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, I'm running Bobby Kendall of the Whitetail Group
Speaker 2: through a series of very specific deer hunting scenarios to
Speaker 2: see exactly how we'd handle them. All right, Welcome to
Speaker 2: the Wired to Hunt podcast, brought to you by First Light.
Speaker 2: I'm your host, Mark Kenyan. In today, we are kicking
Speaker 2: off are what would You Do series, which is something
Speaker 2: we've done every August for the last three or four
Speaker 2: years now, I believe, And here's the basic gist of it.
Speaker 2: We put a great deer hunter through a gauntlet of
Speaker 2: very specific hunting challenges and scenarios. I will paint picture
Speaker 2: of some kind of set of circumstances and then ask
Speaker 2: this hunter how they would think about it, what they
Speaker 2: would do, and why they would do it. That is
Speaker 2: what we're gonna do today and for the rest of
Speaker 2: this month. I'm gonna tell you a little bit about
Speaker 2: our guest coming up here in just a moment. But
Speaker 2: before we do that, before we get into the meat
Speaker 2: and potatoes to today's show, I got to give you
Speaker 2: a quick couple quick updates. Number one, we have another
Speaker 2: Working for Wildlife tour event coming up here in August.
Speaker 2: So that is going to be August twelve in Missouri,
Speaker 2: just outside of Saint Louis, Missouri. We've got an event
Speaker 2: in collaboration with backcountry hunters and anglers. We're gonna get
Speaker 2: out there on some public land near the Mississippi River,
Speaker 2: I believe, and do some habitat improvement for wildlife. So, man,
Speaker 2: if you do any public land hunting, if you do
Speaker 2: any hike and fish and anything out there out on
Speaker 2: these places, you know that it's important to help steward
Speaker 2: these landscapes, protect these landscapes, make sure that they are
Speaker 2: healthy and thriving ecosystems so that the critters that we
Speaker 2: want to hunt are there and in healthy populations. And
Speaker 2: that's what we're trying to do on this tours, get
Speaker 2: out there and give back to these places that man,
Speaker 2: they give us so much. So I'm really excited to
Speaker 2: get there on August twelfth. Meet a bunch of you, hopefully.
Speaker 2: I know we have a lot of listeners in Missouri, Kansas,
Speaker 2: that whole region, so we'd love to meet some of you,
Speaker 2: share some stories, take some pictures, sign books, whatever it is,
Speaker 2: and get out there doing some good work. So August twelfth,
Speaker 2: you can learn more about this specific event on the
Speaker 2: back Country Hunters and Anglers event web page. You'll find
Speaker 2: this event listed there in their event section and you
Speaker 2: can register at that link. Then there's going to be
Speaker 2: a social storytelling event thing that goes on afterwards, so
Speaker 2: looking forward to that. I want to make sure everyone
Speaker 2: new that that's coming up. Also, we've got a sale
Speaker 2: going on with First Light and all of our brands.
Speaker 2: If you happen to be listening to this on the
Speaker 2: day that it comes out, just that day, August third,
Speaker 2: If you are listening on August third, twenty twenty three,
Speaker 2: our season opener sale is still running. So this is
Speaker 2: everything on the Mediator store, First Light, Phelps, FHF all
Speaker 2: of it up to forty percent off. There's some great swag,
Speaker 2: including the white tail rope hat that I've worn a
Speaker 2: bunch over the last year. I've gotten lots and lots
Speaker 2: and lots of questions about when that hat's going to
Speaker 2: be going on sale, Well, it is now available finally,
Speaker 2: and it's on sale. I think ten percent off is
Speaker 2: what I think I saw. Regardless. Heading over to the
Speaker 2: Mediator store or the First Light website or any one
Speaker 2: of the brand websites, you will see all the details
Speaker 2: about what's on sale. Lots of great options, including the
Speaker 2: brand new source of vest or Origin pant from First Light.
Speaker 2: I haven't talked about the Origin pant yet, but it
Speaker 2: is like a super almost feels like an incredibly comfortable
Speaker 2: jogger or sweatpant, but it is built with hunting in mind.
Speaker 2: It uses that same fabric from the Origin hoodie, which
Speaker 2: I know a lot of us use in love. But
Speaker 2: it's designed as like a transitional piece to where when
Speaker 2: you're heading out to the stand or even if it's
Speaker 2: a piece that you're using, you know, when going from
Speaker 2: deer camp to the property or whatever it is. It's
Speaker 2: a very versatile piece. I end up wearing it all
Speaker 2: the time, just a camp, scouting, hiking around in between hunts.
Speaker 2: So check that out and everything else at first Light
Speaker 2: dot com or the Mediator's store. And that is my
Speaker 2: last plug. Other than the fact that we got to
Speaker 2: talk about our guest, and our guest today is Bobby Kendall.
Speaker 2: Bobby was on the show earlier this year for the
Speaker 2: first time this spring during our Habitat month. He's one
Speaker 2: of the founders of the Whitetail Group, which is a
Speaker 2: company that is doing a whole bunch of different things,
Speaker 2: but they're most known, I think for their recreational properties
Speaker 2: that they are developing and showcasing and selling for the
Speaker 2: elite whitetail hunter. They're designing properties for the elite hunting experience,
Speaker 2: is what they say. And after watching many, many, many
Speaker 2: hours of their YouTube videos in which they break down
Speaker 2: how they would hunt properties, how they would design properties,
Speaker 2: how they would manipulate and change them, I've gotten to
Speaker 2: know Bobby's approach to hunting pretty darn well, and I'm
Speaker 2: a fan of it. I'm a fan of his detail
Speaker 2: oriented approach. I'm a fan of the way he stacks
Speaker 2: odds and weighs probabilities and tries to make really smart,
Speaker 2: thoughtful decisions. It's very much in line with how I
Speaker 2: try to approach to your hunting, and Bobby probably just
Speaker 2: does it better. So that's why I wanted to have
Speaker 2: him on the show today to really break that side
Speaker 2: of things down more because last time we mostly talked
Speaker 2: about habitat this time I want to talk primarily about hunting.
Speaker 2: And as I mentioned at the top, this is our
Speaker 2: what would you Do? Series? So what I'm going to
Speaker 2: do here Bobby is present him a specific scenario, a
Speaker 2: couple habitat and then the rest hunting, and then we're
Speaker 2: gonna have Bobby break down what he would do, how
Speaker 2: he would do it, why he would do with the
Speaker 2: things he's thinking about everything, so that we can get
Speaker 2: a very clear look inside of the brain of a
Speaker 2: tremendously successful white tail hunter. Bobby gets done year in,
Speaker 2: year out, and he does it in a way that
Speaker 2: I think a lot of folks can learn from. So
Speaker 2: that is our game plan for today. I'm excited for it.
Speaker 2: I hope you are too. Let's get to it all right,
Speaker 2: So with me on the show today, We've got Bobby Kendall.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the show, Bobby, thanks for having me again. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm glad to get you back today to talk deer hunting,
Speaker 2: not just deer management, not just deer land, but really
Speaker 2: dig into the hunting side of things, which I know
Speaker 2: you love the property aspect and we had a great
Speaker 2: conversation to spring on that topic. But it's almost August
Speaker 2: we're talking, and I don't know about you, but like
Speaker 2: the itch is very very strong right now to get
Speaker 2: out there and get hunted.
Speaker 3: It is real.
Speaker 2: Yes, So what I've got for you today is this
Speaker 2: thing we call the what would you do? Gauntlet? So
Speaker 2: basically what that means is, I'm gonna give you a
Speaker 2: bunch of tough, specific hypothetical situations, mostly hunting. We'll do
Speaker 2: a couple of habitat things kick things off, and basically
Speaker 2: what I need you to do is walk me through
Speaker 2: how you would handle that situation and what you're thinking.
Speaker 2: You can paint, you know, an imaginary picture if you want.
Speaker 2: If I don't give you enough details, you can add
Speaker 2: your own details to help you make your answer makes
Speaker 2: sense and we'll kind of see how you do things.
Speaker 2: So is that something you're up for?
Speaker 3: Yes? That sounds good.
Speaker 2: All right, Well, then we're just gonna get right into
Speaker 2: it in the interest of time here because the first
Speaker 2: one I've got here is related to habitat. Like I mentioned,
Speaker 2: in this scenario, I want you to imagine a situation
Speaker 2: where you have gotten access to pretty sweet property, but
Speaker 2: it's a lease, and let's say this is the only
Speaker 2: place you can hunt this year. It is going to
Speaker 2: be a situation where you have access as a lease
Speaker 2: and they're going to give you a five year term
Speaker 2: on it. So you've got some time with it. You've
Speaker 2: got time to figure it out. It's it's, you know,
Speaker 2: something you want to invest in a little bit. The situation, though,
Speaker 2: is that you are not allowed to make major habitat changes.
Speaker 2: You can't do major plantings, you can't do major cuttings.
Speaker 2: We're talking light touch kind of stuff here. In that situation,
Speaker 2: with those stipulations, what would be the two most important
Speaker 2: things that you could do to improve your hunting experience
Speaker 2: out there in this five year term?
Speaker 3: Okay, now, is this place in the Midwest? Yeah, like
Speaker 3: a typical farm with aag and stuff.
Speaker 2: Yep, we'll say this is there in Illinois.
Speaker 3: So you know, in the real world, my last couple
Speaker 3: of seasons I have spent on a permission piece that
Speaker 3: it was exactly a situation I couldn't do. So you know,
Speaker 3: you kind of go back to the basics, right, And
Speaker 3: that's even when you can do a bunch of happitat
Speaker 3: manipulation it it really you have to go back to
Speaker 3: the basics. Really good strategy with nothing done is better
Speaker 3: than all kinds of things done with no strategy. So
Speaker 3: you know, I guess also in this situation, have I
Speaker 3: run cameras yet? Do I know if there's a big
Speaker 3: deer there? Or am I completely at the beginning stages
Speaker 3: of it.
Speaker 2: Let's stay this at this point, you are in the beginning.
Speaker 2: You can do all those things, but this is like
Speaker 2: your first this is your first season out there. You've
Speaker 2: picked it up maybe in the summer, so you've got
Speaker 2: some summer scouty under your belt, and that's it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, So the first thing I'm gonna do is
Speaker 3: I'm gonna put cameras out. Hopefully the farm isn't bean
Speaker 3: so I can really get the cameras out and start
Speaker 3: seeing things. If it's in corn, that can be tough
Speaker 3: when it's not under your control because a lot of
Speaker 3: edges get grown up and it's really hard to put
Speaker 3: cameras out in that situation. I'll wait until scrapes are
Speaker 3: popping up, and I'll walk the perimeter or the backpack
Speaker 3: of cameras and a hedge hedge trimmer, battery heads trimmer,
Speaker 3: and I'll put I'll find the scrapes, and I'll put
Speaker 3: a camera on every scrape on the edge, and I'll
Speaker 3: clear it with a hedge trimmer, is usually what I do,
Speaker 3: because you're kinda it's just kind of your button heads
Speaker 3: with nature if you're if you're trying to run cameras
Speaker 3: earlier and that a lot of times and core unless
Speaker 3: you got some pinches and stuff as far as the
Speaker 3: habitat goes, like, one of the first things I'm gonna
Speaker 3: do is ask the landowner if if can I plan
Speaker 3: any food plots, and would you mind if I talk
Speaker 3: to the farmer If you're not out any money or
Speaker 3: it doesn't affect you, would you mind if I talk
Speaker 3: to your farm tenant and to try and find out
Speaker 3: if I can buy back some crops, Because even on
Speaker 3: my own farms, I try and work with the farmer
Speaker 3: as much as possible because it's just so much easier.
Speaker 3: They do a better job. So once they do that,
Speaker 3: I'm gonna reach out to the farmer because I'm gonna
Speaker 3: want standing crops on the farm and I'm going to
Speaker 3: My strategy with that is you know, I'll be like,
Speaker 3: I'll pay you whatever it is to make you whole.
Speaker 3: And if it's corn, I'll always offer to go in
Speaker 3: there after the season and mow that corn down because
Speaker 3: that's the one thing they don't want to deal with,
Speaker 3: and that'll usually get you in the doors and maybe
Speaker 3: even offer a little bit more than what they would
Speaker 3: have got from the crop. So that I want to
Speaker 3: get my standing crops. I want to find out what
Speaker 3: deer are there right off the bat if there is
Speaker 3: nowhere to plant food plot, I'll just I'll also ask
Speaker 3: the farmer, hey, do you mind if I oversee some
Speaker 3: green into that area that you're letting me keep. And
Speaker 3: again I will by letting him know you are somewhat competent.
Speaker 3: It goes a long way. If I say, hey, can
Speaker 3: I oversee some winter rye in here? I know it's
Speaker 3: going to come up in the spring. I will come
Speaker 3: back in the spring and I'll spray it for you. Usually,
Speaker 3: you know, if you're acting that competent, they'll let you.
Speaker 3: And then or I'll ask if I can oversee Somebraskas
Speaker 3: because Nebraskas really won't come back and make too much
Speaker 3: of a mess on them. And a lot of times,
Speaker 3: I'd say more often than not, you know, you'll get
Speaker 3: something done with a farmer like that. So at that point,
Speaker 3: I you know, that address is you know, trying to
Speaker 3: figure out what deer are there and then getting some
Speaker 3: food going.
Speaker 2: So let's shift to a slightly different situation then if
Speaker 2: you were in a situation where you did just buy
Speaker 2: a farm, so rather than being on a lease they
Speaker 2: don't have a lot of control over, now you do
Speaker 2: have full control. You just landed a dream farm. The
Speaker 2: problem is you couldn't close until late August, so you're
Speaker 2: not able to actually set foot on this farm and
Speaker 2: do anything till let's say August twenty fifth, maybe opening
Speaker 2: day in this state. Let's say you're in Iowa, opening
Speaker 2: day is October first, so you're maybe five weeks out
Speaker 2: from opening day. In that situation, do you try to
Speaker 2: to make some kind of last minute changes, plant some
Speaker 2: food plots, pushing some you know, I don't know, pushing
Speaker 2: a creek crossing, do any cuttings anything like that, or
Speaker 2: is it too late? And at this point you just
Speaker 2: want to play it very very light touch, just hunt
Speaker 2: it and wait till the next season to do any
Speaker 2: kind of real work.
Speaker 3: So a lot of times, backing up from that, I've
Speaker 3: negotiated in in the front side the right for early
Speaker 3: access to prep and stuff. So a lot sometimes I
Speaker 3: will be at that point, but I'll have I'll have
Speaker 3: a little bit more time. But if I don't, I'll
Speaker 3: still go to the farmers because that you know that
Speaker 3: that that'll work, that whole conversation will work right up
Speaker 3: until the harvest. So I'd still do that, you know,
Speaker 3: And and both situations as far as like habitat work
Speaker 3: and stuff like, I wouldn't worry about that all because
Speaker 3: I just hunt the way the farm in a way
Speaker 3: I wasn't putting pressure on it, because that's the number
Speaker 3: one thing. Nothing works with None of the habitat stuff
Speaker 3: works without without a strategy as far as your presence
Speaker 3: and pressure. So so yeah, you know, I don't think
Speaker 3: i'd be going in and doing crete crossings and that
Speaker 3: type of thing, but I'd be getting my cameras out
Speaker 3: figuring what's out there. I'd be trying to figure out
Speaker 3: the farmers who what they would let me, what I
Speaker 3: could do with them. And it just depends, you know,
Speaker 3: if you got if you're going in that late and
Speaker 3: it's you got some cattle pasture or something that was
Speaker 3: prepped and it was mowed down, you know, down pretty good.
Speaker 3: You could spray it, no till it or you know,
Speaker 3: spray it and work it up in a week or two,
Speaker 3: a couple of weeks, and and so it would kind
Speaker 3: of depend on the situation, I guess, but you know,
Speaker 3: I just I would I think the big things would
Speaker 3: be working with the farmer to try and get some
Speaker 3: some last minute crops and and finding out what's there quick.
Speaker 3: There's a lot of.
Speaker 2: Change that time of year, you know, yep, but nothing major.
Speaker 2: You wouldn't be bringing in the dozers. You wouldn't be
Speaker 2: uh trying to change the world overnight.
Speaker 3: Well, you know in my situation, because I have like
Speaker 3: a business that has all that, and I could go
Speaker 3: in and hit it hot, like I may do that
Speaker 3: because yeah, you know, I do not think that that
Speaker 3: heavy equipment affects deer like you would think it is.
Speaker 3: Like I would think going in there and tiptoeing around
Speaker 3: and scouting and stuff would have more impact than bringing
Speaker 3: a bulldozer there and clearing a one boot bot. The
Speaker 3: only reason I say that is because I've seen it
Speaker 3: a hundred times when I leave a camera out and
Speaker 3: I've got guys walking back and forth with chainsaws and
Speaker 3: skitterers going by all day and then boom, here comes
Speaker 3: a five plus year old deer in daylight by the
Speaker 3: same camera. It's like, the is the craziest thing. And
Speaker 3: I've seen that over and over and over again.
Speaker 2: They really get used to that farm equipment kind of pressure.
Speaker 2: Doesn't even nearly as concerned of that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So as far, I guess maybe the root of
Speaker 3: your question is do you think it would affect the
Speaker 3: deer that you're gonna hunt? And I do not think
Speaker 3: that it would, especially if it's a big maturitier, because
Speaker 3: a big maturitier spent his whole life there, and it's
Speaker 3: it's harder than people think to to run a deer
Speaker 3: like that out of their core.
Speaker 2: Right there for a reason.
Speaker 3: Good example, here's a great example. I got a farm
Speaker 3: this year that I'm hunting permission with a friend of
Speaker 3: mine that bought it, and he was like, you know,
Speaker 3: go over there, you know, see what you think needs
Speaker 3: done or whatever. And there's there's one spot that I
Speaker 3: feel like would greatly bring him to bow range. And
Speaker 3: I said, I'll go up there with the skids deer,
Speaker 3: and I'll just I'll push out a plot and I
Speaker 3: might even plant it the same day I'm in there
Speaker 3: with the skids deer. So yeah, I would do that
Speaker 3: type of thing. I don't think it would hurt your hunting,
Speaker 3: is what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: Is there a cut off date? Would there be any
Speaker 2: date that'd be too late to do something like that?
Speaker 2: Like if I changed the date to September fifteenth or
Speaker 2: something that works shape.
Speaker 3: Now, I probably wouldn't want to do it anymore once
Speaker 3: we got like within maybe a week or five days
Speaker 3: of the season. And it depends is if it's a
Speaker 3: one day going there heavy hit it and do it
Speaker 3: all in a day, or if it's a week long,
Speaker 3: drawn out thing. That'd be two different things. But what
Speaker 3: I wouldn't want to do is do it so close
Speaker 3: to the season that I might push him to the
Speaker 3: neighbor for a few days and then have him kill him.
Speaker 2: Yep, I fellow, Okay, one last habitat question here in
Speaker 2: this one, I'm going to send you to New York.
Speaker 2: So right where you are, right now, right upstate New York.
Speaker 2: I think, let's say you've got is a food plot question.
Speaker 2: And we're going to imagine two different versions of this
Speaker 2: food plot question. One of them will be a situation
Speaker 2: in which you do own the land and you can
Speaker 2: make big changes. One of these is a situation where
Speaker 2: you do not own the land and you can't make
Speaker 2: major changes. So the CIN scenario is this, You've got
Speaker 2: access to this big property, relatively big. We'll say. Let
Speaker 2: me take you back the word big. We're gonna say
Speaker 2: it's one hundred and twenty acre farm. Some people consider
Speaker 2: that big. Some people do not consider that big. It
Speaker 2: is mostly timber, swamp timber mixed kind of situation of
Speaker 2: which there's one opening on the side of it. So
Speaker 2: you've got an eight acre rectangular field that is surrounded
Speaker 2: by the rest of this swampy timber. Okay, that eight
Speaker 2: acre field, like I mentioned, is planted in some you know,
Speaker 2: agricultural food source. The situation is this, there is a big,
Speaker 2: giant buck that you have noticed that's coming in and
Speaker 2: out of this big chunk of timber. Let's say you
Speaker 2: know that from history. The problem here, though, is that
Speaker 2: because of how large this food sources, and because of
Speaker 2: the kind of terrain features and whatnot, there's no real
Speaker 2: rhyme or reason, at least not a consistent rhyme or
Speaker 2: reason to how this buck is entering or exiting this field.
Speaker 2: What would you do to try to make a large
Speaker 2: food source hunt setup like that work better given this scenario,
Speaker 2: Option A is first, let's talk about you can't replant it,
Speaker 2: you can't change the shape of it, you can't cut
Speaker 2: a bunch of trees down around, so you have to
Speaker 2: kind of do some light touch things on this. And
Speaker 2: then option B would be the full white tail group.
Speaker 2: You know, arsenal is at your disposal to re design
Speaker 2: this setup. So there's your situation. How big is the
Speaker 2: field that's eight acres.
Speaker 3: Rectangle rectangle, and is it what's playing in that?
Speaker 2: Let's yeah, let's say it's let's say it's beans. Because
Speaker 2: I want something that's like not providing a lot of cover.
Speaker 2: I want to open big open fields. We'll say it's
Speaker 2: beans right now as the as it stands right now.
Speaker 2: So in the situation where you don't own it, some
Speaker 2: farmer plan those beans. In the situation where you do
Speaker 2: onw it, you can change it to whatever you want.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So first thing, I look at access and dominant winds,
Speaker 3: and I would just really quickly be like, I want
Speaker 3: to be in this area of the field, right, and
Speaker 3: then I'd go to that area and I'd try and
Speaker 3: find an huntable tree, and then I would if I
Speaker 3: am I allowed to oversee do I got to talk
Speaker 3: to the farmer again.
Speaker 2: You can talk to the farmer, yeah.
Speaker 3: So I would. I would be like, hey, man, would
Speaker 3: you mind if I overseeded some braska is in here?
Speaker 3: They won't. I mean, most of them understand cover cropping
Speaker 3: and understands a good thing. So let's say he lets
Speaker 3: me do that, and we do this. Well, that's the
Speaker 3: next question of the develop farms. But I'm gonna set
Speaker 3: my stand and then I'm gonna overseed within bow range,
Speaker 3: ingreen of rye and turn ups, keep it super simple.
Speaker 3: And then I'm gonna go around and I'm going to
Speaker 3: cut every scrape branch off of that tree three except
Speaker 3: for the ones that are in bow range. So I'm
Speaker 3: gonna just do everything and I can possibly do to
Speaker 3: make that deer, you know, come there to me, depending
Speaker 3: on how wide the field is. If it's rectangle, you know.
Speaker 3: I mean back in the day, I remember literally taking
Speaker 3: dead falls with my golf cart and like leaning over
Speaker 3: so I don't touch the ground, and I'm not this
Speaker 3: crazy anymore because I don't think that you need to be.
Speaker 3: But and like literally like hooking onto a dead ball
Speaker 3: and skidding it out in the plot and laying this
Speaker 3: like dead stick out there, you know, ten twenty twenty
Speaker 3: feet just something that they'll walk around. So like it
Speaker 3: can be that primitive because you can manipulate like super
Speaker 3: primitively or easily. But those two things there are gonna
Speaker 3: if you up your odds, You're gonna up your odds
Speaker 3: that a doe is going to be in front of
Speaker 3: you because of the green, which ups your odds at
Speaker 3: a buck's gonna be there. And if you eliminate scrape branches,
Speaker 3: you're gonna up your odds that if it's October and
Speaker 3: he's going to go to a scrape, but he's obviously
Speaker 3: going to go to you. And at the same time,
Speaker 3: you're going to make that scrape more powerful because it's
Speaker 3: going to get more set and it's just gonna snowball.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Now, real quick clarifying question. You talked about the overseaing
Speaker 2: thing quite a lot. Can you just give a little
Speaker 2: bit more detail on when you want to do that?
Speaker 2: With beans versus when you'd want to do that with corn.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so beans, you want to do when the leaves
Speaker 3: are yellowing. As soon as they start to yellow. You
Speaker 3: want to get that seed onto the ground before the
Speaker 3: leaves drop, so that a bunch of the seed doesn't
Speaker 3: lay on top of the leaves. Some of them will
Speaker 3: be covered. But I'll usually double the rate if you
Speaker 3: want to really do it right, I'd put two bags
Speaker 3: awry per and probably you know, eight or ten pounds
Speaker 3: of turnips, pretty heavy. And sometimes I'll literally just whatever
Speaker 3: I got left over from food plas sas and oats
Speaker 3: and rye and turnips and rash and rape and what.
Speaker 3: I'll just put it all out there because some of
Speaker 3: it doesn't have as good as seed to soil. But
Speaker 3: you've got the leftover seed and some of it's going
Speaker 3: to grow. So the heaver you put it on, you know,
Speaker 3: the better. You've got to count that some of them
Speaker 3: aren't going to germinate because of the because of the
Speaker 3: leaves falling on and stuff. But it's awesome if you've
Speaker 3: never done it. I mean, you get a carpet of
Speaker 3: green again, probability and stuff. All of deer hunting to
Speaker 3: me is like probability in math. In order to get
Speaker 3: an acre of green and an acre of beans, you
Speaker 3: end up with two acres, which says it's just harder
Speaker 3: to hunt because it's bigger. But when you put it
Speaker 3: in the same spot, your chances are fifty percent better technically,
Speaker 3: I mean, there's a lot more to it than that.
Speaker 2: But sure, what about the corn situation, when would you
Speaker 2: put on the corn?
Speaker 3: You know, so the corn is kind of the same deal.
Speaker 3: You want it to be browning down. Corn works really well,
Speaker 3: like if you're planning it yourself, if you can, if
Speaker 3: you know you're gonna overseed or at least overseed an area,
Speaker 3: if you can run those corn rows north and south,
Speaker 3: the sun will get in them better and you'll get
Speaker 3: your better germination. So and with a corn you use
Speaker 3: a leaf blower, spread spreader. You know, it's kind of
Speaker 3: a pain, but it's worth it. And you know the
Speaker 3: other thing about corn, and this is kind of getting
Speaker 3: away from that situation, but a lot of times I'll
Speaker 3: go in in a mow my first quarter acre area,
Speaker 3: like September twenty fifth, and then that puts corn on
Speaker 3: the ground in front for opening week. But it also
Speaker 3: is early enough that same day I'll overseaed it and
Speaker 3: then i'll get the carpet of green and the corn there,
Speaker 3: and that's like the hub. And then I'll just start
Speaker 3: mowing as the season, I'll I'll mow a little more,
Speaker 3: a little more, and a big tip on that corn
Speaker 3: is when you after I get done mowing it, Let's
Speaker 3: say for the first time in the quarter acre, I'll
Speaker 3: drive through the corn. I'll lift my mower up. I
Speaker 3: don't want to sling corn anymore. I'll drive out of
Speaker 3: the corn in a couple of directions where I think
Speaker 3: he's gonna come from. But I'll make that road when
Speaker 3: it comes into the corn like. I won't make it
Speaker 3: come straight at me, because then when he walks in
Speaker 3: the field and puts his head down he's eating, he's
Speaker 3: gonna be looking straight down, you know, or he's gonna
Speaker 3: be not broadside. So even if I got to have
Speaker 3: it come in and then loop a little bit or
Speaker 3: something and come in from the side, or jay it
Speaker 3: at the last second, I'll shape it to where when
Speaker 3: he walks in and he's in bow range his broadside
Speaker 3: and not mow it, you know what I mean?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yep, Okay, let's shift more into two hunting stuff here.
Speaker 2: From this situation, Let's imagine we're approaching the time frame
Speaker 2: now where you've got, you know, let's say we're September
Speaker 2: and all your work has done across all your properties,
Speaker 2: you know, leading in the hunting season. You're set, Your
Speaker 2: plots are planted, your box blinds are up, your tree
Speaker 2: stands are hung, cameras are set wherever you want them.
Speaker 2: You're just kind of monitoring and waiting for opening day.
Speaker 2: Then all of a sudden, a new mega giant shows
Speaker 2: up like a It would be your biggest buck ever.
Speaker 2: It'll be two hundred and twenty inches in your you know,
Speaker 2: eyeball estimation. You're very excited to see this buck pop up.
Speaker 2: He's popped up on a smaller one of your properties,
Speaker 2: and you have no history with him, random buck, but
Speaker 2: he's like showing up. It's not like a one time thing.
Speaker 2: He's kind of popping up here and there. You've got
Speaker 2: a little time leading to the season now, and all
Speaker 2: of a sudden you're realizing, holy smokes, this is the
Speaker 2: deer that I want. What do you do in that
Speaker 2: type of situation to go from zero to sixty and
Speaker 2: trying to put together a plan and kind of tighten
Speaker 2: the noose on this deer that is brand new, very exciting.
Speaker 2: How you gon lear in the situation quickly.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna go over there with a lot of cell
Speaker 3: camps and I'm gonna load that place up. I'm gonna
Speaker 3: take one day. I'm gonna go over there in my
Speaker 3: tractor preferably if not tractor ranger. I'm gonna bomb around everywhere,
Speaker 3: you know, because if I'm gonna anticipate that, I'm gonna
Speaker 3: run them out of there. But that's okay. The way
Speaker 3: I'm gonna run them out of there is a lot
Speaker 3: better than just like slipping around everywhere. And if I
Speaker 3: got to slip around, it's fine. You know. Sometimes I'll
Speaker 3: even get on the phone or something something like, you know,
Speaker 3: just obnoxiously not a threatening something sneaking up on them,
Speaker 3: which is what they're wired to defend against. You know,
Speaker 3: I'm gonna load it up with cameras. I'm gonna put
Speaker 3: cameras in places that I anticipate that. But if it's September,
Speaker 3: you know, I'm gonna obviously be trying to put a
Speaker 3: camera on every single scrape. If it is, uh, kind
Speaker 3: of backing up this in my not be this situation,
Speaker 3: but in the whenever. Obviously the best scouting time is
Speaker 3: in the winter before green up. Whenever I'm on a
Speaker 3: farm that time of year and I find scrapes, I'm
Speaker 3: pinning them. It's like I call it like a scrape mat.
Speaker 3: I mean, it does not make sense that time of year.
Speaker 3: You might not even know the deer, you might not
Speaker 3: have history on it. But the following year having those
Speaker 3: can like be a complete game changer and all of
Speaker 3: a sudden make total sense. So if I know where
Speaker 3: any of those scrapes are gonna pop up, I'm gonna
Speaker 3: put cameras out there if there's if there's spots that
Speaker 3: I anticipate, I wouldn't put a camera necessarily in September,
Speaker 3: but I would, you know, in October a little later,
Speaker 3: I might put one there. I'm just gonna try and
Speaker 3: do everything I can think that I might have to
Speaker 3: do in one day in one shot. I'm gonna bring
Speaker 3: you know, some stands, you know, I'm gonna hang them
Speaker 3: in some obvious spots, and I'm just gonna try and
Speaker 3: hit it hard one day and then wait and see
Speaker 3: what happens.
Speaker 2: I like it. So, okay, you've laid out the groundwork
Speaker 2: for this situation then, and let's let's kind of continue
Speaker 2: down this imaginary path. Let's say you did this day
Speaker 2: of scouting, this this heavy duty day a laying everything
Speaker 2: out there, getting all your cameras, getting your stands out,
Speaker 2: all that kind of stuff. Now I want to talk
Speaker 2: about picking your shots. And I'll preface this situation by
Speaker 2: saying I've got a magic X question for you. So
Speaker 2: before answering the question, you know, give folks a reminder
Speaker 2: of what your magic X theory is and then walk
Speaker 2: me through how you would apply that. So let's let's
Speaker 2: imagine this scenario. Let's imagine that you have a different
Speaker 2: job than you have now, and so you are in
Speaker 2: a nine to five kind of career, so you don't
Speaker 2: have a lot of time to get flexible with and
Speaker 2: so in this situation, you usually just have a week
Speaker 2: of vacation to really use for your hardcore hunt. And
Speaker 2: that's usually a rut hunt. It's usually going to be
Speaker 2: that first week of November, let's say, So that's when
Speaker 2: you took your week of vacation. So you've got this
Speaker 2: mega giant you're after, You've got a week of vacation
Speaker 2: scheduled to get after him. You're getting closer to that
Speaker 2: time period. You're monitoring all these different things, the weather,
Speaker 2: your cameras, whatnot. You see in the long term forecast
Speaker 2: that your scheduled week is looking like it's going to
Speaker 2: be pretty warm. It's not looking ideal. But at the
Speaker 2: same time, right now, in late October, let's say like October,
Speaker 2: I don't know, twenties, low twenties, You've got a Magic
Speaker 2: X day coming up. So in this situation, do you
Speaker 2: cancel your vacation and scramble things at work to move
Speaker 2: your vacation up a week and a half so you
Speaker 2: can hunt the magic X in late October? Or do
Speaker 2: you know that you know the rut's the rut, and
Speaker 2: I got to make it happen here, you know, with
Speaker 2: my planned vacation. What's more important the rut in November
Speaker 2: or that Magic X day that's coming up in the
Speaker 2: early twenties.
Speaker 3: There's so much to talk about here, So there's two
Speaker 3: there's two paths to answer that question. If it's a
Speaker 3: guy who is just going hunting, like he's just he's
Speaker 3: not fanatic, he's not running camera, he's not doing boo pot.
Speaker 3: He doesn't have target deer, he's just going and hunting.
Speaker 3: If it's that guy, you want to you want to
Speaker 3: be going, probably in the rut, because all that stuff
Speaker 3: kind of goes out the window when I say rut.
Speaker 3: That's another term that starts in September, and that's what
Speaker 3: the whole quarter of the year is. So, but that
Speaker 3: time of the rut where you're most likely to see
Speaker 3: a deer, it's just that it's the most predictable, that's
Speaker 3: the most unpredictable. It's it's the easiest to just go
Speaker 3: out and pick a spot and sit there and possibly
Speaker 3: shoot a nice dear if you are in tune with it,
Speaker 3: and you're paying and you're following a deer and your
Speaker 3: and your GOP you know, cameras out and you know
Speaker 3: what a deer is doing. Hands down, there's not even
Speaker 3: a comparison that you would be better off in October.
Speaker 3: And if I haven't gotten my target deer killed by
Speaker 3: you know, November first or second, I just man, I
Speaker 3: just I got to get mentally strong, because I just
Speaker 3: get it's just so frustrating in the rut. I've killed
Speaker 3: a lot of big deer in that first ten days,
Speaker 3: but it just gets more frustrating. So yeah, in October,
Speaker 3: so magic X day. So I use the the Weather Underground.
Speaker 3: I'll show you he real quick, maybe on the phone
Speaker 3: so people can understand it a little bit better. But
Speaker 3: I use the Weather Underground, not the app, but I
Speaker 3: use the the website on the phone, and then I
Speaker 3: anchor it to my homepage and I'm trying to pull
Speaker 3: it up here. But it just shows a really big
Speaker 3: display and any app that shows the pressure line will work,
Speaker 3: but it just shows it really really nice and big
Speaker 3: and clear. But essentially what the magic X is. And
Speaker 3: it's more pronounced that time of year than it is
Speaker 3: in the summer. But when you have a high pressure
Speaker 3: front come in, you'll see the black line on that
Speaker 3: app particularly, but that's the high pressure and it'll look
Speaker 3: like that. And then at the same time you have
Speaker 3: temperatures dropping, so the temperature line is dropping, you know,
Speaker 3: humidity is usually dropping, cloud cover is dropping, so it
Speaker 3: literally kind of makes an X on the graph and
Speaker 3: you can see it instantly. And those days in October
Speaker 3: they trump everything. I mean, you know, if you have
Speaker 3: a big deer on camera and it's not just late October.
Speaker 3: It becomes more powerful in late October. But whenever it
Speaker 3: whenever it happens is really good. Like I think two
Speaker 3: years ago it was a really good stretch like October
Speaker 3: sixteenth to the nineteenth, and then within the last couple
Speaker 3: of years there was a really good stretch like the
Speaker 3: sixth to the tenth or something like that. It doesn't
Speaker 3: really matter. But you know, there's all these different things
Speaker 3: that affect deer movement, and when you line them all up,
Speaker 3: like their mindset in the end of October, they're just
Speaker 3: so much more rambunctious and rammy. So if you get
Speaker 3: a magic X day in the end of October, yeah,
Speaker 3: it's better. But I would take a magic X day
Speaker 3: high pressure front in the beginning of October. I'd be
Speaker 3: more excited to go to the woods on that day
Speaker 3: than I would on a mediocre day in the end
Speaker 3: of October. So those those high pressure fronts are key
Speaker 3: in October. If you are watching a deer and you
Speaker 3: know what he's doing, I mean it is so I mean,
Speaker 3: it's it's it feels like it's the code, you know
Speaker 3: what I mean, Like unpressured deer doing what deer should do.
Speaker 3: He's going to be out marking territory and hitting scrapes
Speaker 3: in October on those nights.
Speaker 2: You know, So what about another weather scenario in which
Speaker 2: we get the opposite situation. Let's say it's opening day.
Speaker 2: So I don't know how you feel, but I feel
Speaker 2: really great on opening day. I'm very excited, the deer
Speaker 2: been unpressured. I always feel like that's a really exceptional opportunity.
Speaker 2: I like to take big swings on opening day if
Speaker 2: it's smart to do so. But let's say Opening Day
Speaker 2: coincides with the opposite of a magic X day. Let's
Speaker 2: say it's going to be like seventy six and a
Speaker 2: low barometer in southeast winds and a dark moon. In
Speaker 2: that situation, are you still going to take a big
Speaker 2: swing at your target buck on opening day because it's
Speaker 2: opening day? Or are you playing it very differently? What
Speaker 2: would you do?
Speaker 3: No, I'll probably got to go home because it's opening day.
Speaker 3: But I'm definitely not going to do anything too aggressive.
Speaker 3: I'm probably not gonna bomb in where he's been at night.
Speaker 3: You know, I just you know, I I used to
Speaker 3: hunt every single day, no matter what, and now I'm
Speaker 3: just those days are so powerful that it's just not worth.
Speaker 3: It's you're gonna do more harm than good most of
Speaker 3: the time, you know, by bombing in there too early
Speaker 3: on the days that aren't good.
Speaker 2: You know, do you hunt even in his area or
Speaker 2: do you completely leave that property alone, hunt somewhere else
Speaker 2: and just try to kill a dough or something.
Speaker 3: If I was gonnahunt his area, I'd probably hunt somewhere
Speaker 3: where I could see a long way and just maybe
Speaker 3: maybe see if I could see him. But you know,
Speaker 3: it depends that. There can in Illinois, and this changes
Speaker 3: everywhere you're at, but there can be, like it seems like,
Speaker 3: and this is kind of like a gut feeling, it
Speaker 3: does seem like an Illinois there can be like a
Speaker 3: one two three day window in the very October first
Speaker 3: where they where they can still move on warmer days
Speaker 3: because they're more in that summer mindset. But it changes
Speaker 3: very quickly, you know. I'd say by the fourth or
Speaker 3: fifth or sixth, it's kind of that game's kind of over.
Speaker 3: So yeah, you know, if obviously, if my cameras are
Speaker 3: still telling me the day before, in the two days
Speaker 3: before that that he's out there in daylight and on
Speaker 3: warm days, you know, I'm gonna I'm gonna go in
Speaker 3: there and get after after him. You know. But and
Speaker 3: that's a point I like to make, like out of
Speaker 3: a friend last year who had this giant deer and
Speaker 3: he's like, I'm like, what are you doing. He's like,
Speaker 3: he's coming out here and he's crossing the road and
Speaker 3: everybody's seeing him, and I'm like, what are you doing.
Speaker 3: He's like, well, I'm not going to go in there
Speaker 3: until November. What And he's like yeah, He's like, I
Speaker 3: just don't want to pressure him. I'm like, dude, here's
Speaker 3: here is a tip. When you have a big deer
Speaker 3: and he is wanting to die, you have got to
Speaker 3: go hunt him because he is not going to be there.
Speaker 3: I mean it just when they're giving you opportunity, you
Speaker 3: better seize it. You know, you can get aggressive with
Speaker 3: a big old deer and not not run him out
Speaker 3: like you think, but you know you got to get
Speaker 3: after it because before you know what, you're gonna be like, uh,
Speaker 3: he's gone.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, So continue with that. What if you have
Speaker 2: that situation where you've got a buck daylighting, maybe you
Speaker 2: get them on camera two days out of three leading
Speaker 2: up to a day, you can hunt. But the situation
Speaker 2: is like we're talking about where it's hot. The conditions
Speaker 2: seem lousy, but he showed up a couple times before.
Speaker 2: And let's say, like the wind is not bulletproof. It's
Speaker 2: kind of one of those days. It's like, well, you know,
Speaker 2: I could do it maybe, but it's a little bit risky.
Speaker 2: And I've been in a situation like this where like, man,
Speaker 2: he's been daylight, he might not ever do it again,
Speaker 2: or this might be my one chance, and do you
Speaker 2: take the swing? Would you take a swing on that
Speaker 2: kind of situation despite the if he conditions, because that
Speaker 2: daylight photo is so rare and you got to take
Speaker 2: advantage of these moments.
Speaker 3: You know, if I'm if I'm from out of town
Speaker 3: and I'm there, I probably would. But if I'm if
Speaker 3: I live there earlier, live nearby, like I I do,
Speaker 3: I do tend to hunt very conservatively. I call it
Speaker 3: like hunting defensively instead of offensively. A lot of people
Speaker 3: are like looking for the magic thing to do, and
Speaker 3: usually it's things they need just to not do. You
Speaker 3: know what I mean, less is so much more, And
Speaker 3: I I got this kind of big macro approached the
Speaker 3: whole hunting season, and it's it's a tortoise in the
Speaker 3: hair game. I treat my farm like glass house, I
Speaker 3: you know, because once you once you do ruin it,
Speaker 3: you you've you've ruined it, you know, So I don't
Speaker 3: I don't get too rammy. I guess if that answer
Speaker 3: your question, you know, I don't know. I just I
Speaker 3: just try and treat it like a glasshouse and not
Speaker 3: make mistakes. You know. It's very methodical and it's slow,
Speaker 3: and just the mental side of hunting is like most
Speaker 3: of the time, and you kind of as you mature
Speaker 3: as a hunter, you are able to just relax and
Speaker 3: be okay with it. But I remember man just getting
Speaker 3: so wound up. And most of the time that's the
Speaker 3: way you're gonna feel, because it's not usually like when
Speaker 3: you finally got it, like I'm gonna kill this year.
Speaker 3: Usually it's over within a day or two, you know
Speaker 3: what I mean. So a lot of times it should
Speaker 3: feel kind of like what is going on? You know, what,
Speaker 3: where is he He's gone this or that, and it's
Speaker 3: just kind of like you just gotta trust the process
Speaker 3: and the season and all your philosophies because there's just
Speaker 3: light switch moments throughout the season. Every year they happen,
Speaker 3: and when you're in one of the lows, I'm just like,
Speaker 3: something will happen here minute, Like last year. I mean,
Speaker 3: I shot a huge deer last year. I had pictures
Speaker 3: of him in the summer. I didn't think he was
Speaker 3: I thought he was like a lot smaller than they
Speaker 3: ended up being. They weren't good pictures. There was some
Speaker 3: other people hunting the farm. I had some equipment go missing.
Speaker 3: I was like, you know, whatever, screw this. I left
Speaker 3: a camera by accident on the on the piece next door,
Speaker 3: and I didn't even have any cameras over there. And
Speaker 3: all of a sudden I got a picture of him,
Speaker 3: Like and I wasn't even hunting really in October because
Speaker 3: I didn't really have anything at shoot, And all of
Speaker 3: a sudden, like November fourth, I get a picture of
Speaker 3: him right in the camera. I'm like, oh my, I'm like, wow,
Speaker 3: I misjudged him by a lot and like and and
Speaker 3: then boom, two days later, I shoot a Meggage giant
Speaker 3: and it's like it's just a lights. It's just that's
Speaker 3: the way deer season goes. And I think everybody can
Speaker 3: relate to that. You know, it's never you're on a
Speaker 3: high the whole time. You're just going from big deer
Speaker 3: to big deer to big deer. It's usually like, you.
Speaker 2: Know, a lot of lows question marks, and then a
Speaker 2: couple high points. So you kind of alluded to an
Speaker 2: answer to this next question I have. But I'm curious about,
Speaker 2: like a little bit about how you're utilizing your cell
Speaker 2: cameras and these days, I think there's a temptation to
Speaker 2: kind of chase cell picks. I think a lot of
Speaker 2: people are kind of chasing pictures. So let's let's imagine
Speaker 2: this is like, you know, mid October ish kind of
Speaker 2: time period, and you've got this methodical, you know, macerel
Speaker 2: strategy like you just talked about for hunting. So let's
Speaker 2: let's say later October because things are a little more
Speaker 2: exciting then, and so you have a plan in place,
Speaker 2: like you've been hunting all October, You've been hunting smart.
Speaker 2: You're going into the evening hunt and you're sitting in
Speaker 2: a spot that you think is dynamite. You've got solid
Speaker 2: reason to be hunting in this area because of history,
Speaker 2: because of the wind, because of the terrain set up,
Speaker 2: because of your plot, set up, whatever it is. But
Speaker 2: just before you, you know, head down the road, you
Speaker 2: get your upload from yesterday's cell cameras. Let's say, and
Speaker 2: you all of a sudden see a daylight picture of
Speaker 2: your target buck or a target buck. Some are completely
Speaker 2: different conditions, aren't bad there? But he was there yesterday.
Speaker 2: Do you chase that cell cam pick because he was
Speaker 2: there daylight yesterday evening, or do you stick to your
Speaker 2: original plan that you spend all day thinking through and
Speaker 2: you feel really confident about despite this picture.
Speaker 3: How far are you talking?
Speaker 2: How far are these two properties separate? Are these two
Speaker 2: places let's say they are different deer, Like these are
Speaker 2: different No, let's not say they're different deer. Let's say
Speaker 2: this is within the same property. So hypothetically you could
Speaker 2: see this same buck in either spot. But let's say
Speaker 2: this is like a three hundred acres maybe, and they're
Speaker 2: not right next to each other somewhere in that three
Speaker 2: hundred acres but not super duper close.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, it would depend on when that picture was.
Speaker 3: If it was like if it was like because I
Speaker 3: look at that picture and try and figure out where
Speaker 3: he was bedded when I got the like, if it
Speaker 3: was earlier, the evening the day before, So it meant
Speaker 3: I try and figure out, like, Okay, where was he
Speaker 3: coming from or going to in this picture or was
Speaker 3: it a random picture at the end at the middle
Speaker 3: of the night, Because I mean, they can cover some ground,
Speaker 3: and if it's October, they're fairly patternable in my opinion,
Speaker 3: except for when you get into like I call it
Speaker 3: the boomerang phase, like October twenty seven, twenty eight, twenty nine.
Speaker 3: It's like what happens in that date is like you'll
Speaker 3: it seems like when a bunch of deer within that
Speaker 3: older age class separate in September, you know, seems like
Speaker 3: you'll get one whose core is here and one whose
Speaker 3: core is here, and one whose core is here, and
Speaker 3: they might overlap a little bit in October, but they're
Speaker 3: really territorial and they're that's what they're doing. They're in
Speaker 3: a territory marking mindset. And so all of a sudden,
Speaker 3: in what I call the boomerang phase, you'll see this
Speaker 3: deer womb loop up here, and you'll see this deer
Speaker 3: loop down here, and you'll see this dear loop up here.
Speaker 3: And I mean, if you pay attention, it's it's like
Speaker 3: it's every year on the twenty seventh, they'll get a
Speaker 3: picture and I'll text it to Toby and be like
Speaker 3: boomerang phase. So it just kind of depends on some things.
Speaker 3: But I try and I try and stick to the
Speaker 3: plan because they can cover a ton of ground in
Speaker 3: ten minutes, and if he's been doing something in October,
Speaker 3: he's probably gonna your higher odds that he's going to
Speaker 3: keep doing that than all of a sudden change. And so,
Speaker 3: you know, a lot of these questions. It might help
Speaker 3: if I kind of gave my overall picture of deer season,
Speaker 3: because I kind of fairly simplified. That might help lock
Speaker 3: some of this stuff together. So in so my approach
Speaker 3: is there's three things that affect big deer to move,
Speaker 3: and there's more things in that, but they all kind
Speaker 3: of group into these things. One is date or phase.
Speaker 3: And I also call that mindset because that's all that
Speaker 3: really is the deer do that they're mine. Set is
Speaker 3: wired the same every year to the date because of
Speaker 3: the you know, the photo period or whever, So the
Speaker 3: date phaser mindset, that's a predictable thing. So like I
Speaker 3: can use my my philosophies and stuff and say, Okay,
Speaker 3: it's October twenty seven. This is the mindset of these deer.
Speaker 3: They're getting gonna be rammier in their territory marketing, so
Speaker 3: I can use that to make wise decisions. So date
Speaker 3: phaser mindset. And then, and that goes back to your
Speaker 3: thing about the cameras, October is different because they're pretty
Speaker 3: much in the same mindset the whole month. It's a
Speaker 3: ramp up, but it's a territory marking mindset. You'll see
Speaker 3: him mess with those, but it's really more of a
Speaker 3: territory like they'll come out. People be like, oh, they're
Speaker 3: chasing dose, but really what he did was he came out,
Speaker 3: he curled his lips, he pushed her, and he's showing dominance.
Speaker 3: It's still that mindset. And then, like a light switch
Speaker 3: on Halloween, changes to a dough So it's a territory
Speaker 3: cruising mindset where on a high pressure magic text thing.
Speaker 3: In the end of October, he's cruising, going scrape to
Speaker 3: scrape to scrape sometimes every food pot and the whole
Speaker 3: on the whole farm. And then like a light switch,
Speaker 3: it becomes a dough mindset mindset. Now he's cruising trying
Speaker 3: to find a hot dough. So that's like a light
Speaker 3: switch event that happens, and now all of a sudden,
Speaker 3: he's using his nose to navigate because he has to.
Speaker 3: So then your strategy. You know that a lot of
Speaker 3: things changed in So there's date phase or mindsets, and
Speaker 3: I always try and be in front of the deer.
Speaker 3: I don't once, especially once October thirty first rolls around,
Speaker 3: the cameras somewhat go out the window. I mean, they
Speaker 3: definitely still give you information, but I'm trying to be
Speaker 3: ahead of that deer. That big deer I shot last
Speaker 3: year was like November fifth or something. I went to
Speaker 3: a tree stand I left in case that deer blew up,
Speaker 3: which he did, and I shot on my first time
Speaker 3: in because I knew he was in that date the
Speaker 3: year before, and I knew what he was doing, so
Speaker 3: I was ahead of him. I wasn't really worrying that
Speaker 3: I got his picture on the neighboring piece. I was.
Speaker 3: I was hunting, you know, out in front of the deer,
Speaker 3: predicting his next move. So date phase or mindset, that's
Speaker 3: one thing that I look at. The other thing is
Speaker 3: Moon get everybody fired up about the moon. I am
Speaker 3: a huge believer the week leading up to the full
Speaker 3: moon is more powerful for evening sets. The week after
Speaker 3: is more powerful for morning sets. I just I understand
Speaker 3: that there's all kinds of studies. I but I can
Speaker 3: feel the difference. And I've run so many cameras, I've
Speaker 3: been in the woods so many years, and so many dates,
Speaker 3: and so many of those moon phases, and i can
Speaker 3: just feel the difference. It gives you a little bit
Speaker 3: of an edge. And when you couple it with a
Speaker 3: high pressure front in the end of October, so you know,
Speaker 3: in the third thing, so you got moon fase, which
Speaker 3: is predictable, we got date phase or mindset, which is predictable.
Speaker 3: The last thing is the environment, which is not predictable.
Speaker 3: And that goes to the magic X day. If you
Speaker 3: keep it as simple as a magic X day, that
Speaker 3: X represents cold weather, it represents you know, high pressure.
Speaker 3: You know, they accompany each other. So whatever people think
Speaker 3: is the most powerful part of that day, that day
Speaker 3: that starts out gloomy, damp, dreary, humid, and by prime
Speaker 3: time is bluebird fifteen degrees cooler, a lot drier air.
Speaker 3: That is the best day in the world to do hunt.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's just fire. It's just I literally go
Speaker 3: to my tree stand like this on that day. And
Speaker 3: so when you get all three of those things to
Speaker 3: line up, you have a crazy powerful day. If you
Speaker 3: don't have if you don't have a good moon phase,
Speaker 3: but you have good environment and it's not a good
Speaker 3: day it's early October, it's still good because of the environmental.
Speaker 3: It just when you take all three of those things
Speaker 3: and you wind them up together, those are the best
Speaker 3: days in the woods. So those three concepts, the date,
Speaker 3: the phase which equals mindset, the moon phase, and the
Speaker 3: environmental that's kind of like the premises of everything. So,
Speaker 3: you know, but back to that original question about you
Speaker 3: know what was the question again?
Speaker 2: Heck, I don't even remember now.
Speaker 3: It was something about like your trail cams, you know.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah it was you know, if you if you
Speaker 2: got a self picture of a shooter buck in daylight
Speaker 2: the evening before in a different place than your planned location,
Speaker 2: as you're about to go to that planned location, would
Speaker 2: you stick with the plan or chase that daylight photo
Speaker 2: that happened yesterday.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so if it's October, I'm going to go to
Speaker 3: where he's been on camera, even if it's at night
Speaker 3: working scrapes, because I know his mindset is marking territory.
Speaker 3: So I'm going to stick to that plan. I'm not
Speaker 3: going to get rammy and bounce around. He shouldn't be
Speaker 3: crazy far away in October anyway. If it's in the date,
Speaker 3: that again being ahead of him, predicting him date phase
Speaker 3: or mindset. If it's end of October and you're in
Speaker 3: that that you know, boomerang ish type phase, I could
Speaker 3: see him being on the other side of the farm.
Speaker 3: But a lot of times that's that is that is
Speaker 3: a that is a march that night, and he's right back.
Speaker 3: So I would kind of use my philosophies and stay
Speaker 3: calm and just be like, I'm going to go in there.
Speaker 3: If he comes, he comes, If not, he lives another day,
Speaker 3: but sooner or later he's you know, gonna get a
Speaker 3: crack at him.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: That's the other thing. I don't ever get too rammy
Speaker 3: to to get like, I literally say, this is a
Speaker 3: whole season. I just got to make base hit plays.
Speaker 3: In other words, not do something stupid, which isn't inevitable.
Speaker 3: You know, things a lot, So that's just part of it.
Speaker 2: What what what does it take to get you Rammy?
Speaker 2: Is it? Is it all three of those factors lining up?
Speaker 2: Is that the only situation we're be like, Okay, I
Speaker 2: gotta get really aggressive because magic acts time of year
Speaker 2: and the cold front ran the moon.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so so if it's as October goes, I'll get
Speaker 3: more aggressive because he's on that pattern, you know, in
Speaker 3: the end of the month. Like if I yeah, if
Speaker 3: I get all three of those things, like this year
Speaker 3: we have a perfect we got a phone move in
Speaker 3: the end of October. So and I'll look at the
Speaker 3: exact dates. But and if I'm somebody who's like trying
Speaker 3: to plan when I'm coming in October, I'm going to
Speaker 3: plan the week before the full moon because in that
Speaker 3: week period you're gonna have one high pressure sit and
Speaker 3: it's going to be one of the most powerful nights
Speaker 3: of the whole season. Is a target deer that you're
Speaker 3: on this year, it falls on the twenty eighth, so
Speaker 3: the week of like the twenty third to the twenty seventh.
Speaker 3: I mean, if you have if you've got a big
Speaker 3: deer on camera in October doing something at night, and
Speaker 3: that's another whole rabbit hole is like people say, oh,
Speaker 3: I got this year, but he's nocturnal. Well, he's nocturnal
Speaker 3: because that's what they do. They're wired to do that.
Speaker 3: But but then randomly you get a daylight pisser, and
Speaker 3: it's because you know, there's a rhyme or reason usually
Speaker 3: to it. And so all those things I'm seeing him
Speaker 3: do at night, I'm not going to get discouraged that
Speaker 3: he's doing at night. I'm just going to pay attention
Speaker 3: to where he's entering the field at night because that's
Speaker 3: probably where he's going to enter it in the daylight,
Speaker 3: which scrapes he's hitting, you know, all those things, you know,
Speaker 3: possibly wind directions. Maybe you find that he's entering the
Speaker 3: field in a different spot in a different wind direction
Speaker 3: or something like that, which might be because he's betting
Speaker 3: in a different spot on a different wind direction. Which
Speaker 3: I've seen some crazy things happen with all these walls
Speaker 3: and stuff we build. When we're doing building projects and farms,
Speaker 3: I've had situations where my camera's telling me one hundred percent,
Speaker 3: like when he goes bed to feed, he has to
Speaker 3: go buy my camera because he can't not. And I've
Speaker 3: seen I had this giant deer in Marshall County there
Speaker 3: was this bluff and a cornfield and in the summer
Speaker 3: I had a couple of these random like some days
Speaker 3: he'd be pictured, he'd be betted in the bottom in
Speaker 3: the corn and some days he betted on the hilltop
Speaker 3: and uh, and I'm like, huh, that's kind of weird.
Speaker 3: And then there was a few days like in the
Speaker 3: middle of the day in the summer, eleven o'clock, two o'clock,
Speaker 3: I get a picture of him randomly walking through the gap.
Speaker 3: And then one day I had him go through and
Speaker 3: then a few hours later went back through again. And
Speaker 3: I went back to weather underground history and every single
Speaker 3: one of those was on a wind change. Those midday moves,
Speaker 3: it was on a wind change, like to the hour
Speaker 3: he got up and left one betting area and went
Speaker 3: to the other one base based off the wind. And
Speaker 3: the day he moved twice there was two wind changes.
Speaker 3: And you know, you don't get that kind of intel
Speaker 3: unless you literally have a unless you get one hundred
Speaker 3: percent you know, camera intel. So you know, some of
Speaker 3: that's been interesting to see, to see when your camera
Speaker 3: locations go up crazy. But yeah, that week this year
Speaker 3: of the twenty third of the twenty seventh is when
Speaker 3: I'd be planning my my hunt out west. Back to
Speaker 3: the original original question. If I'm going somewhere and I
Speaker 3: and I can, I only got a week to plan
Speaker 3: or whatever. I'm going to plan it around the week
Speaker 3: leading to the full moon in October. And the reason
Speaker 3: is the week leading to the full moon is because
Speaker 3: that's the best evening and October is conducive to evening
Speaker 3: hunting prank mostly, So that's what I'm gonna pick. And
Speaker 3: I'm going to look for that magic X day, and
Speaker 3: i mean try it. If you're listening this year, watch
Speaker 3: that week leading up to the twenty eighth, you know,
Speaker 3: watch for a magic X Day. I've got a video
Speaker 3: on my YouTube stuff that will help you get that
Speaker 3: set up and figure out exactly you know what that is.
Speaker 3: And if you have a target deer and you feel
Speaker 3: like you're on a deer and whatever he's doing, go
Speaker 3: sit that that night, that magic X night lead in
Speaker 3: that week right there, or if you can't hunt, watch
Speaker 3: your cameras on that day. It's really powerful. It's probably
Speaker 3: the most powerful day of the whole dear season, is
Speaker 3: the Magic X day leading up to the full moon
Speaker 3: in the month of October.
Speaker 2: All right, well, I'm gone from my home based properties
Speaker 2: until the twenty eighth, so and try to get it
Speaker 2: done that night. I guess, yeah, I can't, can't be
Speaker 2: there for those days leading up to it.
Speaker 3: And here's another thing about the day of the full moon.
Speaker 3: Just something I've seen over the years. You don't see
Speaker 3: a lot of deer generally, but you'll but I've seen
Speaker 3: and I've got pictures of some big ones like right
Speaker 3: at last light like more more often than coincidentally interesting,
Speaker 3: And I don't know the whole moon conversation. You know,
Speaker 3: it's like there's this culture of like gall the moon.
Speaker 3: But you know, I can I know for I can
Speaker 3: feel it in me. I know for a fact. It
Speaker 3: makes a difference with big, mature deer that require very
Speaker 3: specific triggers to move in daylight. But when they are triggered,
Speaker 3: they're just out there walking around. I mean, it's not
Speaker 3: like they're like some type of a like unicorn, the
Speaker 3: magnetic pull of the moon is forcing them. It's not
Speaker 3: really like that. It's just like, okay, they're up. But
Speaker 3: you know, like Lee Lakowski, he is the same way.
Speaker 3: I mean, he believed. He believes in the moon. I
Speaker 3: had him tell me last year. On a warm day,
Speaker 3: he was like he was somebody said, oh, it's a
Speaker 3: warm day. He's like, they're like, probably not much going on.
Speaker 3: He's like, yeah, unless you have a water hole on
Speaker 3: a green source. And we're like really, and he's like yeah.
Speaker 3: He goes, what's the moon doing. He goes, I'll have
Speaker 3: a big one on camera to thirty today. He sends
Speaker 3: this picture, a big one at two thirty five, like
Speaker 3: right on, so you got got that, and yeah, guy
Speaker 3: like Ben Rising, you got Mark Druriy And all of
Speaker 3: them are like they they feel that they like can
Speaker 3: they're in there and it can feel the mindsets of
Speaker 3: these deer and they're all like, yes, it makes a difference.
Speaker 3: So I don't know where the disconnect is between the
Speaker 3: science and the guys that are shooting these big deer.
Speaker 3: You know, but I don't know if it's because it's
Speaker 3: skewed because there's less percentage of mature deer that I
Speaker 3: don't know what it is.
Speaker 2: You know, well, and to your point you made earlier,
Speaker 2: and I know, like one of your larger kind of
Speaker 2: theories of hunting is like you're stacking all these little,
Speaker 2: tiny odds, and even if the moon is only like
Speaker 2: a two percent thing, maybe that doesn't show up as
Speaker 2: statistically significant in a larger study, But a two percent
Speaker 2: bump for a specific mature buck to move on a
Speaker 2: day stacked with all these other things can be a
Speaker 2: huge difference for a hunter.
Speaker 3: So and so now working theory off of those three principles,
Speaker 3: one being the moon on a year in the morning.
Speaker 3: So on a year that the moon is full at
Speaker 3: the end of October, like this year, I'm probably not
Speaker 3: going to do too much morning hunting leading up to
Speaker 3: that because that's the grand finale and it's in the
Speaker 3: end of October, so my hunting chances are just gonna
Speaker 3: get higher and higher and higher. If that full moon
Speaker 3: is like the eighteenth or the twentieth, I am gonna
Speaker 3: plan on morning hunting some that week after, because that
Speaker 3: moon does give a slight edge to movement after it
Speaker 3: in the mornings in October can be really good. But
Speaker 3: the thing is, you have the whole month to play
Speaker 3: the game of the tortoise and the air in the glasshouse,
Speaker 3: so it's not worth potentially going out and ruining it
Speaker 3: here when you still got more time. But if the
Speaker 3: moon is peaks out here in helping me, and now
Speaker 3: I've got this window here, I might Now I'll probably
Speaker 3: hunt some morning after the high pressure fronts on scrapes
Speaker 3: because he's going to be doing the same thing. He's
Speaker 3: going to be marking terror mindset. He is going to
Speaker 3: be marking territory on that phone because that's what he's
Speaker 3: wired to do. And now I've got two things in
Speaker 3: my favor. I've got a magic X day the morning
Speaker 3: after the high pressure front, and I've got that moon phase.
Speaker 3: So i have two things helping me and mornings and
Speaker 3: the end of October can be really good. There's no
Speaker 3: denying that. It's just you have to balance the risk reward,
Speaker 3: which is something I'm always thinking about, is the risk
Speaker 3: work reward. And at that point, in my eyes, because
Speaker 3: of that moon, the risk becomes worth the reward because
Speaker 3: now you're running out of time before his mindset changes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I follow you, Okay, so new well, not new scenario.
Speaker 2: Let's just move forward a week. So let's stick with
Speaker 2: what that calendar looks like this year. So full moon
Speaker 2: October twenty eighth, you're hunting, though it's now October, sorry,
Speaker 2: November first, and your seven day forecast for that period
Speaker 2: is a hot rut. So this is what a lot
Speaker 2: of us experienced last year. And I don't know where
Speaker 2: you were at from November one through seven, but it
Speaker 2: was hot and kind of miserable in Ohio and Nebraska.
Speaker 2: How is that? So let's say you've got that, You've
Speaker 2: got seven days of like seventy to eighty degree temperatures
Speaker 2: from November one through seven, and this is about a
Speaker 2: week following the full moon. What do you do in
Speaker 2: that situation? What kind of set ups? What's your plan
Speaker 2: given that?
Speaker 3: So the first thing that you're going to notice is
Speaker 3: everybody's going to be saying the deer are lockdown earlier
Speaker 3: this year, which is not true. It's just the perceiving
Speaker 3: that because there's going to be a lack of deer movement,
Speaker 3: so they're going to be attributing it to lockdown, but
Speaker 3: it's really not. You know, lockdown is kind of that
Speaker 3: date that everything else pendulates on. So like sometimes I
Speaker 3: got friends in other areas that trying to you know,
Speaker 3: we're trying to figure something out, and we'll try and
Speaker 3: figure out when lockdown is. We'll be like well, when
Speaker 3: do you see like nothing but button bucks and fauns.
Speaker 3: And then we'll try and backdate and correlate it today's
Speaker 3: I know from that, So like boomerang phase, you know,
Speaker 3: lockdown in Illinois is like the fourteen is epicenter of it.
Speaker 3: So like if I count days back to the twenty eighth,
Speaker 3: I do the same thing for my friend somewhere else
Speaker 3: that that his lockdown is the twentieth, you know, so
Speaker 3: he'd be a weekly So so, so the first thing
Speaker 3: is it's gonna be slow. No, it's going to be slow.
Speaker 3: Their mindset is going to still be the same. The
Speaker 3: light switches changed, and now they're in a dough mindset.
Speaker 3: They want to find a girlfriend. So now we're gonna
Speaker 3: think like a deer and what their mindset is, what
Speaker 3: they're trying to do, and we're gonna try and get
Speaker 3: out ahead of them. The cameras kind of go away,
Speaker 3: you know, they don't go away. Scrapes are you know,
Speaker 3: they're stopping to hit scrapes like a light switch because
Speaker 3: their mindset has changed. The biggest I mean, and and
Speaker 3: and now we're in a time that some of that
Speaker 3: stuff can go out the window because if if there's
Speaker 3: a hot dough. I mean, now now is the time.
Speaker 3: Now comes the grind. Now is like here we go,
Speaker 3: this is this is the here we go. So the
Speaker 3: things that you have in your favor are that is
Speaker 3: the best time of the year to hunt when you
Speaker 3: have poor conditions like that, So that time of year,
Speaker 3: I guess I would probably ignore those conditions. Now there
Speaker 3: is the mental side of this if you are the
Speaker 3: one that gets I know, guys that sit all day
Speaker 3: every day, they don't. I mean, they're hardcore. I'm hardcore,
Speaker 3: but I can sit all day no problem when I
Speaker 3: know it's the right day. When it's not the right day,
Speaker 3: it's extremely hard for me to sit all day. Those
Speaker 3: are I'm probably gonna still hunt those days. I'm not
Speaker 3: gonna hunt all day. I'm not going to get two
Speaker 3: and I'm not going to go into those stands that
Speaker 3: are hung course that I would never go into other
Speaker 3: than those few day windows. And I'm going to mentally
Speaker 3: conserve until it's right because I'd rather put in five
Speaker 3: all day sits from November seventh to the you know twelfth,
Speaker 3: then burn myself out and then only do half day
Speaker 3: sits in those in those days. So there's some, there's some.
Speaker 3: There's some mental battles there and stuff I personally would
Speaker 3: not get too rammy, yet I would so. And here's,
Speaker 3: in my opinion, the biggest key to hunting that part
Speaker 3: of the rut or you know the rut as people
Speaker 3: know it. You know, deer looking for dose that if
Speaker 3: you reverse engineer it from a deer's nose. They're using
Speaker 3: their nose to find dose. A lot of people say,
Speaker 3: you know, buck, deer walk into the wind, you know,
Speaker 3: quartered into the wind all the time. I don't think
Speaker 3: they do that. I've seen them walking in the wind
Speaker 3: in their back when their mindset is just food. They're
Speaker 3: not using their nose if they're not highly pressured and
Speaker 3: they have to walk around like they can't. I mean,
Speaker 3: it's almost impossible they're just walking into the wind all
Speaker 3: the time. But when that light switch changes and they're
Speaker 3: looking for a dough, they're using their nose. So I'm
Speaker 3: looking to hunt dough betting areas on the downwind side
Speaker 3: of those dough betting areas. And that's where some manipulation
Speaker 3: can get really good, because when you can create thickets,
Speaker 3: not the whole wood lot, but when you can go
Speaker 3: in and hingecut, you know, places that are engineered around
Speaker 3: access a huntable tree, and you put that little puff
Speaker 3: quarter acre whatever on a south azing point in the
Speaker 3: woods or whatever. When you put it in the right
Speaker 3: spot and it's upwind and it becomes thick enough where
Speaker 3: they can't see a dough editing it, they have to
Speaker 3: use their nose. You can create what is essentially like
Speaker 3: kill food plots. They're betting areas with strategy. So now
Speaker 3: you're sitting on the downwind side of a game of
Speaker 3: Connect the dots, and when he gets Rammy and wants
Speaker 3: to go find dose, he's liable to hit every single
Speaker 3: one of those you know, dough betting areas on your
Speaker 3: farm in one in one walk, and when he comes
Speaker 3: to one that he can't see with his eyes, he's
Speaker 3: coming to the downwind side of it. So always in
Speaker 3: the ruck, always thinking like a deer, and the way
Speaker 3: that they use their nose, you know that, and hunting
Speaker 3: food sources obviously where those are going to be at.
Speaker 3: But you know, I just I've literally committed to try
Speaker 3: my hardest when November one rolls around to not get
Speaker 3: in a box line anymore. Like I want to be
Speaker 3: able to see and hear. They are going to spend
Speaker 3: more hours of their daylight time in cover in the woods,
Speaker 3: navigating looking for does. Then they're going to spend out
Speaker 3: there on a food source. Not to say I won't
Speaker 3: on it in the evening, but you want your eye
Speaker 3: in the October box line is key tool. You got
Speaker 3: light and variable winds, you got thermals, they will screw
Speaker 3: you more often. I mean, it is so important to
Speaker 3: have sanfree blinds in October. If possible November, I will
Speaker 3: literally have tree stand hung above my line and I'll
Speaker 3: be in it because I want my eyes. I want
Speaker 3: my ears. I want to feel the like energy of
Speaker 3: the woods. I don't call much, you know, but when
Speaker 3: I can feel it all of a sudden, that a
Speaker 3: light switch. We've all seen it happen, like something is
Speaker 3: going on today. There's bucks everywhere just like what I feel.
Speaker 3: That is when I might you know, call or whatever.
Speaker 3: So you know, I don't want to be in a
Speaker 3: box line in the in the rut in that time
Speaker 3: of the year when they're looking for dose, and I
Speaker 3: want to always be where dose are because that's where
Speaker 3: they're going and I want to be on the downwind
Speaker 3: side of where those doughs are are in the woods.
Speaker 3: Pinch Points are great, especially when you can engineer one
Speaker 3: of those thickets in a pinch point with good access
Speaker 3: and a huntble tree.
Speaker 2: Yeah, let's expand on some of the setup discussion you've
Speaker 2: got going here with the rut. Let's say that's this
Speaker 2: time period rut time period first week or two of November.
Speaker 2: Let's say it's Illinois somewhere, you know, but it's an
Speaker 2: all timber piece. You're hunting zero ad. You're at least
Speaker 2: that you can hunt. You just got a big block
Speaker 2: of timber. Let's call it like a rectangular hundred and
Speaker 2: let's say it's got rolling topography, mixed hardwoods and a
Speaker 2: small creek that's kind of winding right down the middle.
Speaker 2: So it's pretty simple the picture right in that scenario.
Speaker 2: Can you walk me through a hypothetical ideal rut stand
Speaker 2: setup or two? Given that simple scenario, how you would
Speaker 2: try to hunt something like that?
Speaker 3: So like a farm that I'm going I'm gonna go
Speaker 3: scout and hang stuff for like that week or something,
Speaker 3: I already know the layout to it, Well.
Speaker 2: You can you can do either one. Basically, what I'm
Speaker 2: interested is like how would you hunt a proper like
Speaker 2: that for someone who's got just timber.
Speaker 3: If I already know the farm, you know, I'm I'm
Speaker 3: gonna have an idea where the dough betting areas are,
Speaker 3: and I'm just gonna hunt those if they're thick. You know,
Speaker 3: I'm gonna I'm gonna set up on the downwind side
Speaker 3: of that cover. If I've got like, ah, you know,
Speaker 3: I'm not gonna be low in those bottoms because the
Speaker 3: wind is gonna be wonky and stuff. If I got
Speaker 3: ridge ridgetops intersect their killer you know, old fences in
Speaker 3: the woods. But just always always thinking about the nose. Thing.
Speaker 3: Like we've done a lot of consolets for people where
Speaker 3: they bring as to a spot that we already are
Speaker 3: looking at on the map of it's obvious and they
Speaker 3: got to stand there and we're like and they're like,
Speaker 3: we just don't ever see any big deer out of here.
Speaker 3: We get pictures of them, we just don't see many
Speaker 3: big ones. And we're like, because your stand is on
Speaker 3: the wrong side of the spot, you're hunting the spot
Speaker 3: with the wind, good for you, But he's got no
Speaker 3: reason to be here because he's on the other side
Speaker 3: of all all this cover, you know what I mean,
Speaker 3: So so always always thinking about the wind in their
Speaker 3: nose and as a macro like looking at the farm
Speaker 3: like if I got this wind, what what spots is
Speaker 3: he going to want to be at? Looking for those
Speaker 3: based off the wind, you know? Yeah, I mean that's
Speaker 3: that That is like powerful ruts, you know, because I
Speaker 3: used to as you evolved for as a deer hunter,
Speaker 3: it's just like you know, pinch points, funnels, you know,
Speaker 3: and that's all great because you're touching them, kind of
Speaker 3: be bopping around to those spots. But that's more predictable,
Speaker 3: you know what I mean, hunting the downward side of things.
Speaker 2: Yeah, here's another one that a lot of people face
Speaker 2: during this time period. And you know, within the deer
Speaker 2: hunting community these days, there is a there's a lot
Speaker 2: of buzz and trendiness around being really mobile, bouncing around
Speaker 2: a lot, moving around a lot, and I would say,
Speaker 2: from the outside looking in, it seems like you might
Speaker 2: be more. You know, you've got very well planned out locations.
Speaker 2: You have a lot of preset stands, box blinds, You've
Speaker 2: manipulated terrain to have you know, things happening in specific
Speaker 2: places for specific reasons that you know about. So I'm
Speaker 2: going to make the assumption that you might be more
Speaker 2: of a hey, i'm sticking it out here kind of guy.
Speaker 2: But I want to lay out the scenario and see
Speaker 2: what you would do. Let's say you're hunting during the
Speaker 2: rut you're on, you know, one of these properties you've
Speaker 2: hunted in the past, and you see a shooter buck
Speaker 2: cruising out side of range during the rut. You see
Speaker 2: a mature buck that you want to shoot doing something
Speaker 2: outside of range from where you are, and then you
Speaker 2: see a younger buck do the same thing later. Let's
Speaker 2: say this is the morning of a cold November day.
Speaker 2: Do you move to chase a buck siding like that
Speaker 2: that day or the next day or something, or do
Speaker 2: you stick to whatever it is you're doing despite an
Speaker 2: observation you know that's confirmed by at least two bucks
Speaker 2: doing the same thing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so, believe it or not. A lot of the farms,
Speaker 3: like we develop and stuff a lot of them by
Speaker 3: the time they're developed, their their soul. So it's either
Speaker 3: like a farm that I I own and not much
Speaker 3: has been done. So I'm kind of hunting in old
Speaker 3: school anyway. So yeah, actually, believe it or not. More
Speaker 3: of my hunting is pretty mobile. I mean, if if
Speaker 3: I have obviously we build stuff for those magical days
Speaker 3: in October and are pretty obvious, I mean, because you're
Speaker 3: those setups are you were trying to set them up
Speaker 3: around you know, the wind direction and the thermals. You know,
Speaker 3: so and that's a big thing is setting up your
Speaker 3: setups so with especially in October, I'm always looking at
Speaker 3: this struck the terrain and where the thermals are gonna
Speaker 3: go because they will overpower the wind in October almost
Speaker 3: every evening. I mean, so it's really important to have
Speaker 3: your wind direction lined up with the thermals. But that
Speaker 3: being said, in October, yeah, I'm trying to be in
Speaker 3: box line because they hedge the wind, they up odds
Speaker 3: usually they're in those setups. But I got a I
Speaker 3: got about ten or a dozen novacs in my and
Speaker 3: I make sure they're all back in my house hanging
Speaker 3: up on the wall when I go into the season
Speaker 3: because more often than not, and actually I've gotten to
Speaker 3: the point, especially on like permission pieces and leases and stuff,
Speaker 3: I don't even pre hang stuff anymore because I just
Speaker 3: it feels like, oh ways, I'm you know, run, I'm
Speaker 3: running and gunning and moving and I'm in some crazy
Speaker 3: little four inch tree and so yeah, I actually believe
Speaker 3: or not. I run. I run and gun a lot,
Speaker 3: I think partially because a lot of those the fully
Speaker 3: developed stuff is already sold or we get people the
Speaker 3: right to hunt it while they're under contract and stuff
Speaker 3: like that. So I love running, gun and I love
Speaker 3: all the mobile you know, I'm not a saddle hunter.
Speaker 3: I bought one, i haven't used it yet. I love
Speaker 3: a lot of the stuff that these guys are doing.
Speaker 3: Like I've you know, I've got just utilizing a lot
Speaker 3: of the lightweight stuff and the you know, the the
Speaker 3: am steel or whatever, and the stuff is really cool
Speaker 3: and it's all that stuff is all layers a strategy,
Speaker 3: you know, being mobile. I think being mobile is being
Speaker 3: able to get in crooked trees. And that's so key because,
Speaker 3: like I was saying, it's better to be in the
Speaker 3: wrong tree in the right spot and the right tree
Speaker 3: and the wrong spot. And I won't sacrifice that for.
Speaker 2: Ten feet.
Speaker 3: I mean, I'll get in a four inch tree and
Speaker 3: bring cedar branches up in there and be eight feet
Speaker 3: off the ground before I'll be in the perfect tree
Speaker 3: if it's if I feel like it's off by fifteen
Speaker 3: d you know, so being mobiles, it's just.
Speaker 2: So would you chase that observation then you see that
Speaker 2: shooter buck and a younger buck, you know, fifty yards
Speaker 2: out of range? Do you move for that afternoon or
Speaker 2: for the next morning.
Speaker 3: You know, I would try, and I wouldn't just play
Speaker 3: the game of you know, he goes there, I go there,
Speaker 3: he goes there, because that you know, that doesn't generally
Speaker 3: pan out. I would try and get in the mindset
Speaker 3: of what he was doing and why he was there.
Speaker 3: You know, if it's the beginning of November especially, and
Speaker 3: and he's in there, I'm just pumped he's in the area.
Speaker 3: I mean, you know that that's half the battle. I mean,
Speaker 3: you got to you got to count your blessings when
Speaker 3: you have a big deal, because that's the hardest thing
Speaker 3: about killing Big Year is having a big deer at hunt.
Speaker 3: So when you it's like every time I'm on when
Speaker 3: I'm like, I'm so lucky that's gonna be the last one,
Speaker 3: you know, because it is it's like it's just so
Speaker 3: you know, it's like it's just surreal. You know, so
Speaker 3: I wouldn't chase him just to chase him. I would
Speaker 3: try and figure out why he's there. If it's November,
Speaker 3: I would definitely not be chasing him unless there was
Speaker 3: a specific strategic reason to be chasing him, because you
Speaker 3: know the next day he's bound to be somewhere. I mean,
Speaker 3: you know, I would. I'd rather sit for five days
Speaker 3: in a row and not see him in a spot
Speaker 3: that I know he has to eventually go. I don't
Speaker 3: even care if he's a mile away. Eventually he's gonna
Speaker 3: be there, and I'm gonna I'm gonna use probability to
Speaker 3: kill him. When you go bouncing around and you you know,
Speaker 3: and you you are hunting multiple deer, I'm gonna go
Speaker 3: hunt this deer and I'm gonna go this farm, hunt
Speaker 3: this dear night that just killed your odds. I when
Speaker 3: I get on deer, I focus on that deer, and
Speaker 3: I do not. I don't go and start hunting another deer.
Speaker 3: I odds and probability will always work in your favor.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it makes sense. Certainly has seemed to work pretty
Speaker 2: well for you based on that wall in your in
Speaker 2: your house or wherever that is, your barn, I've seen
Speaker 2: this picture of the beautiful high vaulted ceilings, the wood,
Speaker 2: the wood paneling, and a whole little, bigger accent.
Speaker 4: There.
Speaker 2: Something's working.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's you know, it's still a struggle. There's I
Speaker 3: tell people that everything works, all the strategies work. They
Speaker 3: just don't work all the time. Everything works. There is
Speaker 3: no right or wrong in deer hunting. All there is
Speaker 3: is is probability and strategy and and you know, numbers
Speaker 3: and stacking.
Speaker 2: Off figuring out what works in your circumstances and for
Speaker 2: your goals and and all that kind of stuff. So, Bob,
Speaker 2: you made it through. You survived though. What would you do? Gauntlet?
Speaker 2: But there's one last quick face here. There's a set
Speaker 2: of rapid fire questions that I got to run you
Speaker 2: through to try to close the sucker out. Okay, so
Speaker 2: I'm going to give you a quick question and you
Speaker 2: can only answer with one ant with one word answer. Okay,
Speaker 2: it's gonna be a yes or no or this or that. Okay,
Speaker 2: no explanation allowed. All Right, here we go. Would you
Speaker 2: take a fifty yard shot at a white tail with
Speaker 2: your bow? Yes or no? In my younger years, if
Speaker 2: you could only have one of these tools to use
Speaker 2: for all your hunts for the rest of your life.
Speaker 2: You can only pick one. Would you take a set
Speaker 2: of radomy antlers or grunt tube gun expandable or fixed
Speaker 2: Blaye broadheads?
Speaker 3: No doubt?
Speaker 2: Should you stop a buck with some kind of sound
Speaker 2: before shooting if he's walking?
Speaker 3: Situational?
Speaker 2: If you could only pick one food plot crop to
Speaker 2: use for all your food plots for the rest of
Speaker 2: the time, only one seed type, what would you pick?
Speaker 3: Porn?
Speaker 2: Which state has better hunters? North Carolina, New York or Illinois?
Speaker 2: They're all different, true, And here's your last one. This
Speaker 2: one you can this one you can expand on just
Speaker 2: a little bit. Let's say that I rule the world
Speaker 2: and I have control over your hunting rights and privileges,
Speaker 2: and I'm going to tell you that I'm going to
Speaker 2: take away your hunting license for the rest of your
Speaker 2: life if you cannot kill a mature buck this year.
Speaker 2: So you got to kill mature buck this year in
Speaker 2: order to preserve your hunting rights for the rest of
Speaker 2: your life. But here's the trick. I'm only giving you
Speaker 2: one day to get that mature buck killed. So a
Speaker 2: what I need to do is tell me what date
Speaker 2: on the calendar you're gonna pick this year to kill
Speaker 2: your mature buck, and then paint me a picture of
Speaker 2: the stand site you would pick for that day that
Speaker 2: you think would give you the absolute best chance to
Speaker 2: kill mature buck on that date to save the rest
Speaker 2: of your hunts for the rest of your life.
Speaker 3: Well, if if I could pick the high pressure day
Speaker 3: leading up to the full moon, it was a twenty
Speaker 3: fifth of October, that's the day, hands down, I would pick,
Speaker 3: and I would hunt the scrape on the food source
Speaker 3: that the big deer has been going to. Hands down.
Speaker 3: If I had to pick a random date, I would
Speaker 3: pick November eleventh, if I just had to pick a random.
Speaker 2: Day, going for that best chance to catch a cruiser.
Speaker 3: Just because it's yeah, yeah, yeah, now a maturitier, the
Speaker 3: most maturedier in the woods. And I'm going a little
Speaker 3: rabbit hole here. My theory and philosophy is that you
Speaker 3: have a bell curve of doze that come in and
Speaker 3: it peeks out around November fourteen or whatever in Illinois.
Speaker 3: The most mature dominant deer in the woods, he's got
Speaker 3: to search for it when the bell curve is down here.
Speaker 3: And then when he loses her and gets another one.
Speaker 3: There's more options and more options, so he can be
Speaker 3: harder to kill in the time that's the best for
Speaker 3: a big buck in general. And then the post lockdown
Speaker 3: cruise phase like November sixth, seventeenth, seventeenth, eighteenth, nineteenth, I
Speaker 3: think can be the best time in the actual dose
Speaker 3: seeking rut phase to kill the biggest dear in the woods. No.
Speaker 3: Number seventeen twenty.
Speaker 2: Well, I like you playing, Bobby. I think you get
Speaker 2: it done. I feel confident that you'd be able to
Speaker 2: keep on hunting. You get your buck and you keep
Speaker 2: your hunting rights.
Speaker 3: And then there's early muzzleloader in Kansas, which is probably
Speaker 3: the most deadly thing in the country, and or late
Speaker 3: season in Iowa that you can bohunt on the late
Speaker 3: muzzle or tag and that is also just insanely deadly.
Speaker 3: So there's just so much fun to have out.
Speaker 2: It's like, sure is, Yeah, you're You're Kansas Ranch. I've
Speaker 2: seen the video of that place you guys are working on.
Speaker 2: That looks like an insane place for that early Kansas muzzloder.
Speaker 3: Someday, yeah, yeah, So I'm actually getting married on on
Speaker 3: I think opening day of Kansas early Muzzloder, so I
Speaker 3: will not be out there.
Speaker 2: So well, congrats on the marriage. Sorry about the bad
Speaker 2: luck with the timing.
Speaker 3: That's all you.
Speaker 2: Uh you pass you pass the test swimmingly, Bobby, So
Speaker 2: congrats on that. And uh, you want to give folks
Speaker 2: a real quick rundown of where they can learn about
Speaker 2: your guys properties, where they can see your videos all
Speaker 2: that kind of stuff.
Speaker 3: Yep. So we don't do a whole ton of things
Speaker 3: on Instagram and and Facebook daily and stuff, but we
Speaker 3: have like a really good long format YouTube series where
Speaker 3: we document these farms as we develop them and stuff.
Speaker 3: So YouTube is a great place. We do have Facebook too,
Speaker 3: And then we have a website you know that. You know,
Speaker 3: we sell locks Blnes. We do consulting on helping people
Speaker 3: set their farms up. We have a big logging logging
Speaker 3: division and all that information on our website. We got
Speaker 3: lots of farms for sale on there. Good luck, awesome.
Speaker 2: Yeah, hey, thank you Bobby for doing Let's really enjoyed
Speaker 2: it and keep up the work with the videos. I
Speaker 2: really enjoy them. The in depth breakdowns the farms and
Speaker 2: everything is very it's entertaining and that's very informational too,
Speaker 2: so for a white tail nerd, it's some of the best.
Speaker 3: We try and do you know, there's no one size
Speaker 3: fits all, like to farms, you know, it's like there's
Speaker 3: not It's like I try and keep it interesting and
Speaker 3: situational and like just always doing something outside the box
Speaker 3: and trying things, and there's like I said, there's no
Speaker 3: right and wrong answers.
Speaker 2: Yep, it's good stuff, all right, Bobby, Well, thanks to this,
Speaker 2: good luck this season and looking forward to keeping up
Speaker 2: on Hot all goes. Thanks you too, all right, and
Speaker 2: that is a wrap. Thanks for tuning in. Appreciate you
Speaker 2: being a part of this community in this podcast. Stuff's
Speaker 2: only going up from here, guys. The ramp up into
Speaker 2: the season is coming in hot and heavy. I'm stoked
Speaker 2: for it. We've got four more episodes of this what
Speaker 2: would You Do series with some great hunters lined up,
Speaker 2: so we're gonna get some really good insights here over
Speaker 2: the month of August and then when we kick off
Speaker 2: the season in September. For a lot of us, it's
Speaker 2: just gonna be more and more of these deep dives
Speaker 2: into strategy with some of the best hunters in the
Speaker 2: world breaking down how they do, what they do and
Speaker 2: what we can learn from it. I am excited. Hope
Speaker 2: you are two, and until next time, stay Wired to Hunt.