Speaker 1: Hey guys, Mark Kenyan here, coming to you from the field.
Speaker 1: Got a quick update for you. This is gonna be
Speaker 1: a tony episode of the podcast, and I'm sure he's
Speaker 1: gonna tell you that I'm out I don't like a
Speaker 1: Miley Cyrus concert or something, but it's not the case.
Speaker 1: I'm outside doing cool stuff. But I want to quickly
Speaker 1: give you an update on two things. Number One, there
Speaker 1: is a sale that I think is worth note and
Speaker 1: coming up on September through September. If you're listening now
Speaker 1: for a number of first Light items and a couple
Speaker 1: of cool things on the Mediator Store, including our Timber
Speaker 1: Ninja climbing sticks. He's the climbing sticks that I love,
Speaker 1: the number one stick that I use been using for
Speaker 1: the last two or three seasons. We've even got them
Speaker 1: now in the Spector camel pattern. If you buy three
Speaker 1: sticks from the Mediator Store, you get the fourth one off,
Speaker 1: and that's a pretty good amount of money because He's
Speaker 1: honestly aren't cheap sticks, but they are top top not
Speaker 1: so if you want to check that out, if you
Speaker 1: want to check out the saddle I'm using, or any
Speaker 1: of my first Like gear picks for mid season I've
Speaker 1: got my whole kit listed out on my gear picks page.
Speaker 1: That is store dot the meat eater dot com slash mark.
Speaker 1: So store dot the meat eater dot com slash mark.
Speaker 1: You're gonna see my gear recommendations for first light stuff
Speaker 1: in October. You're gonna see the timber Ninju sticks I'm mentioning,
Speaker 1: and a few other things too, So check all that out.
Speaker 1: That's update number one. Update number two, and thank you
Speaker 1: for bearing with me here. Update number two is that
Speaker 1: my brand new white tail show, Deer Country has launched.
Speaker 1: The first episode is live now on the meat Eater
Speaker 1: YouTube channel. It's all about that urban deer hunt I
Speaker 1: went on in Washington, d C. And everything I learned
Speaker 1: about urban deer hunting from Taylor Chamberlain. Hopefully you heard
Speaker 1: that podcast episode back in I don't know November December
Speaker 1: last year discussing this. Now you can finally watch it,
Speaker 1: so please head on over to the meat Eater YouTube
Speaker 1: channel check out episode one. I'm proud of the story
Speaker 1: we told some of the tough lessons I learned along
Speaker 1: the way, and I hope you enjoy it as well.
Speaker 1: So that is it for me. Enjoy this episode with Tony,
Speaker 1: I'm out. Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, home
Speaker 1: of the modern white tail hunter and now your host
Speaker 1: Mark Kenyon. Hey, everybody, welcome to the Wire to Hunt podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm your guest host Tony Peterson, and today I'm speaking
Speaker 1: to Mike Stroff, who owns Southern Outdoor Experience and is
Speaker 1: the host of Savage Outdoors TV. All right, folks, welcome
Speaker 1: to the Wire to Hunt podcast, which has brought to
Speaker 1: you by First Light. You have probably noticed that they
Speaker 1: is not the voice of Mark Kenyon. Mark and Spencer
Speaker 1: are off filming a project together which you probably think
Speaker 1: is about hunting, but you're wrong. According to Mark's text,
Speaker 1: it's a historical thriller that is part time travel sci
Speaker 1: fi and part Kung Fu movie. So I guess there's
Speaker 1: a lot of moving parts there, but I'm sure it'll
Speaker 1: be a riveting film when it's all said and done.
Speaker 1: Until then, I'll just keep this train moving down the
Speaker 1: tracks and keep this rabbits with Antler's Month Alive and Well. Now,
Speaker 1: last week I kicked it off with Andy May, but
Speaker 1: this week I'm taking a sharp turn into new territory
Speaker 1: with Mike Stroff. Mike owns and operates several white tail
Speaker 1: hunting outfits where he and his guides have to put
Speaker 1: a wide variety of clients on deer in Texas and
Speaker 1: Illinois and Iowa and South Dakota. He discusses the challenges
Speaker 1: of having new hunters in each week and now he
Speaker 1: has to try to preserve deer movement while dealing with
Speaker 1: clients of various physical abilities, you know, hunting patients, and
Speaker 1: just overall white tail hunting experience. Even if you never
Speaker 1: ever ever plan on going on an outfitted hunt, this
Speaker 1: episode has a lot to offer you because a few
Speaker 1: people have the kind of experience that Straf does with
Speaker 1: white tailed deer in so many different places. I hope
Speaker 1: you enjoy it because I really had a lot of
Speaker 1: fun talking with him. Mike Straw, thanks for coming on
Speaker 1: the podcast, buddy, Hey, thanks for having me. You you
Speaker 1: look a little tired. Yeah. We're up here in Illinois,
Speaker 1: hanging tree stands, checking stands, replacing straps, treman mowing food
Speaker 1: plots and trails, and gotta Yeah. This is our last
Speaker 1: trip up here to be able to get everything done
Speaker 1: before we start our fall craziness, because I just don't
Speaker 1: have any more time in the schedule to get up here.
Speaker 1: So we're kind of here util we're done. Just just
Speaker 1: for a frame of reference, how many tree stands are
Speaker 1: you guys setting up there on that farm. We've got
Speaker 1: about a hundred and sixty. I guess that we've got
Speaker 1: set um. You know, it's a big farm. It's the
Speaker 1: largest privately owned continuous track in state Illinois. So it's
Speaker 1: it's big place, and you know it's it's small with lots,
Speaker 1: so you you hunt the pitch points and all these
Speaker 1: little travel corridors, so you gotta have multiple stands and
Speaker 1: a lot of them because of the way the wind,
Speaker 1: you know, so you can hunt all the winds. You know,
Speaker 1: if you've got a deer it's in a certain area,
Speaker 1: you gotta get in there with them. But you know,
Speaker 1: we may not have the luxury, especially guiding or having
Speaker 1: guests or clients come where. You know, you can't wait
Speaker 1: till next week when the wind gets right. You gotta
Speaker 1: be able to get in there. So we we have
Speaker 1: there's a lot of duplication, I guess, but it's necessary, yeah,
Speaker 1: and that you know, that's something you know we used
Speaker 1: to hear about a lot. Is you know, this is
Speaker 1: probably like in the nineties early two thousands where you'd
Speaker 1: hear about you know, if you have a really good
Speaker 1: spot set up, you know, three stands in there for
Speaker 1: different winds, so no matter what, you can hunt it.
Speaker 1: And that kind of went away with the mobile movement
Speaker 1: and you know, climbing stands and saddles and stuff. But
Speaker 1: you're in a unique position. And this is why I
Speaker 1: wanted to get you on. I've known you a long time.
Speaker 1: I hunted with you down in Texas, I hunted your
Speaker 1: place out in South Dakota, and I was thinking, you know,
Speaker 1: like who better to kind of dumb down Big Bucks
Speaker 1: than somebody who has the kind of operations that you run.
Speaker 1: You know, only are you a passionate deer hunter yourself,
Speaker 1: but you have a lot of clients on your your
Speaker 1: three different businesses, and who are coming in and they
Speaker 1: vary so wildly, and you have to just be like, okay,
Speaker 1: this week, my challenge is, you know, to twelve year
Speaker 1: olds with rifles and a six year old with a bow,
Speaker 1: and somebody who's killed a hundred deer and somebody who's
Speaker 1: killed two, and you've got to think through all this stuff.
Speaker 1: And so that farm you're talking about down in Illinois there.
Speaker 1: You know, that's that is a kind of a unique
Speaker 1: situation you have. But you're saying that you're still putting
Speaker 1: up a hundred and sixty tree stands just on that
Speaker 1: place to make sure that you guys have options. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's for different options and for different skill sets.
Speaker 1: Like you were talking about. You know, some some locations
Speaker 1: I wouldn't even entertain with a certain client. Not because
Speaker 1: they necessarily can't make the shot. That's not what I'm
Speaker 1: talking about. It's more like physically they may not be
Speaker 1: able to get in that lock on, or hey, they
Speaker 1: can't cross that creek because they can't get up the
Speaker 1: steep bank, or or this guy's super fit, he can
Speaker 1: get in there. But you know, like you said, or
Speaker 1: I've got a kid, or whatever it may be. Because
Speaker 1: we get all kinds of different clients here in Illinois. Typically,
Speaker 1: my hunters are pretty serious bow hunters. The guys that
Speaker 1: want to come to hunt this farm is pretty you know,
Speaker 1: it's a pretty prestigious place to hunt, and the guys
Speaker 1: that call about hunting here are typically pretty die hard
Speaker 1: bow hunters. So it's a little bit unique compared to
Speaker 1: what I'm doing in Texas or even what we might
Speaker 1: be doing in Iowa or South Dakota at times. Um,
Speaker 1: this hunter is a little bit more hardcore, I guess
Speaker 1: on average, but we still get or but did you
Speaker 1: get that guy that may come with his three buddies
Speaker 1: that are super hardcore and he's not. And you've got
Speaker 1: that fourth guy that's got of the variable or the
Speaker 1: third guy in the group whatever, he's got the odd
Speaker 1: man out, and you still gotta be able to accommodate
Speaker 1: and try your best to get them in the best
Speaker 1: situation where they have a chance to kill a deer. Um.
Speaker 1: You know. And then we're real picking out what we
Speaker 1: shoot here, So that takes a whole another element into it.
Speaker 1: You know, you've gotta be able to hunt these areas
Speaker 1: based on what's in there. And you we're running a
Speaker 1: a hundred cameras on the place. UM. I don't get
Speaker 1: a lot of sales service in the bottoms here, so
Speaker 1: I still have to use a lot of SD card cameras, um,
Speaker 1: you know, and so I've got to have a lot
Speaker 1: of cameras out and I don't like going in and
Speaker 1: let you know what I'm in there working or taking
Speaker 1: somebody in and out hunting. You know, I've got a
Speaker 1: reason to be there. I'll check them, but you know,
Speaker 1: I'm not just rolling around beating the woods down checking cameras,
Speaker 1: you know, necessarily either. So, but we're getting all those
Speaker 1: out right now too. So my trucks full of cameras,
Speaker 1: pul saws, stretch strats, tree stands. We're kind of multi
Speaker 1: tasking right now. Yeah, and you're just looking at that,
Speaker 1: you know, and for reference, we're recording this in August,
Speaker 1: even though this is gonna drop in September. But you're
Speaker 1: just like, we gotta get this done. We gotta get
Speaker 1: out of there and start collecting some of that data
Speaker 1: and just let everything kind of season and settle down
Speaker 1: a little bit. Yeah, I mean, I like to try
Speaker 1: to be done by the end of August. That's you know,
Speaker 1: by September one is kind of my goal on the
Speaker 1: place that we have here in Illinois and our place
Speaker 1: and Iowa is to be done and out of the
Speaker 1: woods and just let the deer do what they want
Speaker 1: to do. You know, you start hunting first of all
Speaker 1: October if you if you want to, we don't bring
Speaker 1: clients in then. But you know, if you were to
Speaker 1: hunt earlier. You know, I like to just let the
Speaker 1: deer have forty five fifty days. Nobody really screwed with
Speaker 1: a mother and be checking a camera here and there.
Speaker 1: And I don't live here either, so I'm doing an absolutee.
Speaker 1: So just with my schedule with our TV shows, other
Speaker 1: outfitting locations and everything, We've got to get ready. Um,
Speaker 1: this is kind of my last who are all up here,
Speaker 1: so I gotta get it done. Yeah, And when you
Speaker 1: give that example of you know, that Illinois situation is
Speaker 1: kind of cool because you have people who are you know,
Speaker 1: you're not going to have somebody who doesn't know what
Speaker 1: they're doing probably show up there or inquire about it,
Speaker 1: but you still might deal with that. How do you
Speaker 1: assess that? Because I know I've been there, you know,
Speaker 1: down at your Texas place when like eight or ten
Speaker 1: people show up and you can see the guys kind
Speaker 1: of watching everybody shoot. You can kind of you can
Speaker 1: sort of see this feeling out process that they're really
Speaker 1: you know, they're they're tactful about, but you know they're
Speaker 1: looking at that going okay. You can kind of see
Speaker 1: them making up their mind about people at the onset
Speaker 1: and then every you know, every morning. Every evening when
Speaker 1: you get picked up, there's like an assessment of like
Speaker 1: what did you see, what happened? Did you shoot? You know,
Speaker 1: and and it's it's like a kind of a moving
Speaker 1: target all the time, and it changes by the week.
Speaker 1: It's got to be a huge challenge. Oh yeah, for sure. Well,
Speaker 1: one guy's getting into camp here. What we like to
Speaker 1: do is put everybody, not to put them on the spot,
Speaker 1: but I want to check bows and make sure everybody's
Speaker 1: good and also to see who could do what, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, to make sure everybody's gears set up right,
Speaker 1: because you know, like I say, you might have a
Speaker 1: group of three or four guys and one guy's just
Speaker 1: kind of tagging along because they want to think how
Speaker 1: buddies and the other guys are hardcore or somebody has
Speaker 1: something wrong with their set up. Uh, you know, so
Speaker 1: we make everybody shoot. We all got to go down.
Speaker 1: We've got a little three D range in the backyard here.
Speaker 1: We uh we kind of walk through and watch everybody's
Speaker 1: slaying eight or ten arrows, you know, and make sure
Speaker 1: everything's dialed in. And also while you're doing that, we're
Speaker 1: talking and hey, we're you know, do you hunt a lot.
Speaker 1: Where do you hunt, where you from? You know, and
Speaker 1: you just kind of feel the guys out. And I've
Speaker 1: also done that in our booking process, trying to screen
Speaker 1: guys a little bit, not to turn people away, but
Speaker 1: to understand their abilities and what they're looking to try
Speaker 1: to accomplish when they come to So I've done a
Speaker 1: lot of that on the front end. You know a
Speaker 1: lot of times I may be expecting someone because they've
Speaker 1: been real honest, Hey, I'm coming with my buddy. I'm
Speaker 1: not a big bow hunter, you know that kind of deal.
Speaker 1: And you can also we've got tree stands set back
Speaker 1: here on the three D range where we'll make them
Speaker 1: get up in the standard shoot. So we've got lifelines
Speaker 1: and everything all set up just like it's the exact
Speaker 1: set up I'm gonna put them in. It's either my
Speaker 1: ladders or my lock ons, and they get up there.
Speaker 1: And because the guy may come from South Carolina and
Speaker 1: the hunts and climbers all day long and in a
Speaker 1: pine tree and never been in a lock on with
Speaker 1: climbing sticks, you know, because they don't do that necessarily
Speaker 1: a lot, uh, and just to get them comfortable and
Speaker 1: also watch their comfort levels see what they can and
Speaker 1: can't do, and a guy may I've had guys climb
Speaker 1: up when they're practicing and go, I don't like that.
Speaker 1: I'd prefer to be in a ladder or you know,
Speaker 1: and then and you're in the least I know now
Speaker 1: instead of putting in there at five o'clock in the
Speaker 1: morning in the dark, and you know, at daylight, you're like,
Speaker 1: I don't like this. I want to get out and
Speaker 1: ruin a good spot. Because I've had a lot of
Speaker 1: guys do that too. Uh. You know, so we try
Speaker 1: to rule all that out on the front end and
Speaker 1: then you know, get them set up and you know,
Speaker 1: make our plan for the week after that. Well, how
Speaker 1: do you deal with that? Because that's one thing I've
Speaker 1: always thought is it is so hard about being an
Speaker 1: outfitter guy to running an operation like you do, where
Speaker 1: you know, you tell people like, listen, we'll drop you off.
Speaker 1: You're going in here, don't get out till we come back,
Speaker 1: and people always get out or people you know, like
Speaker 1: they shoot, they want to get down and look for
Speaker 1: their arrow or look for their deer, and you're just
Speaker 1: dealing with people who maybe aren't following the rules very well. Like,
Speaker 1: what do you do about it? Well, what I try
Speaker 1: to do, and again there's always exceptions to every rule,
Speaker 1: but what I try to do on the front is
Speaker 1: we'll have a meeting or a brief on what our
Speaker 1: rules are, what our plans are, why we're gonna hunt,
Speaker 1: the way we're gonna hunt, get a feel, you know,
Speaker 1: if you know, most of the time, I try to
Speaker 1: bring all our guys in during the you know, the
Speaker 1: core time, you know, basically Halloween to Thanksgiving, and so
Speaker 1: it's like, hey, the more time you spend at the lodge,
Speaker 1: less time you have a chance you have a killing
Speaker 1: a deer. A lot of these guys again in Illinois
Speaker 1: especially a really hard core about and that that I
Speaker 1: get them sit all day. So you know, it's like,
Speaker 1: if I drop you in, I don't need you downlogging around.
Speaker 1: I'm pretty you where I would hunt if it was
Speaker 1: me hunting. And most guys would get that. You you,
Speaker 1: some won't, but you try to sell that to them
Speaker 1: really and understand, I'm not wasting your time because it's
Speaker 1: wasted my time. So I mean I'm putting you in
Speaker 1: the best location I think for if we're doing a
Speaker 1: morning sit or an evening sit or an all day
Speaker 1: sit to be successful. And so that's what they're asking
Speaker 1: me to do by booking a hunt with me. They
Speaker 1: gotta trust me, you know. And if they won't do that,
Speaker 1: I kind of get on them at the briefings like,
Speaker 1: if you can't do that, I don't want to take
Speaker 1: you into these core areas because you're gonna mess them up.
Speaker 1: And we've spent all year dealing with this. I came
Speaker 1: in here in August and worked my tail off and
Speaker 1: got everything setting ready to go and left them alone
Speaker 1: for a month and a half so that no one's
Speaker 1: been in there. When I drop you in your you're
Speaker 1: literally the first person that's put their button at seat.
Speaker 1: There's not many places like that, you know, and it's like,
Speaker 1: please don't mess it up. Um, And most of the
Speaker 1: guys get it and um. You know. Again that's part
Speaker 1: of the rule out thing. You listen to guys talk
Speaker 1: and you know what their experience levels are. And if
Speaker 1: you get that guy that once you pick up up
Speaker 1: once twice kind of know, well they might. You know,
Speaker 1: we have lots of good areas that are field edge
Speaker 1: or close to road type set ups where they're not
Speaker 1: going to walk through our best block of timber or
Speaker 1: something like that. If somebody's getting we always just say
Speaker 1: if they got ants in their pants or happy feet
Speaker 1: radio because if they got happy feet, you know they
Speaker 1: need to be would need to be careful or we
Speaker 1: put them and you just gotta uh, you're still trying
Speaker 1: to get them in the best location. But based on
Speaker 1: the way they hunt, you know, we gotta assess that
Speaker 1: and do it. Do they you know, when people are
Speaker 1: coming in, you know, I mean, I mean you're paying
Speaker 1: you're paying good money for a hunt, and you know
Speaker 1: they have certain expectations. Do people do you think like
Speaker 1: your clients generally understand that concept of like, listen, you're
Speaker 1: here this week. This is the first time anybody sat
Speaker 1: there and or anybody's been in here in sixty days
Speaker 1: other than maybe a camera check. Like we're trying to
Speaker 1: preserve these spots. Like do people generally get that or
Speaker 1: it probably varies, like crazy, it varies. I mean, it
Speaker 1: definitely varies. Um, these guys that are pretty serious bow hunters,
Speaker 1: they get it, you know. But but but yeah, there's
Speaker 1: a there's a small percentage that really don't grasp what
Speaker 1: like how you know, how we're doing, you know. And
Speaker 1: I'm strict about how we go in and out, you know,
Speaker 1: so we're not blowing the woods all the triving and
Speaker 1: here we have such small timber blocks, so we're you know,
Speaker 1: if you blow them out, they may run across the field.
Speaker 1: It's a half mile three quarters of a mile to
Speaker 1: the next timber. He ain't coming back tonight, and like
Speaker 1: it's it's done, you know, And so I try to
Speaker 1: really harp on that so they understand it. And there
Speaker 1: is a method to my madness. Why do you make
Speaker 1: me walk across that wide open field for half a
Speaker 1: mile when you could have just drove me up, you know,
Speaker 1: on the back side of the timber, because that's where
Speaker 1: they've been and they're gonna know we're in there, and
Speaker 1: you know, there's always a reason for and I try
Speaker 1: to explain that on the front end, and when we're
Speaker 1: booking the Hunts, I explained to him this is just
Speaker 1: a unique scenario. This isn't an out there is running
Speaker 1: two hundred guys a year on a place that should
Speaker 1: run fifty. This is a place you could run fifty guys,
Speaker 1: but I'm running twenty five. You know. It's just it's
Speaker 1: where our big thing is low pressure UM and it
Speaker 1: ups their odds for success, and if they can grasp
Speaker 1: that concept, they have a really good chance killing a
Speaker 1: good deer. The other thing I really harp on, though,
Speaker 1: and this is something that you and I've talked about
Speaker 1: this before, probably years ago, and you came down Texas.
Speaker 1: Hunting has changed a lot, especially on the outfitting side,
Speaker 1: where guys are booking these trips and there you know
Speaker 1: they're expecting a miracle. Sometimes that's not realistic. UM hunts hunting,
Speaker 1: and it's still hard no matter where you do it.
Speaker 1: It's just there's different places and different I always say
Speaker 1: it's a just different deer or it's a different world
Speaker 1: of deer hunting in certain spots, but you know, they
Speaker 1: gotta understand it's still Midwest bow running and at the
Speaker 1: end of the day, everybody is not going to kill
Speaker 1: a deer. And if you're the guy that has to
Speaker 1: kill a deer, Midwest bow hunt is probably not the
Speaker 1: thing for you, to be honest, because it's just the
Speaker 1: odds of success are not super high. I mean, if
Speaker 1: you look at Illinois, o Iowa and look at outfit
Speaker 1: or average kill rates not super high, and that's not
Speaker 1: because anybody's necessarily do anything wrong. It's just bow hunting
Speaker 1: in the Midwest. Um. And then you factor on the
Speaker 1: pressure and all the other things that that affect that.
Speaker 1: But you know, it's really telling them we sell a
Speaker 1: great experience. And that's what I try to really get
Speaker 1: across the Texas here I or wherever we're doing it. Um,
Speaker 1: we're selling the experience. We're not at Burger King. I'm
Speaker 1: order and tin pointer and I wanted to score one,
Speaker 1: you know, But but today's world has changed a lot,
Speaker 1: and there's a lot of guys, and I try to
Speaker 1: screen that all the best I can when we're booking
Speaker 1: and going through the process of talking to the guys,
Speaker 1: and I want to set realistic expectations. I mean, we
Speaker 1: shoot giant bucks on this farm every year, but everybody
Speaker 1: won't kill that top shelf deer. It's it's not realistic.
Speaker 1: I mean, like, uh, you know, you're good friend Jason.
Speaker 1: When he came out here a couple of years ago,
Speaker 1: Jas killed a really respectable buck. It wasn't the biggest
Speaker 1: buck on the Griggsby. He was super fired up, but
Speaker 1: you know that's an average dear. And then you've got
Speaker 1: those top shelf deer, and that's why you come to
Speaker 1: a place like because you want to have a chance
Speaker 1: at him. But that's really what it is is a chance,
Speaker 1: not a guarantee. Well that's you know. I haven't done
Speaker 1: a ton of outfitted hunts, but that has always sort
Speaker 1: of been the messages, like we're gonna give you an opportunity,
Speaker 1: or we're gonna work real hard to get you an
Speaker 1: opportunity at a good deer. Then it's up to you.
Speaker 1: And that's you know. I can't remember which hunt it
Speaker 1: was that we did down in Texas with you, but
Speaker 1: it was it was the year that I hit that
Speaker 1: buck the first morning and then ended up shooting him
Speaker 1: two days later, and so, you know, and that stand
Speaker 1: that you guys had me in there was like it
Speaker 1: was awesome, Like I was covered and I was covered
Speaker 1: in really great deer for that area. I shot that buck,
Speaker 1: made a bad shot, and then got lucky on him
Speaker 1: two days later. But I remember one of the other
Speaker 1: guys going in there after I had killed that buck
Speaker 1: and talking to him and I didn't know him really well,
Speaker 1: and I'm not gonna say his name, but he was like,
Speaker 1: you know, and you can't really kill a deer. You
Speaker 1: don't have that good of shooting lanes out of there,
Speaker 1: and you can't move on that stand very well. And
Speaker 1: I remember thinking, like, dude, I was, I was freaking
Speaker 1: covered in bucks, and that I didn't like. His complaints
Speaker 1: didn't even register to me. And so in my head
Speaker 1: I was thinking, you know, this guy kind of sucks,
Speaker 1: but really what he just didn't have the experience, and
Speaker 1: he was one was those wide open, like crazy big
Speaker 1: shooting lanes where I basically cut the whole day tree
Speaker 1: down where you're looking at it like, man, I got
Speaker 1: great cover. I can draw my boat here, I can
Speaker 1: draw my boat here. These are my two spots. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna shoot him when they come by. You know, again,
Speaker 1: it's experienced as all. You know, that stand You can
Speaker 1: sit there and do the two step up there and
Speaker 1: they wouldn't see you the way it was said. But
Speaker 1: if he if I gave him the pull saw and
Speaker 1: let him drive it out, you'd probably never see a
Speaker 1: deer there again. You know, it's just different, you know,
Speaker 1: different world of white TiO. Yeah, And and that's why
Speaker 1: I wanted to have you on because a lot of
Speaker 1: this stuff, I mean, people are probably gonna be listening
Speaker 1: to this going well, I'm never going on a guided
Speaker 1: hunt or you know this, this isn't like that's not
Speaker 1: my interest, but it's the it's the damage we do
Speaker 1: to ourselves. So you your job is a weird one
Speaker 1: in the white tail world because you have to try
Speaker 1: to minimize the damage a bunch of people are gonna
Speaker 1: do to your best spots. So you've got to think
Speaker 1: everything through the setups, the entrance, the exit, the pressure
Speaker 1: of the wind, who's going in, who's coming out, what
Speaker 1: kind of person is hunting there? And we don't think
Speaker 1: about that a lot of times. You know, if you've
Speaker 1: got your your grandma's farm, you've always been hunting, you
Speaker 1: don't think about necessarily maybe the pressure you're putting on,
Speaker 1: or you know, the way you're walking in or the
Speaker 1: way you're thinking about stuff Like your example right there,
Speaker 1: you know you think about you've got you know, that's
Speaker 1: a Texas hunt. So you have a feeder there and
Speaker 1: you're in a live oak, and it's a very typical
Speaker 1: set up, but it was like set up in a
Speaker 1: way where you weren't gonna get busted. I remember having
Speaker 1: bucks bed below me, and I remember having sixty degrees
Speaker 1: of deer, especially the first morning when I shot that buck.
Speaker 1: And to me, I'm like, this is perfect because I'm
Speaker 1: not going to get busted here. And so yeah, like
Speaker 1: when when I had to when I had that buck
Speaker 1: come in two days after I shot him and I
Speaker 1: knew it was him, and I was the first one
Speaker 1: dropped off so I could look at my binoculars in
Speaker 1: the moonlight. I'm like, there's that deer because he had
Speaker 1: a hit a couple of broken ties. It took like
Speaker 1: two hours for it to get light and for that
Speaker 1: deer to get into it shooting lane and I'm watching
Speaker 1: him the whole freaking time, just waiting for that redemption shot.
Speaker 1: But like you said, if if that tree is just
Speaker 1: trimmed differently, that whole thing might not happen. Or you know,
Speaker 1: the six bucks you see the first morning, there might
Speaker 1: be two and they might skirt you. And I think,
Speaker 1: I think we don't think about that stuff quite as
Speaker 1: much as we should. And you have to for your job.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, And and and again like you that you
Speaker 1: brought up a good point. A lot of guys don't
Speaker 1: realize what they're doing that might damage a spot where
Speaker 1: educate deer in a spot, uh, you know, and so
Speaker 1: I kind of have to evaluate that with the hunter
Speaker 1: and then how the setups are. And you know what
Speaker 1: we've done in the last few years, we've been converting
Speaker 1: some of our more go to food plot areas, you know,
Speaker 1: where we might have a really you know, nice clover
Speaker 1: turnip patch and a spot that we just know as
Speaker 1: it kills tree, you know, treat. I've been putting some
Speaker 1: tower blinds in there to eliminate the movement and the
Speaker 1: scent and that that that fidgety guy that I could
Speaker 1: put him in the tree and it just doesn't matter what.
Speaker 1: He just can't sit still enough and doesn't even realize
Speaker 1: the dear no he's there. Uh you know, if I
Speaker 1: put him in that closed in box blind or tower
Speaker 1: blind set up, I can eliminate a lot of that.
Speaker 1: And so I've been doing some of that. And you know,
Speaker 1: every year I had three or four to the farm,
Speaker 1: you know, and I've been just accumulating something. So when
Speaker 1: I get that guy who's a you know, he might
Speaker 1: be the guy that's out here in the hundred yards
Speaker 1: just danging in the yard, and damn he can shoot,
Speaker 1: but he can't sits still. You know, and you gotta
Speaker 1: get him in a situation, uh, you know where they
Speaker 1: can handle that. So I've even been doing some of
Speaker 1: that to eliminate some of those factors. Um. You know,
Speaker 1: it's there's people from all walks of life that come
Speaker 1: to it. So you know, you just gotta kind of
Speaker 1: have a scenario for everybody, or attempt to anyway. So
Speaker 1: do you when you talk about that, you know, when
Speaker 1: you take a tower blind, you know, you throw up
Speaker 1: that redneck or whatever you're throwing up versus a hang
Speaker 1: on or a ladder stand. Do you see, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: just like a lessoned impact from people, because I've seen
Speaker 1: you know, I know people who have them and they
Speaker 1: still burn out their spots. It's probably because they only
Speaker 1: have like one food plot and that's where they hunt
Speaker 1: every single time. But you you being able to control
Speaker 1: who's going in and when you see that, that's like
Speaker 1: there's a lessoned impact with those. Yeah, I I do,
Speaker 1: especially on the deer, especially the food plots where it
Speaker 1: fills up with deer. So you know, it doesn't matter
Speaker 1: how good or how still or how perfect the wind is,
Speaker 1: you get fifty sixty deer come in a food plot
Speaker 1: and even and it's somebody's gonna get you at some
Speaker 1: point because they're gonna walk on the wrong side of
Speaker 1: the tree and smell you or see you or whatever.
Speaker 1: Or you're looking at the easy deer and one over
Speaker 1: here to the right and just happened to glance up
Speaker 1: when you turned your head and you got busted. It's
Speaker 1: just hard. I have noticed that there's a lot less
Speaker 1: of that education going on hunting out of those and
Speaker 1: I try to put them where I can drive to them.
Speaker 1: So if I'm dropping a client literally, you know, because
Speaker 1: it's a farm, there's tractors and trucks all the time
Speaker 1: buzzing around here. So if I can drive right up
Speaker 1: play like you know, well, I just act like the
Speaker 1: farmer and get the heck out of there and literally
Speaker 1: drop them off at the ladder and they get in
Speaker 1: and by the time the truck leaves the door shut
Speaker 1: and they're in, they're sealed up. It does. It has
Speaker 1: made a pretty big difference, and especially with certain hunters. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I could see that help. And how do you how
Speaker 1: do you manage? You know, so you mentioned just just
Speaker 1: on that property, which is enormous, You're gonna do like
Speaker 1: a hundred and sixties setups. You've got the Iowa stuff,
Speaker 1: you got your Texas stuff. Is it is it partially
Speaker 1: just a matter of having as much land as possible
Speaker 1: to make sure that you can just keep spreading people
Speaker 1: out and preserving spots and resting spots. I'm big on
Speaker 1: trying to hunt this fresh. You know, if you if
Speaker 1: you come on the fourth or fifth hunt of the season,
Speaker 1: you don't want to hunt behind five guys, you know,
Speaker 1: or you know, unless the spots red hot, and you know,
Speaker 1: we want to be able to have fresh area to
Speaker 1: put them in. So you know, having more ground is
Speaker 1: good so that I can rotate in and out. But again,
Speaker 1: it's just we just gotta be smart about how we hunt.
Speaker 1: When we hunt. If something just goes goes all to
Speaker 1: hell and then just get blown out bad, you know,
Speaker 1: we try to let it be in calmed down, don't
Speaker 1: just keep pounding on it. Um. And you know, because
Speaker 1: these places are big, we we do have the luxury
Speaker 1: of doing that. Um. You know, a lot of a
Speaker 1: lot of locations or places you may be hunting, you
Speaker 1: don't have that. I mean I have small places too,
Speaker 1: you know, they just you know, I have the luxury.
Speaker 1: But here we do, and so we definitely, you know,
Speaker 1: and again the number of hunters we take is critical
Speaker 1: because if I take too many guys at some point,
Speaker 1: I gotta go everywhere, you know, and if I always can.
Speaker 1: You know, there's certain areas one week I made to
Speaker 1: say we're not even hunting that part of the farm
Speaker 1: for this week, and next week that'll be our starting
Speaker 1: point for the next group. That way, I just know
Speaker 1: it's fresh, and you know, I'll that's where I'll be
Speaker 1: running cameras while these guys are hunting, because I've got
Speaker 1: the data from the week before where they're hunting, and
Speaker 1: just kind of stay ahead of it. Yeah, do you
Speaker 1: I know people are really sensitive to that when they
Speaker 1: know when they show up in camp they want to
Speaker 1: be someplace fresh, or you know, when it's day three,
Speaker 1: they don't want to get put somewhere where somebody else
Speaker 1: has been. But there's so much that goes into those decisions.
Speaker 1: You know. I kind of look at it like, you know,
Speaker 1: I hunt a lot of public land, right and you
Speaker 1: know some states they have like fields on public land
Speaker 1: they lease out. It looks very much like private land,
Speaker 1: but it's open to public has everything there, but on
Speaker 1: those properties you know, if you have a field, a
Speaker 1: soybean field on public land somewhere, it's gonna get sad,
Speaker 1: like people are gonna be on there. And I always
Speaker 1: think about that. It's like you walk in, you're gonna
Speaker 1: be able to point out, Okay, there's gonna be a
Speaker 1: stand in that corner, there's gonna be a stand on
Speaker 1: this little two track connecting them, like you can just
Speaker 1: call your shots. And if you think about it that way,
Speaker 1: you're kind of you probably are like the fifth person
Speaker 1: to sit there if you go sit there, and it's
Speaker 1: not that much different from an outfit a hunt where
Speaker 1: you're like, this probably isn't gonna work for me, especially
Speaker 1: on a big buck. Yeah, oh I could. It could
Speaker 1: even be a little even a little tougher on the
Speaker 1: public in because you really don't know who's been in there,
Speaker 1: you know. Else here, it could be a weekend worried
Speaker 1: that you know, four or five of those guys only
Speaker 1: hunt one weekend a year and they went in there
Speaker 1: and plowed around and did their thing and left, you know,
Speaker 1: so uh, you know, it just depends on the type
Speaker 1: of guys, and you don't ever know who you're fallowing.
Speaker 1: And that's so different with outfit and hunt, but in
Speaker 1: Illinois that my guys are typically a little more serious
Speaker 1: and and I really you know, it might even be
Speaker 1: annoying to some of the guides and the hunters. I
Speaker 1: micro manage the hell out of it, but you know,
Speaker 1: it's because I really want to have control of how
Speaker 1: that's all going down. And then I like to think
Speaker 1: it we're are a little formula works. You know. Well
Speaker 1: we we take twenty five, you know, last year we
Speaker 1: took twenty seven guys and killed twenty one bucks. You know,
Speaker 1: it's pretty strong, you know, and especially when talking about
Speaker 1: Midwest bow hun Um. Yeah, that's that's about as good
Speaker 1: as it's gonna get. Anybody that tells you they're running addercent,
Speaker 1: they're lying to you, um, you know, or they took
Speaker 1: one guy, not unless they have a real big fence
Speaker 1: around in their property, right right right, and even silly,
Speaker 1: you probably can't pull that. Yeah, that's true when you
Speaker 1: think about like your Texas operation. You know, people go
Speaker 1: to Texas and they're like, I'm gonna have an easy hunt.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna hunt a feeder, simple stuff. But even then
Speaker 1: you can see how people can just burn a spot
Speaker 1: and so even it might you know, it might be
Speaker 1: a feeder on a water tank, and so you have
Speaker 1: to like humongous straws there. Right, you got the corn
Speaker 1: morning evening and then you've got water, and you can
Speaker 1: still see people, just the wrong person burn out a
Speaker 1: spot like that. And so when you talk about yeah,
Speaker 1: public land, like we always think like, yeah, that's that's
Speaker 1: harder than this, But in reality, accumulative pressure is just
Speaker 1: cumulative pressure. Like you know, we we look at the
Speaker 1: bucks like they're so tough to kill, and it's like, man,
Speaker 1: not until we make them that way. And that's how
Speaker 1: you do it. A white tailed deer. I hey, guys,
Speaker 1: come down Texas. Tell me, dear man, you're dear dumb.
Speaker 1: This is crazy, how dumb these deer are. It's the
Speaker 1: same deer you hunt at home. He has no pressure,
Speaker 1: you know. Or it's been man. You know, even even
Speaker 1: in Illinois, I'll have guys go, man, this farm. He's
Speaker 1: dear hardly. I mean we're sitting in this standards. I
Speaker 1: didn't necessarily have great cover. Nothing looked up at me.
Speaker 1: They don't get arrows, don't get slung at him every
Speaker 1: five minutes. You know, it's just not that deer has
Speaker 1: not been over educated its entire life on how to
Speaker 1: stay alive. It's a survival instinct. I mean, that's dear,
Speaker 1: just see that so much more often, and it's part
Speaker 1: of it's like my dear, my, the grigsby. Our biggest worry,
Speaker 1: that dear's that Buck's biggest worries probably Kyo grabbing him
Speaker 1: and you know, eating him, you know, especially from birth
Speaker 1: to you know, three or four years old. Well, you know,
Speaker 1: it's no different on the public land. You know that
Speaker 1: their biggest fear is probably or issue as hunters, you know,
Speaker 1: and they're looking at you know, it's a different way
Speaker 1: of survival is old. They're not any smarter, they just
Speaker 1: got educated. Well that's that's a message we're trying to
Speaker 1: get across with this because we just do not look
Speaker 1: at ourselves like predators, Like we don't you know where
Speaker 1: I you know, I live in Minnesota, right we have
Speaker 1: we have the highest population of wolves in the lower
Speaker 1: forty eight. Only Alaska has us beat. And when you
Speaker 1: listen to people who hunt, like the upper third of
Speaker 1: the state, it's just constant complaining about wolves. And I
Speaker 1: get it, like they when wolves swing through it sucks.
Speaker 1: But we look at them like they're or mountain lions
Speaker 1: to like they're just these voracious killers. They kill a
Speaker 1: deer a week and they're so good at it, and
Speaker 1: they hunt, you know, like you get them winnered up
Speaker 1: there just toasts or whatever. But we never look at
Speaker 1: ourselves and go, you know, like for the average rifle
Speaker 1: hunter in Minnesota, it's like, okay, if a deer walks
Speaker 1: in some kind of opening within like two d and
Speaker 1: fifty yards of you, you can kill it. Like that's
Speaker 1: a huge advantage, right, Like you have binoculars, you have
Speaker 1: all kinds of stuff at your advantage, trail cameras out
Speaker 1: there scouting for you, and when you walk into the woods,
Speaker 1: they are terrified of you, like bar none, like, no
Speaker 1: question about it. And we don't think about it that way.
Speaker 1: So we just go like, oh I walk in, I
Speaker 1: check my camera, No big deal, right Like I walk
Speaker 1: in and I sit this stand, No big deal. Like
Speaker 1: you don't. You don't think of yourselves the same way
Speaker 1: you would think of a couple of wolves roll them
Speaker 1: through there. But it's probably the same effect on those deer.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah for sure. Yeah. I mean again, you are
Speaker 1: the alpha predator and if you're in a place that
Speaker 1: I'm not in Minnesota. But if you're in a place
Speaker 1: where those predators don't exist, you are the wolf. I
Speaker 1: mean sense, I mean, we're sure are chasing them, were
Speaker 1: bumping on the heck of a lot more than wolves
Speaker 1: or where coyotes would be sure. Yeah, And I think
Speaker 1: it just it's a really good thought exercise to just
Speaker 1: consider yourself that way and go, you know, like, I
Speaker 1: don't care what you think about yourself. The deer don't
Speaker 1: like you at all. They don't want you in there.
Speaker 1: They don't like you, they don't like smelling that you
Speaker 1: were in there. They sure as hell don't like seeing
Speaker 1: you in a tree. They don't like it when you
Speaker 1: try to kill them, like you when you When you
Speaker 1: start thinking about it that way, it's sort of just
Speaker 1: kind of like centralizes this thought around, Like you know,
Speaker 1: outfitted hunts, d I Y, public land doesn't really matter.
Speaker 1: When you start factoring in x amount of people in
Speaker 1: a certain spot messing with the deer, then then you've
Speaker 1: got to think differently than other people. Well, absolutely, yeah,
Speaker 1: and you've got to find those spots. It's like those
Speaker 1: off the wall places or those pinch points that no
Speaker 1: one's really going to because they always go straight to
Speaker 1: the water, straight to the food or the obvious place
Speaker 1: that deer should be. But like you said, gets burned up,
Speaker 1: and these deer, you know, you may have to get
Speaker 1: tight on them where they're bedding because that buck has
Speaker 1: just got so dang nocturtle weather and him getting up
Speaker 1: in stretching or bumping a dough into bed and thereas something.
Speaker 1: You don't have a lot of chance at them, um,
Speaker 1: you know, and you gotta hunt different when the deer
Speaker 1: getting educated like that. But at the same time, you're
Speaker 1: also put applying that pressure we're talking about when you
Speaker 1: do hunt that way and get that aggressive. So you know,
Speaker 1: there's there's a lot that goes into it. And I'm
Speaker 1: probably the worst guy about it. When i'm I'll sit
Speaker 1: down in the kitchen when all our hunters go to bed,
Speaker 1: and I make the plan for the next day, and
Speaker 1: I have a little notepad. I do it on it,
Speaker 1: and I'll have written out every stand for the wind
Speaker 1: that morning on the farm that works, you know, So
Speaker 1: I might have forty stands listed and I'll be putting
Speaker 1: guys in them, and then I go back and market
Speaker 1: out and I don't want to do that because that
Speaker 1: guy won't like that, or you know, I sit there
Speaker 1: and I changed my mind fifteen times, you know, and
Speaker 1: then when we kill them, like, oh I worked perfect
Speaker 1: as now I just got lucky because I's swap spots
Speaker 1: eight times, you know. Uh. But but all the all
Speaker 1: the stands on the list or the right kind of setups,
Speaker 1: you know, and it's just, um you know, again, we're
Speaker 1: lucky because we have so many options. But um man,
Speaker 1: there's so much that goes into it, and there's so
Speaker 1: many different ways you can approach it and not none
Speaker 1: of them were wrong unless you're just you know, doing
Speaker 1: it all wrong, you know. But if I've got the
Speaker 1: right list that stands with right wins and approaches and all,
Speaker 1: it's just a matter of it all coming together. And
Speaker 1: it doesn't work every day, you know. And that's the
Speaker 1: thing you guys got to realize. Well, and this this
Speaker 1: is something you know in your world, the properties you're
Speaker 1: dealing with, they're big, so it's a scale thing. So
Speaker 1: most people listening to this, they're dealing with smaller properties
Speaker 1: obviously and fewer setups, but fewer hunters too. And so
Speaker 1: when you when somebody's thinking about this, like I just
Speaker 1: I just dropped a Foundation's episode on this. It's like
Speaker 1: giving yourself options is so important if you if you've
Speaker 1: got you know, I remember, you know, growing up hunting
Speaker 1: the same farm in southeastern Minnesota with my dad where
Speaker 1: we'd go out and hang five stands, six stands in
Speaker 1: the summer. That was your spots September, October, November, December,
Speaker 1: you know, rut, hot, lull, whatever, it didn't matter. It
Speaker 1: was like, Okay, we're gonna just pick from one of
Speaker 1: these six spots. And it's like you can't get away
Speaker 1: with that, like you you just know like eventually every
Speaker 1: one of those places going to be burned, and then
Speaker 1: you start crossing your fingers for the rut to rescue
Speaker 1: your ass. And sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes it doesn't. But
Speaker 1: when you're talking about that, like you know, you've got
Speaker 1: eight hunters in camp and you go, okay, tomorrows of
Speaker 1: northwest wind and we have forty spots. You can take
Speaker 1: that right down. Okay, you're one hunter and tomorrow you
Speaker 1: have you know, that northwest wind. How many spots do
Speaker 1: you have to go to? Is it one or two?
Speaker 1: Or did you give yourself four or five six options,
Speaker 1: or do you have a saddle where you can go
Speaker 1: and pick out a specific tree, or do you have
Speaker 1: that climber or do you have something that can just
Speaker 1: expand those options, because even just like doubling your options
Speaker 1: creates such a better opportunity to preserve real, dear, dear
Speaker 1: movement out there. Oh yeah, yeah, for sure. I mean
Speaker 1: the the public land stuff that you're talking about, or
Speaker 1: guys that are hunting smaller farms, she knows, just smaller
Speaker 1: tracts to land. Um, you know, the other factors. Just
Speaker 1: don't know what the other guy's doing. You know, you
Speaker 1: don't know what your neighbor is doing or how your
Speaker 1: neighbor goes in and out, and you could be doing
Speaker 1: everything perfect. It's like, dang, it just doesn't never work.
Speaker 1: And I'm getting pictures of these deer another in here.
Speaker 1: And it may not have a damn thing to do
Speaker 1: with what you're doing wrong. It's what the guys next
Speaker 1: to you are doing wrong. And so that that's the
Speaker 1: that's the factor that you just can't control. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: I mean you just look at that and go, Okay,
Speaker 1: I know probably where some people are going to access
Speaker 1: this property. I know where some people are probably gonna
Speaker 1: go sit. I'm just gonna do something different. It's the
Speaker 1: same kind of concept that you're doing. You're just controlling
Speaker 1: mostly who's going in and who's going out. You know,
Speaker 1: when you don't have that control, it does that's a
Speaker 1: wild card. But you can make some educated guesses and go,
Speaker 1: I just don't want to be like other people. And
Speaker 1: that's that's one of the things I want to ask
Speaker 1: you about because I know you know, like my strategy
Speaker 1: for white to hunting is find a spot where do
Speaker 1: you like to walk and go there and shoot them.
Speaker 1: Not a big call or scent guy. I'm not a like.
Speaker 1: I'll use a little bit of that stuff in the
Speaker 1: right situation, but mostly I like to just figure out
Speaker 1: where do you like to be. And I know you
Speaker 1: guys are looking at this going we gotta put people
Speaker 1: right where dear want to go. We don't. You're not
Speaker 1: like I'm gonna put the best rattler in this spot
Speaker 1: and he's gonna rattle one in, you know. I mean
Speaker 1: you might have something like that, but you probably look
Speaker 1: at that almost like it's a negative with everybody, and go,
Speaker 1: don't draw attention to yourself. Just just let us put
Speaker 1: you there. Yeah, I'm putting you in the best place
Speaker 1: that I think you have a great opportunity to kill
Speaker 1: today based on the current scenario. And yeah, I'm big
Speaker 1: on the least amount of footprint you can leave and
Speaker 1: and put out there while you're sitting, the better. You know,
Speaker 1: if you keep drawing attention to everything you do by
Speaker 1: overcalling or you know, addressing every deer with a call
Speaker 1: that shows up in the food plot, I mean that
Speaker 1: you can't do that because that will straight up burn
Speaker 1: up a spot really quick. So and if you're having
Speaker 1: smaller properties or public land, I would even be more
Speaker 1: straight about that, would be very careful because everybody else
Speaker 1: is doing that wrong, you know. And so you got
Speaker 1: to remember that. And like you said, I agree with you.
Speaker 1: Get where deer want to walk, Get where deer want
Speaker 1: to feed, Get where deer gonna go, get between point
Speaker 1: and point B in the travel corridor, and put your
Speaker 1: hours in and it will happen. You know, you just
Speaker 1: gotta do that. How do you guys address that? When
Speaker 1: you know, like if you think about some of your
Speaker 1: Texas stuff, super high deer density, and like that's kind
Speaker 1: of where people think, like, man, I'm gonna go put
Speaker 1: my back to a mosquite tree and I'm gonna rattle,
Speaker 1: and bucks are going to run in from everywhere. And
Speaker 1: you have pretty high visibility during certain times of the
Speaker 1: year down there, just because of the nature of the terrain.
Speaker 1: How do you deal with that with people who show
Speaker 1: up and they're like, I'm gonna claim these antlers together
Speaker 1: every twenty minutes all day long, Well, I try to if.
Speaker 1: And the reason it works so good down there is
Speaker 1: because in a lot of cases, the buck to doo
Speaker 1: ratio is tight, and so they got to fight to breed.
Speaker 1: So when they hear a fight, they'll come. And so
Speaker 1: that's different than what you're gonna experience in Illinois, Minnesota, Iowa,
Speaker 1: you know, wherever you're hunting, where you got hired dough
Speaker 1: densities because you know, he doesn't have to get in
Speaker 1: the fight every five minutes to get a dough uh.
Speaker 1: Down there, they do and so it's a little bit different,
Speaker 1: but it's still a very small window of time that
Speaker 1: it will work. And so if they're hunting in those
Speaker 1: times that are not in that window, I'm like, please,
Speaker 1: don't like. All you're doing is educating, All you're doing
Speaker 1: is screwing it up, and if they do come in,
Speaker 1: they're gonna be so dang cautious. They're gonna bust you
Speaker 1: before you ever have a chance at him anyway, So
Speaker 1: it's not the right time. If you're in that ten
Speaker 1: twelve day window when it is working really well, you know,
Speaker 1: we will try to make sure we're one on one
Speaker 1: guy and those guys and kind of control the situation
Speaker 1: a little bit, especially if they don't have a lot
Speaker 1: of experience doing it, because a lot of times when
Speaker 1: we set up, guys will go I'll tell them, I
Speaker 1: want you facing down wind because that's our vulnerable side
Speaker 1: and a big mature buck. A lot of bucks won't
Speaker 1: go down win, but the mature buck will because he
Speaker 1: wants to send check it before he sees it, and
Speaker 1: he wants to make sure everything's legit before he comes in.
Speaker 1: And that's where he's gonna get us. And so if
Speaker 1: he did show up there, I need you ready for that.
Speaker 1: If he shows up when he's up wind from us
Speaker 1: and we're good, we have time to turn and adjust
Speaker 1: and set up and probably kill him. So a lot
Speaker 1: of guys look at me, like, what do you want
Speaker 1: to be facing down wind? They're not going to come
Speaker 1: from there. They're not gonna get a chance. Like now,
Speaker 1: it's probably where you're gonna shoot you, and you're gonna
Speaker 1: have three seconds because he's gonna get us when he
Speaker 1: gets down wind. So I want you ready for that,
Speaker 1: and we'll deal with this if it happens. But most
Speaker 1: of the time those big bucks and circle you end up.
Speaker 1: And again you've got to be in that window of
Speaker 1: time and it's not very big where it's gonna work.
Speaker 1: And if it's outside that leave him alone. Ali, I mean,
Speaker 1: we always joke we'll reach over and grabbed the horns,
Speaker 1: are gonna leave us in the truck. You know, it's
Speaker 1: just because all you're doing is screwed it up. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: and at that point right there about the mature bucks
Speaker 1: circling down wind, that's something you know. When I first
Speaker 1: hunted your place down in Texas and I was covered
Speaker 1: in dear, I was, I was, I was that guy.
Speaker 1: I was like, these are the dumbst here. I can't
Speaker 1: believe this. This is amazing, you know, like I could
Speaker 1: hit him with rocks. And then you spend a little
Speaker 1: more time and you're like, okay, now when you see
Speaker 1: the one step out that has like the deep chest
Speaker 1: and like you're like, that's that dear's different. That dear
Speaker 1: is older. And those are the ones that are swinging
Speaker 1: down when and they're and they're doing things just a
Speaker 1: little bit differently than a lot of the other deer.
Speaker 1: And I think we look at that and we go,
Speaker 1: you know, when I sit this stand, deer come through here.
Speaker 1: And but big bucks never come through here. They're too
Speaker 1: smart or there too nocturnal or something. And it's like, man,
Speaker 1: they're probably just a little bit more cautious. And you
Speaker 1: probably never saw him, you know, circle seventy five yards
Speaker 1: down wind pick you up, or when you were doing
Speaker 1: that rattling session, you might have got him to come
Speaker 1: in and check you out. It's to some level and
Speaker 1: he goes, ah, he hit your entrance throughout or something,
Speaker 1: and it's it's over. And then it might that spot
Speaker 1: might be over for him well. And and the one
Speaker 1: thing that guys don't realize when you're rattling or grunting
Speaker 1: or smart wease whatever whatever you're throwing at him, a
Speaker 1: white tail knows exactly where that comes from. Like they
Speaker 1: were key in and to the tree, to the spot,
Speaker 1: and so I always tell guys it's like calling ducks
Speaker 1: or in your turkeys or anything else. When you got
Speaker 1: him coming, you better shut up because he will find you.
Speaker 1: I mean, remember, he's looking for a deer that's making
Speaker 1: this noise. And if he as he gets closer, he's
Speaker 1: going to get more and more cautious because he can't
Speaker 1: see what he hears. And he's like, now I'm close enough,
Speaker 1: I should be able to see it. Where where is it?
Speaker 1: And a lot of times that's when they leave, or
Speaker 1: like you said, you just didn't pick him up. He's
Speaker 1: standing there in the open timber Europe, in the canopy,
Speaker 1: you know, and he's looking through there like I don't
Speaker 1: see what I hear and I ain't going over there,
Speaker 1: especially if they've been educated or there's pressure on them,
Speaker 1: and you know you've gotta if you if you see
Speaker 1: him in there coming, I mean, I'm big on shut
Speaker 1: up and let him, let him get curious, because the
Speaker 1: curiosity will kill him. Not not if you just keep
Speaker 1: banging the horns together or continue to ground at them,
Speaker 1: and they're gonna key in on it. They know because
Speaker 1: when they come charging it in Texas, when they are
Speaker 1: running you over and you're in that little window of
Speaker 1: time when it works. They come to the bisquite bush
Speaker 1: I'm sitting at. I mean a lot of times they
Speaker 1: really do come within yards of us. Because he knows
Speaker 1: exactly where the sound is. He literally came to it. Well,
Speaker 1: that shows you. I mean, if I was stopped, if
Speaker 1: I knew it was coming, all the times you can't
Speaker 1: see him coming to that brush. If I knew it
Speaker 1: was coming, I stopped, he may have approached me differently,
Speaker 1: and I might have had multiple opportunities to kill him
Speaker 1: because he got curious. And I'm sitting there and beating
Speaker 1: the wars together and just that, you know, and keep
Speaker 1: them coming. Um, you know, So just keep that in mind.
Speaker 1: You guys really need to think that through when they're calling.
Speaker 1: You know, you don't overdo it because they will find you. Well. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's such a it's such a situation by situation
Speaker 1: thing right where. You know, I think that you could
Speaker 1: make a billion dollars if you made a grunt tube
Speaker 1: that wouldn't work if you were panicked, if it could
Speaker 1: somehow like test your like adrenaline level or something, and
Speaker 1: just be like, no, this, this dude's too jacked up.
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna do it because we hit that panic
Speaker 1: button a lot where that buck isn't going to come
Speaker 1: in for some reason. And so before he turns because
Speaker 1: he heard the grunt, he starts company, just pins his
Speaker 1: ears back. He's coming like it worked. But you know, dude, stop.
Speaker 1: You know the first one was all you had to do. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: and you see people you can The safest call probably
Speaker 1: in that situation is a grunt call because you can
Speaker 1: keep it pretty subtle and you can kind of direct
Speaker 1: it a little bit. But when you see somebody rattle
Speaker 1: that way, you're just like, this is it's just over.
Speaker 1: And most of the time when you're grunning at him
Speaker 1: that way, it's over to or snort, wheezing or whatever.
Speaker 1: And you know, it's a matter of I remember I
Speaker 1: did an outfitted a hunt years ago in Illinois, and
Speaker 1: I remember talking to one of the guides there and
Speaker 1: he was just saying, like, I've got a deer that's
Speaker 1: so killable. He's a good buck in this spot. And
Speaker 1: I wasn't hunting it. I was hunting a different spot.
Speaker 1: He was telling me about it, and he's like, if
Speaker 1: I can just get everybody to leave him alone and
Speaker 1: hunt this the way I want to, somebody's going to
Speaker 1: kill him. But he's like, if they go in and
Speaker 1: they make a lot of contact with this but because
Speaker 1: he was I don't remember exactly what he was doing,
Speaker 1: but he was using this wood lot heavy. But it
Speaker 1: wasn't like he was always walking right by the stand,
Speaker 1: but that was his area. And he's like, it's just
Speaker 1: a matter of time. If we do our job right
Speaker 1: and don't let him know, then this deer is gonna die.
Speaker 1: Somebody's going to get a great shot at him. But
Speaker 1: if one of these guys goes in and shows him
Speaker 1: what we're up to, it's freaking over right. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: that is very, very true. And guys just gotta again
Speaker 1: that that is no different than the walking in and
Speaker 1: out wrong or the wind being wrong. Is that additional
Speaker 1: pressure we're applying, and you know, the deer just get
Speaker 1: more and more cautious. So how I was thinking about
Speaker 1: something that you know, I know if you're if you're
Speaker 1: talking to Illinois, that that property there Iowa, you've got
Speaker 1: you know, bow season going on and then gun season
Speaker 1: comes in. But I know down in Texas there's there's
Speaker 1: concurrent season, So you could be bow hunting while there's
Speaker 1: guys rifle hunting out there, and you know, you could
Speaker 1: have people who are sitting in blinds and tree stands,
Speaker 1: on water or feed or whatever. But you could have
Speaker 1: somebody else who's like, I'm gonna walk around with Uncle
Speaker 1: Randy and I'm gonna carry my rifle and we're gonna
Speaker 1: shoot stuff. How do you manage you know, like two
Speaker 1: vastly different styles of hunting to two totally different weapons
Speaker 1: on the same ground. Well, there's certain areas that you're
Speaker 1: just gonna do a lot of damage walking or spot
Speaker 1: and stocking, and we won't even entertain doing that in
Speaker 1: those areas and that you know, or we've if we
Speaker 1: have a stand or feeder or a blind whatever that's
Speaker 1: really hot, or there's a shooter buck that's been sitting
Speaker 1: you know, set you frequenting a spot. We're we're not
Speaker 1: going to go in there and do crazy stuff. You
Speaker 1: know a lot of times if the guy wants to
Speaker 1: go do that, will go to the odd ball area.
Speaker 1: You know, those properties have deer and all you know,
Speaker 1: they're they're all over those ranches. But well, we're gonna
Speaker 1: go somewhere. You know a lot of times, be honest,
Speaker 1: I mean a lot of times. That's when I'm scouting.
Speaker 1: I would go, let's go walk this northwest corner of
Speaker 1: the property, because you know, I've never walked through that block.
Speaker 1: And if you want to go spot and stocking, by god,
Speaker 1: let's go in there and see what's in there, you know.
Speaker 1: And it's a good lesson for me to like, I'm
Speaker 1: always learning every time I'm in the field, and you know,
Speaker 1: if I've walked through the same block a hundred times,
Speaker 1: I don't necessarily want to go walk it again. You know.
Speaker 1: I like to learn and see new stuff too, so
Speaker 1: I'll take advantage of that and and and go after again.
Speaker 1: We're spoiled down there every a little bit because the
Speaker 1: densities are so high. Um, but I'm definitely not going
Speaker 1: to go pound in the pavement, you know, in areas
Speaker 1: that I know if we just hunt that stand right
Speaker 1: will kill a deer. You know, we're just not going
Speaker 1: to do that. And I'll tell the guy, if you
Speaker 1: go sitting that stand, you can kill a deer. Or
Speaker 1: if you want to go spot and stot rouge over here,
Speaker 1: I'm not really sure what we might see, but you
Speaker 1: never know, let's go try it. If you want and
Speaker 1: some guys like, let's go, and other guys go, you
Speaker 1: really think I should get in that stand? And I'm like,
Speaker 1: you know, that's what is there for. I haven't anybody
Speaker 1: in there, and here's the pictures, Like I can't do
Speaker 1: anymore other than tell you need to be sitting there,
Speaker 1: you know, and um, you know, guys, some listen something,
Speaker 1: just do well, Like maybe there's a bad question to ask,
Speaker 1: but what what percentage of the time when a client
Speaker 1: is talking to you do you just assume they're lying?
Speaker 1: Because I know when you get when you get people
Speaker 1: in and they'll talk about the encounters they had or
Speaker 1: the misses they had or something, and it's never their fault.
Speaker 1: And I I don't want I don't want to say
Speaker 1: we have any I would hope nobody's just point blank lying.
Speaker 1: But what they do is they it excited and they
Speaker 1: exaggerate the hell out of whatever they They might have
Speaker 1: saw six or seven does and it was twenty five
Speaker 1: deer and you know, or they saw a hundred thirty
Speaker 1: eight point and there's a one sixty running around in there,
Speaker 1: and you know, they're excited, or they may not have
Speaker 1: the experience or knowledge to really know what they were
Speaker 1: looking at. And for you know, like I grew up
Speaker 1: in eastern North Carolina, if we saw a hundred thirty
Speaker 1: I didn't see very many hundred thirty inches deer there
Speaker 1: like when you did. If you really actually saw a
Speaker 1: hundred thirty black when I was a kid, you would
Speaker 1: have done everything in your power to kill that deer.
Speaker 1: I mean, because it was the biggest damn thing in
Speaker 1: the county, um, you know, and you'd rode around with
Speaker 1: it in the back of your truck with the tailgate
Speaker 1: down for a month so everybody could see the adlers.
Speaker 1: I mean, it was just you know. And so a
Speaker 1: lot of that happens where guys come in and I'm like, hey,
Speaker 1: it's or you know, or you know, I mean, I
Speaker 1: I can't because of and you know, and I'm guilty
Speaker 1: because I'm in that business. But like a lot on
Speaker 1: TV or articles they might read, or you know, guys
Speaker 1: on to whatever they're watching. You know, that two term
Speaker 1: gets slown around, or that one seventy term gets thown around,
Speaker 1: and a lot of guys have no idea how big
Speaker 1: a hundred seventy deer is. And I have a lot
Speaker 1: of guys come in and tell me. Especially in Illinois, Man,
Speaker 1: I saw two one seventies and there day I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 1: probably not, you know, like two together, like they're just
Speaker 1: hanging out together, you know, in the middle of the run,
Speaker 1: no doubt, you know, but not not that they can't happen.
Speaker 1: But it's probably not gay, so they just got excited
Speaker 1: or they don't know what they're looking. When I first
Speaker 1: hunted with you down there in Texas, my exposure to
Speaker 1: Texas had always been you know, outdoor channel stuff, and
Speaker 1: you know, so those super wide, dark antler bucks down there,
Speaker 1: and then you know, I get down there and I
Speaker 1: see a lot of really nice dear, and I'm with
Speaker 1: a bunch of guys of varying levels of experience, and
Speaker 1: people are talking about how big these deer are. And
Speaker 1: then you start killing them, and you're like, they're nice, dear,
Speaker 1: but they're not hundreds of you know, I mean, like
Speaker 1: like you said, where you were in the hill country,
Speaker 1: you know, you're really small bodies, like really small, so
Speaker 1: they ground shrink. And you know, you're used to looking
Speaker 1: at Minnesota deer and you see a deer out there
Speaker 1: a hundred yards walking by, Man, that's a really big buck.
Speaker 1: But when you walk up and only ways a hundred
Speaker 1: and twenty pounds live weight, you know that's that's a
Speaker 1: different deer. I mean, there are subspecies of the deer
Speaker 1: that you're used to looking at, and so again, and
Speaker 1: you know, I have a lot of guys go, you know,
Speaker 1: come down and go, man, I just can't judge these
Speaker 1: texas here. You got to sit somebody with me, because
Speaker 1: I just can't. I can't tell how big they are,
Speaker 1: you know, and you know, you gotta put it all
Speaker 1: in referre reference the size of things. So I always
Speaker 1: try to tell guys how long their ears are in
Speaker 1: the distance from the eye to the corner of their nose,
Speaker 1: and then you can kind of judge the rack a
Speaker 1: little bit because you can get a reference. Okay, that's
Speaker 1: six inches. You can kind of roll it up the
Speaker 1: beam and look at the times, you know. But if
Speaker 1: you used to looking at Illinois or Scatchewan bucks or something,
Speaker 1: and you can sit there and go, gosh and reference
Speaker 1: to the head of that dear head, there's one seventy
Speaker 1: and it's like, hey, he's about because there's deer there. Well,
Speaker 1: do do you think that? People? Though? I mean kind
Speaker 1: of where I'm going with this is like I always
Speaker 1: I kind of like have a firm belief like buck
Speaker 1: is a really good deer anywhere, Like when you see
Speaker 1: you know, I know that you you get into the
Speaker 1: heart Illinois where you're at, like that's that's not that's
Speaker 1: not the deer that a lot of people are looking for.
Speaker 1: You draw that Iowa tag. And yet most people when
Speaker 1: they get into tree sand and a hundred thirty comes
Speaker 1: down the trail like they're they're scrambling for their release
Speaker 1: right like arrows are flying. Yeah, and we one of
Speaker 1: the things that and I bitched about this a lot,
Speaker 1: but it drives me, not says we talk about like
Speaker 1: I'll hear people say, oh, I had a little hundred
Speaker 1: twenty inure coming. I'm like, I've never seen a little
Speaker 1: hundred venture Well. And then the other thing is, I
Speaker 1: mean look at the standard for you know, Pope and
Speaker 1: young buck. You know that's what it is. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's a heck up a nice deer, you know. And
Speaker 1: and a lot of times like our South Dakota hunts,
Speaker 1: we used to do a lot. I would tell guys,
Speaker 1: if you want an opportunity at a there there is
Speaker 1: a truckload of poping young deer there. You know that
Speaker 1: one one forty type deer and that's a heck of
Speaker 1: a deer anywhere. And there's just a super high quantity
Speaker 1: of those deer there. It's a great place to go
Speaker 1: bow if you're looking for that, you know. And yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean guys will talk again, the numbers get thrown around,
Speaker 1: these stupid scores and they really just don't know what
Speaker 1: they're talking about, or or they're real lucky and get
Speaker 1: to hunt a place that does have deer like that.
Speaker 1: But you know, a hundred thirty inch bucks a nice buck.
Speaker 1: I've shot tons of them, and I'm gonna keep shooting.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's just a nice deer. Or where you
Speaker 1: hunted in Texas, d buck in that hill country is
Speaker 1: a big buck. Man, that's a really big buck. Because
Speaker 1: you don't get you mass might get long times, but
Speaker 1: you walk up and you're like, man, I've never shot
Speaker 1: a buck with horns that spindley, you know, But you know,
Speaker 1: they just they won't score it. And really, at the
Speaker 1: end of the day, I've gotten where and I try
Speaker 1: to kind of school our clients on this. I don't
Speaker 1: really care what they score. You know, when I was younger.
Speaker 1: I want to kill the biggest deer ever. But you know,
Speaker 1: really what I really want to beat that five and
Speaker 1: a half year old. If I beat that really mature buck,
Speaker 1: I I really can give two cares about what he scores.
Speaker 1: It's just, man, you see that tank. I mean I
Speaker 1: I just killed the biggest buck in that block, you
Speaker 1: know there. You know that I killed that eight year
Speaker 1: old buck over there. That's super cool. You know, my
Speaker 1: son killed his first Illinois deer last year with me here,
Speaker 1: and it was an eight point you know it was
Speaker 1: it was a point awesome deer. He was about to
Speaker 1: lose his mind, but it was a six and a
Speaker 1: half year old, just monster deer, you know. And when
Speaker 1: he walked out, he just couldn't believe how big the
Speaker 1: deer was. And I was like, what do you beat
Speaker 1: the smartest deer in that block? I mean, that's that's
Speaker 1: the deer with all the education. That's the deer that's
Speaker 1: seeing all the guys in the trees. That's the guy,
Speaker 1: the deer that we couldn't kill all season, and you
Speaker 1: got him, you know it's you. I like to win
Speaker 1: that battle. I don't really care what the score, you know,
Speaker 1: I just like killing white tails. Do you see that
Speaker 1: changing because it I feel like that's changed a little
Speaker 1: bit where people it wasn't that long ago where there
Speaker 1: was like a real score obsession like I gotta I
Speaker 1: want to get my one fifty, I want to get
Speaker 1: my one sixty, whatever, And now I feel like it
Speaker 1: switched a little bit more to that emphasis on mature
Speaker 1: bucks or not. I think a lot of land managers have,
Speaker 1: you know, guys that are managing even small farms, big farms, whatever.
Speaker 1: You know, landowners have switched gears a little bit. And
Speaker 1: so the hunter has switched based on the guy that
Speaker 1: decent from saying and this is what I want done,
Speaker 1: or or the buddy to let you come hunt, as
Speaker 1: far as like hey, we're not shooting him us to
Speaker 1: get a little older. Um, you know, but there's still
Speaker 1: guys wanting to you know, they're still talking score. And
Speaker 1: again I'll blame a lot of that on TV because
Speaker 1: you know that's you know, we did that for years
Speaker 1: and I won't name like you wouldn't name anybody earlier,
Speaker 1: but I won't name shows. But that's all they talk about,
Speaker 1: Like why don't we just have a great white tail hunt? Man?
Speaker 1: I just had a blast sitting here with my like
Speaker 1: with my son. We just this buck came out committed suicide.
Speaker 1: It never happens like that. We've been trying all season
Speaker 1: and it just all came together. Best time ever. I
Speaker 1: could give two ships with the big scores. I don't
Speaker 1: care because that was that Again, I felt the experience.
Speaker 1: That was the best experience you could have drawn. Like
Speaker 1: that day you do still get me better, And oh,
Speaker 1: you know, I would like to hope you're right that
Speaker 1: people are kind of coming back around to that, because
Speaker 1: that that's really that's hunting, That's what hunting is supposed
Speaker 1: to be, um, you know. And so yeah, we all
Speaker 1: want to manage and grow big deer and shoot big deer.
Speaker 1: But at the end of the day, I like eating
Speaker 1: backstraps and you know, talking about how that all came together, Well,
Speaker 1: that's that's got to be something that's challenging with being,
Speaker 1: you know, being an outfitter like that is you know,
Speaker 1: you look at this and people people so often either
Speaker 1: want to book an outfit a hunt because they haven't
Speaker 1: killed x buck or why buck, or you know, they
Speaker 1: want to draw that Kansas take because of the same reason.
Speaker 1: And there's that that trophy focus, but really, like you know,
Speaker 1: I've had a lot of people ask me about Texas
Speaker 1: hunting because it's so so different than most of my hunting.
Speaker 1: You know, people are obsessed with the pigs and the
Speaker 1: opportunity and stuff too, But really I'm like, man, you know,
Speaker 1: it's a weird hunt for me. But it was so
Speaker 1: fun because of the dear behavior you'd see, and it
Speaker 1: wasn't like you were going to freaking blank like you know.
Speaker 1: I mean, the first morning I ever hunted down there,
Speaker 1: when I shot that one buck that I ended up
Speaker 1: shooting later, I just remember thinking, I've seen more fights,
Speaker 1: I've heard more snort weezes. I've seen more just like
Speaker 1: mature buck activity and behavior in three hours than I
Speaker 1: could rack up in my style of hunting in ten seasons.
Speaker 1: I mean, it was like, you know, maybe that's maybe
Speaker 1: that's an exaggeration, maybe two seasons, but still it was like,
Speaker 1: holy cow, this is a really fun hunt. Like it's
Speaker 1: an experience and it's not just a means to a
Speaker 1: dead you know whatever. Insure. Yeah, well, I always tell
Speaker 1: my buddies that I grew up with back in North Carolina,
Speaker 1: it's a different world of white tail hunting. And when
Speaker 1: you come out and hunt that South Texas stuff, especially
Speaker 1: during the rut when it's you know, it's just on that,
Speaker 1: you'll probably see an experience more buck and rud activity
Speaker 1: than you will in three or four seasons, you know,
Speaker 1: and you'll see more bucks than you will in three
Speaker 1: or four seasons in a three or four day hunt
Speaker 1: against a different world of white tail hunt and it's
Speaker 1: a different world of pressure. But if you really want
Speaker 1: to understand dear and understand their mannerisms and really what
Speaker 1: dear do, naturally you get to see all that is
Speaker 1: cool to be experienced. And again, if a guy can
Speaker 1: come with an open mind on a hunt and understand
Speaker 1: that he's coming for that experience, that's the client I
Speaker 1: want to take versus the guy that's like, Nope, I
Speaker 1: came here to shoot a one fifty seven or bigger
Speaker 1: because my biggest one is one fifty seven and I
Speaker 1: have to do that, you know, and you're you're, you know,
Speaker 1: you've got the pressure of trying to you know, pull
Speaker 1: something at you know, out of your hat. You can't
Speaker 1: do it, or or they've set themselves up for a
Speaker 1: failure before they came. And again that goes back to
Speaker 1: the screening part of what I like to do, you know,
Speaker 1: when we're talking a book in the hunts and try
Speaker 1: to you know, just be real frank with guys like that,
Speaker 1: or even in a way eliminate dealing with guys like that,
Speaker 1: just because I don't want to. I don't want let
Speaker 1: anybody down. We always try and best well. And that's
Speaker 1: a good example there, because you know, people have lots
Speaker 1: of different reasons for doing this stuff, but when you
Speaker 1: you kind of narrow it down to that one thing,
Speaker 1: like okay is my biggest I want that one seven
Speaker 1: or or if it's not worth it, you start to
Speaker 1: just like change the whole reason to be out there.
Speaker 1: And I, like I've been preaching this a long time,
Speaker 1: Like it's the same reason, you know, like I like
Speaker 1: to travel to New States and hunt public land, Like
Speaker 1: the experience teaches me something all the time, and I
Speaker 1: just enjoy that part of it. Like it's not when
Speaker 1: you kind of when you get to a certain point
Speaker 1: in your career, a lot of times you're just kind
Speaker 1: of like you said, I don't really care about scool anymore,
Speaker 1: Like I don't I don't go into the season going
Speaker 1: it has to be this buck or nothing, And I
Speaker 1: find myself enjoying it a hell of a lot more
Speaker 1: because I've done that in the past. And I'm always
Speaker 1: curious about that with like outfitted hunts, because people, you know,
Speaker 1: when you get that money involved, and then you get
Speaker 1: some ego being in camp and you know, one guy
Speaker 1: kills a great, big one on the first night, and
Speaker 1: then everybody else hasn't killed one yet, like that, dynamics
Speaker 1: get really weird. But the people who go into it and
Speaker 1: and they're like, I don't care, I just want to
Speaker 1: see some deer and have my chance, they tend to
Speaker 1: do pretty well. Yeah, oh yeah yeah. And I mean, like,
Speaker 1: I get to hunt this property again. I'm really lucky
Speaker 1: to be to do that. I get to have this property.
Speaker 1: Ever year. I shoot two bucks here every year with
Speaker 1: one with the boat, one with a shotgun. And last
Speaker 1: year I shot two eight points I did. I shot
Speaker 1: they were both big, mature bucks, and again I they
Speaker 1: were perfect hunts, and I rattled the one in I
Speaker 1: killed with the boat. You know, it just was too
Speaker 1: perfect of the experience of what was happening. I got
Speaker 1: caught up in the moment I shot him. He was dead.
Speaker 1: You know, and then my shotgun deer was a deer
Speaker 1: I've been seeing for three years, and he just it
Speaker 1: was a buck. We wanted to get out of there.
Speaker 1: And he walked out five minutes after daylight the first morning,
Speaker 1: and I shot him, you know, And again I goes
Speaker 1: back to you, I'd said it really I like the
Speaker 1: eat backstraps too, And you know, I was having a
Speaker 1: damn good time and I was tickled death, you know,
Speaker 1: and I can I've shot some really big bucks here
Speaker 1: and could continue to do that. And you know, I
Speaker 1: took a guy the spot I killed my shotgun buck.
Speaker 1: I popped up a blind in the cornfield that had
Speaker 1: been cut and I've been watching deer across this pinch
Speaker 1: point in the field and I shot my buck that morning.
Speaker 1: I took a client there this that afternoon that is
Speaker 1: hunted with me for years. He shot a one eight seven.
Speaker 1: It so if I stayed there all day, that's what
Speaker 1: I killed, you know. But but but it was awesome,
Speaker 1: and I sat there, I actually filmed him killing. It
Speaker 1: was it was I had no idea that year was
Speaker 1: going to show up there, So you really don't know
Speaker 1: what's going to happen. But I mean just an absolute stud.
Speaker 1: So I shoot, I shot at one thirty five, and
Speaker 1: you go seven and and but we were both just
Speaker 1: as happy with what happened. You know, it was just
Speaker 1: awesome experience. It's it's a good place to be in
Speaker 1: when you don't really care about that stuff that much. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and quite frankly, you can't bitch about going out and
Speaker 1: killing hundred thirty five venture That's right, you can't, and
Speaker 1: you should. But a lot of guys would, you know,
Speaker 1: And that's you know, like you said, hopefully that we
Speaker 1: got little evolution going back to let's just go out
Speaker 1: and have a good day hunt, you know, enjoy everybody
Speaker 1: in camp and have a good time. Okay, So you
Speaker 1: wouldn't throw your clients under the bus when I asked
Speaker 1: you about them lying to you. But I got to
Speaker 1: ask you this. How do you feel when a client
Speaker 1: comes back and they say, you know, the big one
Speaker 1: came in and I shot. Everything felt really good, But
Speaker 1: I didn't see him go down. Then what happens in
Speaker 1: your head? We're gonna wait, give him some time, but
Speaker 1: but uh, it's frustrating. I'm not gonna lie. I mean,
Speaker 1: we've had me and Randy have had multiple conversations over
Speaker 1: the years, we come and go, Man, everything worked perfect,
Speaker 1: and this guy just screwed it up, you know. And
Speaker 1: I mean it's not that we're like picking on him,
Speaker 1: it's just it's frustrating because it actually worked. All the
Speaker 1: stuff we had done came together, and it's like, damn it, man,
Speaker 1: and I've done it. I mean I've missed them, wounded
Speaker 1: one or screwed it up or you know, but it's
Speaker 1: still you're just like, oh, come on, dude. It's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean we we've definitely never to a client, but
Speaker 1: we've definitely in bribe it or downstairs, you know what,
Speaker 1: the guys are all gathering. ID was like, this guy's
Speaker 1: missed three times. Man. It's just just getting ridiculous. Everyone
Speaker 1: you know, and they know who they are if they're
Speaker 1: listening to this, because they were like, honey with him
Speaker 1: last year, missed times. Well then I was talking about
Speaker 1: you with Randy up sure. Well. I mean, it's just
Speaker 1: it's it's one of those things. And and this happens
Speaker 1: with everybody does this, and it happens with your buddies
Speaker 1: where you know, you just have a unique perspective on
Speaker 1: seeing so many more people come back and say, I
Speaker 1: took this shot, Here's what I think happened, or or different,
Speaker 1: here's what I believe happened. Well, most of the time
Speaker 1: they don't know what happened. If they're super excited. More
Speaker 1: than fifty percent of the time, you could almost throw
Speaker 1: out what they told you. Just throw it away because
Speaker 1: and what I mean by that is, okay, where exactly
Speaker 1: was he standing, especially a gun hunter if it was
Speaker 1: a hunter fit yards out there. Sometimes it takes me
Speaker 1: longer to find where the deer was because they really
Speaker 1: don't know. They didn't reference anything. They got excited. They
Speaker 1: watched the deer run off, and they can barely tell
Speaker 1: you what direction it ran um, you know, or they
Speaker 1: shot it and they think they smoked it and it's
Speaker 1: shot in the hips, you know, or you know it's
Speaker 1: gut shot or or man, the angle was perfect, I
Speaker 1: hit him last rib, but really it was broadside and
Speaker 1: went straight through the middle, you know, you know, because
Speaker 1: I mean I've had to happen to me, you know.
Speaker 1: But a lot of times we get, especially when they're excited,
Speaker 1: you get a story that's just not when you find it,
Speaker 1: it's not what you thought or you know, it's like
Speaker 1: and they go, I know, he didn't go that way.
Speaker 1: When you start looking for blood, it's like, well the blood,
Speaker 1: you know, And that happens a lot. Yeah, well, And
Speaker 1: I mean that's what what comes from a lot of
Speaker 1: experience with this stuff is you learn to not trust
Speaker 1: yourself as much as you think you should in those
Speaker 1: moments because you start filling in the blanks and you
Speaker 1: you know, everybody gets real jacked up and everybody thinks
Speaker 1: things happened that didn't. And you know that colors your
Speaker 1: blood trailing. That color is your recovery time. It color
Speaker 1: colors everything. And when you you just get a unique
Speaker 1: look at it. When you're in on an outfited hunter,
Speaker 1: you're running an outfit like you are, where you get
Speaker 1: you get just more exposure to that. And I remember
Speaker 1: we we hunted down there one time with you, and
Speaker 1: there was a guy there, another writer, who shot a
Speaker 1: buck and you know, he came back to camp. I
Speaker 1: hit it right behind the shoulder, but it ran off
Speaker 1: and it bedded down with its head up, and then
Speaker 1: it got up and then it moved a little bit
Speaker 1: at bettered down again. And I remember talking to him
Speaker 1: and he was like, you know, I I know that
Speaker 1: shot was perfect, and I'm like, well, Nope, it wasn't.
Speaker 1: And he got really pissed at me, and I was like,
Speaker 1: well it clearly the angle was clearly off. If you
Speaker 1: hit him where you think you did, that's just not
Speaker 1: how it's going to shake out, you know, and too
Speaker 1: long thing, you know, with their head up, it just
Speaker 1: doesn't happen. No, And you know when they got that buck.
Speaker 1: He came back to camp and the first thing he did,
Speaker 1: he walked up to me said, I hit that buck
Speaker 1: right behind the shoulder. So okay, where's the exit? And
Speaker 1: the exit was all the way through his ass because
Speaker 1: the deer was almost facing him, and so you know,
Speaker 1: in his head, I mean, there was some ego tied
Speaker 1: up in there whatever, but in his head, he's like,
Speaker 1: I hit that buck right where I should. And I
Speaker 1: see a lot of new hunters kind of do that
Speaker 1: where it's like I just got to get it behind
Speaker 1: the shoulder, and they don't factor in you know what
Speaker 1: what we think about draw the line through and where's
Speaker 1: it coming out. You've got to draw that line of
Speaker 1: how it's going to happen. There a lot of guys
Speaker 1: do that. I have a ton of guys hit him,
Speaker 1: where again everything looks perfect, the knocks in the right spot,
Speaker 1: and it's like, man, that deer was facing away from me,
Speaker 1: he is way too hard, or he was facing to
Speaker 1: you too much, or you know, there's a million and
Speaker 1: things happen. Or you're shooting a big expandable broadhead and
Speaker 1: it hit the ribs and kicked and the knock look good,
Speaker 1: but the hits really way up here, and you know,
Speaker 1: you just and again you're excited. So you see things
Speaker 1: that you think are there and are not. You know,
Speaker 1: I mean we've all done yeah, well yeah, and you
Speaker 1: know in those in those situations, it's just like the
Speaker 1: more the more experience you have, the more you realize,
Speaker 1: like I might have gotten this wrong and I'm gonna
Speaker 1: be careful and you and it does that. But it
Speaker 1: also does when you see people who are you know,
Speaker 1: who are giving big bucks a lot of credit, the
Speaker 1: one of the worst things that can happen to them
Speaker 1: is a botched encounter like that where they lose one,
Speaker 1: because then you start thinking these things are I'm never
Speaker 1: gonna get one, or I'm never gonna kill this caliber
Speaker 1: buck or whatever. So the next time one walks down
Speaker 1: the trail. You know, you think you lost your ship
Speaker 1: before and when you when you got shot, when you
Speaker 1: didn't find it or whatever. Now when you get another chance,
Speaker 1: you're like, mentally you're gonna be that much worse off.
Speaker 1: And that's like a snowball effect and it's really rough
Speaker 1: to overcome that sometimes. Oh yeah, for sure. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean a lot of bow hunt is right here. You
Speaker 1: just got to be able to you know, have the
Speaker 1: head game to keep it together and and you know,
Speaker 1: make execute the shot and not think about past or
Speaker 1: you know, you know things that have happened. It's it's
Speaker 1: tough and and at a lot of that experience too.
Speaker 1: You have guys haven't been out there a lot and
Speaker 1: haven't slu a lot. I know, when I was a
Speaker 1: kid first started bow hunting, I saw a lot of
Speaker 1: arrows before deer died. It was doing bad, but it
Speaker 1: was my nerves. I couldn't control it, you know. When
Speaker 1: I only learned how to control it, and I got
Speaker 1: when I was like I could do this. You know
Speaker 1: what I've just had as I've matured as a hunter,
Speaker 1: I've got where I can control that a lot better.
Speaker 1: I still get excited, but it's after more than it
Speaker 1: is before. I almost try to get mad at them,
Speaker 1: you know, like I'm you know, I get really zero
Speaker 1: in on it, or I'll lose my crap and screw
Speaker 1: it up, you know, punchra trated like anybody else would
Speaker 1: well that. And that's one of the things. I mean,
Speaker 1: we we always you know, we do these podcasts, we
Speaker 1: write these articles whatever, and we always talk about these
Speaker 1: strategies and huntings styles and here here's how you do it.
Speaker 1: Or you know, you're like we were talking about earlier.
Speaker 1: You just preserve that movement, you know, really be a
Speaker 1: good ninja out there in the woods and don't let
Speaker 1: them know they're on you or you know you're on them,
Speaker 1: and then all of a sudden you'll get your shot.
Speaker 1: But it's like you can't you can't learn that part
Speaker 1: through osmosis, Like I can't tell you how to be
Speaker 1: a killer when that dear's twenty yards away. Like you've
Speaker 1: gotta get through that bullshit you're talking about where you
Speaker 1: miss a bunch of them or you make bad shots.
Speaker 1: And almost everybody goes through that. And you might be
Speaker 1: talking five years, you might be talking ten seasons, if
Speaker 1: you know, depending on how much experience you get. It
Speaker 1: might be like a sign significant portion exactly. You may
Speaker 1: be hunting public land or a small farm that you
Speaker 1: want to get one or two cracks a year, and
Speaker 1: if you're screwing up those, you might take you four
Speaker 1: or five seasons before you can put it together. Yep.
Speaker 1: And and and you go from you know, that place
Speaker 1: where you're like excited to see them come, but you're
Speaker 1: scared because you don't want to screw it up too.
Speaker 1: Now you're like, don't you better not walk through here
Speaker 1: because you're gonna die. And when you kind of flip
Speaker 1: that switch, it's like a wonderful thing, and it still
Speaker 1: goes wrong. But when you start to believe like that
Speaker 1: down the trail, like now you're in trouble. Now not
Speaker 1: I'm in trouble because he's coming. That's like such a
Speaker 1: beautiful place to be, and it's like there's no way
Speaker 1: to get there other than just lots of encounters. That's
Speaker 1: it exactly. So I got a couple of questions left
Speaker 1: for you. Forere we wrap this up just just out
Speaker 1: of like personal curiosity. So you brought up your son,
Speaker 1: and I know your son's a hunting fool, which doesn't
Speaker 1: surprise me at all, knowing you and your dad. But
Speaker 1: I always tell people who go to Texas because you
Speaker 1: know how it is like everybody's like, hey, I want
Speaker 1: a pig hunt. I want to I want to shoot
Speaker 1: these mesquite dear whatever. But when you get to Texas,
Speaker 1: there's like raccoons and there's armadillos, and there's all kinds
Speaker 1: of stuff running around, and people kind of turn into
Speaker 1: like that eight year old boy with his first baby gun.
Speaker 1: It's like, I want to shoot shoot out of everything.
Speaker 1: How do you How do you deal with that? Because
Speaker 1: I know, I know in some ways you kind of
Speaker 1: just gotta let people go a little bit. But in
Speaker 1: some ways you're like, I don't want you sitting on
Speaker 1: that feeder shooting raccoons when I know we definitely we
Speaker 1: definitely uh when a guy gets in that mode, we
Speaker 1: will uh. And you know, the predator control stuff is
Speaker 1: all good. I mean, you know those are all nest robbers,
Speaker 1: all the turkeys and stuff, you know, and and they
Speaker 1: cost us a lot of money on the feed and
Speaker 1: everything else. So you know, killing those critters, you know,
Speaker 1: when their numbers are crazy, I don't have an issue
Speaker 1: with that, but we definitely kind of pick and choose
Speaker 1: his spots. We're not gonna take you where you're you know,
Speaker 1: you're hunting your buck or the buck I think you
Speaker 1: have a chance to kill, Like, you know, here's your arrow,
Speaker 1: don't take that quiver of twenty because I don't want
Speaker 1: you shooting all and stuff. You know, So I get
Speaker 1: in our brief or whatever guides thinking about like, hey,
Speaker 1: get that guy under control, because you know, he doesn't
Speaker 1: need to shoot his two have liness and five hogs
Speaker 1: before the deer come out. That's a problem. Do you
Speaker 1: think that Jason is going to know we're talking about
Speaker 1: him here? Probably he's a trigger happy fella. Uh Ja's
Speaker 1: always because well I was testing this new broadhead or
Speaker 1: I was testing it like yeah, whatever, dude, Yeah bro,
Speaker 1: we have the same job. I know what you're doing here.
Speaker 1: All right, Last last one, buddy, what what are the
Speaker 1: most common mistakes you see clients make? It just cost
Speaker 1: him dear impatient? Uh, you know, forcing something that shouldn't happen,
Speaker 1: so you know, not not waiting on the actual the
Speaker 1: shot that they should take. I see a lot of
Speaker 1: guys force it in the heat of the moment. I
Speaker 1: gotta get him right now. Because there he is, and
Speaker 1: I gotta shoot, and damn it, if I had just
Speaker 1: let him clear that trio and it stuck that trio
Speaker 1: and hit that lamb or or finally just took a
Speaker 1: deep breath, he he would have dropped his head. He
Speaker 1: was learned, and then he relaxed. See, you would have relaxed,
Speaker 1: you know, and you just you know, try to see
Speaker 1: it coming together and see how it's gonna happen, and
Speaker 1: just picking the place to make your shot and then
Speaker 1: sticking to that, uh, you know, and being patient to
Speaker 1: execute a good shot, and a lot of guys just
Speaker 1: rush it. Yeah, just just impatience in general. I mean,
Speaker 1: I know that you see that a lot down there,
Speaker 1: like you know, a water hole hunt or something. When
Speaker 1: somebody's coming in through the brush. It's like, just let
Speaker 1: him get to the water man. It's like a bear
Speaker 1: going to a bear bait. Once he starts eating, he
Speaker 1: drops his guard and you probably got it, like you
Speaker 1: do whatever you want. As he approaches de bait, he's
Speaker 1: real cautious. He's looking around, he's checking everything. So they
Speaker 1: think coming to the water they're they're nervous, they're you know,
Speaker 1: they're almost stealing food. Or water from whoever owns that
Speaker 1: feeder or whatever. You know, they're just checking everything else
Speaker 1: out and or they've had their butt kicked there by
Speaker 1: a bigger buck or an older buck got ahold of them,
Speaker 1: or you know, and it once they dropped. If you'll
Speaker 1: just be patient, they'll give you the shot that you're
Speaker 1: looking for. You know. That's the thing about like feeder
Speaker 1: hunt in Texas. You know, and there's corn spread all
Speaker 1: over the place. Shows it's not like they're standing there
Speaker 1: eating in the clover patch. They're literally hunting, pecking and
Speaker 1: find all this fume. You're gonna get fifty different angles
Speaker 1: at that deer for the perfect shot if you'll just
Speaker 1: wait a second, you know, instead of shooting and facing
Speaker 1: your hard quarter, you know when you don't need to
Speaker 1: do that. You know he will, he will present the angle.
Speaker 1: Just to take a deep breath, look up in the
Speaker 1: sky for a second, do what you gotta do, and
Speaker 1: then you know, let him, let him do it. You
Speaker 1: get in the right place and shoot. But it's hard
Speaker 1: for a lot of guys. And again that's just experience. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: patients and just letting a moment breathe and waiting for
Speaker 1: your your the right time. Is hard to learn. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: yeah it is. It's just hard to learn, Mike. This
Speaker 1: has been so much fun. Man. If somebody wants to
Speaker 1: book a hunt with you, where do they look? Then
Speaker 1: just go to our website so we hunts dot net.
Speaker 1: Or they can go to the Savage Outdoors dot tv
Speaker 1: website eat one and they that's literally my cell phone
Speaker 1: on there because I do all the booking. I talked
Speaker 1: to every client, um, you know, and the email comes
Speaker 1: to me, so they're not talking to my office manager
Speaker 1: any that. It's me. So awesome. I appreciate it so much.
Speaker 1: Thanks man, Hey, thank you appreciate you having me. That's
Speaker 1: it for this week, folks, be sure to tune in
Speaker 1: next week for more white tail goodness. This has been
Speaker 1: the Wired to Hunt podcast, and I'm your guest host,
Speaker 1: Tony Peterson. As I always, thank you so much for listening.
Speaker 1: And if you're looking for more white tail content, be
Speaker 1: sure to check out the meat eater dot com slash
Speaker 1: wired again. That's the meat eater dot com slash wired
Speaker 1: to see a pile of new articles each week by
Speaker 1: Mark myself and a whole slew of white tail addicts,
Speaker 1: or head on over to the wire to hunt YouTube channel,
Speaker 1: to view our weekly content that we put up