Speaker 1: Welcome back to cutting the distance. When it comes to
Speaker 1: managing land and setting it up for white tail hunting,
Speaker 1: there seems to be hundreds, if not thousands of guys
Speaker 1: that choose from nowadays but shouldn't have proven hunting track
Speaker 1: record be the most important thing that you consider before
Speaker 1: choosing a land consultant, somebody that knows how to set
Speaker 1: up for hunting well. Don Higgins may be the best
Speaker 1: doing it currently and some may say the best to
Speaker 1: ever do it, killing mature bucks year after year with
Speaker 1: a few two inchineers sprinkled in the mix. His track
Speaker 1: record speaks for itself, and that's one of the things
Speaker 1: I like you know about Dawn, At least from my perspective,
Speaker 1: he seems to be a humble man that has allowed
Speaker 1: his track record to do the speaking and not necessarily
Speaker 1: his own mouth down has quite the resume when it
Speaker 1: comes to educating white to hunters. He is the host
Speaker 1: of the Chasing Giants podcast. He is the author of
Speaker 1: two books, Hunting Trophy white Tails in the Real World
Speaker 1: in Real World white Tail Icons. He's the owner of
Speaker 1: real world wildlife products that stems from his agricultural background.
Speaker 1: In addition to all of this, Dawn continues to speak
Speaker 1: at seminars around the country, and then in all of
Speaker 1: his free time, he still runs a white tail consulting
Speaker 1: service UM that continues to grow in demand with each
Speaker 1: and every passing year with no further ado. Welcome to
Speaker 1: the show, Dawn, Well, thanks for having me. Glad to
Speaker 1: be here. Yeah, how's your season been. Oh it's been uh,
Speaker 1: I don't even know what the word I'd want to
Speaker 1: use is probably uh different. It's been different than any
Speaker 1: season that I've ever experienced. And that's saying something after
Speaker 1: forty six years of deer honey. But uh no, I've
Speaker 1: got I've I've had some really nice bucks and range. Um,
Speaker 1: I've I've passed three bucks that are really good. One
Speaker 1: of them would have scored over one and uh got
Speaker 1: all that on video. But uh, you know, I like
Speaker 1: to old the story with these bucks and let him
Speaker 1: get mature. And when I say mature, I'm talking six
Speaker 1: years old. I know a lot of guys are saying
Speaker 1: calling him mature at four. But so, I you know,
Speaker 1: my season has been good. I haven't shot anything, but
Speaker 1: I've seen a lot of really nice bucks that have
Speaker 1: the potential to be super in another year. Or two. Good,
Speaker 1: do you have any any time left in the stand
Speaker 1: or things starting to wind down? Um with the tags
Speaker 1: that you have? Well, I hope I still have some
Speaker 1: time to think of it is my consulting business just
Speaker 1: gets so busy starting about December one through the the
Speaker 1: rest of the entire winter into spring until it greens
Speaker 1: up that it doesn't leave me a whole lot of time.
Speaker 1: But I'm hoping around the holidays and such that I
Speaker 1: can find some time to get back in the tree.
Speaker 1: Perfect Perfect Can you give the audience a quick rundown
Speaker 1: for people who don't know who you are on you
Speaker 1: know where you started and and kind of the quick
Speaker 1: timeline to to where you're at now. Well, I actually
Speaker 1: started as a freelance outdoor writer back in uh North
Speaker 1: American Whitetail published my first article, and in the years since,
Speaker 1: I've had literally hundreds of articles publishing just about every
Speaker 1: major hunting magazine. Um. That led to me writing a book.
Speaker 1: And also, you know, a lot of the readers of
Speaker 1: those magazine articles, I think they recognized me as speaking
Speaker 1: from experience instead of just repeating and regurgitating things I'd heard.
Speaker 1: And uh, you know, I did things a little different.
Speaker 1: I kept I keep things simple, but but they work,
Speaker 1: and I think the readers recognize that. And I started
Speaker 1: getting calls from people asking me to look at their
Speaker 1: properties and and you know, help them with their hunting success.
Speaker 1: And so that led to my consulting business. And then
Speaker 1: along the way, uh, you know, the whole land management
Speaker 1: thing kind of exploded. I think it probably started about
Speaker 1: fifteen twenty years go. Um, and you know, with my
Speaker 1: agg background, I started a food plot seed company. Um,
Speaker 1: this will be we're getting ready to start our fifteenth
Speaker 1: year in business next year. But it's a company that's
Speaker 1: just done fantastic and continues to grow as it has
Speaker 1: every year for fifteen years. But uh so you can
Speaker 1: see that I've got my hand and a lot of
Speaker 1: different pots, but they've all got to do with white
Speaker 1: tails and white tail land management. And it all started,
Speaker 1: you know, back with those uh first magazine articles twenty
Speaker 1: six years ago. Nice. Yeah, you you you touch on
Speaker 1: something there about it's fairly simple. And you know we
Speaker 1: talked a little bit before and and out west On
Speaker 1: on the Elk education and Elk cunning education. You almost
Speaker 1: feel guilty when you try to break down what you
Speaker 1: really do and it. You know, we we add all
Speaker 1: of this additional information to it, but it is when
Speaker 1: you boil it down, it's a very simple recipe. Sometimes
Speaker 1: and people, I think, want to make this monster out
Speaker 1: of a mole hill and it's like, no, it really
Speaker 1: is that simple. But you don't. You almost don't want
Speaker 1: to insult the person by by telling them it's that simple,
Speaker 1: because they're they're struggling to grasp it. And um, yeah,
Speaker 1: I picked up on you saying that it. You know,
Speaker 1: white tail um hunting may be simple if if you
Speaker 1: choose to make it that way. Yeah, I think, Uh,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of deer hunters that overcomplicated. They make
Speaker 1: it way more difficult than it really is. And there's
Speaker 1: some basic rules that you gotta follow, and I think
Speaker 1: what happens is a lot of times deer hunters don't
Speaker 1: follow those basic rules. And you know, one of them
Speaker 1: is learning to play the wind. There's no no getting
Speaker 1: around it. You either learn to play the wind when
Speaker 1: you hunt these big bucks or you're not gonna be successful.
Speaker 1: And there's nothing you can buy that's gonna help you. Sure,
Speaker 1: there's products that are you know, made to control your
Speaker 1: your odor, but do you realize how a mature box
Speaker 1: using the wind, even if few is sent free, that
Speaker 1: mature buck is maybe not going to come past your
Speaker 1: stand or probably not going to come past your stand
Speaker 1: if the conditions are not right for him to do
Speaker 1: so safely. He's got to feel safer he's not doing it.
Speaker 1: And it is really simple, but there's some basic things
Speaker 1: that you absolutely have to nail or everything else doesn't
Speaker 1: really matter. Yeah, that makes a ton of sense, and
Speaker 1: we'll make some more comparisons down there. And I got
Speaker 1: some questions for you on scent and you know, given
Speaker 1: them a win a little bit um. But like every
Speaker 1: Cutting the Distance podcast, we're gonna feel a few questions
Speaker 1: um from our listeners. And if you want to submit
Speaker 1: a question of your own, you can email us at
Speaker 1: ct D at Phelps game Calls dot com. So the
Speaker 1: first question we got, I'm trying to get account of
Speaker 1: deer on my property, When and how should the census
Speaker 1: be taken? And I'm gonna add something on that they didn't.
Speaker 1: I'm assuming it's going to be a little dependent on
Speaker 1: region and kind of where you're at during the cycle.
Speaker 1: But what's your answer to to one should people be
Speaker 1: looking um to try to get a good count um,
Speaker 1: you know, on on bucks and does on their property. Well,
Speaker 1: to be honest, that's something that I don't deal with
Speaker 1: a whole lot. And the reason for it is most
Speaker 1: of the landowners that I'm consulting with I have smaller acreage.
Speaker 1: And why smaller, I mean under a thousand acres, some
Speaker 1: of them under a hundred acres, but um definitely under
Speaker 1: a thousand acres for the most part. Now, I've done
Speaker 1: a couple of bigger properties, and when you're talking about
Speaker 1: a property of you know, two or three or four
Speaker 1: hundred acres, it doesn't matter what you do on that
Speaker 1: property to try to influence the local herd. If your
Speaker 1: neighbors aren't on board, it's not gonna work. And you
Speaker 1: know you could if you've got an overpopulation a deer,
Speaker 1: for example, you can shoot twenty five do on your farm,
Speaker 1: and if your neighbors aren't helping you out, thirty more
Speaker 1: are going to come from their farm and replace the
Speaker 1: just shot and you're gaining nothing. So you know, and
Speaker 1: most of the time it almost takes the stay game
Speaker 1: agencies to set the regulations as far as has herd
Speaker 1: management or herd control, and if the individual landowner really
Speaker 1: doesn't have a whole lot he can do. And for
Speaker 1: that reason, that's something that I just don't address with
Speaker 1: my clients. Now, if I was like on some of
Speaker 1: the bigger ranches, say down in Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas and
Speaker 1: that part of the world, it would be a totally
Speaker 1: different story. But those just aren't my clients and and
Speaker 1: that's not my niche. If you will, okay, that makes
Speaker 1: that makes a ton of sense. Um. The second question,
Speaker 1: when boining from an elevated stand, where do you like
Speaker 1: to aim at a dear? Does this changed on the
Speaker 1: feedback you're getting from the buck head downlooking your direction
Speaker 1: ears back, any of those things, but where are you
Speaker 1: aiming from an elevated stand? Well, First of all, shot
Speaker 1: selection is is absolutely critical. Um. I will only take
Speaker 1: a broadside or slightly quartered away shot. Um. And when
Speaker 1: I do that, you know I'm aiming for the offside shoulder,
Speaker 1: so not the shoulder closest to me, but the the
Speaker 1: far side shoulder. UM. I want my arrow to uh
Speaker 1: and I only hunt with the bow, so I'm only
Speaker 1: talking about bow honey. Um. I want my arrow to
Speaker 1: to hit both lungs, and that's what I'm shooting for
Speaker 1: a double lung hit. Um I'm aiming. It depends on
Speaker 1: how close the deer is and how high I am,
Speaker 1: but you know, typically I want that arrow about one
Speaker 1: third of the way up that deer's body and uh,
Speaker 1: right behind the shoulder piece if he's totally broadside. Now,
Speaker 1: if he's quartered away, then i want it back a
Speaker 1: little farther, and I'm aiming for that off shoulder. But
Speaker 1: the double lung shot is the only shot that I
Speaker 1: think is ethical. So with that, with that said, are
Speaker 1: you you know, coming from from out west, you know
Speaker 1: a lot of our elk our mill dear don't tend
Speaker 1: to jump. I say, there's there's always the exception, but
Speaker 1: for the most part, they don't jump the string like
Speaker 1: what like we've seen whitetail, you know, growing up on
Speaker 1: watching all the TV show you know things duck eight
Speaker 1: ten inches. So you're not aiming any lower than the
Speaker 1: vital shots you're you know, you're still aiming at that
Speaker 1: bottom third to make or do you account for some
Speaker 1: sort of duck um And I don't. I'm aiming for
Speaker 1: that bottom third. But I also am not a proponent
Speaker 1: of long shots, to be honest, it's almost I can't
Speaker 1: even remember the last time I shot over thirty yards,
Speaker 1: and most of my shots are twenty and under. The
Speaker 1: fifteen to twenty yard range is where I'm shooting, so, um,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm aiming at that lower third of the
Speaker 1: body and I'm getting a good hit and passed through
Speaker 1: and and clean kills you know, almost every time. So
Speaker 1: you know shot selection is the key. Yeah, yeah, I
Speaker 1: I was fortunate enough to shoot my dear eight yards
Speaker 1: and you know by that time, whether they heard it
Speaker 1: or not, they don't have near the time to move,
Speaker 1: and you know your hair is gonna hit right where
Speaker 1: you ended it too, So um perfect. Thanks for answering
Speaker 1: those once again. If you have any questions for us
Speaker 1: here or my guests at Cutting the Distance, please email
Speaker 1: us or message us at ct D at Phelps Game
Speaker 1: Calls dot com. So on today's episode, I want to
Speaker 1: dive into hunting white tail bucks and maybe more specifically,
Speaker 1: what it takes to grow and hunt the next level bucks,
Speaker 1: as well as making sure you have mature bucks kind
Speaker 1: of in the pipeline coming up. I feel like a
Speaker 1: lot of Western hunting translates to white tails and its
Speaker 1: simplest form Hunting is always going to be broken down
Speaker 1: into things I can control, things I have an effect on,
Speaker 1: and then things that are out of my control. And
Speaker 1: with within those, I tend to focus on things we
Speaker 1: can control. And then what I'm hoping to get from
Speaker 1: Dawn today is is dive into some of those things
Speaker 1: where through decision making, we can at least predict or
Speaker 1: at least limit the variables of those things out of
Speaker 1: our control. UM when it comes white to hunting, and
Speaker 1: that's I'm very you know, Donna, I've got an engineering
Speaker 1: background background. I break things down into like it's simplest
Speaker 1: form and then start to categorize. So as an engineer,
Speaker 1: I you know, I want things you know in their
Speaker 1: coffers like I wanted to make sense, and so that's
Speaker 1: everything out west. It's like, all right, I can control this,
Speaker 1: I can have an effect on this, and then there's
Speaker 1: some things that are out of my control as far
Speaker 1: as like you know, where they're gonna be. But by
Speaker 1: putting myself in a place where we're trying to, you know, UM,
Speaker 1: limit those variables that are out of our control. UM.
Speaker 1: As we talked earlier, I'm someone that's new to the
Speaker 1: you know, someone new to the white tail game. UM.
Speaker 1: And then it's a little daunting. As I got home
Speaker 1: from this past time, you know, I jump on the internet,
Speaker 1: I'm watching YouTube, I'm reading articles, and it's very, very
Speaker 1: tough to try to figure out what information is good
Speaker 1: and proven and then what may have very good supporting
Speaker 1: arguments but may not work or actually make your hunting
Speaker 1: area or you're hunting property worse. UM. And so one
Speaker 1: of the reasons I was drawn and really wanted to
Speaker 1: bring you on the podcast is you weren't afraid to
Speaker 1: say you know that some ideas could be bad, you
Speaker 1: know when uh, you know, and I really like that. UM.
Speaker 1: I'm I'm the same way. I'm not afraid to say
Speaker 1: that I think that's a bad idea and you shouldn't
Speaker 1: do that. Um. When it comes to hunting tactics and techniques. UM.
Speaker 1: And I want to know, you know, through through all
Speaker 1: of your experiences you mentioned earlier forty two years, I
Speaker 1: want to know if something you know, how many times
Speaker 1: something worked out of a hundred and and guess what,
Speaker 1: even better, if you've seen or did something a thousand times,
Speaker 1: how many times did it work in your favor? How
Speaker 1: many times didn't so you can start to put a
Speaker 1: plan together. Um. So I'm gonna pick your brain a
Speaker 1: little bit. I've got a series of questions and we'll
Speaker 1: just kind of walk through them, um and see what
Speaker 1: you have to say. Okay, Um, so pretty cliche. Um,
Speaker 1: pretty obvious statement here, But we all know when it
Speaker 1: comes to hunting, we can only kill what we can see.
Speaker 1: And this may be one of the biggest crucks it
Speaker 1: seems like as a white tail hunter. Um, I'm starting
Speaker 1: to learn very quickly. The properties we were hunting had
Speaker 1: big deer on cameras at night, and we were having
Speaker 1: a heck of a time finding him during the day
Speaker 1: because they just weren't They didn't seem to be moving.
Speaker 1: Maybe we were missing them. But um, is there a
Speaker 1: best manage a practice to make sure you're seeing, you know,
Speaker 1: the majority of your mature deer in the daylight? Can
Speaker 1: you affect that or is that something that's naturally inherent
Speaker 1: and just kind of built into a deer or can
Speaker 1: you design your property, um, you know, to to to
Speaker 1: help out in that situation for seeing mature bucks in
Speaker 1: the daylight. Well, I mean that's a great question and
Speaker 1: I address it with every single client that I meet
Speaker 1: with and and you've got to hunt mature deer on
Speaker 1: the property they spend their daylight hours on, and that
Speaker 1: means you've got to hunt them where they're bad. So
Speaker 1: when I meet with a client, the first thing I'm doing,
Speaker 1: and I'm looking at his property is I'm figuring out
Speaker 1: what do we gotta do to get the local bucks
Speaker 1: to bed on this property. And most deer hunters, I
Speaker 1: mean the vast majority of deer hunters, put way too
Speaker 1: much pressure on their property. The bucks are trying to kill,
Speaker 1: they bump them off and they don't have a chance.
Speaker 1: And I tell my clients all the time, if you
Speaker 1: are one property over from where a deer beds, so
Speaker 1: if he's bedding right across the line on the neighbor,
Speaker 1: your odds of killing that deer ten percent what they
Speaker 1: are if you're on the same property. So you know,
Speaker 1: right out of the gate, you gotta be hunting them
Speaker 1: on the properties where they bed. Okay, now, um, you
Speaker 1: know you're you're a big proponent of providing a sanctuary.
Speaker 1: Do you do you what if the betting is that sanctuary?
Speaker 1: Do you consider the betting the sanctuary? And if so,
Speaker 1: how much pressure will you be willing to put on
Speaker 1: that betting area or getting as close to the betting
Speaker 1: and maybe away from their feet as possible so that
Speaker 1: you can catch them in the daylight. Yeah, I'm a
Speaker 1: huge proponent of sanctuaries. In fact, I've said many times,
Speaker 1: if I had a five hundred acre property, fifty of
Speaker 1: it would be a sanctuary, I would never go into.
Speaker 1: Fifty of it would be food plots, and I'd hunt
Speaker 1: the edge. So um, you know, I never go into
Speaker 1: the betting cover of the sanctuary per se, but I'm
Speaker 1: always hunting on the edge of it, and it's always
Speaker 1: the down wind edge. So my sin is blowing out
Speaker 1: of that sanctuary and I'm on that down wind side.
Speaker 1: It's just a perfect place to be when those bucks
Speaker 1: are cruising. Um, if they feel comfortable, they think that
Speaker 1: sanctuary is the safe zone. They've never encountered humans there,
Speaker 1: They're gonna be on their feet a lot more daylight hours,
Speaker 1: and when they are, they want to be on that
Speaker 1: down wind edge because then they can smell all that cover.
Speaker 1: They can detect you know, a hot dough or you
Speaker 1: know danger as well, So it works perfect. I've killed
Speaker 1: numerous bucks this way, but having an undisturbed sanctuary on
Speaker 1: your property and and hunting it properly on the down
Speaker 1: wind edge at all times is absolutely key to a
Speaker 1: lot of my success. So another way to pose this question,
Speaker 1: if you were to look at a piece of property
Speaker 1: and and figure out where the deer like the bed,
Speaker 1: is it a good strategy to try to put some
Speaker 1: food plots with in close proximity to it. As you've mentioned,
Speaker 1: not disturbed their betty, their sanctuary. But but it's getting
Speaker 1: that food or or even minor food sources. You know,
Speaker 1: you're smaller plots. Um, is that a good strategy to
Speaker 1: get those deer on their feet and maybe catching before
Speaker 1: they're you know, on their way to big agg later
Speaker 1: in the night, um or something like it would we're
Speaker 1: just getting you know, that food a little closer to
Speaker 1: bed kind of assistant in daylight, you know, well, as
Speaker 1: long as that food is not within the bedding cover,
Speaker 1: if it's out on the edge. Yeah, that's a great strategy. M.
Speaker 1: I've I've seen I don't know how many UH consultants
Speaker 1: or white tail habitat so called experts claim, for example, um,
Speaker 1: when you plant switch grass that you should have you know,
Speaker 1: clover and forbes and things in there for the deer
Speaker 1: to eat. You don't want just a monoculture of switch grass,
Speaker 1: you want to you want some food in there for
Speaker 1: him too. Well. I totally disagree with that. If a
Speaker 1: buck on my property wants to eat, I don't want
Speaker 1: him to just stand up in his bed and drop
Speaker 1: his head and start feeding. I want to force that
Speaker 1: dear to have to move from his bed to his food.
Speaker 1: And that movement is what makes him killable. Uh, that's
Speaker 1: the pattern we're hunting. If he doesn't have to move, well,
Speaker 1: he's way harder to kill. Yeah, and that that makes
Speaker 1: a ton of sense. Um, you know, why would you
Speaker 1: want that dear to get up out of his bed
Speaker 1: eat there without having to come where he's shootable, Because
Speaker 1: you're not gonna be able to set a stand or
Speaker 1: a very you know, a very effective stand necessarily in
Speaker 1: that switch grass or you know you want that to
Speaker 1: be there. You know there their security, they're sanctuary, somewhere
Speaker 1: where they feel safe. And you know it just seems,
Speaker 1: you know, common sense says, don't don't let him eat
Speaker 1: in there, just let him bed in there, or or
Speaker 1: use it for security. Um, but to you and I,
Speaker 1: but I don't think it is to some people. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean that it's one of the things we use.
Speaker 1: We don't like to hunt elk necessarily in the center
Speaker 1: of their food. We don't like to hunt elk in
Speaker 1: their bedding area. We will at times go into their
Speaker 1: bedding area, especially late in the hunt. We're running out
Speaker 1: of time and we're on public ground. You know, it's
Speaker 1: not we we don't got the whole, you know, it's
Speaker 1: not a private, chunk of private so we will go
Speaker 1: in there. But a lot of times we're trying to
Speaker 1: do the same thing. Is whether people want to draw
Speaker 1: similarities or not, we're really trying to hunt them closer
Speaker 1: to their you know, their bet their food in the morning,
Speaker 1: and then we're trying to hunt them a little closer
Speaker 1: to their bed in the evening, and we're doing something
Speaker 1: real similar. Um. One last question on you know, getting
Speaker 1: deer in daylight? Is it your opinion? And I've I've
Speaker 1: tracked this, I've I've seen you answer this before. Maybe that,
Speaker 1: uh dear, Maybe the best pattern you can put on
Speaker 1: a deer is what they did the year before. If
Speaker 1: you've got good indicators on that deer as far as
Speaker 1: you know, and some of the talk. You know, the
Speaker 1: the examples that you've shared and other people have shared
Speaker 1: is it's almost to the day. Um, you know, we're
Speaker 1: that deer will start to show up on a property,
Speaker 1: or that deal deer will start to show in the daylight. Um.
Speaker 1: Is that some of the most valuable information you use
Speaker 1: when you know, if if that deer showing similar patterns
Speaker 1: from year to year, that you're gonna base will you
Speaker 1: base a hunt on that that similar pattern? Absolutely? You know.
Speaker 1: I was the first one to write about this back
Speaker 1: in two thousand and three. I wrote an article for
Speaker 1: North American Whitetail magazine titled same time, Same Place, And
Speaker 1: to that point, I've never heard anybody talk about it.
Speaker 1: Now it's pretty well accepted today. A lot of people
Speaker 1: have wrote about it and talked about it, made videos
Speaker 1: about it. But there is an uncanny pattern among mature
Speaker 1: bucks to show up at this same time at the
Speaker 1: same place year after year. And I'm talking down to
Speaker 1: within about a forty eight hour period. So you know,
Speaker 1: a lot of times these white tail box will will
Speaker 1: spend their summers and bachelor groups in one location and
Speaker 1: then you know, as fall draws near and they start
Speaker 1: shedding their velvet and a testosterone levels start rising, those
Speaker 1: bachelor groups will break up and those bucks will shift
Speaker 1: to their fall range and they will move sometimes, you know, miles.
Speaker 1: And what I've found is when those bucks shift to
Speaker 1: that fall range, it's almost to the day, a year
Speaker 1: after year, to the day, they'll show up on a
Speaker 1: property where they haven't been all summer. Um. There was
Speaker 1: a buck that I shot in uh and when was it? Uh?
Speaker 1: It's a buck that I had watched grow up for
Speaker 1: six years and I watched him since he was a
Speaker 1: year and a half old. Is a year and a
Speaker 1: half full buck. He had six points on each side,
Speaker 1: just a little tiny twelve point rack. But I kept
Speaker 1: track of him, and I thought he might have a
Speaker 1: chance to hit two hundred, and I just kept walking
Speaker 1: away from the opportunity to hunt him. And during that
Speaker 1: six years that I watched him grow up, I hit
Speaker 1: on a pattern that this buck was showing up on
Speaker 1: this one property I had permission to hunt about the
Speaker 1: first time he would show up for the entire year.
Speaker 1: The first date he would show up would be about
Speaker 1: November six and the last day he would be there
Speaker 1: would be about November twenty. And what he was doing
Speaker 1: was he was. There was a lot of doughs bedding
Speaker 1: on that property, and this buck was showing up to
Speaker 1: you know, find a hot dough, checking up that dough
Speaker 1: group out, and you know, I had him down to
Speaker 1: a t. And so the year I decided to kill him,
Speaker 1: when he was six and a half years old, I
Speaker 1: had my stands ready and I knew, don't even go
Speaker 1: in there and hunt. Don't put any pressure on that
Speaker 1: property until November six. Well, November six rolls around. I
Speaker 1: had two stands on that property, and I needed very
Speaker 1: specific winds to hunt those stands. November six rolls around.
Speaker 1: The winds wrong, I can't hunt. November seven, the wind's wrong,
Speaker 1: I can't hunt. November eight. Finally, the wind was right.
Speaker 1: I go in there. The first morning that I ever
Speaker 1: hunted for that deer, I killed him. And uh and
Speaker 1: you know, I have nine o'clock and that first morning,
Speaker 1: six years I watched that buck and then kill him
Speaker 1: on the very first hunt, same time, same place. I
Speaker 1: knew when he was gonna be there. That trail camera
Speaker 1: history is so important when I'm chasing these big deer.
Speaker 1: Trail cameras have almost made it easy. Yeah, yeah, it's
Speaker 1: it's nice to have those choke cameras to build those
Speaker 1: patterns and uh, you know, really really put the variables
Speaker 1: or the unknowns or the things working against yet you know,
Speaker 1: at least you can get a solid plan on those
Speaker 1: and then let the wind. Like you said, the wind
Speaker 1: was the variable on that one. You just had to
Speaker 1: wait for the right wind and then that was the
Speaker 1: only one you're really having to play. So um, yeah,
Speaker 1: makes a ton of sense. So my next question, Um,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of information about you know, creating betting
Speaker 1: areas and figuring out where the does like the bed
Speaker 1: and the bucks need to bed behind them according to
Speaker 1: food and you know you've been Um, I hope not,
Speaker 1: I hope I don't miss quote you here, but you
Speaker 1: know you've you've said to allow them to bed where
Speaker 1: they want and don't put the pressure on them. No
Speaker 1: need to go in there and make betting they're gonna
Speaker 1: be there. Um. With that said, what do you if
Speaker 1: you're building a property and say you don't have the
Speaker 1: timber or you do have the timber, what would you
Speaker 1: say the preferred betting is if you were going to
Speaker 1: go in and work over a property, are you trying
Speaker 1: to create timber betting? Are you trying to create crp uh?
Speaker 1: You know betting? Um? You know? Are they always gonna
Speaker 1: bed behind the does? Can you give us a little
Speaker 1: bit on if you're gonna build perfect beds? You know,
Speaker 1: are you gonna go into hinge cut um? Like? Where
Speaker 1: do big mature bucks like to hang out and feel secure?
Speaker 1: It boils down to one thing, freedom of human intrusion.
Speaker 1: They would rather bet in a wide open woods with
Speaker 1: no cover whatsoever. If there's no human activity in there,
Speaker 1: then they would the bed in the thickest, nastiest place
Speaker 1: they could find if it's overrun with human pressure. UM.
Speaker 1: I totally totally disagree, and I got all kinds of
Speaker 1: firsthand experience to back it up. This idea that the
Speaker 1: bucks are gonna bed here and the does are gonna
Speaker 1: bed in front of them and all this nonsense. It's
Speaker 1: it's total garbage. It doesn't work that way. People try
Speaker 1: to make it way more complicated than it really is.
Speaker 1: It boils down to freedom of human intrusion. Now you
Speaker 1: asked about the type of cover, Well, I look at
Speaker 1: betting cover on the property that I'm managing or I'm
Speaker 1: developing a plan for um, the same way I do
Speaker 1: the food sources diversity. I want as many different food
Speaker 1: sources on the property as I can get, and I
Speaker 1: want as many different kinds of betting cover. Also, I
Speaker 1: want diversity. I want some switch grass. I want some
Speaker 1: you know, thick second growth. I want some mature timber
Speaker 1: with a really thick understory. I just want diversity. And
Speaker 1: the reason for that is I've noticed on my own
Speaker 1: farm that there are certain individual bucks that will prefer
Speaker 1: different types of betting cover. For example, I've got bucks,
Speaker 1: and I've had mature bucks on my farm that they
Speaker 1: preferred to bed in the switch grass, and day after
Speaker 1: day after day, you could just about count on those
Speaker 1: deer in the afternoon evening coming out of the switch grass.
Speaker 1: That's where they would bed day after day. And other
Speaker 1: mature bucks they always wanted to bed in the wooded cover.
Speaker 1: So I think diversity is key. And if you think
Speaker 1: of it from a land management standpoint, um talk about diversity.
Speaker 1: Let's say you're the only guy in the neighborhood who
Speaker 1: has a big switch grass patch on your farm and
Speaker 1: one of those bucks comes alonge that likes to bed
Speaker 1: in the switch grass. Well, guess what he's betting on
Speaker 1: your place day after day after day. That's why diversity
Speaker 1: is so important, so that you can kind of um,
Speaker 1: you know, curtail your farm or design your farm for
Speaker 1: every buck. You're not just trying to accommodate those bucks
Speaker 1: that that like the switch grass. You're also trying to
Speaker 1: accommodate the ones that like the wooded cover. So diversity
Speaker 1: is key, but it really boils down to human intrusion
Speaker 1: or freedom of human intrusion. That's what a mature buck demands.
Speaker 1: He's not gonna put up with it. I'm gonna talk
Speaker 1: a little bit later about the sanctuary, but I have
Speaker 1: to ask the question just why you talked about human
Speaker 1: presence and you I think you know, if people go
Speaker 1: back and watch material, you probably said it a thousand times,
Speaker 1: if not more, which you know, I've always said you
Speaker 1: hear you hear something more than three times, it's important
Speaker 1: by the guy talking about it. And so you know,
Speaker 1: obviously sanctuary is very very important. But to a you know,
Speaker 1: when you say no human intrusion, is that zero? Is
Speaker 1: that checking your trail cameras three times? Is that you
Speaker 1: can ride your your you know, a fourler trail along
Speaker 1: the edge of it a couple of times a year,
Speaker 1: like the definition of you know, no human intrusion or
Speaker 1: is it just one of those things where the more
Speaker 1: the better or does it have to be you know,
Speaker 1: you know, I guess another way to phrase this is
Speaker 1: what will a big buck let you get away with? Well,
Speaker 1: they're all individuals, and one will let you get away
Speaker 1: with a lot and the other one nothing. And a
Speaker 1: good example that's trail cameras. You know, one buck, he'll
Speaker 1: walk in front of a trail camera and he'll pose
Speaker 1: day after day after day, and you get dozens of
Speaker 1: pictures of him. Another buck here, you get his picture
Speaker 1: one time on a trail camera and boom, he's gone.
Speaker 1: He's not coming past that camera ever again. UM. With
Speaker 1: betting cover or a sanctuary, when I say zero, I
Speaker 1: mean zero. I mean I don't have trail cameras inside
Speaker 1: the sanctuary. UM, I don't have paths for four wheelers
Speaker 1: or anything in the sanctuary. Uh. The closest I get
Speaker 1: to the sanctuary is hunting the edge of it. As
Speaker 1: far as going into it, there's only three times I'll
Speaker 1: go into it. One is to do habitat work in
Speaker 1: the off season. Once the season is closed in the
Speaker 1: winter before spring green up. I will sometimes go in
Speaker 1: if if I need to thicken things up, you know,
Speaker 1: I'll go into chainsaw whatever I need to do to
Speaker 1: maintain good Habitat the other times, if I shoot a
Speaker 1: deer and he runs into sanctuary, well obviously I'm gonna
Speaker 1: go get him as to retrieve a deer. And the
Speaker 1: third time is one day every spring, and one day
Speaker 1: I go into my sanctuary to look for ship antlers.
Speaker 1: And when I go, I usually take my grandson's and
Speaker 1: son in law and daughter they go along. Um. Sometimes
Speaker 1: a couple of friends will go along and we do
Speaker 1: the ship antler one time. We don't drag it out.
Speaker 1: We don't go back three or four times. It's like
Speaker 1: one day we go in, we cover it all, we
Speaker 1: get out, and we stay out. But from the time
Speaker 1: that things green up in spring, stay around the April
Speaker 1: one or so, through the entire summer and through the
Speaker 1: entire hunting season, nobody's in the sanctuary, nobody for anything.
Speaker 1: Okay that that that clears it up. So sanctuary is
Speaker 1: absolutely you know, as close to zero as possible with
Speaker 1: with three exceptions. Um yeah, so, so no human presence.
Speaker 1: Um all right, uh. You you've been quoted many times.
Speaker 1: You all, you said it earlier in this one, you know,
Speaker 1: on the on the November six Buck when we're trying
Speaker 1: to when we're trying to put together patterns, um. You
Speaker 1: know you you you typically only need two to three
Speaker 1: days to go in and kill your target. Buck. Um.
Speaker 1: With that said, do you have a preferred time to
Speaker 1: be in the stand? Would you rather go in pre
Speaker 1: you know, pre rut um, you know, in the lockdown
Speaker 1: phase post rut um, or are you looking for whether
Speaker 1: it's something else determining when you're gonna be in that
Speaker 1: stand you know, cold fronts um rut um you know
Speaker 1: there some people have said they're more patternable in the
Speaker 1: pre rut, Like when do you like to be in
Speaker 1: the stand when you get the right conditions? Well, the
Speaker 1: rut is absolutely my least favorite time to hunt. In
Speaker 1: the rut. If you kill a giant in the rut,
Speaker 1: there is more luck involved than anything, and I want
Speaker 1: to kill him on purpose. I guess I'm not that lucky,
Speaker 1: So I've got to work and put the odds in
Speaker 1: my favor. And you know, I'm fine with pre rut.
Speaker 1: That's a great time, Um. Early season right out of
Speaker 1: the gate. If you've got those bucks coming to a
Speaker 1: food source and they're undisturbed, that's a great time to
Speaker 1: kill a giant um. You know, the end of October,
Speaker 1: when they're starting to to hit scrapes, that's a good time.
Speaker 1: But you know, after about oh say, the fifth or
Speaker 1: so of November, they become pretty tough. Now, I say
Speaker 1: that my favorite day, if I had to pick a
Speaker 1: favorite day of the entire season, it would be November seven,
Speaker 1: simply because those bucks are on their feet so much. Um.
Speaker 1: The dose aren't quite in heat yet, and those bucks
Speaker 1: are covering a lot of territory looking for him. But
Speaker 1: to be honest, if I had to pick the best
Speaker 1: time to kill, I'm mature buck on purpose, a one
Speaker 1: particular buck that you've got your eye on to kill
Speaker 1: him on purpose. The best time to do it is
Speaker 1: in the late season, during a brutal cold spell and
Speaker 1: on an afternoon hunt, because in those conditions there's no
Speaker 1: such thing as a nocturnal buck. When it gets down
Speaker 1: to zero, those bucks got a feed to stay alive,
Speaker 1: and every afternoon, an hour before dark, they're on their
Speaker 1: feet and they're headed to the food or they're in
Speaker 1: this movie. By that time, that is the best time
Speaker 1: to catch him mature buck on his feet, because I'm
Speaker 1: not talking about one buck, I'm talking every buck in
Speaker 1: the area during those conditions are on their feet feeting. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And um, we we noticed that this year on that
Speaker 1: White Toil hunt. We had we had good intentions of
Speaker 1: being there from October November five. Um, I drew a
Speaker 1: big bull tag and things schedules got mixed around and
Speaker 1: we couldn't get out there until November tenth, and we
Speaker 1: hunt until you know, we had planned November ten, and
Speaker 1: it was an awesome time to be in the woods,
Speaker 1: not such an awesome time to figure out where all
Speaker 1: the deer had been that had been on cameras the
Speaker 1: entire time. And then when we did see a big buck,
Speaker 1: a lot of times he was running, you know, a
Speaker 1: hundred twenty yards away and you had no control over
Speaker 1: getting getting him to go on the path. He had
Speaker 1: been going for the you know, three months ahead of that.
Speaker 1: So we learned really quick that you know, lockdown stage
Speaker 1: whatever people want to call the peak r It was
Speaker 1: just like he doesn't respond to a call, he doesn't
Speaker 1: look this way, he doesn't respond to rattling there's nothing
Speaker 1: you can do to get him off that dough. And
Speaker 1: so you you became an observer, um of the white
Speaker 1: tail at that point, not a hunter of them. Um.
Speaker 1: It seemed like at times, um, yeah, where the week
Speaker 1: before they had great success. You know, the bucks that
Speaker 1: they knew were there, they had on cameras coming to
Speaker 1: certain areas. Um, you know, they get a little bit
Speaker 1: of that pre red you know, bucks on their feet
Speaker 1: a little more, starting to cruise a little more, get
Speaker 1: a little more confident. And they seemed to do really
Speaker 1: well that those ten days before we had out there.
Speaker 1: So um, yeah, they all seem to be on board
Speaker 1: with that as well. Um. Moving on to weather. Um,
Speaker 1: you know it includes all kinds of variables we've got
Speaker 1: When people talk about weather, Um, you know, what's the
Speaker 1: temperature gonna be. What's the precept or we getting rain
Speaker 1: or snow based on the temperature? Um, you know, barometric
Speaker 1: pressure rising, um, you know dropping, um, you know the
Speaker 1: wind and so on. And then to complicate all of that,
Speaker 1: you've got you know how those factors change within a
Speaker 1: set amount of time. So the temperature is thirty two,
Speaker 1: but it's dropping from sixty is important versus oh the temperatures.
Speaker 1: You know, thirty two dropping from thirty four. It's not
Speaker 1: as big as wings. So you have these factors, but
Speaker 1: then you also have how those factors are changing with
Speaker 1: the set amount of time. Um. So all of those factors.
Speaker 1: I've heard you say it multiple times. You know weather
Speaker 1: affects your decision. But what what weather are you looking for?
Speaker 1: What are you looking for as far as temperature pre sip,
Speaker 1: you know, barometric pressure, wind, you know all of those things.
Speaker 1: I know the answers, but I'm kind of you know,
Speaker 1: I know what your answer is, but if you can
Speaker 1: kind of kind of lead into what you're looking for,
Speaker 1: you know, from an ideal weather standpoint, Well, I want
Speaker 1: a cold front. Um, I want that cold front. For example,
Speaker 1: last year, we had a cold front that the temperature
Speaker 1: was had been twenty degrees above normal and then the
Speaker 1: cold front come through and it just dropped those temperatures
Speaker 1: to about normal. Well, that ain't much of a cold front.
Speaker 1: I want that cold front to come through and drop
Speaker 1: the temperatures below normal for that time of year by
Speaker 1: at least ten degrees or more, and that that will
Speaker 1: really affect your movement. I want the barometer to be rising. Um.
Speaker 1: If you can get over thirty, that's fantastic. Um. At
Speaker 1: the same time that weather is coming through. Um. I
Speaker 1: like those fronts that come with east winds. For some reason,
Speaker 1: I've just had phenomenal success, honey, east winds. Those east
Speaker 1: winds almost always accompany a weather front. They don't just happen.
Speaker 1: So you know, I've had success on the front end
Speaker 1: and the back end of the front. They're all just
Speaker 1: a little bit different. But it needs to drop the
Speaker 1: temperature at least ten degrees below what would be considered
Speaker 1: normal for that time of the year in that area. Okay,
Speaker 1: so you don't necessarily care about a twenty degree temperature
Speaker 1: swing if it's only getting you back to normal. You're
Speaker 1: looking for a temperature swing that gets you below normal.
Speaker 1: And then at that point it could be maybe a
Speaker 1: ten fifteen degree temperature switch. But at least it's getting
Speaker 1: colder than, uh than the normal. It's not just Now,
Speaker 1: would you look at something the example you gave where
Speaker 1: you are getting a change in temperature, does that not
Speaker 1: necessarily equate to good hunting. It's gonna it's gonna obviously
Speaker 1: be better than maybe what you had during the warm spell,
Speaker 1: but it's not going to be that exceptional switch, right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: if the temperture drops twenty degrees and it had been
Speaker 1: twenty degrees above normal and it drops you down to normal,
Speaker 1: well the deer activity is definitely going to be better
Speaker 1: than it had been, but it's still not gonna be
Speaker 1: what it could be if it was normal and then
Speaker 1: drop ten degrees. Um, I would rather hunt that cold front.
Speaker 1: The rain or snow affect your decision to be in
Speaker 1: a tree positive negatively heavy rain will keep me out,
Speaker 1: and that's more about the blood trail than anything. Uh.
Speaker 1: I don't want to take a chance on losing a deer.
Speaker 1: And you know, if it's heavy rain, well you know
Speaker 1: who'd likes to sit out there and get soaked anyway?
Speaker 1: But I don't mind a really light rain. I really
Speaker 1: like when it's one of those overcast November days and
Speaker 1: um you get some sleep, you know, just a little
Speaker 1: bit of sleep. That first kind of really winter cold
Speaker 1: front moves through, and um, I just love that kind
Speaker 1: of condition. Yeah. I think that's maybe precipitation might be
Speaker 1: the one factor on why I don't like hunting black
Speaker 1: tails out here anymore, because my dad doesn't even get
Speaker 1: excited until the winds forty mile straight sideways and you
Speaker 1: can't hold your eyes, you know, eyes open, and that's
Speaker 1: the time our blacktails move. And and it's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm, I'm with you. I don't necessarily want to
Speaker 1: be out they're um getting soaked. Um you know what
Speaker 1: why I'm hunting now if it if it's good, I'd
Speaker 1: be out there. But similar to to what you said,
Speaker 1: you know, your blood trails, you always gotta worry about that, um,
Speaker 1: you know, and no matter how good a shot you you,
Speaker 1: you may be at risk and not finding them. So
Speaker 1: um and then wind absolutely yeah. In fact, this this season,
Speaker 1: I we had some really windy days. And you know,
Speaker 1: I run a series of cameras. I've got about fifty
Speaker 1: trail cameras and um a dozen of those are cell cameras.
Speaker 1: So I know, without a doubt, with that many cameras
Speaker 1: on that on different properties, when the deer moving or
Speaker 1: they're not moving, I know it because when they're moving,
Speaker 1: my phone's lightening up with those cell cameras going off.
Speaker 1: When they're not moving, my phone is dead. And the
Speaker 1: interesting thing this year is I really paid close attention
Speaker 1: and uh on the days that that was dead calm,
Speaker 1: the deer activity was dead as well, and I came
Speaker 1: to the conclusion. Now, I just came to it this season. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm always learning, just like everybody else. I
Speaker 1: don't know at all and always trying to get better.
Speaker 1: But I just figured out this season that on those
Speaker 1: windy days, that that's a great time to hunt, just
Speaker 1: like you were saying your dad last time, when it's
Speaker 1: forty mile an hour. I'll tell you what. My cameras
Speaker 1: were lightening up when the wind was thirty miles an hour,
Speaker 1: and uh, the dead calm days, the cameras were dead. Huh, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's I know where we hunted. You know in Kansas.
Speaker 1: They they don't like being out at all. If there's
Speaker 1: no wind. There's like the deer movement almost you know,
Speaker 1: goes down to nothing on those days. Um, at least
Speaker 1: from their experience, at least you know where where their stands. Right,
Speaker 1: Maybe they're moving somewhere else, but um, not where they
Speaker 1: want them to be when there's no wind. Um, they
Speaker 1: expect to have the wind. They they use that for
Speaker 1: you know, for their safety. And if there's no win,
Speaker 1: they're just gonna sit still a little longer. Yah. I
Speaker 1: agree with that a hundred percent. I had that point
Speaker 1: driven home this season. What's your opinion on the second rut?
Speaker 1: I know what it is, but then, uh, do you
Speaker 1: believe that those younger fawns, um, your legs will run
Speaker 1: later and so it's just one long, continuous rut or
Speaker 1: do you not believe you know, in any of that
Speaker 1: and and you know the right it happens in the
Speaker 1: middle of November. Well that I think outdoor writers, me
Speaker 1: being one, UM have kind of you know, we're we're
Speaker 1: always looking to coin terms to you know, sell articles
Speaker 1: and gain attention. At least that was the way it
Speaker 1: was before the Internet became so prominent. And I think
Speaker 1: today these guys that have blogs or videos on online
Speaker 1: YouTube channels, they're always looking for terms they can coin,
Speaker 1: like the dough factory for example. Um, the second rut
Speaker 1: was coined by outdoor writers, I don't know, thirty forty
Speaker 1: years ago, and I think that people just don't understand
Speaker 1: how the rut actually plays out, and it plays out
Speaker 1: the same every year. You you've got if you think
Speaker 1: of those does coming into heat in a bell shaped curve,
Speaker 1: you got that period where it peaks where there's the
Speaker 1: most of them in heat, and then towards the end
Speaker 1: of November it tapers off. Well, doe fons are not
Speaker 1: going to come into heat, you know, exactly thirty days
Speaker 1: after the the mature does. It just don't happen like that.
Speaker 1: Doe funds coming to heat based on their body weight
Speaker 1: when they get about eighty pounds, are coming into heat,
Speaker 1: and that the in fact, the majority, in my opinion,
Speaker 1: the majority of doe fons are bred in January. There's
Speaker 1: some bread in February and even later, but I think
Speaker 1: the majority of do fons that get bred their first year, Now,
Speaker 1: some of them don't get bread that first year because
Speaker 1: they never achieved the body size to bring them into
Speaker 1: you know, sexual maturity and into heat. But the majority
Speaker 1: of do fons that come into heat and do get
Speaker 1: bread that first year are gonna get bread in January.
Speaker 1: But it's not gonna be like a certain week in
Speaker 1: January or anything like that. It's just gonna be you know,
Speaker 1: here and there, and when it happens, you know, the
Speaker 1: bucks are on top of it. They're gonna take advantage
Speaker 1: of it. Um. But that's nothing that you can mark
Speaker 1: on the calendar. The other the other thing that the
Speaker 1: whole second red idea a false. Um. Part of that theory,
Speaker 1: if you will, is they promote the idea that during
Speaker 1: that peak breeding season, some does don't get bread on
Speaker 1: their first estra cycle. Well, I believe that the number
Speaker 1: of dose that don't get bread on their first estra
Speaker 1: cycle is so minuscule. I mean it's probably not one
Speaker 1: in a thousand dough. Um. Every buck in the woods
Speaker 1: is capable of breeding a dough, including a lot of
Speaker 1: button bucks. If a dough comes in heat, she's gonna
Speaker 1: have the attention of bucks and she's gonna get bread
Speaker 1: by at least one, if not ten, different bucks. She's
Speaker 1: gonna get bread if she comes into heat. Now, you know,
Speaker 1: I think there's uh I had a research heard of
Speaker 1: captive white tails for twenty five years, so I got
Speaker 1: to see a lot of this stuff firsthand in a
Speaker 1: captive setting um where it was a lot easier to observe.
Speaker 1: And I think there's some individual does that are gonna
Speaker 1: come in heat on about the same day every year.
Speaker 1: So if a doe comes in heat on November fourteenth
Speaker 1: this year, next year, she's probably coming in heat on
Speaker 1: the fourteenth, if not the thirteenth of the fifteenth within
Speaker 1: twenty four hours, she's coming into heat at the same time.
Speaker 1: And the idea that they're not getting bread is just
Speaker 1: I think it's just total garbage. Got you. No, that
Speaker 1: makes that makes a ton of sense. And you know
Speaker 1: you've got the you've got the experience and the you know,
Speaker 1: the the observation to to support that. Um, so a
Speaker 1: few things. I don't want to dwell on these ones
Speaker 1: for too long, UM, do you there's there's there's some
Speaker 1: of these factors that that I've heard you talk about before. Um,
Speaker 1: how would you use mock scrapes and you know and water? Um?
Speaker 1: You know you can answer these separately, But I would
Speaker 1: use mock scrapes to potentially plan a hunt around or water?
Speaker 1: Or would you use them at all to plan your
Speaker 1: hunt around? And would you rather go you back to
Speaker 1: the idea of being on their path from betting the food. Well,
Speaker 1: I would never use either to plan my hunt. But
Speaker 1: I do use mock scrapes, UM to inventory bucks on
Speaker 1: a property. You know, I can put that mock scrape
Speaker 1: wherever I want. I can put it in a place
Speaker 1: where I can easily check my trail camera and not
Speaker 1: disturb the property. Yeah, So I can create a mock
Speaker 1: scrape anywhere, and I don't care that the buck checks
Speaker 1: it at night. That don't bother me whatsoever. I just
Speaker 1: want to know what bucks are on that property, and
Speaker 1: if they're there, if there's a shooter buck there, I
Speaker 1: can figure out where to kill him. I don't need
Speaker 1: to bring him into a mock scrape to do that.
Speaker 1: That's how I use them for inventory purposes. Water. I
Speaker 1: think water in much of the country is overrated. Um.
Speaker 1: I don't think that water is is the factor that's
Speaker 1: gonna change a lot of properties and make a take
Speaker 1: an average property and make it really good. Now, there's
Speaker 1: some situation, especially when you get out in the Plane
Speaker 1: State to talk about Kansas, that could be a different story.
Speaker 1: Out there, water could be critical, But you get into
Speaker 1: the the Midwest, I just don't see it as being
Speaker 1: an issue whatsoever. There's just way too many water sources
Speaker 1: creeks and and ponds and whatever here and there. Now
Speaker 1: with I said, you can build a water hole and
Speaker 1: the deer absolutely gonna use it, no doubt about it.
Speaker 1: And if you put it in the right spot where
Speaker 1: you can um put a stand nearby that has good access,
Speaker 1: that you can hunt the wind with well, yeah, it can.
Speaker 1: It can have a positive influence on your hunting success.
Speaker 1: But I think, you know, water sources, artificial man made
Speaker 1: water sources have been uh you know, way overstated or
Speaker 1: that their importance way overstated in the whitetail management community.
Speaker 1: I have a real dumb question which I assume. I
Speaker 1: don't want to assume the answer, so I'm gonna ask it.
Speaker 1: You know, out West, we always say olk have to
Speaker 1: go find water. They have to find standing water somewhere.
Speaker 1: They need to go to a pond, creek, lake, whatever
Speaker 1: it is. Now. Mule deer, it's been well known that
Speaker 1: they can pull moisture either out of their food they're
Speaker 1: eating or out of the precipitation recovery at night. You know,
Speaker 1: cools down, water condenses out of the soil, out of
Speaker 1: the plants, and you know there's there's water available. Can
Speaker 1: white tail in your opinion, do they have to You
Speaker 1: mentioned it that, do they have to go to water?
Speaker 1: Can they get it through food and lush greens and
Speaker 1: precip arcovery. Well, you know, one of the reasons that
Speaker 1: I've um got that opinion about water is an experience
Speaker 1: that I've had near my home. There's a a place
Speaker 1: that every summer there's a bachelor group on this section
Speaker 1: of land and from road to road to road, you know,
Speaker 1: surrounded by roads on four sides that section of land.
Speaker 1: There is not a water source anywhere on that and
Speaker 1: I've been all over it. There's not a water source.
Speaker 1: It's mainly agg fields with some hedgerows and such. But
Speaker 1: every year there is a bachelor group of bucks that
Speaker 1: stays on that section and they're there day after day
Speaker 1: after day. And I've long wondered where are these deer
Speaker 1: getting their water? And I've got to believe that a
Speaker 1: majority of that water has to be coming from the
Speaker 1: plants are eating, and they're feeding heavily on soybeans that
Speaker 1: time of year, and you know, the moisture content in
Speaker 1: those green soybean leaves has got to be high. I
Speaker 1: never dreamed it was high enough that they would not
Speaker 1: need to drink, but apparently it is. And that experience
Speaker 1: and these these bucks have been using this same place
Speaker 1: this summer for decades now, and they just every year
Speaker 1: there's a bachelor group there, but there's no water. And
Speaker 1: that's kind of driven my idea that water is way
Speaker 1: overrated here in the Midwest. Yeah, I I, like I said,
Speaker 1: I would think if a meal deer could make it
Speaker 1: without ever going to a water source, um, white tail
Speaker 1: should be able to do the same. But I just
Speaker 1: didn't know that one. So yeah, thanks for that. Uh
Speaker 1: next one, Um, wind, you know, out west, it's all
Speaker 1: we think about. We've got we go through ten you know,
Speaker 1: puffer bottles of wind and and I see not really
Speaker 1: you know, two or three bottles were always checking the wind.
Speaker 1: It's very very important, um. And one of my strategies
Speaker 1: is because why I do like a frontal shot on
Speaker 1: on bul elk. Um. One of the things we've always
Speaker 1: talked about is given them a little bit of the wind.
Speaker 1: And I'm willing to give him forty five degrees and
Speaker 1: ninety degrees of the wind, because what that does is
Speaker 1: somebody calling to the elk. Those elks similar to dear,
Speaker 1: They're gonna get to sixty sevent yards and try to
Speaker 1: circle us and get wind. Well, if I give him
Speaker 1: ninety degrees of wind when they go to circle, it's
Speaker 1: gonna pull on broadside in front of me. Um, you know.
Speaker 1: Or if we have a caller and a shooter. So
Speaker 1: we've heard whitetail hunters talk about giving them the wind
Speaker 1: a little bit, and and uh, like I said, I
Speaker 1: don't want to misquote you, but some of your you know,
Speaker 1: some of those mature bucks, they're they're mature for a reason.
Speaker 1: They're smart. They're not gonna play the wind perfect you know,
Speaker 1: you have a direct north wind. They're not gonna be dumb,
Speaker 1: and they're not gonna walk necessarily perfectly in a spot
Speaker 1: where they can get killed without putting any thought into it.
Speaker 1: And now that now they may, but that's the anomaly.
Speaker 1: And we're trying to you know, like you said, you're
Speaker 1: trying to kill a deer on purpose, not because you
Speaker 1: just for some reason walk directly, you know, with with
Speaker 1: no regard to the wind. Um. Can you give us
Speaker 1: a little bit of insight on how much you're willing
Speaker 1: to risk the wind? And when you say give him
Speaker 1: the wind, are you willing like, are you taking as
Speaker 1: bigger risks as your wind, maybe crossing the trail you
Speaker 1: expect him to be on, but you'll shoot him before
Speaker 1: he gets there, or are you talking you know, ninety degrees?
Speaker 1: Kind of explain what giving him a wind um to
Speaker 1: to maybe fool that that bigger buck or or you know,
Speaker 1: beat him in that chest match. Well, when I was
Speaker 1: probably about nine years old, I'm at a white tail
Speaker 1: legend Roger Rothar. Any white tail hunter that's fifty years
Speaker 1: old or older should remember Roger Rothar an absolute legend.
Speaker 1: And he told me I'll never forget. He told me
Speaker 1: the wind needs to be almost right for the buck
Speaker 1: and almost wrong for you, and that keyword being almost.
Speaker 1: So if he's walking down that trail, he doesn't even
Speaker 1: necessarily want that wind straight in his face, but he
Speaker 1: wants a quartering in his nose, quartering into his And
Speaker 1: if it's quartering into his nose from either direction, then
Speaker 1: you can be off to one side of that trail
Speaker 1: and he's still got a good win for him to move.
Speaker 1: But you're off on the right side of the trail.
Speaker 1: Your sin is blowing not straight down the trail, but
Speaker 1: kind of down the trail, but off to the side.
Speaker 1: And that's the situation that I'm always trying to set up.
Speaker 1: I think too many deer hunters a mistake they make
Speaker 1: is they're trying to get a buck to commit suicide.
Speaker 1: They're trying to get him to give up the wind
Speaker 1: and am ature buckets just not going to do that
Speaker 1: most of the time. Now, you know, occasionally they're gonna
Speaker 1: do about anything. But if you want to kill them consistently,
Speaker 1: you've got to give him the wind. And that doesn't
Speaker 1: mean entirely, but you gotta give it to him enough
Speaker 1: that they think that they're safe and they're going to
Speaker 1: get up and walk in daylight hours, Um, with the
Speaker 1: wind that they're you're giving them. Okay, yeah, that you know.
Speaker 1: We we were in a few stands where we thought
Speaker 1: we had it perfect. You know, great wind when you
Speaker 1: look at an aerial um, you know, great wind. Everywhere
Speaker 1: we think they're betting, everywhere we think they're gonna go
Speaker 1: is perfect. We were just inside of a fence line
Speaker 1: fifteen twenty yards is where are. We were in a
Speaker 1: blind that day. We were in a tree stand. Um,
Speaker 1: it didn't matter. The wind was perfect. But what we
Speaker 1: noticed is these these bigger bucks. We would we would
Speaker 1: hear something blow behind the stand or a dough, or
Speaker 1: we'd hear something kind of jet and we'd peek out
Speaker 1: one of the corners. You know, everything's kind of screwed up.
Speaker 1: And he realized that he could walk down the fence
Speaker 1: line that was twenty yards behind us, and Win checked
Speaker 1: that entire patch of timber and we were inside of it,
Speaker 1: you know, and we're like, dang it, you know, but
Speaker 1: there was nowhere to set up because we had nothing
Speaker 1: but a wide open pasture behind us. But it got
Speaker 1: you thinking, like these bigger and that happened to two
Speaker 1: or three of the biggest bucks that walked by that,
Speaker 1: you know, some of the shooters that we were wanting
Speaker 1: to target. You know, of course, we had all kinds
Speaker 1: of you know, three and a half four and a
Speaker 1: half year old bucks in front of us, but the
Speaker 1: two older bucks, they they win checked that out in
Speaker 1: the wide open field where you know, maybe they wouldn't
Speaker 1: feel safe, but it was actually safer to be there
Speaker 1: than inside, you know, where they could see and and
Speaker 1: it was kind of funny that we were playing the
Speaker 1: wind per fixed for all the deer in our shooting lane.
Speaker 1: But yet those deer still you know, out smart to us.
Speaker 1: So you almost needed to move back or you know,
Speaker 1: if the if the blind would have been moved back
Speaker 1: and turned, you could have maybe seen him coming down
Speaker 1: the fence line and had a shot. What you know,
Speaker 1: you're only given him ninety degrees of wind, but that
Speaker 1: wind would have been better for killing them versus not
Speaker 1: having a chance to see him. So it kind of
Speaker 1: got got my wheels spinning of you know, it's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: you might need to give these things, you know, a
Speaker 1: little bit of wind. You know, who knows if it
Speaker 1: happens like that every time, but you know, in my opinion,
Speaker 1: two times was consistent enough to to get you thinking
Speaker 1: that that that deer was out smartness and wind checking
Speaker 1: the whole entire patch of timber. Um, well, my chair
Speaker 1: bucks are absolutely gonna do it just about every time.
Speaker 1: That's we can go right back to the beginning of
Speaker 1: of this podcast, and I said hunted down to wind
Speaker 1: edge of betting cover. Those bucks are gonna be on
Speaker 1: that down wind edge doing exactly what you just described.
Speaker 1: And when I'm sutting, when I'm hunting the edge, I'm
Speaker 1: hunting the very edge. And sometimes those bucks are even
Speaker 1: down wind and me, I've got my tree stand and
Speaker 1: the since blowing this way, and that buck he's walking by,
Speaker 1: but my sense going right out with the top of
Speaker 1: his back, Um, he's actually down wind. It just he's
Speaker 1: close enough that and the winds velocity is high enough
Speaker 1: that my scent just carries right over his back. I've
Speaker 1: shot a lot of bucks that way. Yeah, and I
Speaker 1: got like I said, I'm I'm new, I'm getting educated.
Speaker 1: We spent um, you know, after the hunt, we we
Speaker 1: walked the property in some spots on on how we
Speaker 1: could maybe hunt that better. And that was one of
Speaker 1: the keys we looked at, you know, where to set
Speaker 1: a tree stand so that we could intercept the deer
Speaker 1: going down the fence still have good cover. Um. It
Speaker 1: was kind of on a high point. So they felt,
Speaker 1: you know, like no matter which direction the wind blew,
Speaker 1: we were gonna be able to blow over the top
Speaker 1: of you know, the this eater Thickett kind of came
Speaker 1: out behind us, which we thought they were running, and
Speaker 1: they were running a lot of doors in there, and
Speaker 1: so you know really quickly, like you could set up there,
Speaker 1: it's gonna give them the wind. But they thought in
Speaker 1: the location that tree would be, um, you know, nothing
Speaker 1: would really smell us, you know, or at least no
Speaker 1: area that was important to ever get our wind. Um
Speaker 1: And we could basically hunt three sixty around that stand.
Speaker 1: So um, yeah, it was kind of interesting where I
Speaker 1: was kind of scratching my head like why the heck
Speaker 1: would you put a stand here? But they were confident enough,
Speaker 1: you're high enough, nothing, you know, everything was dropping off. Um,
Speaker 1: you'd be safe there and be able to shoot. So
Speaker 1: it's interesting to give him the wind a little bit.
Speaker 1: And then, um, I suspect next time I go back
Speaker 1: and hunt, hunt that place, we're gonna have a stand
Speaker 1: there and be able to capitalize on You know that
Speaker 1: that you know route that multiple big bucks were taken
Speaker 1: to check. Uh, you know a big timber patch. Mm hmm.
Speaker 1: It's all about the wind. Those big bucks are not
Speaker 1: going to give it up very often. If you're gonna
Speaker 1: kill him consistently, you gotta play the wind. Yeah, makes
Speaker 1: makes a ton of sense. And and you know just
Speaker 1: what I on my one trip, Um, you know it
Speaker 1: kind of clicked. Uh you know that that whole idea
Speaker 1: of giving him a little bit um if not a
Speaker 1: lot of it. Uh m hmm. What does your scent
Speaker 1: control regiment look like? Um? You know, being a Western
Speaker 1: and I keep going back has been a Western guy like,
Speaker 1: we don't we've we've kind of given up on sent control.
Speaker 1: We used to spray my boots and wear elk Estra's
Speaker 1: wafers on my hat early days. And then it's like, well,
Speaker 1: I've always got to breathe. I'm always sweating as I'm
Speaker 1: walking around the mountains. Like there's what I do in
Speaker 1: the washing machine and the dryer and throw them in
Speaker 1: a tub like the night before. Has no impact because
Speaker 1: within twenty minutes of me riding my bike or hiking
Speaker 1: up a mountain and you know, breathing out of my
Speaker 1: mouth or whatnot, Like I've given that up. Now you're
Speaker 1: going white to hunting. You know, I got busted a
Speaker 1: couple of days. I'm like, man, they shouldn't have got me.
Speaker 1: See I see you three close back in there, sent
Speaker 1: you know, put put the scent killers all over it whatnot. Um,
Speaker 1: I'm curious what what does your scent control, you know,
Speaker 1: look like? And how much does it matter? Or are
Speaker 1: you like us out west? And if the wind's right,
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter. That's exactly right. You know. At one
Speaker 1: time I did everything you could possibly do in regards
Speaker 1: to scent control. I even took the little chlorophill tablets
Speaker 1: you know, to control your body odor. I do use
Speaker 1: the sprays. I even carried a bottle to pee in
Speaker 1: and my tree stand and I I was still getting busted.
Speaker 1: You know, I was going to all this trouble and
Speaker 1: I was still getting busted. Today, I do absolutely nothing,
Speaker 1: nothing at all except play the wind. My clothes are
Speaker 1: laying in my garage, right next to my truck. They're
Speaker 1: not even sealed up in a toad or nothing. They're
Speaker 1: laying there. If you've got the wind, you've got the wind.
Speaker 1: He ain't gonna smell you. If you don't, he's gonna
Speaker 1: smell you. And you know, I've given a lot of seminars,
Speaker 1: and then you know, I get this question a lot.
Speaker 1: Somebody will ask what do you do for scent control?
Speaker 1: And I'll turn it right around on the crowd, and
Speaker 1: I'll say, well, let me ask you. I'll use a question.
Speaker 1: How many of you use some sort of scent control product,
Speaker 1: use the clothing or the sprays or whatever. If you
Speaker 1: use anything at all for scent control, raise your hand.
Speaker 1: Every hand goes up. I said, how many of you
Speaker 1: been winded by deer? Every hand still up in the air.
Speaker 1: It don't work, And I may work to some degree,
Speaker 1: it may control your order to some degree, but you're
Speaker 1: onto it. Man. Just forget that stuff and play the wind.
Speaker 1: And you either got it or you don't. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: you know, similar to you, some of your white tail
Speaker 1: management ideas you know of some of the other guys
Speaker 1: you say, actually hurts you. I feel sent control can
Speaker 1: hurt because if there's any placebo effect where it's in
Speaker 1: your head and you think you can get away with something,
Speaker 1: you've now just maybe shortcut of the decision on a
Speaker 1: three location or you've shortcutted, you know, because you now
Speaker 1: you know got some you know it's it's start that way, like,
Speaker 1: you know, put the extra effort in, take a different
Speaker 1: trail to your stand you know, whatever you gotta do,
Speaker 1: just put in the extra effort and then assume that
Speaker 1: you know that send control is not gonna work, and
Speaker 1: you'll make better decisions. Um, you know, be a little
Speaker 1: more conservative on your decisions. I think that's a fantastic point. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, if you know the deer's gonna smell you, you
Speaker 1: you know they're going to and they are, then you're
Speaker 1: gonna hunt different. You're gonna do whatever it takes to
Speaker 1: minimize those deer getting down end where they can smell.
Speaker 1: You're gonna minimize or go out of your way to
Speaker 1: walk in in such a place or in such a
Speaker 1: way that those deer not very likely to catch your
Speaker 1: ground sent or encounter your ground sake, you're gonna do that,
Speaker 1: no one, they can smell you. But when you start
Speaker 1: using all these magic potions, well then you get this
Speaker 1: false idea in your head. Today I'm sent free. I
Speaker 1: can do whatever, and you know, walk to the woods
Speaker 1: and make all kinds of mistakes, and those products are
Speaker 1: probably saved more dear than they ever helped kill. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a good point. Yeah, so I assume that it
Speaker 1: was just kind of curious. Um, you know, I just
Speaker 1: get worried. You know, it's like not having a ton
Speaker 1: of experience, not you know, having you know, thousands of
Speaker 1: deer walk by your stand, like you like what you
Speaker 1: can get away with. But I learned really quickly, Like, man,
Speaker 1: if they're in that, I don't even want to I
Speaker 1: don't know, a hundred twenty degree fog behind you, like
Speaker 1: there's nothing you can do to unless you're high enough
Speaker 1: and it's just blown over them. But if you know
Speaker 1: there's molecules or whether it's ten molecules, a hundred of thousand,
Speaker 1: I don't know how to quantify scent, but if they
Speaker 1: get enough of it, there's nothing you can do. Um,
Speaker 1: you have to breathe, you have to your body is
Speaker 1: putting off heat all the time. Um. In my opinion,
Speaker 1: you're just kind of um so uh. You know, with
Speaker 1: with my background being in deer calls and and trying
Speaker 1: to I I've heard you talk about gimmicks and whatnot,
Speaker 1: but um, you know, we we we need there is
Speaker 1: a way to use a deer's hearing against him, whether
Speaker 1: it's rattling, whether it's calls, whether it's grinning. What is
Speaker 1: your strategy when it comes to making noise from a stand?
Speaker 1: Are you silent? Is there a Is there a time
Speaker 1: where a snort, wheez, a ground bleak or rattling may work?
Speaker 1: Or do you try to just be a fly on
Speaker 1: the wall the entire time and hope that the pattern
Speaker 1: of the deer works for you? Or is there a
Speaker 1: time where you you will use a call? Here there? Well,
Speaker 1: I almost never called blindly. Now, if I see a
Speaker 1: target animal that's out of range and I don't think
Speaker 1: he's working towards me, I will definitely use a call.
Speaker 1: I do it a few time every year. But to
Speaker 1: be honest, I think at least here in the Midwest,
Speaker 1: I think every one of those gadgets, gizbos, whatever. I
Speaker 1: think they get so overused by every deer hunter in
Speaker 1: the woods that by the time a buck gets mature,
Speaker 1: he knows the game, so you know, it's it's so
Speaker 1: hard to call him. I I'm old enough that I
Speaker 1: remember the first grunt calls coming out and the first
Speaker 1: season that I had a grunt call. I'm telling you what,
Speaker 1: just about every time I blew that thing, a buck
Speaker 1: came in. I mean it sounded like a buck and
Speaker 1: those bucks have never heard it before, and they came
Speaker 1: in Today. You're lucky to call in ten percent. And
Speaker 1: that's if you see them and you know he heard
Speaker 1: it because he pulls his head up and looks at you.
Speaker 1: You're lucky to get ten percent of them to come
Speaker 1: into your stand, And that was not the case. Now.
Speaker 1: I think that if you're in you know, places where
Speaker 1: there's not as much hunting pressure, um, then I think
Speaker 1: they're a lot more effective. You know, the same thing
Speaker 1: that we said for decoys. I've had terrible experience with decoys,
Speaker 1: but I know guys in Kansas that swear by them
Speaker 1: that they decoy and multiple bucks every single year. But
Speaker 1: I'm telling you around here. They don't work. You'll spook
Speaker 1: twenty deer for every single one that comes in to
Speaker 1: check your decoy out. Yeah, it's funny you mentioned that.
Speaker 1: One thing. One point I want to make and see
Speaker 1: if it kind of um you know, correlates with what
Speaker 1: you've seen. You know, this is this is Kansas, well
Speaker 1: managed pieces of property to deer on these really probably
Speaker 1: only see you know, my buddy Randy, that that owns
Speaker 1: the place if anybody and nobody hunts it. Um, what
Speaker 1: I noticed, even with a well managed property, lots of bucks,
Speaker 1: different age classes. You know, we were seeing three and
Speaker 1: a half, four and a half, six and a half,
Speaker 1: you know, the whole gamut do you find or what
Speaker 1: I found sitting in the tree, you know, wanting to
Speaker 1: test the calls and use them. Um, they were very
Speaker 1: very effective on deer that were four and a half
Speaker 1: and younger. Now, if I had a buck cruise that
Speaker 1: was five and a half or six and a half
Speaker 1: and he wasn't on lockdown, he was just doing the
Speaker 1: same you know, let's just say, slowly trotting down a trail. Um,
Speaker 1: same thing that these three and a halfs or four
Speaker 1: and a halfs were doing. And I hit him with
Speaker 1: the same the same sound, same volume, you know, as
Speaker 1: much as I can do to be the same that
Speaker 1: that that older buck, more mature buck might look in
Speaker 1: our direction and he almost goes back to what he's doing.
Speaker 1: Where I had a very very high success rate on
Speaker 1: getting the three and a halfs in the four and
Speaker 1: a half to turn towards my tree. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: And so why And that's my own observation ten days
Speaker 1: in the tree. I'm far from an expert, but there
Speaker 1: was enough of a of a pattern happening where it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: grunting in these these younger bucks is really easy. These
Speaker 1: big ones just don't seem to want to want to
Speaker 1: play the game, you know. Same thing with rattling. We
Speaker 1: had some buck come charging you know, the blind or
Speaker 1: the tree that we were in, depending on the day. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, older bucks very rarely. Um you know, and
Speaker 1: that's not not in lockdown. So yeah, just an observation
Speaker 1: I made. You know, those three and a half four
Speaker 1: and a half somewhat easy to call in older dear
Speaker 1: not so easy. I agree with that a hundred percent.
Speaker 1: Those older ones, I've heard it before saying, and they
Speaker 1: probably circled down when too some guys sitting in a
Speaker 1: tree blowing the star spangled banner and it's a grunt too.
Speaker 1: You know. Well, I really appreciate having you on here, Dawn. Um,
Speaker 1: how can people find out more about you if they're interesting,
Speaker 1: you know, reading any more of your material, um, you know,
Speaker 1: subscribing any that's you know, all of your platforms and whatnot. Well,
Speaker 1: they can go to my website which is Higgins outdoors
Speaker 1: dot com and uh my social media Higgins Outdoors on
Speaker 1: Facebook and Instagram. I've got a YouTube channel Chasing Giants
Speaker 1: with Higgins Outdoors, a podcast Chasing Giants that can be
Speaker 1: found on YouTube or any podcast platform. Um, I'm out there.
Speaker 1: If you just do a search for my name, you're
Speaker 1: gonna find me. Um. After digesting a lot of your
Speaker 1: your information that you have to talk about outside of
Speaker 1: this podcast, and even going through this podcast, I assume
Speaker 1: I know what the answer is going to be on
Speaker 1: this one. But in closing, if you have one tip
Speaker 1: that you feel would give white tail hunters, uh, you
Speaker 1: know better odds um, you know and in years to
Speaker 1: come on their own property, what would it be? Uh?
Speaker 1: Freedom of human intrusion is the key. I mean, those
Speaker 1: big bucks are not going to tolerate human intrusion. And
Speaker 1: if you find a place where human intrusion is very
Speaker 1: limited or nonexistent, there's a very good chance and that's
Speaker 1: gonna be the place you're gonna find them at your buck.
Speaker 1: And you can if you own your own farm, you
Speaker 1: can make it that way. And that's what I've done
Speaker 1: on my home farm. And I'm telling you, the biggest
Speaker 1: bucks in my neighborhood every single year or on my property. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you I've heard you, you know, the Joey buck. Uh.
Speaker 1: You know, these sanctuaries don't have to be big. He
Speaker 1: was on like a three acre piece, right, And I've
Speaker 1: heard you reference. You know, a single tree out in
Speaker 1: the middle of a field that's surrounded by some brush
Speaker 1: like that could be the sanctuary. You're just so when
Speaker 1: people go to look for these sanctuaries, you don't have
Speaker 1: to look at big you know, never ending tracks September.
Speaker 1: It's just literally where nobody is bothering them. There's no
Speaker 1: real you know, it might be a corner of your
Speaker 1: neighbor's property, it might be a corner of your property
Speaker 1: you never go to, but that's where that Buck wants
Speaker 1: to be absolutely well said, all right, perfect, Well, thanks
Speaker 1: a lot, Don, good luck if you get a chance
Speaker 1: to get back up in the stand. And always always
Speaker 1: interested to learn from you. Um, you've got some great
Speaker 1: information out there. And uh, like I said, I appreciate
Speaker 1: you having here on the podcast. Yeah, I'm well I
Speaker 1: did anytime, So thanks for having me, Jason, all right,
Speaker 1: thanks Don,