like, man, this buck daylighted
Speaker 2: for two days during this first week of December. Let's say,
Speaker 2: so I see like a possible annual pattern kind of thing.
Speaker 2: He moved back in this area in December, so there's
Speaker 2: an opportunity there. But what if the weather doesn't match
Speaker 2: or is not that good, or what if the wind
Speaker 2: is very different than what it was last year during
Speaker 2: that period? Is it worth trying the right time of
Speaker 2: year to catch the pattern even if the conditions don't
Speaker 2: match up, or if the conditions are a little bit
Speaker 2: risky or something like that. That what's your take on that?
Speaker 3: Well? I think that you know, I've talked a lot
Speaker 3: about the annual pattern on various podcasts and magazine articles
Speaker 3: and whatever, and I think I did not do a
Speaker 3: real good job of explaining. I think people take it
Speaker 3: a little bit too literal, Like he showed up on
Speaker 3: November fifth, So next year, on November fifth, I need
Speaker 3: to be right where that camera was at. And it's
Speaker 3: a little bit looser than that. I think on November
Speaker 3: fifth the following year, he's going to be right close.
Speaker 3: He's going to be in that location. Now, whether he's
Speaker 3: going to be on his feet, whether you just mentioned
Speaker 3: may you know cause him to remain betted, but he's
Speaker 3: going to be close to there, and typically you know,
Speaker 3: he's not just coming through for a day or two.
Speaker 3: When he moves into a different part of his range,
Speaker 3: it's for a period of time. So I know that
Speaker 3: in the situation I just describe, if he shows up
Speaker 3: on November fifth, I know that, you know, around November fifth,
Speaker 3: give or take a few days either side, I've got
Speaker 3: a really good chance to kill that buck really close
Speaker 3: to where I got his picture. It doesn't have to
Speaker 3: be right there at that exact spot, but real close,
Speaker 3: and the day doesn't have to be the exact day,
Speaker 3: but real close to that date.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So how much weight, though, do you put on
Speaker 2: those outside factors, so that being wind or temperature, anything
Speaker 2: like that. So knowing that you've got a few days
Speaker 2: on either side that he's going to be in the zone,
Speaker 2: does that mean typically, let's say November fifth is the
Speaker 2: day last year, So now you're looking at a couple
Speaker 2: days on either side of November fifth, Would it just
Speaker 2: be that you are now looking for when is the
Speaker 2: day or the two days within that six day window
Speaker 2: when I've got the right wind and I've got a
Speaker 2: slightly more advantageous weather system something like that.
Speaker 3: The biggest thing that's going to make a change that
Speaker 3: pattern is human intrusion, hunting pressure. You know, somebody there's
Speaker 3: some form of human intrusion within that close proximity that's
Speaker 3: going to cause him to vacate that area. That's the
Speaker 3: biggest factor that's going to cause him to switch that
Speaker 3: annual pattern.
Speaker 2: Another annual pattern. Thought the kenmin I have hunted deer
Speaker 2: on an annual and thought about their annual patterns, but
Speaker 2: then thought about what's the impact of the crop rotation
Speaker 2: on them. So let's say, like I'm hunting, like I'll
Speaker 2: give you perfect sample. I'm hunting a deer this year.
Speaker 2: He's a five and a half year old buck. He's
Speaker 2: the oldest buck in this area that I can hunt,
Speaker 2: and so I have I have four years of data
Speaker 2: from this deer. I've noticed when he was two, so
Speaker 2: I've kept track of him since he was two. He's
Speaker 2: not five, and I'm looking at what he did last year,
Speaker 2: and I'm looking at what he did as a three
Speaker 2: year old. I'm thinking to myself, well, what he did
Speaker 2: last year is probably value in a lot of ways,
Speaker 2: because he was four last year. He's five. Now he's
Speaker 2: you know, was kind of mature last year, so that
Speaker 2: kind of behavior patterns are probably similar. On the flip side,
Speaker 2: it's a cornier this year, and it was a corner
Speaker 2: when he was a three and a half year old.
Speaker 2: So do I give more weight to what he did
Speaker 2: as a three year old, even though he was a
Speaker 2: crazy three year old, but at the same time that
Speaker 2: was the year I had corn, Or do I pay
Speaker 2: attention more to what he did last year because he
Speaker 2: was a four year old. He's smarter, but it was beans.
Speaker 2: What would you think about that situation?
Speaker 3: Well, you know, I live in an area where there's
Speaker 3: agriculture everywhere, so the crop rotation and I've actually tried
Speaker 3: to note crop rotation on as I'm putting together annual
Speaker 3: patterns and things to see if that affected at all,
Speaker 3: and I have not seen it here. Because let's say
Speaker 3: a buck is key and n on soy beans and
Speaker 3: this particular field is corn this year instead of beans. Well,
Speaker 3: there is where I'm at, there's going to be a
Speaker 3: soybean field in close proximity. There's just so much agg
Speaker 3: around me. If I was in a different type of terrain,
Speaker 3: then it would probably have a much bigger impact. And
Speaker 3: that's one thing I've really noticed about that there's some
Speaker 3: you know, a lot of deer hunters I really respect,
Speaker 3: big name deer hunters, that their opinions on certain things
Speaker 3: differ from my own. And as I've really looked at that,
Speaker 3: because I know these guys are killing giants too, and
Speaker 3: they're doing it consistently, and but but yet their opinions
Speaker 3: on certain things are like one hundred and eighty degrees
Speaker 3: different than mine. And I think doctor Strickland really opened
Speaker 3: my eyes on this because he comes from the South.
Speaker 3: You know, his region is totally different than mine, and
Speaker 3: he opened my eyes to the I think it's a
Speaker 3: fact even that deer habits changed from region to region
Speaker 3: and works for me in the Midwest and the heavy
Speaker 3: agriculture region, you know, it might not work near as
Speaker 3: well for say someone like Dan Infault, who's holding who
Speaker 3: I have a lot of respect for. I read his stuff,
Speaker 3: and I mean, you can just tell when you get
Speaker 3: to a certain point and another deer hunter puts something out.
Speaker 3: There's a certain point where you just know this guy
Speaker 3: is the real deal. Dan Infault is the real deal,
Speaker 3: but he hunts a totally different type of terrain than
Speaker 3: I do, and so while his opinion on in mine
Speaker 3: on certain things may vary, I think it's regional. I
Speaker 3: don't think it's one of us is right and one
Speaker 3: of us is wrong. I think it's the difference, is
Speaker 3: the difference in regions or the type of terrain that
Speaker 3: we're hunting. And I just see that with a lot
Speaker 3: of different guys that I respect that are dropping giants,
Speaker 3: but yet we don't align one hundred percent on some
Speaker 3: certain things. And I think it's regional differences. And I
Speaker 3: think as hunters anybody listen to this podcast, you need
Speaker 3: to really take that into consideration and not think that
Speaker 3: this guy is wrong or this guy's right. It's that
Speaker 3: this guy is right for his region. This guy is
Speaker 3: right for his region.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, that's certainly one thing I've seen too, Like,
Speaker 2: over the years of doing this podcast, talk to so
Speaker 2: many different people that are consistently successful on big old bucks,
Speaker 2: and there are so many differences between them. There's just
Speaker 2: like you said, there's so many regional differences, and then
Speaker 2: also just styles, right, Like one thing might work for
Speaker 2: a person because they're a certain way, or their properties
Speaker 2: that they hunt are a certain way. You know, there's
Speaker 2: just so many different circumstantial factors that can make one
Speaker 2: thing work in a certain spot and not work in
Speaker 2: the other, or personality traits in the hunter themselves. So
Speaker 2: that's a great point to bring up that a lot
Speaker 2: of this has to be kind of passed through a
Speaker 2: filter of what's right for your area, what's right for you,
Speaker 2: what's right for your personal goals, what's right for your
Speaker 2: available time, all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 3: And another perfect example is Bobby Worthington. You know, he
Speaker 3: hunts the mountains of East Tennessee totally different than what
Speaker 3: I'm hunting Central Illinois, and him and I absolutely have
Speaker 3: opposite approaches to chasing giant box. I mean, he's way
Speaker 3: more aggressive. He doesn't have a choice. He's going to
Speaker 3: be in the deep timber because everywhere he goes it's
Speaker 3: the deep timber. From my perspective, where I'm out on
Speaker 3: the edges, I'm giving the deer the cover and I'm
Speaker 3: sitting out on the edge. Bobby's in the cover and
Speaker 3: you can't argue with his success. So yeah, there's a
Speaker 3: lot of good hunters approaching things from different angles, but
Speaker 3: they're they're the big thing is they're hunting different regions
Speaker 3: of the country. I mean, I think southern Iowa, you know,
Speaker 3: the hotbed if you will, of giant white tails. The
Speaker 3: approach that those guys are using there is totally different
Speaker 3: than my management approach where I'm at in central Illinois,
Speaker 3: where it's not heavily managed.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So, speaking of things that hunters like to debate
Speaker 2: or differ on, maybe there's all sorts of different theories
Speaker 2: and now even apps and tools that try to predict
Speaker 2: what kind of conditions will get deer to move more
Speaker 2: often or get a buck daylight, whatever it is. So
Speaker 2: I want to remove all the dose out of the equation.
Speaker 2: I want to remove all our one and a half
Speaker 2: year olds and two and a half year olds and
Speaker 2: three and a half year olds and maybe four and
Speaker 2: a half year olds. When we look at things like temperature,
Speaker 2: wind speed, barometric pressure, anything related to the moon, cold fronts, precipitation,
Speaker 2: anything like that, is there any one of those things
Speaker 2: that stands out to you as really making a difference
Speaker 2: for those old old bucks? Like, what is there anything
Speaker 2: that in your mind truly does make a difference when
Speaker 2: you're hunting a six or seven year old buck that
Speaker 2: when you see that coming in the forecast or whatever
Speaker 2: it is, you think to yourself, Okay, yeah, this is
Speaker 2: one of those special opportunities.
Speaker 3: Well, I think there's two things. First of all, the rut.
Speaker 3: The rut's going to have those big bucks moving more
Speaker 3: than they typically would in daylight. The other thing is
Speaker 3: really huge, and I think you know, when I wrote
Speaker 3: my first book, I kind of brushed off the late season.
Speaker 3: There's the late seasons of time where it's all about
Speaker 3: luck and the property you have access to and this
Speaker 3: and that, and the property you have access to is
Speaker 3: right to some degree. But in the late season, if
Speaker 3: you can get brutal cold weather conditions, snow helps, but
Speaker 3: it needs to be cold. There's no such thing as
Speaker 3: a nocturnal buck. When it gets zero. Those bucks have
Speaker 3: to consume a lot of calories to stay alive. And
Speaker 3: they're going to be on their feet in daylight every afternoon.
Speaker 3: They're getting up and they're headed to food somewhere. And
Speaker 3: if you happen to be on the right food source,
Speaker 3: on the right path leading to the food source, you're
Speaker 3: going to see deer and the mature buck is going
Speaker 3: to be coming along right with the rest of them. That,
Speaker 3: in my opinion, the very very best time to kill
Speaker 3: a mature buck on purpose is during the late season
Speaker 3: during a brutal cold spell. And if you look at Iowa,
Speaker 3: look at that late Mussloder season they have at Iowa,
Speaker 3: and how many giants are killed over soybean fields or
Speaker 3: whatever in that late Mussloder season. Those bucks are not
Speaker 3: no longer nocturnal. They have to be on their feet
Speaker 3: feeding and that's when they become the most vulnerable.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, hard to argue with that. Speaking of the
Speaker 2: rut you mentioned a second ago, what have you seen
Speaker 2: as far as how these really old deer partaking the rut?
Speaker 2: I know they're doing a lot of things differently than
Speaker 2: a three year old. What have you seen unique to that,
Speaker 2: like top aged class of buck. Are they getting active
Speaker 2: earlier later, do they locked down for a longer or
Speaker 2: shorter period? Do they do anything unique in your.
Speaker 3: So last season, I had a really unique circumstance and
Speaker 3: something I'd never seen before. And I had a buck
Speaker 3: on my farm that I know was nine and a
Speaker 3: half years old. I'd followed him since he was three
Speaker 3: and a half and this buck has been here every
Speaker 3: fall during the two falls before when he was seven
Speaker 3: years old, and eight years old, he forgot the rut.
Speaker 3: He did not I mean, he did not move until
Speaker 3: it was dark. He would just go to feed. Never
Speaker 3: seen him at a scrape anything like that. Seven eight,
Speaker 3: he forgets about the rut. Last year he's nine and
Speaker 3: a half years old. And at nine and a half
Speaker 3: years old, he's running around like a three year old,
Speaker 3: chasing does grunting, working scrapes. And I could have killed
Speaker 3: him two or three times, real easy.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 3: He actually ended up going off my property and getting
Speaker 3: and I got a picture of him as he's leaving.
Speaker 3: Within thirty minutes of him walking off the property, he
Speaker 3: got shot. He killed. So you know, he came back
Speaker 3: and I'd never seen anything like it. At nine years old,
Speaker 3: he started acting like a three year old again. But
Speaker 3: at seven and eight he didn't hardly participate in the
Speaker 3: rut that I seen whatsoever, and and almost a zero
Speaker 3: daylight movement. He became like a nocturnal recluse. He basically
Speaker 3: avoided the rest of the deer herd. He would bed
Speaker 3: by himself, he would feed by himself, and then boom,
Speaker 3: at nine years old, here he comes, you know, acting
Speaker 3: like a teenager again. And wow, I guess it's like
Speaker 3: the old men, you know, my age, in their sixties
Speaker 3: and they go out and they buy a new corvette
Speaker 3: and they start chasing young girls or something. But yeah,
Speaker 3: it's a great I've never seen that before.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a great analogy. So you're so if that's unusual,
Speaker 2: then would you say the usual behavior seeing from a
Speaker 2: six or seven or eight year old buck is that
Speaker 2: they do participate, but at some point they trend down
Speaker 2: a little bit or or what is it?
Speaker 3: Well, it comes down to the individual buck. I'd never
Speaker 3: seen one totally become a recluse like he did at
Speaker 3: seven and eight. I think it slowly tapers off. But
Speaker 3: you know, I've got the other buck here that I
Speaker 3: told you about that comes, you know in the late
Speaker 3: season that's probably I don't know, eight or nine years old. Now,
Speaker 3: i'd have to go back and look at some history,
Speaker 3: but you know he's chasing those when he comes in
Speaker 3: the late season, he's still chasing those around. And if
Speaker 3: other buck, if there happens to be a doe fawn
Speaker 3: coming in heat or whatever and bucks are chasing around,
Speaker 3: he'll join right in the chase. So I think it's individual.
Speaker 3: The nine and a half year old I described earlier.
Speaker 3: That's a very unique situation. I've never seen anything like
Speaker 3: that before, you know, with an older buck.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So it seems if there's any theme through a
Speaker 2: lot of this talking about maybe the very most you
Speaker 2: correct me if I'm wrong here, but maybe one of
Speaker 2: the very most important things that we need to keep
Speaker 2: in mind when it comes to understanding and targeting, Like
Speaker 2: one of these old old deer is just the number one.
Speaker 2: They're all different, like at that point especially, they really
Speaker 2: develop personalities. They all have those unique traits. So probably
Speaker 2: the best thing we can do if we're at the
Speaker 2: point where we want to hunt a deer like that
Speaker 2: is just pay super close to attention to all those
Speaker 2: unique factors with each unique buck, Like, figure out that personality,
Speaker 2: do your homework, do your studying, think about it right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And that's where trail cameras are huge. I mean,
Speaker 3: having a lot of trail cameras out helps you to
Speaker 3: know where that buck is at and what he's doing
Speaker 3: at various times of the season. And you do that
Speaker 3: with the same buck for three seasons, you know you've
Speaker 3: got a pretty good idea what he's going to be
Speaker 3: doing on the fourth season. That's where I'm sitting with babe.
Speaker 3: You know, I know he's going to be hitting those
Speaker 3: fruit trees. And he may not hit him every afternoon
Speaker 3: before dark. But if I hunt that, if I hunt
Speaker 3: that blind every time, the conditions are good for me
Speaker 3: to slip in undetected and slip out undetected. Ah, I'm
Speaker 3: going to get a crack at him there.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So, speaking of these these personalities and these old bucks,
Speaker 2: if you were to think back over all your years,
Speaker 2: you've hunted a lot of these big old deer. Is
Speaker 2: there any one super mature buck that stands out in
Speaker 2: your mind as having taught you the most important lesson?
Speaker 2: Is there any buck that taught you more than any
Speaker 2: other or that right now you can think back on say, oh, yeah,
Speaker 2: either a buck you got or buck you didn't get.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure which is going to be for you.
Speaker 2: But is there one that stands out for you as
Speaker 2: having really drove home something really really important for you?
Speaker 2: And if so, can you share with us that story
Speaker 2: and what that lesson was?
Speaker 3: Yeah? So I don't even have to think twice about this.
Speaker 3: It would be the second buck I shot back in
Speaker 3: twenty seventeen. Trump. You know, I came on your podcast
Speaker 3: in the summer, I said, I'm going to kill Smokey
Speaker 3: killed him. We got on another podcast a day or
Speaker 3: so later. I killed Trump. Yep. Trump's personality was so
Speaker 3: different than any other mature buck I'd ever chased. There
Speaker 3: was absolutely no pattern whatsoever to that deer. He would
Speaker 3: show up here, there, and everywhere. And if you got
Speaker 3: his picture here one day, you was not getting his
Speaker 3: picture there the next day or the day after. He
Speaker 3: was here. He was there, He was there, and it
Speaker 3: was just one hundred percent random. And the year I
Speaker 3: shot him, he was seven and a half years old.
Speaker 3: And the day I shot him was the first time
Speaker 3: I ever laid eyes on that deer. Wow, I'd only
Speaker 3: seen him in trail camera pictures. And what he taught
Speaker 3: me was that I totally had to change my approach
Speaker 3: that deer, because as his rack blew up the year before,
Speaker 3: so I started really I was trying to shoot him
Speaker 3: the year before, actually, and I was expanding my range
Speaker 3: where I could hunt by gaining access or permission to
Speaker 3: hunt properties where I thought he might be. And I
Speaker 3: was putting trail cameras in places I'd never had him before.
Speaker 3: And yeah, I'd get his trail camera on this property
Speaker 3: and that property and this property, all random and as
Speaker 3: well as the place where i'd originally got his picture.
Speaker 3: And boys, I'm sitting there that summer trying to think
Speaker 3: of how am I going to get Trump. I've never
Speaker 3: lit eyes on this buck yet, and most of the
Speaker 3: bucks I shoot, I've seen him before when they were younger,
Speaker 3: but Trump is one I'd never seen, you know, firsthand before,
Speaker 3: and typically I had to totally change my approach to
Speaker 3: hunt that buck. And I think that's the lesson here,
Speaker 3: is to be open to, you know, throwing everything out
Speaker 3: the window and doing something that you would never typically do.
Speaker 3: And that's what I did with him, is I hunted.
Speaker 3: I looked at all those properties where I had his pictures,
Speaker 3: and I thought, well, I could hunt him here and
Speaker 3: I could hunt him there, and I had stands on
Speaker 3: all those properties, and I thought, if I jump around
Speaker 3: from one property to the next, I'm just going to
Speaker 3: be one step behind that bock, because I'm going to
Speaker 3: be there today and then two days later, I'm going
Speaker 3: to get his picture there. And I never get his
Speaker 3: picture anywhere two days in a row. So I thought,
Speaker 3: my best bet for this buck do something I never do.
Speaker 3: I'm just going to camp out. I had one property
Speaker 3: where I had three tree stands. It was a small property.
Speaker 3: I had three tree stands there for three different wind directions,
Speaker 3: and I thought, I'm going to camp out on this
Speaker 3: property until I kill him those three stands based on wind.
Speaker 3: And that's what I did. And I ended up shooting
Speaker 3: him on the tenth hunt. And he was the first
Speaker 3: that I seen. On all ten hunts. The first nine hunts,
Speaker 3: I did not see a single deer. But I kept
Speaker 3: at it because I knew he's there, He's coming through here.
Speaker 3: If I start jumping around, he's gonna show up here.
Speaker 3: I just need to stay here until he does show
Speaker 3: up here. Ye, And I've never done that with another buck,
Speaker 3: but uh, you know, his random personality just being everywhere
Speaker 3: with no pattern whatsoever, I knew I just better camp
Speaker 3: in one spot and just wait him out. And like
Speaker 3: I say, that's the only buck that I've ever hunted
Speaker 3: that way, and it ended up paying off.
Speaker 2: And yeah, that's that's such a great example. So to
Speaker 2: put a bow on this done. If we were to
Speaker 2: give you an opportunity to like have a stone tablet
Speaker 2: that you could etch your three commandments for hunting the
Speaker 2: super old buck. If you could write down those three
Speaker 2: most important rules that someone leaving today, if they remember
Speaker 2: nothing else, they have to remember these three things Don
Speaker 2: Higgins command for hunting old old dear. What would those
Speaker 2: three things be?
Speaker 3: Number one, every mature buck has a sanctuary. If you
Speaker 3: want to kill him, you got to find it. If
Speaker 3: you own property, you can create a sanctuary and bucks
Speaker 3: will use it, and that includes the older bucks in
Speaker 3: your area. Every mature buck has a sanctuary. That'd be
Speaker 3: number one. Number two, play the wind. Every mature buck
Speaker 3: uses the wind. They use the wind to the degree
Speaker 3: that or they use their nose to the same degree
Speaker 3: that we use our eyes. You got to play the wind.
Speaker 3: And number three would be that annual pattern. They've got
Speaker 3: an annual pattern. So find their sanctuary, play the wind,
Speaker 3: put together that annual pattern.
Speaker 2: All right, there we go. So here's here's my last
Speaker 2: thing for it down. I want to give you a
Speaker 2: chance to call your shot again. Do you feel confident
Speaker 2: enough in babe or any other scenario it could be
Speaker 2: with you or when your grandkids or someone else. Do
Speaker 2: you want to call a shot for us this year
Speaker 2: and in guarantee. Where as close as guarantee something happened
Speaker 2: in this.
Speaker 3: Fall, i'd think. Yeah. I mean, I'm not going to
Speaker 3: get specific down to the day, but I think Babe
Speaker 3: will be shot out of one or two stands in October.
Speaker 3: The fruit tree stand or blind that I described earlier,
Speaker 3: or there's another stand in a pinch point that I
Speaker 3: can hunt. It requires an easterly wind, which we rarely get.
Speaker 3: But he'll be killed on an afternoon hunt in October
Speaker 3: from either the blind in front of the fruit trees
Speaker 3: or another pinch point stand about one hundred and fifty
Speaker 3: yards away from that fruit tree stand.
Speaker 2: Awesome, Well, I would not want to be Babe this
Speaker 2: year because he's in trouble. I can tell you that
Speaker 2: I love it. I appreciate you sharing this down. This
Speaker 2: is fun. This is the kind of stuff that I
Speaker 2: geek out about, and you're one of my favorite people
Speaker 2: to geek out about it with. You've got a whole
Speaker 2: wealth information share, So thank you for that.
Speaker 3: Well, I appreciate you having me Mark. You know, you
Speaker 3: kind of opened the door to hunting podcast years ago.
Speaker 3: I think you had the very first hunting podcast, and
Speaker 3: now I think everybody that's ever shot. Two Bucks has
Speaker 3: got a podcast.
Speaker 2: That's true.
Speaker 3: Well, you've kind of been a pioneer in the whole industry,
Speaker 3: at least the podcast. It's the industry.
Speaker 2: It's been wild to see that growth and I've been
Speaker 2: fortunate that's that's worked out for me. But speaking of that, don,
Speaker 2: I did want to get give you an opportunity to
Speaker 2: tell folks about the whole slew of different things you've
Speaker 2: got going on these days. You've got a lot of
Speaker 2: great resources and content. Can you give people a rundown
Speaker 2: of what they can find and where they can find it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So I've got the website. It's a subscription based
Speaker 3: website for videos, but there's a lot of free videos
Speaker 3: on there as well, called the whitetailmaster Academy dot com.
Speaker 3: You can go there and check out the videos and
Speaker 3: if you like what you see, you can subscribe. But
Speaker 3: we do a lot of just everything land management. You know,
Speaker 3: I'm a consultant, So when I go on these consulting visits,
Speaker 3: I take my video producer along and we feature different properties.
Speaker 3: We try to feature one property a month. Tree stand videos,
Speaker 3: my actual tree stands. We go there with my videographer
Speaker 3: and we film some videos there, but just a lot
Speaker 3: of different types of videos on that I got. The
Speaker 3: Chasing Giants podcasts, it basically is a little bit different
Speaker 3: than a lot of the other podcasts. Instead of having guests,
Speaker 3: we have the listeners submit questions and we read those
Speaker 3: questions and answer them on that podcast. Boy, what else
Speaker 3: the consulting that I mentioned. If you go to Higginsoutdoors
Speaker 3: dot com you can find just about everything there that
Speaker 3: I've got going. So that's probably easier than me sitting
Speaker 3: here for the next thirty minutes rattling on one thing
Speaker 3: after another.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I'll give a quick little plug for your masterclass.
Speaker 2: I subscribe to that and have been checking it out.
Speaker 2: And something that's really cool for people that listen today
Speaker 2: and heard you talking about Babe. You've been posting updates
Speaker 2: all throughout this year as you've tried to put together
Speaker 2: your plan for Babe and try to find him again
Speaker 2: and get pictures of him and figure all these different
Speaker 2: things out. I've really enjoyed that just getting to see
Speaker 2: these little like three four or five minute updates on Hey,
Speaker 2: today I'm doing this, or today I'm going to go
Speaker 2: out and try to get video of Babe or today,
Speaker 2: I'm setting this thing up or planting this food plot
Speaker 2: and getting to see that three hundred and sixty five
Speaker 2: kind of day process leading up to the season has
Speaker 2: been really fun, and I think it'll be extra fun
Speaker 2: when you make your prediction come true here in a
Speaker 2: matter of weeks. So that's definitely something to take a
Speaker 2: look at. So they're chasing two hundred series on there,
Speaker 2: I think is what you're calling it, and I got
Speaker 2: to kick out of that. It's pretty cool.
Speaker 3: Well, thank you, we'll see you know. I'm not going
Speaker 3: to chase Babe hard at all until after the use.
Speaker 3: I want to get my grandsons a first crack at
Speaker 3: him and hopefully one of them shoots him. But if not,
Speaker 3: after that U season ends, I'm going to be hitting
Speaker 3: it hard. Well.
Speaker 2: I wish you all luck in the world done. I
Speaker 2: know it doesn't take luck. I know it takes hard
Speaker 2: work and a good plan, which you know you've got.
Speaker 2: But I'll be sending luck your way downetheless.
Speaker 3: I appreciate it, Mark, thank you, and thank you for
Speaker 3: having me. It's always surprising.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I really enjoyed it. All right, that's our show today.
Speaker 2: I hope you enjoyed this one. I certainly did. It's
Speaker 2: got me fired up for this upcoming season. My Wisconsin hunt,
Speaker 2: as I just mentioned, is wrapping up, so by the
Speaker 2: time you're listening to this, that hunt's probably done. But
Speaker 2: Michigan is going to be taken off here in just
Speaker 2: about a week, and I'm over the moon for that
Speaker 2: to get started. So if you're out there already hunting,
Speaker 2: I'm wishing you all the best of luck. I hope
Speaker 2: you're having fun. I hope you're being safe. I hope
Speaker 2: you are taking the lessons you've learned over the years
Speaker 2: on this podcast and applying them to make your hunt
Speaker 2: it's more successful and enjoyable. And finally, I hope you
Speaker 2: will stay wired to hunt.