Speaker 1: Welcome back to Cutting the Distance. Today we have Chris
Speaker 1: Parrish back on the show. He may be best known
Speaker 1: for his ability to call turkeys, but has killed some
Speaker 1: great Midwest white tails on both public and private land,
Speaker 1: and I want to pick his brain a little bit.
Speaker 1: We are actually here today in Kansas at white Tail Camp.
Speaker 1: Thanks for joining me, Chris, sir, Glad to be here,
Speaker 1: Glad to be at camp with you. Finally, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's fun. This is my first ever white tail hunt,
Speaker 1: so we we got to do our first sit this morning.
Speaker 1: So I'm a bona fide expert at these white tails already.
Speaker 1: But you know, now we want to cold here in Kansas.
Speaker 1: I don't think you can get much better conditions. It's
Speaker 1: been warm leading up to this. We're on the tail
Speaker 1: end of a full moon. Um cold snap moved in.
Speaker 1: It was fifteen degrees this morning, so I think yeah,
Speaker 1: wind chill was between ten and thirteen depending on where
Speaker 1: you were. Uh. And the wind is always gonna blow
Speaker 1: in Kansas. That's one one thing guys have to remember here.
Speaker 1: It's always gonna blow. So no matter what, you're gonna
Speaker 1: deal with a ten to twelve mile hour wind all
Speaker 1: the time. So you need to bring clothes that accommodate that.
Speaker 1: Even if it's hot, the wind blows and you still
Speaker 1: get cool when the sun goes down. So it was
Speaker 1: a good, good first morning. Um, things are starting to
Speaker 1: get a heating up here. Um, you know as far
Speaker 1: as the rut. So excited. But we're gonna start this
Speaker 1: off like the rest of the podcast. We're gonna we're
Speaker 1: gonna I'm gonna send you some questions here that that
Speaker 1: the users kind of send us UM and if you
Speaker 1: have questions of your own, please email us at ct
Speaker 1: D app phelps game calls dot com and will make
Speaker 1: sure to include your questions UM for either myself or experts.
Speaker 1: So the first question we have for you today, Chris
Speaker 1: is where do you determine where to set your stands?
Speaker 1: What what information goes into that? And then um, you know,
Speaker 1: I think the easy ones always wind um or have
Speaker 1: multiple stands. But what she's looking for as far as terrain,
Speaker 1: vegetation feed, secondary feed, you know all those things that
Speaker 1: and and kind of how do you you know, put
Speaker 1: your plan together? And then this is where I stand
Speaker 1: needs to go on the X right, So you know
Speaker 1: that that's kind of a loaded question. Too, because it
Speaker 1: all depends on the timing of the year. So I'll
Speaker 1: kind of stick to what we're looking at right now.
Speaker 1: You know, a dough is always the target when it
Speaker 1: comes to the rut because that's what he's looking for,
Speaker 1: and she's always going to be in and around food.
Speaker 1: Now when she comes into estrus, a lot of that
Speaker 1: goes out the wayside. He's gonna push her off somewhere
Speaker 1: and they're gonna spend twenty four to thirty six hours,
Speaker 1: and it's usually gonna be in and away from any
Speaker 1: other deer. They neither want of them want to have
Speaker 1: other deer around him because he's trying to run other
Speaker 1: bucks off, and she doesn't want to be around other
Speaker 1: doughs and other deer. It's just, you know, kind of
Speaker 1: the little thing. So but I'm always looking for those
Speaker 1: transition areas that are leading from betting two feeding and
Speaker 1: that give me the best opportunity to pinch those deer
Speaker 1: down and get them inside a bow range. Now i'm
Speaker 1: gun hunting, I'll open that up a little bit, you know.
Speaker 1: Obviously I'd still like to be in the woods at
Speaker 1: that point, but I'll open it up where I can
Speaker 1: shoot a little longer and have a little more sight
Speaker 1: to see. But when I'm bow hunting, I want to
Speaker 1: try to and you can't always pinch it down, but
Speaker 1: you can always pick the best inside corner or an
Speaker 1: hourglass type shape, or a shelf off of a ridge,
Speaker 1: or a little area where they're gonna cross this ditch line,
Speaker 1: and it's it's real common crossing. It's easy. You know,
Speaker 1: there are lazy like people. They're gonna take the least
Speaker 1: the path of least resistance. So I'm looking for all
Speaker 1: those little things to connect the dots with and hang
Speaker 1: my stand, and I try to hang multiple stands to
Speaker 1: be honest with you. If I can for wind conditions,
Speaker 1: and sometimes they may be a quarter of a mile
Speaker 1: apart only because that quarter of a mile those are
Speaker 1: the two best travel areas. But I can go in
Speaker 1: and hunt one from say, if I got a south wind,
Speaker 1: I can hunt the south side, and I try to
Speaker 1: set it where I can hunt either southwest or southeast.
Speaker 1: I can take advantage of all southerly winds. Same with
Speaker 1: a north wind. I want to be able to take
Speaker 1: advantage of all northerly winds. Those are magic. You don't
Speaker 1: always find that, but that's the kind of thing that
Speaker 1: I look for. And then the other big key is
Speaker 1: just pick out your entrance and exits to those stands
Speaker 1: and be very cognizant that you can get in there
Speaker 1: and out of there as easy as possible without spooking deer.
Speaker 1: It's almost impossible when you're in the Midwest because deer
Speaker 1: everywhere we have a great population, whether it be Kansas, Missouri,
Speaker 1: all over the Midwest, you know, Iowa, Illinois. It's hard
Speaker 1: to get in and out of those places without bumping
Speaker 1: a few deer. But try to be cognizant of it,
Speaker 1: especially walking in fields of the morning. They're gonna be feeding.
Speaker 1: You're probably gonna bust one. It's just gonna happen, But
Speaker 1: try to avoid it as much as possible. And then
Speaker 1: getting out of there and not going through your food
Speaker 1: plots at night. You know, if you can exit, stay
Speaker 1: in the woods, make a loop around. If it takes
Speaker 1: you an extra half mile to get in and out,
Speaker 1: it takes you an extra half mile to get in
Speaker 1: and out, but you'll you will benefit from it if
Speaker 1: you will use those tactics. Gotcha, perfect, perfect answer on
Speaker 1: that one. Um. The second question, UM, what's your preferred
Speaker 1: weather to hunt, and we may be in it. I
Speaker 1: know we've been texting back and forth a little bit
Speaker 1: because you've been you know, bouncing back and forth hunting
Speaker 1: maybe the weekends, long weekends, and you know, you were
Speaker 1: getting excited because we're getting some rain last weekend, then
Speaker 1: getting some wind, and then we're getting a cold streak.
Speaker 1: So if you had to pick kind of your weather
Speaker 1: or or kind of give us a rundown on what
Speaker 1: we can expect, you know, what are we gonna expect
Speaker 1: when it's warmer than average and and no real weather,
Speaker 1: you know, and can then kind of let us know
Speaker 1: what your favorite weather is the hunt. Okay, well, you
Speaker 1: know when it's warm out and you're speaking of the
Speaker 1: rut and let's just say you have temperatures that are
Speaker 1: above fifty, let's say sixty are better you It doesn't
Speaker 1: slow the rut down. People always think, oh, Manda, deer
Speaker 1: just not gonna move. You know, they're not rutting because
Speaker 1: it's too hot. Known and all the rut comes around
Speaker 1: one time of year. Those are going to come into
Speaker 1: estras and they're going to get bread. And your funds
Speaker 1: come almost consistently around the same time every year. That
Speaker 1: means nine of your doughs or bread around the same time.
Speaker 1: It doesn't mean that there's not late does and doesn't
Speaker 1: mean they're not early doughs. There are, but there's a
Speaker 1: consistent pattern there, so they're gonna breed. Warm weather subdues
Speaker 1: the daylight movement because a lot of it gets done
Speaker 1: at night that you know, are really early in the morning,
Speaker 1: real late in the evening, and they run all night long.
Speaker 1: Because let's just face it, you wouldn't want to go
Speaker 1: sit in a blind or on a tree stand with
Speaker 1: your winter coat on when it was seventy degrees and
Speaker 1: they're doing the same thing. But you know, on the
Speaker 1: other hand, it's the rut. You can't kill one if
Speaker 1: you're sitting at the house. So you need to be
Speaker 1: out there because I've I've literally, I've actually filmed a
Speaker 1: friend of mine shoot one one morning. It was seventy
Speaker 1: three degrees and got up to eighty five and that
Speaker 1: buck came into snort wees and was on fire ready
Speaker 1: to go. So you and it was really early in
Speaker 1: the morning, but you gotta be there. So I always
Speaker 1: hunt regardless of the weather because you have to be there.
Speaker 1: My preference is temperatures in the thirties of the morning
Speaker 1: and warming up to about the mid upper forties too,
Speaker 1: maybe fifty degrees in the daytime. Two reasons why one
Speaker 1: is pretty comfortable to set all day. I love to
Speaker 1: set all day this time of year because you could
Speaker 1: just as easily shoot one at one o'clock in the
Speaker 1: afternoon as you could at daylight or dark. And they're
Speaker 1: gonna move all the time. And they're gonna move all
Speaker 1: the time in that weather, all day long, you're gonna
Speaker 1: see some movement, especially if you're in those little hidy
Speaker 1: holes in those little sanctuary areas where their bucks are
Speaker 1: pushing those doughs back in for for breeding purpose. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: And and there's always you know, if you've got a
Speaker 1: good acorn crop, you're always gonna have some food in
Speaker 1: around there. And to a buck, food is not so
Speaker 1: important that time of year. It's the breeding. But if
Speaker 1: there's food around along with security cover, those doughs are
Speaker 1: gonna be comfortable in there too. So that's my preferred
Speaker 1: weather as far as wind conditions go. You know one
Speaker 1: thing that you know, when I was telling you guys
Speaker 1: early on, the wind's gonna blow in Kansas it doesn't matter.
Speaker 1: It's gonna blow every day, and you wanted to blow
Speaker 1: a little bit. When you hunt Kansas and the wind
Speaker 1: is dead calm, you're likely not gonna see much go on.
Speaker 1: Those deer need to have a little bit of wind.
Speaker 1: They're used to it. They're used to fifty mile hour winds.
Speaker 1: They will move in it all day long. Provide them,
Speaker 1: provides them a little security exactly, and they're used to it.
Speaker 1: You know, they deal with it every day of their life.
Speaker 1: Here you get to Missouri and you get a twenty
Speaker 1: mile an hour wind, it's subduced a movement a little bit,
Speaker 1: and you don't see it. You don't see the deer
Speaker 1: out traveling long distances like you would normally. It's just
Speaker 1: it's all about what they are used to in their environment. Um,
Speaker 1: So you're gonna deal with wind here in Kansas and
Speaker 1: you want to you you know, I like it. I
Speaker 1: like personally, uh, seven to ten mile an hour wind.
Speaker 1: That's steady because at least you know exactly what direction
Speaker 1: is coming out of you know where it's going. You
Speaker 1: know what that one spot that you're giving away, that's
Speaker 1: my giveaway spot. Something gets down there no matter what
Speaker 1: I've done to be sent free, I'm probably gonna get
Speaker 1: there's a good chance unless I got high skies and
Speaker 1: high pressure and the thermals are rising, I'm gonna wind
Speaker 1: up getting busted. So you know, that's what I like.
Speaker 1: Twenty mile winds. When you get gusty winds can be
Speaker 1: a problem no matter what, because you know you'll you'll
Speaker 1: hear it lay, it'll lay, and it won't hardly be
Speaker 1: any win, and all of a sudden there will be
Speaker 1: a big gust to win well that blows that scent
Speaker 1: in every direction, blows it down, blows it up, blows
Speaker 1: it everywhere, and you wind up getting busted a lot
Speaker 1: more in those heavy winds. But you're still you've gotta hunt.
Speaker 1: You've got to be there. So don't let anything ever
Speaker 1: keep you out of the woods this time of year.
Speaker 1: And you hinted towards a little bit pressures um As
Speaker 1: me and Randy were walking to our stand this morning,
Speaker 1: you know, he had mentioned, oh we got high pressure,
Speaker 1: you know, clear skies, and then we saw a cloud
Speaker 1: start rolling in low pressure. Do you have a preference,
Speaker 1: it sounds like because of um sand and when you'd
Speaker 1: prefer high pressure system, if cold and high pressure. I
Speaker 1: would rather have high pressure anyway. You get a pressure
Speaker 1: that is thirty point one, five, thirty point two and above,
Speaker 1: and you just wind up seeing more deer on their
Speaker 1: feet moving. It just it's just something about that high
Speaker 1: pressure that they move on really good. Deer and turkey
Speaker 1: both are a lot like by as you know, if
Speaker 1: you're a fisherman, uh, fish key in off of weather fronts,
Speaker 1: whether it be a coal front coming in, they may
Speaker 1: feed up heavy just prior to it and then they
Speaker 1: go kind of dormant. Or if a warm fronts coming in,
Speaker 1: you know, they they changed with the pressure. And deer
Speaker 1: do the same thing. Say, for example, uh, you have
Speaker 1: a rainfront coming in. Looks like maybe Thursday we got
Speaker 1: a very small chance for rain. You get that rainfront
Speaker 1: coming in, you can guarantee twenty four hours ahead of
Speaker 1: that rainfront, you're gonna get deer on their feet. They're
Speaker 1: gonna be moving really heavy then and feeding up. It's
Speaker 1: just something that they do. And the same thing with
Speaker 1: this high pressure system. Yesterday it was coming in and
Speaker 1: yesterday evening I got here before you guys did, and
Speaker 1: I hunted and the deer were on their feet moving
Speaker 1: at two o'clock in the afternoon, and that just goes
Speaker 1: to show as that pressure is changing those deer. And so,
Speaker 1: you know, guys that only get to hunt, and we're fortunate,
Speaker 1: we're blessed. We get to hunt a lot more than
Speaker 1: most people do. The guys that only get to hunt. Uh,
Speaker 1: let's say two or three weekends, you know, and you
Speaker 1: can pick your weekends or you can pick your vacation.
Speaker 1: You know. Try to look at that future forecast and
Speaker 1: figure it out and key in on those key times.
Speaker 1: I love three days before a full moon and three
Speaker 1: days or five days after a full moon. Where we're
Speaker 1: you know, three to five days after a full moon now,
Speaker 1: so we're in great shape. And the reason why is
Speaker 1: it just seems like you get that peak activity, that
Speaker 1: got peak roundness of how those deer moving. And with
Speaker 1: that full moon coming in November like it came in
Speaker 1: the eighth, you can always count on any time around
Speaker 1: that fourth, fift six, seventh, and eighth, you're gonna start
Speaker 1: kick off of estra cycle. Those does are gonna start
Speaker 1: kicking off estro cycle. So now you know you've got
Speaker 1: some dose coming in. You've got one coming in here,
Speaker 1: one coming in there. And a lot of times you'll
Speaker 1: get that one hot dough in your area and all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, that first extracycle and you'll be five
Speaker 1: bucks on her and you get an opportunity at sometimes
Speaker 1: dear you don't even know exist showing up out of
Speaker 1: the woodworks before so and just touch on it. This
Speaker 1: isn't aestion, is my own question. I'm assuming similar to Elk,
Speaker 1: those more mature does come in first, and then it
Speaker 1: kind of is that you know the oldest youngest, and
Speaker 1: then you know some of those you know young doughs
Speaker 1: won't come in until late November, middle of December. You know,
Speaker 1: I've seen in January. I've literally seen when we we
Speaker 1: used to have a dose season in January years ago
Speaker 1: in Missouri, and I have seen some of the biggest
Speaker 1: deer I've ever seen on their feet then because they're
Speaker 1: still looking for that last remaining dough. And that's one
Speaker 1: thing a lot of guys don't quite understand. They think
Speaker 1: the rifle season gets over with and everything's done, when
Speaker 1: in reality, if you've got a good food source, that
Speaker 1: late December hunting can be awesome because those big deer
Speaker 1: are still looking for some from some dose coming in
Speaker 1: and they're keying in on food too, So they're keying
Speaker 1: in on food and does and now you've got the
Speaker 1: best combinations kind of like early season where they're keying
Speaker 1: in on food and it's bed to feed, bed to feed,
Speaker 1: and they're real predictable. They get much more predictable after
Speaker 1: the rut. The ruts phenomenal, but in reality, it's the
Speaker 1: toughest hunting there is because they can be anywhere at
Speaker 1: any time and come from anywhere at any time, and
Speaker 1: you don't they don't even know what they're doing, you know.
Speaker 1: But it's also the time that you go, oh, Lord,
Speaker 1: where that deer come from, you know, and you see
Speaker 1: that two inch and you're like, I didn't even know
Speaker 1: that deer existed. Well, he didn't. He was two miles
Speaker 1: away yesterday and he followed this dough and he ran her. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and we we talked about that a little bit this morning. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, hunting during the rut, like you can have
Speaker 1: trail cams and pictures and bucks that show up routinely
Speaker 1: day after day, and you know, a big buck was
Speaker 1: killed in camp this morning, and you know there's always
Speaker 1: this question, like he's gone, he's gone, you know, because
Speaker 1: it's a rug. But the same thing, you could have
Speaker 1: a picture of a buck that was, you know, at
Speaker 1: a spot yesterday, and he could be two miles away
Speaker 1: and you don't know, you know, And that's that's that gamble.
Speaker 1: You're just like hoping that your best information is leading
Speaker 1: into the best spot, but you don't know if that
Speaker 1: deer is now I ran three miles off chasing the
Speaker 1: dough somewhere, you know, exactly that, And and that's the
Speaker 1: hard part of the rut. But it's also the magical
Speaker 1: time because it exposes more dear more frequently. And I
Speaker 1: think that's the part that I enjoy. I love to
Speaker 1: hear him grunt. I love to hear him, watch him chase,
Speaker 1: love to watch them do their thing. It's excuse me,
Speaker 1: It's kind of like a gobblin turkey, you know. I mean,
Speaker 1: if he gobblin spitt and drum, I don't really have
Speaker 1: to shoot him. I just want to watch. You got
Speaker 1: the experience just the opposite with deer. I want to
Speaker 1: shoot the deer. Yeah. I think that's what drives us
Speaker 1: to you know, the same thing, the same reason I
Speaker 1: love l hunting, you know, with the boat, you get
Speaker 1: to call those things and interact, you know, the same
Speaker 1: reason we love turkey hunting in the spring, the same reason. Um,
Speaker 1: you know today I've got to sit half of a
Speaker 1: day out of a nine day hunting already, Like you know,
Speaker 1: watching them respond to deer calls, like that's that's the magical,
Speaker 1: the cool part, you know, hearing them make the sounds,
Speaker 1: us making the sounds. You know, shoot, we we rattled
Speaker 1: and just had a deer you know, come running straight
Speaker 1: into the ground. Just that being able to interact versus,
Speaker 1: like you know, rifle seasons and some stuff where you're
Speaker 1: just you know, you're you're kind of just you're you're
Speaker 1: on the sidelines, you know, hoping stuff walks into you
Speaker 1: where a lot of times you're hunting escape routes when
Speaker 1: your rifle hunting and you're hunting like Okay, Joe blows
Speaker 1: hunting over there, and Jimmy Bob is hunting over there,
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna be right here because everything they screw
Speaker 1: up is gonna come. Yeah, it's a different, smarter, not harder. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Once again, if you have your own questions for us
Speaker 1: here at cutting the Distance, please email us or send
Speaker 1: us a message social media. Whatever, Um, get him over
Speaker 1: to us at ct D at Phelps game Calls dot com.
Speaker 1: Now we're gonna jump in to my discussion with you, Chris,
Speaker 1: and and uh yeah, I remember the first time we
Speaker 1: came out to Kansas. I think you swung by picked
Speaker 1: me and Dirk up from the airport. We're gonna go
Speaker 1: turkey hunting, and um, you know, as we were driving
Speaker 1: to our place here in Kansas, you started to tell
Speaker 1: us a story of the Giant eight. And I got
Speaker 1: to I got to spend some time with you. Probably
Speaker 1: but five or six years ago, now I flew out
Speaker 1: to your house. I killed that deer, So yeah, it
Speaker 1: was probably came out to Chris's place here in Missouri
Speaker 1: and got to got to stay downstairs in your basement,
Speaker 1: and I got to walk by that deer every day.
Speaker 1: And it was this just giant mainframe eight with a
Speaker 1: few little extras. And you know, you have a two
Speaker 1: hundred inchineer two hud plus sitting there next to it,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, this is where numbers don't make sense.
Speaker 1: Like not talking down on you, but again, but you
Speaker 1: set this giant eight next to this tund engineer and
Speaker 1: I'm like that Dear's bigger frame, bigger, you know, more
Speaker 1: massive everything. Um, So I'm gonna let you go ahead
Speaker 1: and kind of retail that Kansas eight. And the thing
Speaker 1: that I like about this is it is a public
Speaker 1: land Kansas buck with lots of people around. And the
Speaker 1: way you can like give us some of the insight
Speaker 1: you know, I know you had. I want you to
Speaker 1: really touch on like your entrance to the stand, so
Speaker 1: you know, once again you're not trying to sent the
Speaker 1: area up, um, you know, getting away from everybody, and
Speaker 1: it's a lot longer track. Um, go ahead and kind
Speaker 1: of give us the quick and dirty version of that
Speaker 1: Kansas buck and some of the things that that you
Speaker 1: did that that differentiated, you know, what you were doing
Speaker 1: on that piece of public land to be able to
Speaker 1: kill a buck like that and everyone else. Well, you know,
Speaker 1: it all started the year before that when I was hunting,
Speaker 1: actually I was hunting Missouri right a hunting Missouri. I
Speaker 1: had permission to hunt some places up here. Then we're
Speaker 1: pretty close to Missouri border. If you go right over here,
Speaker 1: you're near Nevada, Missouri and some other places. And so
Speaker 1: I had Butler Missouri, and I had permission to hunt
Speaker 1: a couple of places there. So I'd come up and
Speaker 1: I was staying with a guy over near the La
Speaker 1: Sing area. UH, and I driving back and forth, I
Speaker 1: kept seeing these some big deer across the road out
Speaker 1: of this look like sanctuary area. I couldn't know what
Speaker 1: it was. I'm not familiar with the area. So when
Speaker 1: I got back to camp on like the third day,
Speaker 1: and I was not seeing anything I wanted to shoot.
Speaker 1: I was seeing some decent deer, but now they were
Speaker 1: locked down pretty tight, and I just was not being
Speaker 1: patient like I should be, and I had a cameraman
Speaker 1: that was not you know how it can be anyway, Um,
Speaker 1: I went and I asked a friend of mine, Mike Osborne.
Speaker 1: I'm like, Mike, I said, what is this place over here?
Speaker 1: I said, I keep seeing some good deer come across
Speaker 1: that road. And I said, it looks big, but it
Speaker 1: looks like it's a it's a sanctuary area or a
Speaker 1: waterfowl refuge. He goes it is water refuge. And I'm like, well,
Speaker 1: can you hunt it? And he goes, yeah, he goes,
Speaker 1: there's about seven thousand, seven hundred acres lazy in there
Speaker 1: you can hunt. He goes it attaches to another four
Speaker 1: thousand that you can draw into, which would make eleven thousand.
Speaker 1: And he said, then when you get across the river,
Speaker 1: he goes, there's acres over there that cannot and has
Speaker 1: not ever been hunted. And I'm like, hmm, so I
Speaker 1: guess the people assume those deer never across the river,
Speaker 1: you know. And I'm like, that would be an easy assumption,
Speaker 1: but the wrong assumption, you know. So I started looking
Speaker 1: at maps, started studying maps, and was pretty intrigued by
Speaker 1: the place. And I thought, you know, if I if
Speaker 1: I draw a tag in Kansas next year, I'm going
Speaker 1: to just devote my time and hunt that. So I
Speaker 1: did draw a tag. Uh, planned out a couple of
Speaker 1: places to look, and a couple of friends of mine
Speaker 1: and I just we all drew and we're all going
Speaker 1: to hunt together, but we're all gonna hunt different areas.
Speaker 1: Obviously it's big. Well, I had my little spot picked
Speaker 1: out that I really wanted to hunt, but I wanted
Speaker 1: to work my way into it. I want to figure
Speaker 1: out kind of what was going on. Didn't realize as
Speaker 1: thick and heavy and nasty and gnarly as it was,
Speaker 1: and and and you could get really deep into it,
Speaker 1: you know, and I didn't realize how much distance there
Speaker 1: really was. So I came in October October the eighteenth.
Speaker 1: I really believe I saw this deer about a half
Speaker 1: a mile from where I wound up killing Hi Matt. Uh.
Speaker 1: It was dark, couldn't really tell big frame giant frame deer.
Speaker 1: You don't see a lot of giant frame deer. Kind
Speaker 1: of thought he was a boot and croco deer, but
Speaker 1: wasn't sure, and uh put it back in my mind.
Speaker 1: I came back on November eight, got here on November
Speaker 1: the eight at eleven o'clock. By one o'clock, I had
Speaker 1: went back in there and had hung a set where
Speaker 1: two rivers and an oxbow lake came together and made
Speaker 1: a big pinch point and uh, long story short, Uh.
Speaker 1: I ran into a fella on my way out that
Speaker 1: was pretty close to the edge, and he kind of
Speaker 1: stopped me, and he's like, hey, buddy, goes, I want
Speaker 1: to let you know. You go back in there. You're
Speaker 1: you're getting close to their bedding area. You're gonna push
Speaker 1: deer out. Well, I don't want to tell him that
Speaker 1: I want to be close to the bedding area. I
Speaker 1: want to be in it if I can, especially in
Speaker 1: the morning. You know, I want the deer to come
Speaker 1: filtering back in. He said, I appreciate it, if you
Speaker 1: wouldn't come through here the next morning. Well he wasn't
Speaker 1: there because I went through there at about three o'clock
Speaker 1: in the morning. He probably had got out of bed yet.
Speaker 1: And I slipped in there and got in that stand.
Speaker 1: And how I would enter an exit it. You could
Speaker 1: walk along the river, and you can walk right down
Speaker 1: the edge of the river, and chances of you bumping
Speaker 1: a deer or or leaving any scent that's going to
Speaker 1: be a problem. Groundcent, especially if you're gonna hunt multiple days,
Speaker 1: was very minimal. And then and I had the g
Speaker 1: GPS my way in there, because I would have never
Speaker 1: found the stand without a GPS. I just it would
Speaker 1: be too difficult, you know. So I was one point
Speaker 1: eight miles in from where I parked the truck, and
Speaker 1: I would trek in. Then I would just walk a
Speaker 1: straight line from when I got dead even from my
Speaker 1: GPS to the stand. I walk a straight line right
Speaker 1: straight to the stand and get in it. I got
Speaker 1: in it that morning. Long story short, I forgot my
Speaker 1: range finder, forgot my binoculars. I forgot my uh, safety
Speaker 1: rope and safety vest. So but I said that safety rope.
Speaker 1: I had two safety ropes. I just didn't bring my
Speaker 1: safety vest. So I took one safety rope and put
Speaker 1: around my waist, and one safety rope and put around
Speaker 1: the tree and tied it to the tree. I thought, well,
Speaker 1: if I fall, I'm only gonna fall like a foot
Speaker 1: I'll be okay. I got just climb back on the
Speaker 1: stand and be okay. I get in the stand, and
Speaker 1: I wasn't seeing much of anything, to be honest with you. Uh,
Speaker 1: I saw a dough and a button buck, and all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, the button buck was betted down and
Speaker 1: the dough was gone, nowhere to be found. And I thought,
Speaker 1: she's she's coming in. She's left him, and you know,
Speaker 1: who knows what's gonna happen. And about ten thirty, UM,
Speaker 1: I was getting a little bit antsy, and I had
Speaker 1: a very hard upper respiratory cold, and I thought, man,
Speaker 1: I need to get somewhere and get some medicine and
Speaker 1: get this thing knocked out of me. And uh, I'm
Speaker 1: thinking I'm gonna get down at eleven o'clock, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: go to town, and I'm gonna go buy somewhere and
Speaker 1: I'm gonna get me some medicine, and I'm gonna take
Speaker 1: a bunch of that medicine and come back in and
Speaker 1: climbing a stand. Well about ten thirty, I was looking,
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden I saw this formation of
Speaker 1: a big, giant body deer in front of me, about
Speaker 1: seventy yards, and I had a tree in my way,
Speaker 1: so I moved my head to left the tree, and
Speaker 1: sure enough it was this deer. And when I first
Speaker 1: looked at him, I just in my mind went hundred
Speaker 1: and six pointer and I quit looking, got up at
Speaker 1: my stand. He comes in, he gets the twenty two yards,
Speaker 1: I hit a little bit of a limb. I uh,
Speaker 1: liver shot him straight through the liver, went completely through
Speaker 1: the liver all the way, cut it basically in half,
Speaker 1: if you will. And uh, the deer hind leg kicked,
Speaker 1: made a loop and and then ran out about sixty
Speaker 1: yards and stopped and then took off. And I thought, well,
Speaker 1: that's his death run. And I wasn't quite sure he
Speaker 1: was liver shot, but I was pretty sure he's probably
Speaker 1: liver shot because I saw the arrow, especially the exit
Speaker 1: of the arrow and I text a buddy of mine
Speaker 1: and he had just text me, and I wish I
Speaker 1: still I wish I had to save that text because
Speaker 1: his text was, are you seeing anything? And I said, yeah,
Speaker 1: three hundred and thirty three million blackbirds because blackbirds were
Speaker 1: were migrating and it was just noisy, and uh, he goes,
Speaker 1: I've got bucks running everywhere, chasing does and everything. And
Speaker 1: I'm like, and he's probably a half a mile three
Speaker 1: quarters of a mile from me, and I'm like, you know,
Speaker 1: it's funny how you can be just a little ways
Speaker 1: apart and and and all the actions over there. Because
Speaker 1: there's one hot dough. And this deer came in the
Speaker 1: morning of November the ninth by himself. He was he
Speaker 1: was looking, you know, he was he was cruising and
Speaker 1: uh any rate, uh, long story short, um. We went
Speaker 1: back in that evening to try to find him and
Speaker 1: took blood for about two hundred yards and it was
Speaker 1: getting dark and I said, let's back out. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: come in tomorrow. I came in the next day, came
Speaker 1: in from from the from the creek side, and walked
Speaker 1: up the creek all the way, wound up. I knew
Speaker 1: he was gonna go to water. That's typical of a
Speaker 1: liver shot deer. You're gonna go to water. He gets
Speaker 1: a fever, he's gonna you know, he's not gonna go
Speaker 1: or if you don't push him. And we probably weren't
Speaker 1: a hundred yards from that deer, uh when we when
Speaker 1: I found him, and uh, honestly, you don't have this
Speaker 1: very happened very often to you. But when I walked
Speaker 1: up to the deer, he grew immensely from and I thought,
Speaker 1: after thinking about it, he was maybe a Boot and
Speaker 1: Crockett type eight pointer. I had no idea it was
Speaker 1: a hundred eighty nine inches deer. He just he just grew.
Speaker 1: You know, he's got forty two inches of mass. He's
Speaker 1: just a giant, really, absolutely a once in a lifetime
Speaker 1: mainframe eight pointer. And you just a guy'll go the
Speaker 1: rest of his life. I've never seen the center of
Speaker 1: that caliber. It just, you know, feel so blessed and
Speaker 1: so fortunate. And then, you know, my upper respiratory condition
Speaker 1: went completely away until I got home, and then I
Speaker 1: got really sick. I got a fever that night after
Speaker 1: I got home, and I'm like, well, now I'm really sick.
Speaker 1: Evidently big bucks for the exactly that's that's a great story,
Speaker 1: you know, And and to ask an additional questions, So
Speaker 1: public ground, maybe you're getting a little more aggressive than
Speaker 1: you would Let's say, if it's private, you're you're getting
Speaker 1: tight to that betting or would you get that tight
Speaker 1: to betting even on private? Yeah, I do. I I
Speaker 1: like to get I like to be in that sanctuary
Speaker 1: of where, uh, those deer are moving comfortably and they
Speaker 1: don't have to go far. A lot of times, you know,
Speaker 1: a deer will bed down and if he pushes the
Speaker 1: dough back in there, they'll bed down. And I've literally
Speaker 1: watched dear bed with a dough for six straight hours
Speaker 1: and never stand up. And if you're not in that wheelhouse,
Speaker 1: when they do get up and they do move, sometimes
Speaker 1: they don't make it a hundred yards. You're not gonna
Speaker 1: be in that zone you need to be in to
Speaker 1: get that deer killed. However, you gotta know that you
Speaker 1: can't you can't hunt those places day in and day out.
Speaker 1: They've got to be key times of the year and
Speaker 1: key conditions, the right wind, and you go in and
Speaker 1: you hunt, and you go in, you hunt with the
Speaker 1: with the plan of being there excuse me all day long,
Speaker 1: because if you're not, you could miss out on that
Speaker 1: five minutes that everything happens, know, and and that's like
Speaker 1: a little bit. Today, me and Randy elected to hunt
Speaker 1: more of the dark timber and we knew, you know, Randy,
Speaker 1: Randy was tell me, he said, we probably won't se
Speaker 1: as many deer as Chris, and you know, but it
Speaker 1: was a gamble. We're we're trying to hope that we're
Speaker 1: catching a big buck that's you know, peeling off or
Speaker 1: and he said this. His idea was, we probably won't
Speaker 1: see a lot of deer until nine to eleven because
Speaker 1: those bucks are gonna gona be out in the feed
Speaker 1: with the does you know, checking on them, and then
Speaker 1: they're gonna break off or bring a dough back in
Speaker 1: here where he's like lurking. Uh. You know, Chris are
Speaker 1: gonna see probably more dear because they're out on the
Speaker 1: food to start with, but then after nine ten o'clock
Speaker 1: they probably won't see as many. And so I was
Speaker 1: just kind of curious, how much pressure you know, I
Speaker 1: I guess with the right wind, that doesn't really matter
Speaker 1: how much pressure you put on that betting area, as
Speaker 1: long as they're not winding in and you know, making them,
Speaker 1: as long as you can get in and out there
Speaker 1: without leaving a lot of grounds cent. You know, you
Speaker 1: don't know what goes on at night when you're not there.
Speaker 1: And the more grounds since you leave, you know, you
Speaker 1: get two or three days going in there and and
Speaker 1: and leaving some kind of ground cent. They're gonna pick
Speaker 1: up on it. But it doesn't mean that those deer
Speaker 1: frequenting it. You know, it's the rut that they're in
Speaker 1: there today, they're over here tomorrow, they're back in there today,
Speaker 1: you know. So I think the one thing that the
Speaker 1: biggest takeaway that I have from it, and I know
Speaker 1: that there's some science behind all of it. I get that.
Speaker 1: But in my forty two years and the good fortune
Speaker 1: that I've had, the way the Good Lord's taking care
Speaker 1: of me. On deer, I think sometimes we get too
Speaker 1: worried about spooking, bumping, thinking we're gonna run that deer
Speaker 1: completely out of the country. Those deer lived there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you might alter their route a little bit, you might
Speaker 1: screw things up a little bit, and all of a
Speaker 1: sudden they will disappear. They'll be gone well, Like, for example,
Speaker 1: today Brian shoots a pushing one ninety deer today. That
Speaker 1: deer has not They have not gotten that deer on
Speaker 1: camera in two straight weeks, and they were getting him
Speaker 1: daily for two straight weeks. They hadn't got him on camera.
Speaker 1: That deer didn't leave the country. He's just off doing something,
Speaker 1: probably getting you know, there's a little bit of a
Speaker 1: low period prior to them really starting to travel hard
Speaker 1: and look for dose and try to find those first
Speaker 1: Deesterus does. And when that happens, you know, sometimes those
Speaker 1: deer are gonna disappear. They're right there, they're not gone,
Speaker 1: and they're just not moving, Yeah, constantly in that same area.
Speaker 1: It's not my story to tells. Hopefully Brian and Randy
Speaker 1: don't get to two upset with me, but I kind
Speaker 1: of got to hear, you know, after Brian texting Randy
Speaker 1: killed the buck and we were kind of going back
Speaker 1: and forth, and Brian was hesitant to come up this
Speaker 1: week because his his camera wasn't you know, producing any
Speaker 1: pictures um and Randy's like, man, I think he's in there.
Speaker 1: He just and come to find out, we got to
Speaker 1: hear the story from Brian this morning, that deer just
Speaker 1: wasn't he was no longer interested in walking in front
Speaker 1: of that camera. He was screting, you know, where where
Speaker 1: the does were, you know, the licks and whatnot. He
Speaker 1: was skirting that area. He was forty yards off. And
Speaker 1: you know that. Now it raises the question, has he
Speaker 1: been there for the last two weeks? He just got
Speaker 1: to the point where he was gonna win check areas
Speaker 1: and he wasn't gonna go in front of that camera anymore.
Speaker 1: So has he been there the entire time? Him? And
Speaker 1: then and then it leads onto the question like how
Speaker 1: much you trust your cameras at some point, like you
Speaker 1: know that deers in the are you just keep going back. Um,
Speaker 1: And sometimes I don't care if it's a silent camera,
Speaker 1: I don't care what it is. You know you're in there.
Speaker 1: Even if it's a cell camera. You know you've left
Speaker 1: excuse me, some kind of scent in the area. And
Speaker 1: the more you do that, the more they will avoid.
Speaker 1: I mean, they're not gonna avoid the area completely, they'll
Speaker 1: just avoid that particular little spot, you know. And many times,
Speaker 1: like I was telling you guys, maybe I was just
Speaker 1: telling Dirk actually today, uh, and I drove droving by
Speaker 1: where I was hunting last night, and I'm just off
Speaker 1: of the wheel spot. I looked at it, and I
Speaker 1: don't know why I didn't recognize it when I first
Speaker 1: hung the set, And the reason why, as I hung
Speaker 1: it a little early, there was a bunch of scrapes
Speaker 1: in there on the edge, and I wanted to be
Speaker 1: able to shoot to the edge in case something came
Speaker 1: in there and check a scrape. Well, you can pretty
Speaker 1: much wipe the scrapes out. Now. They're not worried about
Speaker 1: that at all. They're they're checking does they're not They're
Speaker 1: not worried about leaving sign. And so yesterday when I
Speaker 1: was in there, and I've watched several bucks walk this fringe,
Speaker 1: and I looked and I'm like, there's the tree right there. Literally,
Speaker 1: if I would have been in that tree, every deer
Speaker 1: walked within ten yards of that tree, you know, on
Speaker 1: the perfect wind side of it. I just didn't recognize
Speaker 1: that that's where I needed to be at the time.
Speaker 1: And now if I go back in there and I
Speaker 1: tweak that, I'll promise you every deer traveling through what
Speaker 1: he's doing, he is sent checking that open pasture and
Speaker 1: CRP and using the woodline as his travel corridor, and
Speaker 1: he's sent checking that and that's why they're traveling, and
Speaker 1: people don't think about that, you know. Okay, yeah, he's
Speaker 1: left scrapes out here and and those frequent these areas,
Speaker 1: but he doesn't have to walk out there and take
Speaker 1: a physical look. He can walk by that, he catches
Speaker 1: a little bit of the right over, and then he's
Speaker 1: going to go out there. We've seen the exact same
Speaker 1: thing this morning. You know, you talked earlier about ease
Speaker 1: of entrance and exit to your area. So the spot
Speaker 1: me and Randy hunted really easy to get into. Right,
Speaker 1: You're you come from an open field, You're not really
Speaker 1: you know, you're you're not intruding a whole lot into
Speaker 1: their area. But we had multiple bucks cruise the fence
Speaker 1: line that we have to walk over because with the
Speaker 1: north wind that we had today, he's able to check
Speaker 1: that entire timber patch without ever going through it. He
Speaker 1: just walks that fence line, strong north wind, that entire
Speaker 1: you know whatever it is, twountered acres a timber in there.
Speaker 1: He can check that whole thing in one run and
Speaker 1: he's off, you know, checking for other does, and so
Speaker 1: we got the same thing. You know, they're they've got
Speaker 1: that line and like Randy said, it's like, shoot, we
Speaker 1: should turn and shoot out the back of the blind
Speaker 1: the way it's it's running right now. But um, we
Speaker 1: did have a couple of good ones coming. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I was it was kind of you know, light bulb
Speaker 1: went off, like how a buck is being very efficient,
Speaker 1: you know, trying to find a dough in because he's like,
Speaker 1: you know, similar to your situation, run a line, check
Speaker 1: a big, big area at once, and then keep moving.
Speaker 1: He can cover more ground and that and that just
Speaker 1: goes to show you too that guys their nose is
Speaker 1: what they live by and and in to fool one's
Speaker 1: nose is is like fool and pin and teller. I mean,
Speaker 1: it just doesn't happen very often. I mean they just
Speaker 1: don't miss much, you know. And you know you gotta,
Speaker 1: you gotta, you gotta take all that into account. Yeah. Um,
Speaker 1: so my next set of questions for you is what
Speaker 1: can you get away with? You know, I'm an arch
Speaker 1: reol hunter. I always joke. My dad told me I
Speaker 1: was built for archio cunting because you're allowed to make
Speaker 1: noise You're allowed to be clumsy, You're allowed to break sticks.
Speaker 1: You know. I come from a family that rifle oil
Speaker 1: hunters where they hunting their white new balances so they
Speaker 1: can feel every stick under their foot. You know, these
Speaker 1: guys are woodsman, you know they're they're silent in the
Speaker 1: woods where it's like I was a little more clumsy.
Speaker 1: So I always wonder like what I can get away with? Um.
Speaker 1: You know I've been able to hut mule deer out
Speaker 1: of a ground blind before. Um. You know, I've hunted
Speaker 1: meal deer and elk on the feet with rifles. And
Speaker 1: you start to learn like what you can get away with,
Speaker 1: what they're gonna pick off when they can see you. Um.
Speaker 1: It's just kind of as a new white Tai hunter,
Speaker 1: I just kind of had some of these own questions
Speaker 1: like what can you get away with as far as noise?
Speaker 1: What you think like scent matters, movement um, and then
Speaker 1: kind of walking the trails into an area because a
Speaker 1: little bit different hunting, um than I'm used to. You're
Speaker 1: gonna go sit in one location, You're gonna use that
Speaker 1: wind um. So so in your opinion, what can you
Speaker 1: get away with on noise, scent, movement and your entrance
Speaker 1: and exit to an area, like what will they allow?
Speaker 1: What will they put up with? And then what can
Speaker 1: you get away with? I guess on on all those fronts,
Speaker 1: it's always gonna be different, right, But give me kind
Speaker 1: of some generalities on the every every area has it's
Speaker 1: you know, and and the thing is is like when
Speaker 1: you're hunting public land, sometimes you really don't know exactly
Speaker 1: how the deer used the area. You kind of can
Speaker 1: look at the old sign and some of the fresh
Speaker 1: sign and go, well, I think they're using it like this.
Speaker 1: This is logical common sense, if you will, But that
Speaker 1: doesn't mean, you know, this time of year, you can
Speaker 1: you mean, one could jump the fence right here by
Speaker 1: the house and walk right by us. In fact, I've
Speaker 1: pulled in the driveway and had a hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: in deer chasing dough and the side are out here,
Speaker 1: you know. I mean, they'll do whatever they're gonna do.
Speaker 1: But in general, scent, particularly out of your stand, when
Speaker 1: a deer gets down wind of you, you can almost
Speaker 1: bet you're gonna get stid unless you have high pressure
Speaker 1: and it's midday or up up in the morning when
Speaker 1: the sun's up a lot of times if he's close enough,
Speaker 1: it'll go over the top of their head. Other than that,
Speaker 1: those thermal start dropping in the evening, you're gonna get busted.
Speaker 1: I mean, if you don't, you're just the good lords
Speaker 1: just telling you it's you're having a really good day
Speaker 1: because it's just hard to do. And one thing, like
Speaker 1: me and Derek be you know, not knowing how you
Speaker 1: guys do it out here in the Midwest where you know,
Speaker 1: we're like, do we guys bring broadles? Like how are
Speaker 1: we gonna you know, go to the bathroom in the
Speaker 1: stand And then like one thing, I kind of amazed
Speaker 1: me and kind of opens my eyes. It's like you guys,
Speaker 1: oh we all just p out of our stand. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, it's like stuff like that where it doesn't
Speaker 1: necessarily make guys that'll that'll that'll look at that and
Speaker 1: be like, oh, you're absolutely stupid, you're crazy. Well, you
Speaker 1: know what, coyotes are meat eaters, right, and coyotes pe
Speaker 1: in the woods all the time, and if it really
Speaker 1: bothered the deer that bad, well all of them would
Speaker 1: be in town. I mean, it's it's not now obviously,
Speaker 1: if you know you asparagus things don't smell right. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, if you're on medication, things don't smell right.
Speaker 1: Doesn't necessarily mean it smells like a human you're injuring,
Speaker 1: but it smells different. You know, it's your human odor,
Speaker 1: and mostly your human odor honestly comes out the top
Speaker 1: of your head and your mouth, and and you know
Speaker 1: that's the thing that really gives it away. And then, um,
Speaker 1: you know, ground scent is another thing. You know, you
Speaker 1: can wear rubber boots. And I was a coon hunter
Speaker 1: for years. A buddy and I we used to coon
Speaker 1: hunt all the way through high school. And you know,
Speaker 1: a dog's got I don't know how many oh factories
Speaker 1: in a deer has quite a bit more than that.
Speaker 1: And you could drop out, you know, you could get
Speaker 1: a brand new pair of rubber boots, wash them down
Speaker 1: and make sure they were clean. The rubber smell was gone,
Speaker 1: and you could drop your dog out and go make
Speaker 1: a loop and never have to call for your dog.
Speaker 1: And pretty soon your dog will be walking your your
Speaker 1: your your foot track back when you're smelling. Because and
Speaker 1: if a dog can do that, a deer can do
Speaker 1: that real easy. Now, you know, I spray my boots down,
Speaker 1: I keep my hunting boots clean. I don't worry about
Speaker 1: whether they're rubber. I don't worry about whether their leather.
Speaker 1: I worry about keeping them clean and keeping them as
Speaker 1: scent free as I can possibly keep them. But you're
Speaker 1: not gonna eliminate it. So that's why entry and exit
Speaker 1: is really critical, trying to keep your ground sent away
Speaker 1: from where most of the deer travel is. So your example,
Speaker 1: walking trails, I try not to walk a trail, especially
Speaker 1: a trail that's getting in and close and maybe getting
Speaker 1: used close to where my hunting areas. Now, if I'm
Speaker 1: five yards off, I may walk it for a little
Speaker 1: ways and then veer off of it, but I try
Speaker 1: not to get somewhere we're a lot of deer are
Speaker 1: gonna now. You get in and around your stand, deer
Speaker 1: gonna frequent it. You're gonna leave ground scent. It's just
Speaker 1: hard to get by without it. If it's moist out,
Speaker 1: get more deer gonna smell. If it's really dry, like
Speaker 1: it was a couple of weeks ago, you watch those deer,
Speaker 1: they'd be they'd be feeding on the acorns you just
Speaker 1: walk through, and they can't smell anything because it's dry.
Speaker 1: A dog doesn't smell good when it's dry, you know,
Speaker 1: I mean, you go, that's a good quail hunter. He
Speaker 1: don't want dry conditions. He wants moist conditions. His dog
Speaker 1: can smell those. Or you want the absolute best cat dogs,
Speaker 1: you go down to the dry land. You know those
Speaker 1: dogs that contract rye. It's like those are the best
Speaker 1: noses exactly. So the ideal situation would be to approach
Speaker 1: not on a trail, and then downwind of your stand
Speaker 1: location for the wind that day. So let's say we
Speaker 1: have a north wind, your trail should go directly from
Speaker 1: the south into your stand and then that's like your
Speaker 1: best approach and then ideally not be on a trail.
Speaker 1: But there are situations where you're just gonna win, yeah,
Speaker 1: or you just just you know, I mean, there are
Speaker 1: situations where maybe you don't have access to the property
Speaker 1: any other way for your stand location, you just kind
Speaker 1: of you do the best you can um get in
Speaker 1: there is sent free, but you're There's a lot of
Speaker 1: stands that I have that you can't access from the
Speaker 1: down wind side, and one of them is particularly behind
Speaker 1: my house. It is a south wind and type hunting area.
Speaker 1: I do have north wind sets hung. So what I do,
Speaker 1: excuse me, is I walk straight in the least amount
Speaker 1: of traveled spot. And I don't have very many acres there,
Speaker 1: but it's the least amount of traveled spot, and I
Speaker 1: walk straight in and get into the tree on a
Speaker 1: north wind with a wind blowing at my back, and
Speaker 1: I have ultimately my very best hunts on a northerly
Speaker 1: wind in that place behind my house that I ever
Speaker 1: have with a south wind. And I think it's because
Speaker 1: those deer can scent check when they come through there
Speaker 1: everything that is coming from the crop fields, and it's
Speaker 1: it's easy for them to do that. I have way
Speaker 1: more travel on a north wind than I do a
Speaker 1: south wind, And no matter what the conditions are, no
Speaker 1: matter whether it's a rut, no matter whether it's early season,
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter. I always have so I risk it.
Speaker 1: And I think that there's certain times that you need
Speaker 1: to risk it. If you know a deer is there,
Speaker 1: and you know there's a chance, a very minor been
Speaker 1: it's a minor chance that you can get by with
Speaker 1: it and get in there and possibly get a shot
Speaker 1: at that deer. Take that chance and go to it.
Speaker 1: It's worth not being in there at all exactly, you know,
Speaker 1: using elk hunter, and I'm I'm a p on elk
Speaker 1: hunter compared to you and Dirk. I mean, I've killed
Speaker 1: some bulls and they've all been on public land, but
Speaker 1: you know, I didn't understand how to. I was always
Speaker 1: stand offish, didn't want to get aggressive, didn't want to
Speaker 1: get aggressive, didn't want to get aggressive. And then when
Speaker 1: I started getting aggressive, I started killing l and I
Speaker 1: started killing decent bulls. And that's when I realized that,
Speaker 1: you know what, I'm gonna apply the same tactics to
Speaker 1: elk that I do to turkey and that I do
Speaker 1: to deer. And Dallas Miller a good friend of mine.
Speaker 1: Who is he is? If people knew him and knew
Speaker 1: of him, he has killed some a lot of big
Speaker 1: deer in his life, I mean astronomical amount of big
Speaker 1: deer within his life with bow an gunn. But he
Speaker 1: told me one time he goes. The reason why you're
Speaker 1: killing so many up per indeer, you know Boone and
Speaker 1: Crockett type deer. He goes because you're not scared to
Speaker 1: spook him, and I'm not because I only get so
Speaker 1: many days a year to hunt. And when you only
Speaker 1: have so many days a year to hunt. You need
Speaker 1: to hunt, and I'm not gonna do stupid stuff, but
Speaker 1: I will take that chance just to see if I
Speaker 1: can get by with it. And so many times it's
Speaker 1: worked out, and so you know, again, don't be ignorant
Speaker 1: about it, but but take that chance, because you know,
Speaker 1: sometimes taking that one chance, you get up hundred seventy
Speaker 1: inch deer on the ground or a hundred fifty or
Speaker 1: the biggest deer you've ever shot in your life. It
Speaker 1: was worth every big And I'm a firm believer. Like,
Speaker 1: there are times where the right decision is to be
Speaker 1: a little more conservative and and play it safe. But um,
Speaker 1: you know, as cliche as it sounds, it's like the
Speaker 1: high risk high reward. Um, you know, if if you
Speaker 1: don't take a little bit of risk and gamble a
Speaker 1: little bit, and if you always play it safe, then
Speaker 1: you're never gonna kill anything versus like, yeah, it might
Speaker 1: not always pencil out, but but the you know, there's
Speaker 1: a there's a good likely hood it will, and so
Speaker 1: you take that risk, um, with a little bit, you know,
Speaker 1: and and a lot of times it does pens off.
Speaker 1: But then there are some times you're also accepting the
Speaker 1: fact that it might not pensil out. You know, if
Speaker 1: you tell and you have to know that in your mind.
Speaker 1: You know, it's kind of like investing money, right, you know,
Speaker 1: it's kind of like starting a business. It's like, well,
Speaker 1: you know I can do this. I might not win,
Speaker 1: but you know I might win too, so or I
Speaker 1: won't have any regrets. Like the other thing is like
Speaker 1: the guy that doesn't never do anything. It doesn't kind
Speaker 1: anything like, man, should I have went in there and
Speaker 1: tried it all? At least the way we hunt, You're
Speaker 1: probably not gonna second because you're gonna And I explained
Speaker 1: that the other night when Randy said, no, we're gonna hunt.
Speaker 1: We're gonna hunt. We're gonna be hunting on stands. You
Speaker 1: know when when he was talking, you were talking about
Speaker 1: if I see when kind of spot and stalk it.
Speaker 1: You know I have. I have made the mistake by
Speaker 1: not taking the chance with a giant bedded with a
Speaker 1: dough and getting down and slipping in, knowing, knowing full
Speaker 1: and well, I could get by with it and never
Speaker 1: get busted and could have killed big deer that way,
Speaker 1: but talked myself out of it. And I should have
Speaker 1: taken the risk, because at least I I would have known.
Speaker 1: Now I go, I think I could have You know,
Speaker 1: I think I could have. Well, I don't know that,
Speaker 1: but I should have taken the chance. Yeah, yeah, all
Speaker 1: good points there. Um, Now that we're in the middle
Speaker 1: of the we're the rut start, I would say middle,
Speaker 1: we're kind of getting into the beginning stages of the
Speaker 1: beginning of the Yeah, yeah, what's your focus right now?
Speaker 1: As far as food? Are you looking if there's food
Speaker 1: plots in the area, are you looking at that secondary
Speaker 1: food kind of how are you going to use that
Speaker 1: food dear advantage? Because obviously we've mentioned we've established like
Speaker 1: Bucks have one thing on their mind right now. They're
Speaker 1: real dumb and they're just looking for dose. They're trying
Speaker 1: to breed as many dose as possible. With that in mind,
Speaker 1: how are you focusing on food? Are you sitting on
Speaker 1: primary food sources, secondary food sources, and and how do
Speaker 1: you use those dear advantage? You know, a big deer
Speaker 1: will follow a doe down I seventy and you'll see
Speaker 1: see a lot of them did on it now if
Speaker 1: you drive down through there. But I don't I don't
Speaker 1: particularly during the rut. Like to be right on the
Speaker 1: food source. I like to be just off the food store. Now,
Speaker 1: if you have a lot of acorns, you're gonna be
Speaker 1: in the middle of the food source, so to speak,
Speaker 1: all the time, you know, and they can get up
Speaker 1: and walk five feet and feed. But let's say there's
Speaker 1: a primary food source. Say there's a ten acre food
Speaker 1: plot or a cut bean field, a cut corn field, whatever,
Speaker 1: that's what I would consider primary food source. That's where
Speaker 1: most of the deer are going to go feed at
Speaker 1: some point in time, whether they're there early in the morning,
Speaker 1: or they're there in the evening, or they slip out
Speaker 1: in the middle of the day and they go back whatever.
Speaker 1: I like to be in that transition and those funnels
Speaker 1: or those pinch points leading from the core betting cover
Speaker 1: and let's say betting meaning I don't know if that
Speaker 1: buck is really betting in there, he's got a dope
Speaker 1: pushed in there, what, but it is a betting area
Speaker 1: leading to that maybe fifty sevre yards off of the
Speaker 1: main food I just like that because I catch more
Speaker 1: movement and I feel like, again I can catch those
Speaker 1: deer transitioning and scent checking and probably have a better
Speaker 1: chance of getting him killed than waiting for him to
Speaker 1: make a mistake and follow a dough out into that
Speaker 1: food source. So I would rather be there, then I
Speaker 1: would be right on the food. Now, some people don't
Speaker 1: like to They like to be on the food because
Speaker 1: they like to see more, and they like to see
Speaker 1: a lot more deer. But I'm hunting for one or
Speaker 1: two or three particular type of deer, or maybe I
Speaker 1: am hunting for one particular deer that I know exists,
Speaker 1: and I know he's in the area, and I know
Speaker 1: I've got a better chance of getting him killed there
Speaker 1: than I do on the edge and atinge point where
Speaker 1: he's got an entire twenty acres of act to deal
Speaker 1: with your like, all right, he's got a he's got
Speaker 1: a specific path he's gonna come. So you can narrow
Speaker 1: that down, especially with a bow. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: with a bow, you're talking a short range a short
Speaker 1: range weapon. You know, honestly, thirty yards is really probably
Speaker 1: your your key thirty yards and it is your key.
Speaker 1: And at that point, you know, you've got to get
Speaker 1: a deer in a position where you can get that
Speaker 1: kind of a shot. You get on the edge of
Speaker 1: a field A lot of times, you know, he comes out,
Speaker 1: misses your seventy yards, starts running a dough around what
Speaker 1: You just gotta hope and pray that that dough decides
Speaker 1: she's gonna run right by you, you know, and sometimes
Speaker 1: it works. Now, if I'm sitting there with a rifle,
Speaker 1: not problem, come out yards away and we're probably gonna
Speaker 1: have a little tap days going on. But you know,
Speaker 1: with a bow, I try to narrow it down and
Speaker 1: give myself the best opportunity to get that close and
Speaker 1: personal shot. And you know, I was thinking the other day,
Speaker 1: out of all the deer that I've harvested over the years,
Speaker 1: probably on a buck, the longest shot that I've ever
Speaker 1: made thirty four yards, and of them are killed anywhere
Speaker 1: from seven steps to eighteen steps, you know, And that's
Speaker 1: what you're looking at, and you're not shooting those Most
Speaker 1: of those shots aren't being taken in an open field situation.
Speaker 1: They have been taken into woods where he's got to
Speaker 1: walk by you are in that transition area to get there.
Speaker 1: And that's what I like. I like that up close
Speaker 1: and personal action. I like to see his eyelashes. Yeah, Um,
Speaker 1: that makes a lot of sense versus you know, being
Speaker 1: out in that open agg versus, like I said, really
Speaker 1: trying to pinch him down and and get tied on them.
Speaker 1: So right on the front end of the peak of
Speaker 1: the rut, let's talk calling whitetail deer strategy. Um, you
Speaker 1: know we've got our brand new line of calls out. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, it seems like all the research I've did,
Speaker 1: all the you know, I've talked to you, I talked
Speaker 1: to Randy, I've talked to hundreds of callers, Like what
Speaker 1: do you guys prefer? What sounds you know, it sounds
Speaker 1: like the majority of you guys use grunts, but kind
Speaker 1: of walked through you know, how you rattle, when you grant,
Speaker 1: when not to grant, you know, when not to make calls,
Speaker 1: and kind of just your approach to interacting with these deer,
Speaker 1: you know during the RUTA. Well, you know, I'm always
Speaker 1: going to have a grunt call. And and as you stated,
Speaker 1: you guys came out with your your line of deer calls,
Speaker 1: and I think it absolutely knocked it out of the park.
Speaker 1: I mean I've I've been using deer calls for the
Speaker 1: last forty some years of my deer hunting and and uh.
Speaker 1: I've called in a lot of deer over the years,
Speaker 1: and it is it is key to know when to
Speaker 1: call when not to call. I'm not much of a
Speaker 1: blind caller, um, especially in situations where deer can get
Speaker 1: down wind of you pretty easy, because a lot of
Speaker 1: times you'll you'll grunt and you'll you'll put a scenario together.
Speaker 1: Let's say you grunt a little bit, you snort, weeze,
Speaker 1: like two deer came together. You rattle a deer two
Speaker 1: yards down the halla hears you, he decides he's gonna come,
Speaker 1: but he's gonna make a big loop and come in
Speaker 1: and get behind you. He's gonna, he's gonna he wants
Speaker 1: to send check what he can't see. Well, at that point,
Speaker 1: unless every all the stars line up, you're gonna get busted. Right. So,
Speaker 1: I don't like the blind call a lot unless I'm
Speaker 1: in a position where it's almost impossible for a deer
Speaker 1: to get down wind, you know, or he's gonna if
Speaker 1: he gets down wind, he's had to walk by me
Speaker 1: to get there, you know. So only in those situations
Speaker 1: will I do that. Now, if you're in a blind
Speaker 1: situation where you've got everything closed up, and even if
Speaker 1: the wind is wrong and you do circle down wind,
Speaker 1: a lot of times you're not gonna smell you through
Speaker 1: that blind so you can kind of get by with it. Um.
Speaker 1: I also like to compass that with a deer decoy
Speaker 1: a lot of times because in an open area, you know,
Speaker 1: like I've got a place just off of a power line, Well,
Speaker 1: they can come out on that power line two yards away,
Speaker 1: and even if they wanted to circle down, when they
Speaker 1: get a look at that decoy, okay, that changes everything,
Speaker 1: right that that whole perspective. Now they've got a visual
Speaker 1: of what they thought they just heard, just like a
Speaker 1: turkey looking at a decoy in the field. Then they
Speaker 1: come up there and they hit on it, you know,
Speaker 1: and it makes it a little bit easier. But a
Speaker 1: deer that you're say, you've got a deer that's missing you,
Speaker 1: that that comes out and they're gonna miss you by
Speaker 1: seventy yards, that's where that deer call will absolutely pay
Speaker 1: dividends a lot of times. If he's by himself and
Speaker 1: he's looking and he comes out and you get a
Speaker 1: visual on him and they're gonna miss you, and they're
Speaker 1: in a position where they have to almost cut the
Speaker 1: corner and walk down dead down dead, or buy you
Speaker 1: to get down wind of you. I'm wanna grunt at him, uh,
Speaker 1: But a lot of times I'll wait too and let
Speaker 1: them get in position. So let's say you got a
Speaker 1: north south wind like today, and the winds coming straight
Speaker 1: out of the north, and you've got a deer that's
Speaker 1: basically cross wind of you, so he's straight east of
Speaker 1: walking to the west, walking to the west. If I
Speaker 1: think he's gonna obviously get to me, I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: do anything. But if he's let's say he starts vering south,
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna grunt to him, because if he starts
Speaker 1: vering south and I grunt to him, I'm just gonna
Speaker 1: him getting behind me and getting down wind of me.
Speaker 1: But if he starts very north, I'm gonna let him
Speaker 1: get a little or start starts very north, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: let him get out north just far enough that when
Speaker 1: he does want to come and circle down wind, he's
Speaker 1: got to cut that corner, if you will, as a
Speaker 1: figure of speech, and he's gonna get too close before
Speaker 1: he gets down we want to get a shot, or
Speaker 1: waiting long enough, like if he stays on his perfectly
Speaker 1: east to west line. You wouldn't want to call it
Speaker 1: early because that now it gives him enough time to
Speaker 1: get behind you, versus if you wait and let him,
Speaker 1: you know, maybe let's say fifty yards is the right number.
Speaker 1: He's now out in front of you far enough at
Speaker 1: least now if you blow a call, he's gonna the
Speaker 1: angle he's gonna take, he'd have to walk back, you know,
Speaker 1: rack track to get back behind her. So you exactly
Speaker 1: wait until the right time. Exactly things are critical like that,
Speaker 1: you know. And I'll give you a little example. I
Speaker 1: shot an eight and a half year old six point
Speaker 1: was actually a little bump of a seventh point that
Speaker 1: made him legal. But I killed this deer, I don't know,
Speaker 1: four or five years ago, and I'd hunted him for
Speaker 1: a long time, and and I shot him on October
Speaker 1: on a kind of a drizzly day, fifty degrees. And
Speaker 1: that goes to show you, fifty degrees with a northeast
Speaker 1: wind about fifteen mile an hour, we'll freeze you. I
Speaker 1: didn't wear enough clothes that day, kind of like you
Speaker 1: guys didn't. We didn't wear enough today. So this deer
Speaker 1: came out followed it he chased the dough and then
Speaker 1: the dough left him, which pretty common October twenty two.
Speaker 1: He came out and started making a scrape. Well, I
Speaker 1: let him get pretty into that. Now he's nowhere near
Speaker 1: being able to get down wind because he's the winds
Speaker 1: coming this way, coming out of the northeast, and he
Speaker 1: is north and a little bit west of me, not
Speaker 1: far west, but but definitely straight north of me, about
Speaker 1: a hundred and twenty yards, and he's making this scrape,
Speaker 1: throwing dirt everywhere. I'll let him get in the middle
Speaker 1: of making that scrape, and I just one loud, just
Speaker 1: grunted hard at him, and he wheeled around and looked
Speaker 1: and then turned around and just started ripping that scrape apart.
Speaker 1: And I'm like, okay, he's aggravated. So I grunted again,
Speaker 1: and he just started bawling up and stiff legged and
Speaker 1: starts walking and starts walking like he's gonna walk this
Speaker 1: half circle, and I'm like, he's gonna have to get
Speaker 1: all the way over there. So at that point, instead
Speaker 1: of waiting, I didn't elect to grunt again. I snort
Speaker 1: weezed at him to get a little more aggressive. Now
Speaker 1: we're in CRP. I'm up in a tree, so I
Speaker 1: can see in the CRP. Good you get on the ground,
Speaker 1: you can't can't see, you can't see. So I snort.
Speaker 1: We's at him, and he pins his ear back and
Speaker 1: just comes straight at me, and I shot him at
Speaker 1: twelve yards. You know, But that was perfect timing of
Speaker 1: the calling, knowing I can't let him get any further
Speaker 1: now because if I do, it's just gonna entice. He's
Speaker 1: gonna get down wind to me. But if I do
Speaker 1: it now and he does react, he's gonna cut that
Speaker 1: corner and I'm gonna get him shot before he gets
Speaker 1: to a point where he and he literally he read
Speaker 1: the script. Now, that's an eight and a half year
Speaker 1: old deer that nothing in the woods in North America.
Speaker 1: Isn't he smarter? He has seen it all, done it all,
Speaker 1: been there and avoided getting shot for eight years of
Speaker 1: his life. That is saying something, you know, with especially
Speaker 1: thinking about the eight seasons a gun season he went
Speaker 1: through in Missouri where you had the Orange Army. You
Speaker 1: know that to me, although that deer wasn't no big
Speaker 1: high scoring deer, he was old, he was a beautiful deer.
Speaker 1: He's a great deer for a six pointer, but in
Speaker 1: a big body deer. But to beat a deer on
Speaker 1: his own terms like that. To me, it's just that
Speaker 1: that's what that's hunting deer is all about, you know,
Speaker 1: it's not always about the size of the deer. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's cool to kill those hundred deer. They're are awesome,
Speaker 1: you know, it's great. We all want to do it
Speaker 1: every year, But in realists, realistically, only a small percentage
Speaker 1: of those deer ever live long enough or have the
Speaker 1: genetics to get to that caliber. You know, you've got
Speaker 1: three hundred deer on your property and one ever makes
Speaker 1: it there, Well, what kind of gives you an idea
Speaker 1: of how many actually get there? Yeah, and then you're
Speaker 1: we talked about a little bit and and we've even
Speaker 1: kind of alluded to it. This time is the times
Speaker 1: we won't call, the times we won't hit that grunt
Speaker 1: or snort wheezes when that buck is locked down on
Speaker 1: a hot though you're not. He's already got what he wants,
Speaker 1: he's visually got He's not going to leave her to
Speaker 1: come find some buck that's eight hundred fifty yards off
Speaker 1: of her. Um. So that's kind of that or if
Speaker 1: the woods are just if the actions they're already, you'll
Speaker 1: just kind of stay quiet. But if you know, it's
Speaker 1: like turkey hunting, you know, if if you don't have
Speaker 1: to call, there's no reason to call, you know, and
Speaker 1: there's a good time to do it and not a
Speaker 1: good time to do it. And there's also I mean
Speaker 1: same with elk Sam with turkey, there's times where you
Speaker 1: don't want the critters to know your location. You don't
Speaker 1: want them to look your way and draw any more attention.
Speaker 1: So when we see that this morning, there was there
Speaker 1: were times the call and then when you know, stuff
Speaker 1: was moving, we knew we didn't want to draw any
Speaker 1: more attention or you know, screw up the wind. So
Speaker 1: that's that's a good point on you know what I
Speaker 1: I this morning, I grunted at that deer that was
Speaker 1: following that dough and he was a shooter buck if
Speaker 1: he would not been broke up. He was definitely a big,
Speaker 1: mature five and a half year old deer. I mean,
Speaker 1: biggest body of deers I probably ever laid eyes on.
Speaker 1: He was a giant of a deer and a deer
Speaker 1: that needed to be taken out as a big main
Speaker 1: frame eight pointer. That's broke up. But the cool thing
Speaker 1: was he was following that dough, and I knew what
Speaker 1: kind of reaction I was going to get, but he
Speaker 1: was a hundred yards a hundred twenty yards away, and
Speaker 1: I had deer in front of me, but I had
Speaker 1: everything closed up except for one window because I was
Speaker 1: sitting in that redneck a Randy's, you know. And uh,
Speaker 1: I'm not good about setting in blind simply because I
Speaker 1: can't see her here like I want to, you know.
Speaker 1: But I caught this deer and I thought, well, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna grunt and see what his reaction is, just as
Speaker 1: I thought, because I wasn't gonna hurt anything, you know.
Speaker 1: And he was following that dough and he was about
Speaker 1: thirty yards behind her, and I grunted, and he wheeled
Speaker 1: around and looked, and he turned and started following her again.
Speaker 1: And when I grunted at him the second time, he
Speaker 1: never even he never even checked up. He just kept walking.
Speaker 1: And I'm like, that is ninety nine point nine percent
Speaker 1: of the time. What's gonna happen when you have a
Speaker 1: buck with a dough. His interest level is on what's
Speaker 1: in front of him. Obviously, she was getting close, and
Speaker 1: he wasn't gonna let her get far enough away that
Speaker 1: he couldn't check up lockdown mode. There exactly, there's nothing
Speaker 1: besides a bigger buck that's walked by him walking out.
Speaker 1: I mean, honestly, he could have been betted down in
Speaker 1: some of that thick stuff. And you know they'll let
Speaker 1: you walk right by him as long as she doesn't
Speaker 1: get up. He's not getting up. Well, no, I'm I'm
Speaker 1: super excited. Um. Like I said, I've never never claimed
Speaker 1: to be a white doe, but I think I'm gonna
Speaker 1: like this. Um. It's it's off to a good start already.
Speaker 1: So we're here in Kansas. We will definitely give you
Speaker 1: guys an update on the on the next episode. But
Speaker 1: I can't thank you enough Chris for jumping on here
Speaker 1: kind of sharing you know what you know about white
Speaker 1: A very very small sliver you know what we had.
Speaker 1: We only had an hour to cover, but you know,
Speaker 1: give us a little insight into you know, your white
Speaker 1: telln knowledge. Um, And I'm excited to spend the next
Speaker 1: week here and in Kansas with things just heating up.
Speaker 1: So thanks for coming on the show, and uh, good
Speaker 1: luck on the on this Hunt. I think we're gonna
Speaker 1: end up with some decent bucks here in camp, all right,
Speaker 1: Thanks Chris, you bet you, thank you,