Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your guide to
Speaker 1: the whitetail woods, presented by first Light, creating proven versatile
Speaker 1: hunting apparel for the stand, saddle or blind. First Light
Speaker 1: Go Farther, Stay Longer, and now your host, Mark Kenyon.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt Podcast. This week on
Speaker 2: the show, I'm joined by public Land mountain buck expert
Speaker 2: Nathan Killen to dive deep into what he's learned about
Speaker 2: the behavior's trends and tendencies of the biggest oldest bucks around.
Speaker 2: All right, welcome to the wired ton Podcast, brought to
Speaker 2: you by First Light and our Camo for Conservation initiative.
Speaker 2: If you're not familiar with this, every purchase of First
Speaker 2: Light's Whitetail camo, which is the Spectra pattern, if you
Speaker 2: buy a jacket, if you buy a hat, if you
Speaker 2: buy a base layer, whatever it is, Inspector, a portion
Speaker 2: of the proceeds from that sale get donated to the
Speaker 2: National Deer Association to help them do good things for
Speaker 2: deer and deer hunters. So that is pretty darn cool.
Speaker 2: And this week we've got some pretty darn cool for
Speaker 2: you on the show as well. We're continuing our I
Speaker 2: guess I don't have a really good name for this series,
Speaker 2: but we're diving in this month to the personalities and
Speaker 2: the tendencies and the behaviors and the quirks of mature bucks.
Speaker 2: And not just like kind of mature bucks. I'm talking
Speaker 2: like old bucks. What do these bucks do? These deer
Speaker 2: are different than everything else out there on the landscape.
Speaker 2: They are the trickiest, they are the wiliest, they are
Speaker 2: the toughest, They are the survivors, and because of that,
Speaker 2: I think they fascinate a whole pile of us. We
Speaker 2: are I think many, many, many of us cannot stop
Speaker 2: thinking about these kinds of bucks. We can't stop trying
Speaker 2: to put together the puzzle pieces, put together that next
Speaker 2: move in the game of chess, to try to catch
Speaker 2: up with that buck. They are the ultimate corey. And
Speaker 2: so this month we're trying to peel back a couple
Speaker 2: layers of the onion to understand why these bucks do
Speaker 2: what they do, How do they do what they do,
Speaker 2: what are they thinking, where are they going? What are
Speaker 2: they doing? And the people that are going to help
Speaker 2: us figure that out are those deer hunters who have
Speaker 2: had the very most experience with that kind of buck.
Speaker 2: And today we have a guest who absolutely checks that box.
Speaker 2: His name is Nathan Killing. He is a die hard
Speaker 2: deer hunter from the state of Virginia and he hunts
Speaker 2: big woods, big mountain public land there in va in
Speaker 2: Ohio and elsewhere, and he has done it to a
Speaker 2: level of success level. I'm not sure what I'm trying
Speaker 2: to say here. He's been more successful than most anyone
Speaker 2: else I know in that kind of habitat. And he
Speaker 2: first came up on my radar when our good pale
Speaker 2: Andy May said to me, man, Nathan gets it done like.
Speaker 2: He is a top tier deer hunter, doing it in
Speaker 2: really tough circumstances and a very different place than most
Speaker 2: people we talked to. We got to get on the
Speaker 2: podcast at some point, and this was years ago, and
Speaker 2: it just didn't work out for whatever reason. But finally
Speaker 2: we were able to put the pieces together and Nathan
Speaker 2: is here today. He has terrific level of experience with
Speaker 2: these kinds of deer. He's got great insight. He's haunted
Speaker 2: old old bucks like way older bucks and I've ever
Speaker 2: got to chase as you'll hear here soon. He's got
Speaker 2: experience a lot of experience with not just five year
Speaker 2: old bucks, but six year old bucks, seven year old bucks, eight, nine, ten.
Speaker 2: He's finding deer like this, and he's not doing on
Speaker 2: like a thousand acre private, supermanaged farm. He's doing this
Speaker 2: on public land. He's hunting eight year old bucks on
Speaker 2: public land. There's some things we can learn from a
Speaker 2: guy like that. So that is our plan today. Now,
Speaker 2: I just want to, with all that being said, remind
Speaker 2: us of one thing, though, which is and I said
Speaker 2: this last week. I'm gonna say this every week because
Speaker 2: I think it's really important. In this, dear you're hunting
Speaker 2: world we live in these days, big deer get a
Speaker 2: whole lot of attention and praise and excitement, and right
Speaker 2: for good reason. They're all those things I just mentioned.
Speaker 2: They're fascinating, but they're not everything. And if you were
Speaker 2: to ever let a big buck or old buck, or
Speaker 2: any of this kind of stuff, an obsession over antler size,
Speaker 2: if any of that ever gets in the way of
Speaker 2: your respect for these animals, of your fun that you
Speaker 2: have while hunting these animals, if it gets in the
Speaker 2: way of you know, your relationships, your friendships, your family,
Speaker 2: if any of those things happen, that is a problem.
Speaker 2: And it's it's super important to me as I've gone
Speaker 2: through this myself to remind ourselves the big bucks aren't everything.
Speaker 2: And if you are not at a point in your
Speaker 2: hunting journey where you are chasing deer like this, that
Speaker 2: is fine. Do not feel any pressure to do so.
Speaker 2: If you want to listen today, awesome, You're gonna learn
Speaker 2: some things, but don't feel like you got to go
Speaker 2: out there and chase the deer like this. If you're
Speaker 2: still learning, man, be where you are, Enjoy where you are,
Speaker 2: get good at where you are. If you have no
Speaker 2: desire to hunt a deer like this, if you just
Speaker 2: want to get out there and kill some doughs or
Speaker 2: the first dear you see because you want to feel
Speaker 2: that freezer, man, that is awesome. I'm really glad you're
Speaker 2: out there doing it. Keep doing it, keep having fun,
Speaker 2: feeds your family. Who cares about these big old deer.
Speaker 2: If that's not your cup of tea, do not feel
Speaker 2: bad about it. Do not anybody else's choices make you
Speaker 2: feel bad about that hunt. Your own hunt. And I
Speaker 2: think with all that said, in the pursuit of big
Speaker 2: old bucks, especially these biggest old this year, these super
Speaker 2: mature deer. It's easy to let like that, those obsession
Speaker 2: type tendencies in US deer hunters to kind of take over.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: If anyone's listened over the last couple of years, you've
Speaker 2: heard my own experience where I've gone maybe too far
Speaker 2: down this road to the point where I was losing
Speaker 2: some of the fun. I was so obsessed with the
Speaker 2: end result trying to kill one of these deer that
Speaker 2: I was letting it, you know, a make me feel
Speaker 2: bad whenever I didn't have that success, make me get
Speaker 2: you know, not necessarily depressed, but it overstressed for sure.
Speaker 2: It made me, know, discount the time that it should
Speaker 2: have been spending with my family or my friends. It
Speaker 2: took me away from a lot of the things that
Speaker 2: make deer hunting especially as it is. So I've had
Speaker 2: to have like a perspective shift in recent years where
Speaker 2: I think I've found now a healthy balance between appreciating
Speaker 2: and chasing these big old deer, which are fascinating and
Speaker 2: fun and a heck of a challenge, but at the
Speaker 2: same time not letting it take over the whole thing,
Speaker 2: and making sure that I'm giving proper priority to my family,
Speaker 2: to my friends and the relationships that I have all
Speaker 2: around hunting, giving back to the landscapes, making sure that
Speaker 2: this is like a whole picture thing. It's not just
Speaker 2: trying to kill the biggest olds deer. It's trying to
Speaker 2: have a fun, challenging hunting experience. It's trying to put
Speaker 2: food on the table. It's trying to nurture important relationships
Speaker 2: and share the outdoors the people you care about. It's
Speaker 2: about giving back to the deer and the wild places
Speaker 2: to make sure that these things continue into the future.
Speaker 2: That is where at least I personally am today, and
Speaker 2: I hope that if you're somewhere in the midst of
Speaker 2: this journey yourself, that you'll think about some of those
Speaker 2: things and just be careful, maybe not make some of
Speaker 2: the same mistakes that I've made when I went too
Speaker 2: far down this path. Remember it's about the process, right,
Speaker 2: It's the hunt. It's not necessarily just the end result.
Speaker 2: So keep that process fun. Don't obsess over do I
Speaker 2: fill the tag or not? As much as did I
Speaker 2: do everything I could? Did I do the right things?
Speaker 2: Did I have fun along the way? At least for me,
Speaker 2: those are the things that in the end really truly matter.
Speaker 2: And if you can do that, it's funny how the
Speaker 2: end result tends to follow. So that is all a
Speaker 2: long winded way of saying we are talking about big
Speaker 2: old bucks today, which are super cool, and we're all
Speaker 2: gonna learn a lot today. I'm gonna leave you with
Speaker 2: two quick plugs before we get to my chat with
Speaker 2: Nathan number one. We do have another episode of One
Speaker 2: Week in November out on the mediat YouTube channel. Speaking
Speaker 2: of big old Bucks, You're gonna get to see me
Speaker 2: recover a deer I talked about last fall, which is
Speaker 2: at Nebraska Buck. He was a big old bach buck,
Speaker 2: not bach a buck. Huge neck on him, huge body,
Speaker 2: really cool deer, very exciting ending to this story there.
Speaker 2: So check out That is episode two of One Week
Speaker 2: in November, and by the time you're listening to this now,
Speaker 2: there's probably gonna be three episodes, So please, if you
Speaker 2: haven't yet, head on over to the Meat Eater YouTube channel.
Speaker 2: Check out One Week in November. It follows myself, Tony Peterson,
Speaker 2: Spencer Newharth Klay, nukeomb and Giannis Pitelis as we're hunting
Speaker 2: deer during the first week of November all over the country.
Speaker 2: It's a good time, So check that out. And finally,
Speaker 2: we're coming up on our fifth Working for Wildlife Tour event,
Speaker 2: which is down there in Mississippi, and we are going
Speaker 2: to be planting trees, we are going to be planting
Speaker 2: food plots, and we're going to be removing invasive plants
Speaker 2: all on public land down there in Mississippi and the
Speaker 2: DeSoto National Forest, doing some good stuff for deer, turkeys,
Speaker 2: all sorts of critters, and I just want to say
Speaker 2: thank you. I've already heard numbers of how many people
Speaker 2: have signed up, and it is a big old pile
Speaker 2: of folks coming down to volunteer their time during hunting season.
Speaker 2: I'm pretty sure the season's opened down there in Mississippium guessing
Speaker 2: at least. And I just want to tell you how
Speaker 2: much I appreciate that that you're willing to give a
Speaker 2: little bit of your time on a weekend to give
Speaker 2: back to these resources, these critters, these places that make
Speaker 2: all this good stuff possible. So just letting you know that,
Speaker 2: I'm giving you a big virtual high five handshake. Can't
Speaker 2: wait to meet you. I can't wait to see you
Speaker 2: tell some stories. We're gonna have a whole lot of
Speaker 2: fun and we're gonna do some good work for wildlife.
Speaker 2: And I can tell you from experience that you know,
Speaker 2: having that kind of putting in, that kind of work,
Speaker 2: it makes the hunts that follow that much sweeter because
Speaker 2: you know that you were kind of part of everything
Speaker 2: that led up to it. You gave back, and now
Speaker 2: you can take and feel pretty darn good about that
Speaker 2: deer you bring off the landscape, or the fishy pull
Speaker 2: out of the lake, whatever it is. So now, without
Speaker 2: any further ado, it's time to get to our next
Speaker 2: guest in this Big Old Buck series. We've got Nathan Killing,
Speaker 2: and we're gonna hear some stories about some eight year old,
Speaker 2: nine year old, ten freaking year old bucks, which is
Speaker 2: kind of crazy. Hope you enjoy it. Thanks for listening
Speaker 2: all right here with me. Now on the line, we've
Speaker 2: got the one and only Nathan Killing. Nathan, Thanks for
Speaker 2: being here.
Speaker 4: My pleasure, buddy. Sorry it's taken so long. I know
Speaker 4: Andy here had reached out to me. I spent two
Speaker 4: or three years ago, and during that time I was
Speaker 4: actually doing a lot of podcasts and stuff, and I
Speaker 4: was kind of gotten. I had gotten burnt out on him,
Speaker 4: so and I declined then, but here I am now,
Speaker 4: so hey, no worries.
Speaker 2: I'm glad that we're finally making it happen. And you know,
Speaker 2: better late than never, And sometimes when you got to
Speaker 2: wait for something, it's that much sweeter when it actually happens.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I'm looking forward to this. The reason why Nathan,
Speaker 2: I especially wanted to have you on now at this
Speaker 2: point is because we're starting a series this month of September.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of folks that are kicking off their
Speaker 2: hunting season, maybe right now or quite soon here over
Speaker 2: the coming weeks, and I wanted to do a deep
Speaker 2: dive into the critters that fascinate us the very most.
Speaker 2: I think for most serious deer hunters, it's those biggest, oldest, gnarliest,
Speaker 2: most mature deer that keep us up at night. Right
Speaker 2: And from everything I've seen from you, videos and podcasts
Speaker 2: I've listened to, and things I've heard from friends of
Speaker 2: ours mutual friends of ours, you've got a almost a
Speaker 2: sixth sense when it comes to what these old public
Speaker 2: land mountain bucks want to do. You understand them better
Speaker 2: than a whole lot of people out there, And so
Speaker 2: that is why I wanted to bring you on here
Speaker 2: today to talk about that, to share with us what
Speaker 2: you've seen, to share with us the behaviors you've witnessed,
Speaker 2: the quirks and personality traits and tendencies that you've picked
Speaker 2: up over the years as you've you know, scouted for
Speaker 2: these kinds of deers, you've watched these kinds of deer,
Speaker 2: and of course you've you've killed a whole bunch of
Speaker 2: them too. So that's my hope for the game plan today.
Speaker 2: Does that sound like something that that you're into talking about.
Speaker 4: Yeah, absolutely, that's that's what I ate, uh and uh
Speaker 4: dream and sleep about, you know. So just lucky a
Speaker 4: lot of you guys exactly. Matter of fact, most of
Speaker 4: my life obsessed and over the darn things.
Speaker 2: So yeah, we uh, we're on the same page there.
Speaker 2: So what is it. There's a whole bunch of reasons
Speaker 2: why I obsess over a deer like that. But what
Speaker 2: is it for you about those oldest mountain bucks out
Speaker 2: there that make them just like stick in your craw
Speaker 2: and make you think about them late at night and
Speaker 2: every day every week of the year. Why why is
Speaker 2: it that these oldest deer, these biggest oldest deer stand
Speaker 2: out for you in your in your world.
Speaker 4: I think it's just their nature. Uh, I mean, they're
Speaker 4: they're quirky animals. Uh, They're they're not like the rest
Speaker 4: of the deer. They do things totally different. So, and
Speaker 4: each and every one of them are different between them.
Speaker 4: You know, they're not only different from deer, but they're
Speaker 4: different from each other and just have such different personalities
Speaker 4: and and do things differently. So it's just always a
Speaker 4: riddle or a puzzle that you're trying to figure out.
Speaker 4: And and that's one of the biggest attractions that they
Speaker 4: are for me.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 4: You know, there's plenty of just deer out there that
Speaker 4: we can go out and hunt and stuff, but you
Speaker 4: know it, they're not nearly as difficult to well to
Speaker 4: figure out outer get within bow range like the you know,
Speaker 4: these big older age class bucks are. So I think
Speaker 4: that's what the attraction is for me. And plus once
Speaker 4: you kiel one of them and you walk up on
Speaker 4: his lifeless body laying there and realize what you've got.
Speaker 4: I mean that they look different, you know, they they're
Speaker 4: just a different animal. So but once you do that,
Speaker 4: you know it's your runt after that. Yeah, men, they
Speaker 4: are they're impressive on so many fronts.
Speaker 2: You know. It's like you said, there's there's the mental
Speaker 2: side of the back and forth, the mental chess game
Speaker 2: you've got to play. And then to your point, like
Speaker 2: physically you can't help but just be kind of taken
Speaker 2: aback when you actually see a truly all buck in
Speaker 2: the flesh, I mean, they're just I mean, I've always
Speaker 2: I've wanted to make a point, you know, in these
Speaker 2: conversations and when I talk to folks, especially when you've
Speaker 2: got newer hunters around, to not make someone feel like
Speaker 2: they should feel pressured to try to, you know, target
Speaker 2: a deer like that, right, like any deer is an
Speaker 2: incredible accomplishment. Yes, it's a heck of a challenge for
Speaker 2: a lot of people, but there's certainly nothing wrong with
Speaker 2: getting excited about those deer when they do get to
Speaker 2: that point. And and like you said, like once you
Speaker 2: do go down that road, it's really hard to turn back. Yes, Yeah,
Speaker 2: from your experience, when do you think on average a
Speaker 2: buck kind of switches into mature buck gear? You know,
Speaker 2: like when I've heard a lot of people talk about this,
Speaker 2: and I think I've seen it too, where you know,
Speaker 2: when a buck becomes a truly mature they almost become
Speaker 2: a different species. It's like a different animal from all
Speaker 2: the rest of the deer out there. At what age
Speaker 2: in your neck of the woods, would you say that
Speaker 2: usually happens when there's like a big shift in behavior
Speaker 2: and how they act. Is that you know, what age
Speaker 2: jump do you think that happens at.
Speaker 4: I think that would be as far behavioral four and
Speaker 4: a half on average, and body wise it would be
Speaker 4: five or six. You know. I think our books in
Speaker 4: our mountains show their age a little bit later in
Speaker 4: their life than say a Midwestern deer does. And I
Speaker 4: think that it has a lot to do with just
Speaker 4: the food. You know, they just don't have as good
Speaker 4: a food here in the mountains as they do in
Speaker 4: the Midwest, where you know, got corn and beans and
Speaker 4: everything else. So just be like a person, you know.
Speaker 4: I think a person that has a lot more food
Speaker 4: available to them, you know, they put on weight more
Speaker 4: and they'd show their age a little bit more. And
Speaker 4: I mountain deer tend to stay leaner, you know. But
Speaker 4: you know, but as far as mentality, I would think
Speaker 4: four and a half you know, to five somewhere through there.
Speaker 3: So that's mostly what I saw see anyway, what's the.
Speaker 2: And I know it's gotta be a lot harder and
Speaker 2: maybe impossible in the areas that you're hunting in Virginia
Speaker 2: and Ohio and stuff like that compared to someone in
Speaker 2: the Midwest. But have you ever you know, put an
Speaker 2: estimate on a deer as far as age that got
Speaker 2: up past that five years old? Six years old? Like
Speaker 2: were you've seen it year after year or had pictures
Speaker 2: of any of this deer? What's the oldest buck you
Speaker 2: think you've been able to get some time with hunting
Speaker 2: and chasing.
Speaker 4: I'm probably hunting one of them this year. To be
Speaker 4: honest with you, I've hunted a lot of bucks in
Speaker 4: the seven to nine year old range, and I killed one.
Speaker 4: It's been twenty nineteen. I think he was eight and
Speaker 4: a half. He was just an ancient buck and man,
Speaker 4: you should well you could look back through my Instagram
Speaker 4: pictures and see pictures of him. But he was just
Speaker 4: an absolute horse of a deer. But yeah, you know,
Speaker 4: every year I've always got you know, five six seven
Speaker 4: year old deer to hunt. Matter of fact, this year,
Speaker 4: the biggest buck that I'm hunting, he is actually only
Speaker 4: four and a half to five and a half, but
Speaker 4: he's the most impressive deer. And then I got a
Speaker 4: six and a half year old that I'm hunting, and
Speaker 4: then I got a buck that he's any where between
Speaker 4: eight to ten that I'm hunting.
Speaker 2: So so you said that the biggest jump, like the
Speaker 2: biggest change is like somewhere around that like four and
Speaker 2: a half year old period.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but is there.
Speaker 2: Any you know, between that four and a half and
Speaker 2: that nine range that you mentioned there or whatever is
Speaker 2: or ten? Is there any other major change, Like is
Speaker 2: there another shift from seven to eight or is there
Speaker 2: is there another tier up there at the tippy top
Speaker 2: for those very very oldest deer when it comes to
Speaker 2: like they start to act differently. Do those eight and
Speaker 2: nine year olds do something different than your four and
Speaker 2: five year olds on average?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I would definitely say on average they do. They
Speaker 4: just become extremely reclusive. It's it's almost like they they
Speaker 4: they don't even associate with the rest of the deer.
Speaker 4: Heard they just have their They it's like they live
Speaker 4: a completely different or separate life from the other deer.
Speaker 4: And uh, they can those type of deer are very
Speaker 4: very hard to locate. Uh, They just kind of lurk
Speaker 4: around in the shadows and uh. And they're even hard
Speaker 4: to pick up on trail camera a lot of times
Speaker 4: because that they just move differently and use the areas differently,
Speaker 4: and I think it's on purpose to avoid other deer.
Speaker 4: So if you've got your trail cameras focused on the
Speaker 4: majority of the deer sign like most people do, then
Speaker 4: those bucks will live undetected, you know. And and it
Speaker 4: takes special I wouldn't say special tactics, but it takes
Speaker 4: special thinking outside of the box, you might say, to
Speaker 4: be able to put yourself in position to get one
Speaker 4: you know on your trail camera, or even more yet,
Speaker 4: see one you know.
Speaker 2: So, yeah, do you have any example that comes to
Speaker 2: mind of a deer like that? I'm just curious if
Speaker 2: there's a buck that you could use to paint a
Speaker 2: picture of, like what one of those alternative lifestyles of
Speaker 2: these oldest bucks might look like. Is anything going on?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I can think of one right off the bat.
Speaker 4: And nobody ever killed this deer as far as I know,
Speaker 4: he lived to probably and who knows, the darn deer
Speaker 4: might be still alive now because he hasn't there's he
Speaker 4: hasn't been seen, no trail camera photos of him in
Speaker 4: two years now.
Speaker 3: And but two.
Speaker 4: Years ago the deer was probably eight to nine years old.
Speaker 4: And I've got two sheds off of him. I've got
Speaker 4: a couple buddies that have some sheds off of him.
Speaker 4: And he lived in a fairly hard hunted area. And
Speaker 4: and nobody ever seen that deer, you know, and other
Speaker 4: than just a few sheds and every now and then
Speaker 4: somebody gettinghim getting a trail camera picture of him. You know,
Speaker 4: you would never knew that he even existed there, you know,
Speaker 4: but the topography and just the habitat there kind of
Speaker 4: lends itself for a big buck to you know, be
Speaker 4: able to do that too.
Speaker 2: So what was that you know, what was that topography?
Speaker 2: Like what kind of place did that buck hole up in?
Speaker 3: Huh?
Speaker 4: Well, I really, I really don't want to speak too
Speaker 4: much about this particular deer because there is another one
Speaker 4: in there right now. But you know, the he just
Speaker 4: lived in the higher elevation, and he lived on the
Speaker 4: north side of a mountain and it was just, you know,
Speaker 4: very remote from everywhere else.
Speaker 2: So so one of the things you mentioned that these
Speaker 2: bucks when they get a lot older that become more reclusive.
Speaker 2: But one thing I've heard a lot in the Midwest
Speaker 2: is that these really old bucks really not only become reclusive,
Speaker 2: but they tighten up their core area more and more
Speaker 2: you hear about these bucks like living in smaller and
Speaker 2: smaller and smaller areas in this big woods, mountainous habitat
Speaker 2: where I'm imagining some of these bucks travel quite a lot.
Speaker 2: Does that happen with these big old deer by you two?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 4: But now that I think that really comes back to
Speaker 4: personality of bucks too. Some of them are roamers and
Speaker 4: others are homebodies, and I see that a lot too.
Speaker 4: You know, I've seen older age class bucks that have
Speaker 4: a lot larger home range than others, and than some
Speaker 4: their home ranges really small. Matter of fact, one of
Speaker 4: the bucks that I'm hunting this year, he has, matter
Speaker 4: of fact, will actually two bucks out of the three
Speaker 4: that I'm hunting this year have really small core areas,
Speaker 4: and they hardly ever leave out of them. As a
Speaker 4: matter of fact, one of them, his core area is
Speaker 4: so small that if I had to put a size
Speaker 4: on it, probably less than two hundred acres, and from
Speaker 4: probably early spring up until first of November. He hardly
Speaker 4: ever leaves that wow. But now once he does leave it,
Speaker 4: he doesn't come back to a springtime, but he doesn't
Speaker 4: go very far. One thing that changes where that spot
Speaker 4: is is the foliage. Basically, once the leaves are on
Speaker 4: the tree, he's there, and once they're gone then he's not.
Speaker 4: And he just shifts probably about a half a mile
Speaker 4: and that's where he spends pretty much November, December, January, February,
Speaker 4: March timeframe.
Speaker 2: What would be and again I'm asking for a rough
Speaker 2: estimate here, but on these mature bucks in the places
Speaker 2: that you haunt, if a small core range like you
Speaker 2: mentioned there was like two hundred acres, what would be
Speaker 2: like an average core range for like the mature bucks
Speaker 2: you typically you know, are chasing around. Is it substantially
Speaker 2: bigger than that or kind of in that neck of
Speaker 2: the woods.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I would say, I would say, you know
Speaker 4: what you've read about all your life, you know, a
Speaker 4: good square mile would probably be pretty average for most
Speaker 4: mountain bucks. You know, some of them are going to
Speaker 4: be larger than that. I've matter of fact, I think
Speaker 4: some that I've known have probably had home ranges, you know,
Speaker 4: up to four or five square miles and those deer
Speaker 4: are extremely hard to catch up with.
Speaker 2: So you would you would prefer the homebody buck that's
Speaker 2: got the tight core range.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, just actually, yeah, you know where it's going
Speaker 4: to be, that's right, And I prefer to hunt those
Speaker 4: type of deer. I don't really spend much time on
Speaker 4: a roamer buck. I mean, because I mean I'm a
Speaker 4: working man. I don't have that much time to invest
Speaker 4: in him to hunt him, you know. So I've got
Speaker 4: to put my effort into wherever or whatever buck I
Speaker 4: feel I've got the best chance of killing so and
Speaker 4: obviously one that has a small core area is going
Speaker 4: to be the one i'd pick.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So let's talk about one of those or not
Speaker 2: one of those. Let's talk about a home for a
Speaker 2: super old buck. If you could. If you had like
Speaker 2: a a paint brush set and a canvas in front
Speaker 2: of you, and you were going to paint the perfect
Speaker 2: core area home range for a seven year old mountain
Speaker 2: buck in your area, what would be this setup, the
Speaker 2: habitat the topography that you would envision being like that
Speaker 2: ideal place. You could absolutely imagine a big, old stinky
Speaker 2: buck wanting to live in I'd love to hear what
Speaker 2: that picture perfect thing would be. I imagine that might help
Speaker 2: folks understand what to look for when they're looking for
Speaker 2: that kind of deer. So what in your mind would
Speaker 2: that be.
Speaker 4: Uh, just a lot of change in topography obviously as
Speaker 4: far as elevation and structure to it. You know, you
Speaker 4: can have too busy of topography because if the topography
Speaker 4: is too busy, in other words, you've got too many
Speaker 4: compounding train features and too many ridges, too many saddles,
Speaker 4: too many benches, then you have too many places for
Speaker 4: him to live. So, you know, just a good elevation change,
Speaker 4: maybe a thousand feet, you know, that way, and once
Speaker 4: you get on up into the upper part of that,
Speaker 4: topography is going to be, you know, really rough and rugged,
Speaker 4: and then you have some nice secondary ridges that flow
Speaker 4: down out of that. And if I could draw up
Speaker 4: of the perfect scenario, it would have some kind of
Speaker 4: farmland at the end of or at the lower elevations
Speaker 4: of that, you know, because one thing that I like
Speaker 4: to see in the mountains is see what we depend
Speaker 4: really on our acorn crop. And if there's no acron crop,
Speaker 4: then the deer can be really hard to find. So
Speaker 4: if you can find areas that back up against some
Speaker 4: kind of farmland or something that we really don't have
Speaker 4: agriculture here. We have a lot of cattle, you know,
Speaker 4: a lot of open fields stuff like that. But you know,
Speaker 4: if there's no acrons, then the deer's wanna make their
Speaker 4: way onto you know, grassy type areas. So if you can,
Speaker 4: if you can have a blend of both of those,
Speaker 4: that would be perfect. You know, a nice farm down
Speaker 4: low and you got a nice big high mountain ridge
Speaker 4: backing behind you, you know, with some finger ridges that
Speaker 4: lead down into those type of places. And and you
Speaker 4: know around here the thick areas is mostly mountain laurel
Speaker 4: and rhododendron, So a good mix of that with some
Speaker 4: hemwalk and stuff, you know, and a couple of really
Speaker 4: big drainages you know that he would use.
Speaker 2: Okay, and do you need to have I know you
Speaker 2: mentioned that some New Years you don't have the acorns.
Speaker 2: Are they ever gonna post up in places where there's
Speaker 2: not oaks or are there oaks kind of everywhere in
Speaker 2: your area and they're they're depending on them, or are
Speaker 2: there gonna be some areas that just don't have them
Speaker 2: at all, and then they're deer deserts.
Speaker 3: No, there's oaks.
Speaker 4: Act actually everywhere, there's not a hillside around here that
Speaker 4: does not have oaks, and predominantly red oaks, chestnut and
Speaker 4: black oaks. We do have several white oaks obviously, but
Speaker 4: they're they're mostly in the lower elevations and that's generally
Speaker 4: the ones if they're gonna embarrass some acrons there, you know,
Speaker 4: that's the ones that it's going to be like the
Speaker 4: big feeder oaks that you see out in uh the
Speaker 4: age of pastures and fields and stuff like that. So
Speaker 4: but uh, yeah, there's uh, you know, we've we've been
Speaker 4: pretty fortunate. That's probably five years we've had a pretty
Speaker 4: good acron crop. You know, it may have not been
Speaker 4: an abundance, but there have been acrons around. So it's
Speaker 4: not been too hard on the deer and it hasn't
Speaker 4: been too you know, hard to locate them. But now
Speaker 4: back to you know, previous years before that, I can
Speaker 4: remember several years in a row that there was no
Speaker 4: acrons and when and that's that's not.
Speaker 3: A good situation for the deer.
Speaker 4: And I don't you know, some people like that because
Speaker 4: then it forces all the deer to the grassy areas,
Speaker 4: and if you've got private land, then that can work
Speaker 4: out pretty good for you. But you know, most of
Speaker 4: us we've were hunting public it's like everybody else. So yeah,
Speaker 4: uh so, you know that's what I'm saying about the
Speaker 4: finding public land that backs up against some kind of farmland.
Speaker 4: So you if a deer have no acrons, you can
Speaker 4: at least know where they're going to and hunt accordingly.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so let's go back to this imaginary big old
Speaker 2: buck home. You painted a good picture there of what
Speaker 2: that home mum look like, but let's talk a little
Speaker 2: bit about like where his bedroom is in that home.
Speaker 2: You know, I am at least imagine there's a lot
Speaker 2: of scenarios where there's a deer herd spread out over
Speaker 2: an area like this right. There's some does and fawns,
Speaker 2: there's a dough family groups, there's some younger bucks. Let's
Speaker 2: say there's a I don't know what the actual age
Speaker 2: structure looks like in the area you're hunting, but let's
Speaker 2: say there's a satellite buck or two that's in that
Speaker 2: three or four year range. But then you got that one,
Speaker 2: you know, old salty guy who's who's eight. What what
Speaker 2: does that eight year old's bed hypothetically or you know,
Speaker 2: typical spots he would bed. How would that look different
Speaker 2: than where that three or four year old buck might
Speaker 2: end up getting in this scenario you painted earlier. Could
Speaker 2: you give me some hype. You know, obviously this is
Speaker 2: all hypothetical, but if you could paint what that top
Speaker 2: top tier bed would look like for the biggest oldest
Speaker 2: versus the next tier down.
Speaker 4: He's going to be up in the upper one third,
Speaker 4: you know, on average. Now that's not always the case
Speaker 4: because there again some areas and I personally like to
Speaker 4: choose areas that have more than one older age class
Speaker 4: buck and obviously that gives you more of a chance
Speaker 4: to encounter one. And whenever that's the case, then those
Speaker 4: bucks are forced to choose different areas. So you know,
Speaker 4: I would think the buck that's the most aggressive or
Speaker 4: the most dominant in the area is probably going to
Speaker 4: choose the more premium type area. You know that he
Speaker 4: likes the best and kind of force everybody else to
Speaker 4: choose other areas. But you know, it's just like one
Speaker 4: of the areas that I'm hunting right now, it actually
Speaker 4: has some upper elevation. But surprisingly both the big deer
Speaker 4: that I'm hunting there are using the lower elevation. And
Speaker 4: that's a little bit different than what you see, you know,
Speaker 4: but you got to hunt them where they're at. And
Speaker 4: just goes back to personality. You know, some bucks, you know,
Speaker 4: they're just all different. But on average, I would say
Speaker 4: that most mature bucks is going to be betting in
Speaker 4: the upper one third, you know, and you and you
Speaker 4: hear that a lot, and it's it is.
Speaker 3: True, you know.
Speaker 4: And and I also found that generally, whenever I find
Speaker 4: a big deer, he is on the northeast or any
Speaker 4: combination of the two slopes. And I think that it's
Speaker 4: because most of you family dough groups are on the
Speaker 4: south faces and they like their their seclusion and they
Speaker 4: choose you know, those type of areas that has less
Speaker 4: deer in and plus it's cooler, you know, most of
Speaker 4: the year, and and you know it's that's just where
Speaker 4: I find them, so I think they're more comfortable there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that makes sense. Now, what about you know, the
Speaker 2: wind direction, how is that impacting that bad decision for
Speaker 2: a buck like that, he prefers the north side because
Speaker 2: of what you just described. Yeah, can wind influence that
Speaker 2: at all or is he gonna stick to that?
Speaker 4: Because well, yeah, but most of our ridges here or
Speaker 4: main mountains run east to west, so you have secondary
Speaker 4: ridges that run off the south side, and you have
Speaker 4: secondary ridges that run off the north side, So there's
Speaker 4: always betting opportunity. You know, most of our winds is
Speaker 4: coming out of the west. So if if I've got
Speaker 4: a secondary ridge running off the north face and it
Speaker 4: goes down there and a lot of them will have
Speaker 4: a saddle in it, and then it'll kind of gnob up,
Speaker 4: you know, create a knoll and then it drops straight off. Well,
Speaker 4: if you've got westerly winds blown across that, if you'll
Speaker 4: if you'll notice and you get in there scouting during
Speaker 4: the wintertime, you'll see their beds off on that eastern
Speaker 4: side of those secondary ridges.
Speaker 3: And you know a lot of times.
Speaker 4: They'll move over on the western side of it too.
Speaker 4: You know, maybe if it's really cold and late in
Speaker 4: the evening, you know, you've got the western sun shining
Speaker 4: on that western edge or what have you, they'll move
Speaker 4: because of it. But generally you'll find them on the
Speaker 4: east side of those secondary ridges coming off the north
Speaker 4: side so.
Speaker 2: Okay, yep, that makes sense. Now, we talk a lot
Speaker 2: about how mature bucks bed and unique things that they want.
Speaker 2: Something you don't hear as much about, though, is if
Speaker 2: and how mature bucks feed in unique ways compared to
Speaker 2: younger deer. Have you noticed anything like that? You noticed
Speaker 2: some trends on that front at all?
Speaker 4: Yes, Shed hunting will really open your eyes up to
Speaker 4: stuff like that. And the reason that I say that
Speaker 4: is because you know years that we have a lot
Speaker 4: of acrons. I'll use that as an example. You know,
Speaker 4: you'll during winter time, which which is my favorite time
Speaker 4: to get out and scout, You'll be scouting shed hunting,
Speaker 4: and you're most people are gonna come across these areas
Speaker 4: that are really tilled up. I mean it looks like
Speaker 4: they've been a I don't know, eight or ten deer
Speaker 4: and they've just tiled up an area, you know, sometimes
Speaker 4: a few acres in size because they're feeding on the
Speaker 4: red oaks, you know. But you never find big sheds
Speaker 4: in those type of areas. And so what I've started
Speaker 4: doing is that I will still look at those type
Speaker 4: of areas, but I will focus more on areas like
Speaker 4: little hidden hollows and stuff where you can tell that
Speaker 4: just one or two deer have been feeding very little
Speaker 4: feeding sign and generally that's where you're going to find
Speaker 4: the bigger sheds and stuff. So that tells me that
Speaker 4: those those big bucks again are separating their selves from
Speaker 4: the other deer, you know, especially outside the rut. Now
Speaker 4: deer in the rut, obviously, you know, these big bucks
Speaker 4: they're going to be uh frequenting you know, areas with
Speaker 4: higher dough populations. But aside from that, that's not the case.
Speaker 4: You know, they they feed separate, they bed separate, and
Speaker 4: and you know, if you can imagine, you know, a
Speaker 4: buck betty Daddy's bachelor pad, it's just him. You know,
Speaker 4: he gets up right at dark, he feeds a little bit,
Speaker 4: and there again he's still by hisself. And you know,
Speaker 4: of course once it starts getting closer to the rut,
Speaker 4: then he's going to start making those big loops and stuff,
Speaker 4: checking out the girls and stuff like that, and they're
Speaker 4: gonna be laying down sign and that's where people is
Speaker 4: going to start seeing their sign at. So that's where
Speaker 4: they're going to start hunting at. That's where they're gonna
Speaker 4: start putting up the trail cameras at and they're going
Speaker 4: to be getting nighttime pictures of them, but in reality,
Speaker 4: those bucks are not there, you know, they're they're often
Speaker 4: a totally different direction, you know, so you know they're
Speaker 4: bedding separate and they're feeding separate outside the rut. Yeah,
Speaker 4: and that's what makes them so hard to locate.
Speaker 2: So, so continuing that line of thought, that and what
Speaker 2: about how they are traveling between those two places uniquely?
Speaker 2: So again I've heard, you know, everything from you know,
Speaker 2: the faint trail versus the large trail, to just above
Speaker 2: the bench to just below the bench, to the way
Speaker 2: they might use the just beneath the ridge versus the
Speaker 2: tops of ridges. Like, what are some of the trends
Speaker 2: you've seen with how these deer are actually traveling across
Speaker 2: the landscape, Because it's pretty easy these days to read
Speaker 2: topography and get a sense of how most deer want
Speaker 2: to travel across the landscape right using some of those
Speaker 2: terrain features in predictable ways. But is there anything unique
Speaker 2: about those six, seven, eight year old bucks where they
Speaker 2: go against the grain or against what we would expect.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Yeah, that's another thing that makes them so hard
Speaker 4: to set up on and most hunters don't kill them.
Speaker 4: It is because most of these older age class bucks,
Speaker 4: when they do move through topography top spots that we
Speaker 4: choose to set up in, they generally don't travel through
Speaker 4: them like ninety percent of other day.
Speaker 3: They will skirt around it.
Speaker 4: And and a lot of times, you know that it'll
Speaker 4: be on the down wind side, or maybe it'll be
Speaker 4: on the side that has the most cover, you know,
Speaker 4: but they'll they'll be clues left in those type of
Speaker 4: places to let you know that they're doing that. You
Speaker 4: just got to You've got to have the mindset to
Speaker 4: look for it. You know, they're still going to leave
Speaker 4: those big scrapes and you'll still see big rubs and
Speaker 4: stuff like that in the traditional spots that deer a
Speaker 4: moving through. And the reason they're doing that is they're
Speaker 4: leaving their calling card, you know, letting letting everybody know, hey,
Speaker 4: I'm here. But most of that sign is done under
Speaker 4: the cover of darkness. But outside of darkness, those bucks
Speaker 4: are kind of skulking around or skirting around all that stuff,
Speaker 4: you know. And uh, and I've seen it so many times,
Speaker 4: especially hunting benches. You know, everybody loves good benches and stuff,
Speaker 4: and I used to be really bad for setting up
Speaker 4: on the bench because that had the heaviest sign on,
Speaker 4: It had the biggest rubs, had the big scrapes, it
Speaker 4: had the heavy deer trails.
Speaker 3: I mean that.
Speaker 4: You know, we've always been taught that's what to look for,
Speaker 4: you know, But you set up in those places and
Speaker 4: you never see the truly mature bucks move through those
Speaker 4: places unless he's in the company of a dough. But
Speaker 4: I started you know, when you're out there scouting and
Speaker 4: stuff and you're looking, you know, you're not only looking
Speaker 4: at the bench, you're looking below the bench, and you'll
Speaker 4: find yourself above the bench and generally you'll find those
Speaker 4: lightly used trails with a few decent rubs along those.
Speaker 4: So what I started doing is kind of splitting the difference,
Speaker 4: which is another mistake, but sometimes it works out. It
Speaker 4: depends on how close the sign is. But you know,
Speaker 4: you set up to where you can shoot the bench,
Speaker 4: and you can shoot below the bench. Well, like I said,
Speaker 4: sometimes that works out for you, but most of the
Speaker 4: time the buck will be too far below the bench
Speaker 4: and you and the best thing for you have done
Speaker 4: is just went ahead and committed to hunting below the
Speaker 4: bench or above the bench, whichever one is the right spot.
Speaker 4: But yeah, you should always commit to.
Speaker 2: It.
Speaker 4: No words, to commit to one travel corridor instead of
Speaker 4: trying to cover both unless they're with him bow range,
Speaker 4: you know. So I hope that makes sense to everybody
Speaker 4: out there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it does. I think to me at least, do
Speaker 2: you look at every big, you know, terrain feature in
Speaker 2: that kind of way? So if we're thinking of a
Speaker 2: bench or a saddle, do you always assume, okay, they're
Speaker 2: going to be off in a little ways and then
Speaker 2: play off of that or are there some situations where
Speaker 2: you're like, Nope, in this one, I'm gonna hunt to
Speaker 2: shoot right at the saddle, but on this one, I
Speaker 2: want to be sixty yards off.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So I'm sorry, go ahead.
Speaker 2: I was just gonna be I was just gonna ask,
Speaker 2: you know, can you give me a little bit more
Speaker 2: insight into how you make that decision, like what the
Speaker 2: specifics would be to get you on it versus off it?
Speaker 2: Because I know we got to choose one or the other,
Speaker 2: but how do we make that decision the best?
Speaker 4: You know, A lot of it's just going to be experienced,
Speaker 4: and a lot of it also how everything ties into that.
Speaker 4: You know what, once you see these bucks move through
Speaker 4: these type of areas, you know you're going to be
Speaker 4: able to start picking that stuff out. But you're going
Speaker 4: to have to be able to put yourself in that
Speaker 4: position and actually see it with your own eyes. And
Speaker 4: once you do that, then you're going to gain the
Speaker 4: confidence to one put yourself down there, and two you're
Speaker 4: going to be able to see it. And because once
Speaker 4: you see something happen, it kind of helps predict it
Speaker 4: the next time. You know, we're hunting their tendencies. It's
Speaker 4: what we're doing. So the more times you tend to
Speaker 4: see him do something other there, the more it's going
Speaker 4: to help you to make that decision to hunt off
Speaker 4: of that uh saddle or a bench or whatever. But
Speaker 4: then there are times whenever you want to hunt the
Speaker 4: heavy sign and I feel like that that is right
Speaker 4: around that pea corrupt time whenever bucks are really you know,
Speaker 4: giving up their guard and and and putting themselves you know,
Speaker 4: out in the open more you know, and that. And
Speaker 4: but now I warn you a lot of older age
Speaker 4: mature bucks never do that anyway. Uh. They they they
Speaker 4: don't put themselves in those situations. So, uh, but you know,
Speaker 4: the best way that I can answer that is just experience,
Speaker 4: you know, hunting a lot. And whenever you do come
Speaker 4: up on a nice saddle or something other that has
Speaker 4: the uh all the good sign that you like to see,
Speaker 4: don't set up on it, set up off to the side.
Speaker 4: Make yours self do that, you know, just go down
Speaker 4: there and look, you know, and uh, nine times out
Speaker 4: of ten you're going to see some kind of sign
Speaker 4: that he's leaving behind, that he has moved through there,
Speaker 4: you know. And those type of spots require more patience too.
Speaker 4: I'll be really honest with you, because you're not going
Speaker 4: to see as many deer as you're going to see
Speaker 4: up on that bench or coming through that saddle, you know,
Speaker 4: so you're a lot of times you'll question, you know,
Speaker 4: are you doing the right thing? But if the sign
Speaker 4: is showing that he's coming through there, you need to
Speaker 4: put your time in there and just trust you get
Speaker 4: and uh and eventually it will happen. And once you
Speaker 4: see it happen, then you'll you'll gain the confidence to
Speaker 4: start doing it more often.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So with that in mind, one of the things that
Speaker 2: I that I wonder a lot about hunting in a
Speaker 2: situation like you're in. You know, that putting time into
Speaker 2: a specific location and the balancing act there. You know,
Speaker 2: here in the Midwest, super high deer densities. You know,
Speaker 2: if I hunt a spot once or twice, there's twenty
Speaker 2: thirty forty deer that you know might pass through there
Speaker 2: and smell me if I'm not careful about what I
Speaker 2: did in your neck of the woods. I'm assuming that
Speaker 2: you know, it might be days before the buck you're
Speaker 2: after passes through an area. Maybe maybe not, maybe wrong
Speaker 2: about that, But how do you think about that kind
Speaker 2: of volume of hunt decision for a specific location like
Speaker 2: that when you're chasing one of these really old deer.
Speaker 2: I'm assuming those really old deer, you know, don't put
Speaker 2: up with a whole lot of human pressure. So I
Speaker 2: would imagine that's something that you're worried about. But at
Speaker 2: the same time, to your point, you need to be
Speaker 2: willing to put in some time in a place for
Speaker 2: them to finally come through. How do you think about
Speaker 2: that or what does that look like for you when
Speaker 2: when weighing those two sides of the decision.
Speaker 4: You know, to be honest with you, I try to
Speaker 4: avoid pressured areas. I think that is one advantage that
Speaker 4: I have here in the mountains of Virginia. You know,
Speaker 4: we don't have the hunting pressure like some of the
Speaker 4: Midwestern states, you know, but obviously I'm not gonna hunt
Speaker 4: where everybody else is going to hunt. And that's one
Speaker 4: reason that those a lot of those older age class
Speaker 4: bucks avoid those type of areas that most you know,
Speaker 4: everybody's seeing the sign end they're setting up there, so
Speaker 4: they encountering uh, human scent. Uh, they may even see
Speaker 4: people in those type of places, So that's another reason
Speaker 4: that they're going to avoid those type of spots. So
Speaker 4: but uh, one thing that that probably goes against the
Speaker 4: grain of a lot of conventional thinking or things that
Speaker 4: you've heard, is that hunting pressure makes bucks go nocturnal,
Speaker 4: and that that's actually not the case.
Speaker 3: They're either nocturnal or they're not.
Speaker 4: And uh, and the reason I say that is because
Speaker 4: a lot of the older age class bucks that I hunt,
Speaker 4: they are nocturnal and they've they've hardly been hunted, they
Speaker 4: hardly ever see a person and uh, and they're still nocturnal,
Speaker 4: so that that's not what's making them nocturnal. It's just
Speaker 4: their personality. But hunting pressure of what it does is
Speaker 4: it moves the deer around and uh makes some avoid areas.
Speaker 4: So you know, that's that's the type of spous that
Speaker 4: you want to start seeking out the top of places
Speaker 4: that they're traveling through to avoid other people.
Speaker 2: You know. So that that brings a question or brings
Speaker 2: to mind the question of what does happen for you
Speaker 2: when you find one of those nocturnal bucks he's nocturnal
Speaker 2: not because of pressure, but because he's just that way.
Speaker 2: Do you just move on to a different deer? Or okay,
Speaker 2: so how do you hunt a buck like that, an
Speaker 2: old deer who just is naturally nocturnal? In my world,
Speaker 2: I would think, well, I'm just not close enough to
Speaker 2: his core area then just getting nighttime pickture are not
Speaker 2: close enough? Is that the case where you are too
Speaker 2: or something?
Speaker 4: Oh? Yes, yes, no, that that's exactly what it is.
Speaker 4: These older age class bucks that you know, if I
Speaker 4: could paint a picture of how their daily movement would be,
Speaker 4: they do move throughout the day, but it is very
Speaker 4: very short distances and really and truly if if you're
Speaker 4: not within especially you know, coming up through October September,
Speaker 4: October first, November, if you're not within two hundred yards
Speaker 4: of where that deer is bedded, and in most cases,
Speaker 4: I'm going to say less than that, you have almost
Speaker 4: no chance of seeing that deer. So you have to
Speaker 4: and that's the important part of winter scouting. You can
Speaker 4: learn so much about individual bucks. And that's something else too.
Speaker 4: Once you start hunting individual bucks, you you will accelerate
Speaker 4: your learning of old age class deer exponentially once you
Speaker 4: start doing that, because you start you're forced to think
Speaker 4: differently and scouting during the wintertime. You know, once you
Speaker 4: find a specific buck that you want to hunt and
Speaker 4: you go in there during the wintertime shed hunt and
Speaker 4: trying to find his sheds, really picking apart his core
Speaker 4: area or trying to find his core area. You know,
Speaker 4: that's that's the most important part, and you just start
Speaker 4: piecing everything together. You know, you're trying to find every
Speaker 4: bit of evidence that you can that that particular deer
Speaker 4: is leaving behind, and you're able to paint a picture
Speaker 4: of where you know, most likely he's you know, spending
Speaker 4: his day, daytime hours. And then once you figure that out,
Speaker 4: then you start picking out the places that you think
Speaker 4: that you can have encounters with him, you know, so
Speaker 4: it's really not that difficult.
Speaker 3: I know that it sounds.
Speaker 4: Difficult and and the having the encounter is is difficult,
Speaker 4: But figuring out where you need to be is not
Speaker 4: that difficult. Yeah, and uh, and it just takes a
Speaker 4: lot of scouting and uh and the best time to
Speaker 4: do that is during the winter time.
Speaker 2: How do you do you have any system for keeping
Speaker 2: track of all of these data points or is it
Speaker 2: all in your head? Like when I say data points,
Speaker 2: I mean like all the things you're scouting and noticing,
Speaker 2: all of the things that you're picking up when you're
Speaker 2: out there hunting and observe something, all of the trail
Speaker 2: camera photos that you get of these specific bucks. Do
Speaker 2: you track it in any way? Do you journal? Do
Speaker 2: you have spreadsheets? Do you have any kind of way
Speaker 2: to organize this or do you just keep it keep
Speaker 2: it top of mind?
Speaker 4: No, I just keep it top of mind. I mean
Speaker 4: I think about the darn things year round.
Speaker 3: Now. I do use my mapping apps.
Speaker 4: I use Spartan Forge myself, and uh, you know, I
Speaker 4: wheel mark key features or key points. You know that
Speaker 4: I think that I need to remember and something that
Speaker 4: I feel like is important. And you know that those
Speaker 4: type of things, you know, way heavily on where I
Speaker 4: feel like that I need to set up on him
Speaker 4: or where I think that he's you know, at so,
Speaker 4: but as far as journaling, know, I don't journal, you know,
Speaker 4: I'm sure a lot of guys do that and have
Speaker 4: you know, find good use out of it.
Speaker 3: It's just something that I've never done.
Speaker 2: Sure tendencies. We've talked about a number of different ways
Speaker 2: we can try to pick up on a bucks tendencies.
Speaker 2: And one of the things you mentioned for a lot
Speaker 2: of these old deer is that they just do not
Speaker 2: move a whole lot away from their bed in daylight.
Speaker 2: But there are a lot of outside factors that deer
Speaker 2: hunters like to debate about how they might impact a
Speaker 2: deer's decision to get up and move on his feet,
Speaker 2: stuff like temperature, wind, moon, precipitation, barometric pressure. Have you
Speaker 2: seen anything like that uniquely influenced all bucks getting up
Speaker 2: and moving during daylight? What's it look like in your
Speaker 2: neck of the woods when it comes to is there
Speaker 2: something that really does make a difference or is it
Speaker 2: all kind of you know, a bunch of hope.
Speaker 4: You know, I personally like cold bluebirds guys, and you know,
Speaker 4: that's whenever I see most of my movement. I've never
Speaker 4: been a very big fan of rainy days, you know,
Speaker 4: I have just not seen that many deer on those
Speaker 4: type of days. Now, I do like hunting after you know,
Speaker 4: a good front moves through. And you know, of course,
Speaker 4: now one of the bucks that I'm hunting this year,
Speaker 4: and this is one of the only deer that I've
Speaker 4: actually seen this with, but seemed like he likes to
Speaker 4: move on days with some precipitation. I do get him
Speaker 4: moving a lot, but he's one of the only deer
Speaker 4: that I've ever noticed doing that. You know, I just
Speaker 4: I don't think that our deer here in the mountains,
Speaker 4: you know, I see you know, YouTube videos and stuff
Speaker 4: of guys in the Midwest hunting beans and corn and
Speaker 4: the snow. You know, they're hunting times with a lot
Speaker 4: of snow. You know, it's just pouring the snow and
Speaker 4: the deer just piling into those type of places. You
Speaker 4: don't see that here in the mountains. And I think
Speaker 4: one reason is is just because we don't have the
Speaker 4: right type of food to make him move on those
Speaker 4: type of days. You know, I think that our deer
Speaker 4: are just better off to hold up and wait it
Speaker 4: out and not expend any energy. And once everything clears up,
Speaker 4: then you know, move after the front has done a
Speaker 4: move through and things kind of start warming up.
Speaker 2: So okay, that makes sense. I get there. So what
Speaker 2: about time of year? You know, a lot of fo
Speaker 2: folks don't like the rut for hunting the really old deer,
Speaker 2: especially when they're trying to hunt one specific buck, because
Speaker 2: it's hard to make predictions about what they're going to do.
Speaker 2: But in your you know, in the scenario've been talking through,
Speaker 2: that also might be one of the only things that
Speaker 2: gets one of these deer moving a little bit earlier.
Speaker 2: When do you think the very best time to kill
Speaker 2: a deer of this age is in the mountains that
Speaker 2: you're talking about hunting?
Speaker 3: What's that?
Speaker 4: If you could pick like a week, what's that very
Speaker 4: best week? A week I'm going to say first week
Speaker 4: of December. I love October, and I think that's a
Speaker 4: great time to kill a specific deer. But you know,
Speaker 4: I'm like a lot of others, you know, if I'm
Speaker 4: hunting a very specific deer, November is not my favorite
Speaker 4: time to do that. If I'm just trying to kill
Speaker 4: a good deer. Then, of course November is my favorite time.
Speaker 4: But yeah, I see a lot of the older age
Speaker 4: class bucks on their feet the first week of December.
Speaker 3: Trail cameras prove it.
Speaker 4: Just hearing people talk about, you know, that they've seen
Speaker 4: some giant you know, somewhere that they had never seen before.
Speaker 4: And it's always during that time period, you know, but
Speaker 4: that that first week of December is excellent, and even
Speaker 4: up through up to Christmas, you know, you'll catch them
Speaker 4: out moving around quite a bit during that time.
Speaker 2: What do you think that is? Is that just you know,
Speaker 2: just trying to get the feet on and pack on
Speaker 2: some energy before the end of or before the real
Speaker 2: hard winder picks up, or is it that like post
Speaker 2: rut trying to catch that very last you know, dough
Speaker 2: that cycled in or something like that.
Speaker 4: Yes, yeah, I don't think our winners are tough enough
Speaker 4: to form to be on any kind of a feeding
Speaker 4: frenzy during that time period. I feel sure that it's
Speaker 4: rut related because you catch them on scrapes during that time.
Speaker 4: It's like scrapes reopen up, you know. As matter of fact,
Speaker 4: that one of the bucks that i'm hunting this year.
Speaker 4: He I caught him on a very specific scrape numerous
Speaker 4: times through December and even up into January, almost of February.
Speaker 2: So the rut brings up a I mentioned, or I
Speaker 2: thought about asking this earlier, but what about how these
Speaker 2: really old deer partaken the rut? You know, like, have
Speaker 2: you seen on average that these oldest deer get going
Speaker 2: sooner or later? Have you found some one phase of
Speaker 2: the rut or another is when they are more active
Speaker 2: than the other deer? What's that look like for you?
Speaker 3: Does understand that?
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, seems like the middle of November, you know,
Speaker 4: seem like younger age class bucks, you know, two three
Speaker 4: four year olds, they definitely get started earlier in the rut.
Speaker 4: And it's just like teenage boys, you know, they just
Speaker 4: they're excited, they're not they're not educated, you know. There
Speaker 4: and these older age class bucks they've done, have been
Speaker 4: through all that, so they you know that, they really
Speaker 4: don't start showing up and making their presence known until,
Speaker 4: you know, generally middle of November. You know, whenever, thing's whenever,
Speaker 4: basically when the dose are ready, you know. And I
Speaker 4: really believe that a lot of these older age class bucks.
Speaker 4: Are you know that they they kind of have their
Speaker 4: what's the word, I'm looking for reputation you might say,
Speaker 4: in an area and you know, the dose know that
Speaker 4: he's there.
Speaker 3: And I believe a lot of the doves seek them out.
Speaker 4: And that's another thing that makes them older age class
Speaker 4: bucks so hard to kill, and even see it's because
Speaker 4: they're not having to do anything to get with those.
Speaker 4: A lot of times the dose I feel like, go
Speaker 4: looking for them.
Speaker 3: Mm hmm. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So all of that said, then I feel like what
Speaker 2: I've been trying to do here is kind of paint
Speaker 2: a picture of like what these old bucks world looks like,
Speaker 2: how they operate, what their tendencies are, what some of
Speaker 2: their behavioral quirks are. And you have so much experience
Speaker 2: with these types of deer, this age of deer, that
Speaker 2: you've got a great You've been able to provide a
Speaker 2: lot of interesting insight into that. But the next question
Speaker 2: that this kind of leads to then is, Okay, so
Speaker 2: they do this and this and this, and they don't
Speaker 2: do that, that and that. How the hell do you
Speaker 2: kill one of them? Given all of that? Yeah, and
Speaker 2: so so my next question is just like patterning one
Speaker 2: of these deer like trying to figure out how to
Speaker 2: actually set up on a specific old buck like you're describing.
Speaker 2: And you mentioned that you're after like one or two
Speaker 2: really old deer like this this year. And I don't
Speaker 2: know if if you could use one of these deer
Speaker 2: as an example, or if you just want to use
Speaker 2: an old deer from the past as an example, but
Speaker 2: I would love to hear specifically, you know, what the
Speaker 2: steps are for you to put together, you know, an
Speaker 2: actionable plan for a buck like this. You mentioned, you know,
Speaker 2: doing the winter scouting. I know you use trail cameras.
Speaker 2: I know you're studying these maps and you're thinking through
Speaker 2: some of these different you know, personality traits of these dear,
Speaker 2: But I'd love to kind of hear some specifics about
Speaker 2: what that looks like and what is enough information for
Speaker 2: you to then say, Okay, this is the time, this
Speaker 2: is the place I'm going to make my move. Could
Speaker 2: you walk me through either a specific example or hypothetical
Speaker 2: like that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'll talk about a few different things here. This
Speaker 4: is going to be kind of a smorgas board of things.
Speaker 4: One thing that I do that helps me is I
Speaker 4: run my trail cameras on video mode all the time.
Speaker 4: You wouldn't believe what you will learn about a book
Speaker 4: just by running your trail cameras on video mode. And
Speaker 4: I'll give you an example. One of the books that
Speaker 4: I'm hunting this year, the one that I was hanging
Speaker 4: that I had on the scrape, you know, through December
Speaker 4: and January. Well, in one of the videos, I actually
Speaker 4: seen him use the bathroom, you know, leave turns right
Speaker 4: there in the scrape. Well, I went immediately and looked
Speaker 4: at those droppings, and I learned to identify his droppings
Speaker 4: versus every other deer. And yeah, and so whenever I'm
Speaker 4: in there shed hunting and scouting, I'm able to identify
Speaker 4: exactly what trails this deer has been on, what trails
Speaker 4: he has not been on, areas that he has been in,
Speaker 4: and areas that he has not been in. So it's
Speaker 4: just stuff like that. And even you know, on the
Speaker 4: inside of his right main beam, he had a sticker
Speaker 4: that was about probably two inches long. I didn't find
Speaker 4: his right side, but I was able to locate his
Speaker 4: left side. But I just started analyzing the rubs and
Speaker 4: stuff in the area, and I was able to pick
Speaker 4: out what was mostly his rubs. Now you can't, you know,
Speaker 4: I identify everyone, but you know some are going to
Speaker 4: have that marking on it, you know. So it's just
Speaker 4: really looking at everything through a microscope, if you want
Speaker 4: to call it, and just analyzing all the sign that
Speaker 4: you're coming up on, you know, and eventually you start
Speaker 4: to put together a picture of where this deer is using,
Speaker 4: you know. And and something else about these older age
Speaker 4: class bucks is a lot of times that you know,
Speaker 4: they may be feeding in the same general type areas,
Speaker 4: but a lot of times they bed in a totally
Speaker 4: different direction. So you know, keeping that in mind, you
Speaker 4: know you're scouting, you're seeing the most heavy deer sign,
Speaker 4: and you know the direction that it's going back up into,
Speaker 4: well you need to check that out, but you also
Speaker 4: need to check out in other directions and you'll you'll
Speaker 4: soon realize that a lot of these these older bucks,
Speaker 4: they're coming from completely different directions. And so that that
Speaker 4: brings up another thing too. A lot of times, especially
Speaker 4: whenever you have agriculture low and bedding up high, and
Speaker 4: these deer coming off these secondary ridges down into these
Speaker 4: agriculture or form type areas. You know, throughout most of
Speaker 4: the season older age class bucks, their movement is going
Speaker 4: to be in parallel with the other deer. In other words,
Speaker 4: they're going to be moving top to bottom uh and
Speaker 4: and vice versa, just like the other deer are.
Speaker 3: But they might be just off the trails.
Speaker 4: You know, they're not going to necessarily be used in
Speaker 4: the same trails, but they're going to be moving back
Speaker 4: and forth in the same direction. But the closer it
Speaker 4: gets to rut, the more from UH, that's going to
Speaker 4: change from parallel to perpendicular in a lot of instances.
Speaker 4: In other words, those bucks instead of traveling up and
Speaker 4: down once they start looking for those, they're going to
Speaker 4: be cutting across those second ridges. And it's just a
Speaker 4: lot more efficient for him to locate those that are
Speaker 4: coming into estras that way. So, you know, just given
Speaker 4: the time of season is going to have a bearing
Speaker 4: on where I want to hunt that deer, and and
Speaker 4: my winter scouting, you know, of course, is going to
Speaker 4: put me in the right locations because you know, I
Speaker 4: already know if I kill this deer, I know what
Speaker 4: trees I'm going to kill him out of. You know,
Speaker 4: So except for early season. Now, early season was a
Speaker 4: little bit different because of food. But once the leaves
Speaker 4: come off and we get into November and then even
Speaker 4: into December, you know, I know where he's going to be.
Speaker 2: So you mentioned cameras on the top there and mentioned
Speaker 2: that the run them on video. I've heard you say
Speaker 2: in the past that you run maybe seventy five percent
Speaker 2: of your cameras on scrapes, and that you run your
Speaker 2: cameras year round or close to it. Yes, okay, so
Speaker 2: I want to confirm that's true, and part two of
Speaker 2: that would be, can you elaborate a little bit more
Speaker 2: on where you're positioning these cameras. You know, I think
Speaker 2: a lot about when I'm setting cameras, not only trying
Speaker 2: to locate the bucks them after, but also not spooking
Speaker 2: them also now you know, putting them in a place
Speaker 2: where I'm not going to spook them coming in and out.
Speaker 2: If I have to do that, I might be thinking
Speaker 2: about other hunters. But you mentioned that you're hunting where
Speaker 2: there's not pressure, and so these deer very rarely encounter people,
Speaker 2: and maybe they rarely encounter cameras. So I'm curious does
Speaker 2: any of that cause you to do something different with
Speaker 2: your trail camera strategy or placement or anything like that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I place my cameras in areas that I for
Speaker 4: the most part, do not intend to hunt because all
Speaker 4: I want to know is, well, you know, I just
Speaker 4: want to verify that he's there, and I want to
Speaker 4: know what he looks like. My scouting is going to
Speaker 4: tell me where I need to hunt him. You know,
Speaker 4: I don't need to run trail cameras back in close
Speaker 4: to his core area or anything like that. And the
Speaker 4: type of and and like I said, I run most
Speaker 4: of my cameras on scrapes. I'm looking for those annual
Speaker 4: scrapes there that have multiple liking branches, multiple multiple bucks
Speaker 4: are going to be heating and uh, but that those
Speaker 4: are type of scrapes that I put my cameras on.
Speaker 2: Any anything as far as the height of your cameras
Speaker 2: or do you are you okay just put them smackedab
Speaker 2: in front of the deer uh FEI the.
Speaker 3: Way, No, I try not to do that.
Speaker 4: I don't want my cameras to be obnoxious, you know,
Speaker 4: I want them to because now some some bucks do
Speaker 4: shy away from them, you know. Uh. There again it
Speaker 4: goes back to personality some of them. It doesn't bother
Speaker 4: them at all, but some it does, and uh, I
Speaker 4: just don't take that chance. I make sure that my cameras,
Speaker 4: you know, I probably put my cameras probably a round
Speaker 4: eight feet high and uh there again, I put them
Speaker 4: in locations that I can you know, sneak in check them,
Speaker 4: uh and uh and be able to get back out
Speaker 4: without messing up in my chances of killing that deer,
Speaker 4: you know, because you know, checking your trail cameras and stuff,
Speaker 4: and you know you're leaving human sit around and you
Speaker 4: know that that that's that's not gonna cause him go nocturnal,
Speaker 4: but that will make him not want to be there
Speaker 4: during daylight hours in that particular spot. You know, there's
Speaker 4: a difference between a nocturnal buck and uh where he
Speaker 4: moves during the daylight versus during the dark. You know, truly,
Speaker 4: there's no such thing as a nocturnal buck because they
Speaker 4: they all will move, but it's just they they won't
Speaker 4: visit certain areas during the daylight they you know, and
Speaker 4: I find that scrapes are areas that they don't like
Speaker 4: to visit during the daylight. Not not in not where
Speaker 4: I hunt anyway. Now Ohio is completely different there, but
Speaker 4: now here in Virginia in the mountains.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 4: From my experience, I get very very few uh camera
Speaker 4: pictures of bucks in the daylight.
Speaker 2: Do you have any guess as to why that is
Speaker 2: different in Ohio versus where you are?
Speaker 3: Huh? Not really? I mean, I don't know why.
Speaker 4: I've got a guess on why my bucks here in
Speaker 4: Virginia don't like to visit scrapes during the daylight. I
Speaker 4: feel like that if it's a very specific thing that
Speaker 4: those bucks don't want to be standing there for some
Speaker 4: reason in the daylight, they'll be around, you know, because
Speaker 4: I've actually seen this. I've seen I've been hunting a
Speaker 4: scrape before, and I have seen a buck feeding under
Speaker 4: a white oak or read whatever, you know, just an
Speaker 4: oak out from me seventy five to hundred yards and
Speaker 4: be therefore, you know, an hour before it gets dark.
Speaker 4: But he would never venture over to that scrape. But
Speaker 4: as soon as it gets dark, you can hear him
Speaker 4: walk straight over to it and he'll work it and
Speaker 4: everything else sthing he walks off, you know. But it's
Speaker 4: most like they don't want to go to a very
Speaker 4: specific thing like a scrape during the daylight.
Speaker 3: Now, why they want to be that way, I.
Speaker 2: Don't know, strange And is that unique to those mature
Speaker 2: bucks or do you see that with like all the
Speaker 2: bucks and you.
Speaker 4: Honestly that you know it's you know, bucks even as
Speaker 4: young as three, but especially once they start getting four
Speaker 4: years old and older, then yeah, for sure those deer.
Speaker 2: Interesting you mentioned scent, leaving your scent on the ground
Speaker 2: and when you're walking in check cameras. You know, these days,
Speaker 2: it's kind of trendy within the world of like DIY
Speaker 2: deer hunters, especially public land deer hunters, to say, send
Speaker 2: controls for the birds. You just got to play the wind, right.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of people that kind of like brag
Speaker 2: about how they don't practice any kind of send control
Speaker 2: because they can just they can understand the wind really well. Right,
Speaker 2: But I noticed that that's not the case for you.
Speaker 4: You seem to take it serious, can you? I want
Speaker 4: to answer that really good.
Speaker 3: Listen.
Speaker 4: You spend all this time, money, and effort to scout
Speaker 4: and find these places. Why in the world would you
Speaker 4: be so lazy to skip one of the simplest things,
Speaker 4: sink control.
Speaker 3: Uh, you know it. To me, it's just laziness.
Speaker 4: But at the same time, it's one of the most
Speaker 4: simple things that you can do to protect where you're hunting.
Speaker 4: You know, you need to be able to get in
Speaker 4: and out of that spot undetected. If you can't do that,
Speaker 4: then you're going to burn that spot out. And here
Speaker 4: in the mountains, it takes two things. That is one
Speaker 4: of the most important things to be a successful big
Speaker 4: buck killer here in the mountains, if you want to say,
Speaker 4: is persistence and dedication and a lot of times that
Speaker 4: means putting a lot of time in very specific spots.
Speaker 4: And if you can't get in and out those spots
Speaker 4: without leaving a bunch of scent uh and trashing up
Speaker 4: the area, then uh, why would you know you're going
Speaker 4: to be sitting there for hours and days on end
Speaker 4: and uh and just you know for for not so
Speaker 4: why would you skip that step? Because trust me, I
Speaker 4: have been doing this for years. And you can play
Speaker 4: out play the wind all you want. I play the wind,
Speaker 4: but you cannot always predict where the deer is going
Speaker 4: to come from. That is impossible. They don't always come
Speaker 4: in with the nose their or their nose to the wind.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 4: And they don't always come in with their the wind
Speaker 4: blowing from their tail forward. You know, you just don't know.
Speaker 4: So the best practice is to practice sin control to
Speaker 4: the best you humanly can. You know, I just don't
Speaker 4: understand these guys that don't take it any more serious
Speaker 4: than what they do. You know, I've heard that a lot,
Speaker 4: So yeah, I'm right there with you.
Speaker 2: If there's there's so many variables outside of your control
Speaker 2: when you're trying to chase these deer, why wouldn't you
Speaker 2: want to have one of those things you can control
Speaker 2: that you do have one hundred percent control for. Why
Speaker 2: wouldn't you take advantage of that part to put a
Speaker 2: little bit more in your favor, to have that little
Speaker 2: insurance policy? Like you said, it seems like an elaborate
Speaker 2: excuse just not to do the work.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 2: So, speaking of impact we make in the woods, there's
Speaker 2: there's scent, there's your cameras, there's how many times you hunt.
Speaker 2: We've talked about all those so far. But what about
Speaker 2: the impact that something like calling or rattling might make
Speaker 2: when it comes to these extra mature mountain bucks. You know,
Speaker 2: would you ever call a rattle to a seven year
Speaker 2: old eight year old buck in the mountains of Virginia
Speaker 2: or Ohio. How do you see them reacting to that
Speaker 2: kind of thing when we're talking about like a super
Speaker 2: mature deer compared to a two year old.
Speaker 4: Uh in Ohio. I would I would definitely call to
Speaker 4: those deer. I've had positive that. Now I don't do
Speaker 4: any rattling. But now I've had, you know, some positive
Speaker 4: experiences with bucks in Ohio, you know, But now here
Speaker 4: in Virginia in the mountains, I don't call to him.
Speaker 4: The only time that I ever called to a buck
Speaker 4: here in the mountains is if he if he is
Speaker 4: going to you know, going away from me, or you know,
Speaker 4: in other words, if I know that I'm not going
Speaker 4: to get an opportunity at him, I'll blow agrunk call
Speaker 4: at him a few times in hopes that to turn
Speaker 4: him and get his curiosity up and bring him down there.
Speaker 4: But other than that, I don't do any blind calling.
Speaker 4: I don't do any rattling. I just prefer to sit silently,
Speaker 4: you know.
Speaker 2: Yeh, all right, Nathan, I've got two last questions for
Speaker 2: you before you wrap this up. Kind of want to
Speaker 2: tie a bow on this if you had to, and
Speaker 2: I'll give you a second to think this through. But
Speaker 2: if you had to like write the three Commandments of
Speaker 2: Nathan killing when it comes to understanding and hunting old
Speaker 2: old bucks like your top tiered salty dog deer. What
Speaker 2: would that, like those three commandments be if you had
Speaker 2: to drill down to the very three most important things
Speaker 2: you understand about these deer or that you must do
Speaker 2: to get a crack at these deer. What do you
Speaker 2: think those three things would be? The things that if
Speaker 2: they remember nothing else today, they have to remember these
Speaker 2: three things. What would those be?
Speaker 3: Number one would be hunt them differently. They're different.
Speaker 4: You can the chances of you killing more than one
Speaker 4: mature book in your lifetime be Hunting deer is very
Speaker 4: very slim. You have to hunt them as individuals. Number
Speaker 4: two would be do your winter scouting. I don't you know.
Speaker 4: I see guys scouting right now. They're scouting their hearts out,
Speaker 4: and I'm not. You know, My scouting was done before
Speaker 4: the leaves came on the trees. The only thing that
Speaker 4: I do this time of year is round Montreal cameras,
Speaker 4: and they're in low impact areas and I'm only looking
Speaker 4: to see what he looks like now and to verify
Speaker 4: that yes, he's still alive. So I stay out of
Speaker 4: the woods, you know. And I want to say number three,
Speaker 4: persistence and dedication. The older age class bucks are not pushovers.
Speaker 4: It takes time and a lot of effort. You just
Speaker 4: got to keep going and keep going and keep going,
Speaker 4: and hunt smart. Don't get lazy, don't get sloppy. You've
Speaker 4: got to be cistant, and you've got to be very
Speaker 4: precise at how you hunt these deer.
Speaker 2: So yeah, all right, Well, I'm gonna get those carved
Speaker 2: in stone, and I'm gonna send out copies of the
Speaker 2: tablets across the country for folks to make sure they
Speaker 2: don't forget this. But tell me this, Nathan, I gotta
Speaker 2: believe in your many years of chasing these deer and
Speaker 2: getting to know these old bucks, I'm sure they've taught
Speaker 2: you a whole lot. I'm sure that you've probably learned
Speaker 2: a whole lot from the deer themselves. So I'm curious
Speaker 2: if you could think back, is there any one specific
Speaker 2: big old buck that stands out in your memory as
Speaker 2: having taught you either the most important lesson or the
Speaker 2: most lessons. Can you think back to any specific example
Speaker 2: of a deer that taught you something really, really important
Speaker 2: and if you can think of a buck like that,
Speaker 2: could you share with us, you know, the story of
Speaker 2: what that buck, what that buck taught you, and how
Speaker 2: you learned that lesson.
Speaker 4: It would probably be a buck that I didn't kill.
Speaker 4: I've got some sheds off of him, and I would
Speaker 4: get pictures of him up until about October, well September,
Speaker 4: and then it's like he just disappeared. And then but
Speaker 4: yet once season was over, I was always able to
Speaker 4: locate his sheds and they would be there.
Speaker 3: And uh, but.
Speaker 4: I guess that lesson would be is is, most of
Speaker 4: the time, whenever you think that they're going, they're not.
Speaker 4: It's just they're doing something different than what you think
Speaker 4: that they're doing. And that just goes right back to
Speaker 4: if you're not, you know, to doing things differently to
Speaker 4: get on these older age class bucks because they're again
Speaker 4: they're different.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's it's such a hard thing to put into
Speaker 2: action though for a lot of us, right, yeah, because
Speaker 2: you want to see deer, right and the sign often
Speaker 2: tells you, like where deer are, and your observations often
Speaker 2: tell well, there's deer here, and it's really hard to avoid,
Speaker 2: you know what. Ninety five percent of all your observations
Speaker 2: and everything else tells you should work, but you're not
Speaker 2: looking for a ninety five percent deer. You're looking for
Speaker 2: that top five or top two or top one percent buck.
Speaker 2: That's like you said different.
Speaker 4: Let me tell you one thing that probably changed the
Speaker 4: course of my thinking as far as hunting older age bucks.
Speaker 4: And it wasn't any particular thing that happened. It's more
Speaker 4: of an idea. But I was a lot younger, and
Speaker 4: you know, you would see people kill these big bucks
Speaker 4: and I wanted to kill one two. But one thing
Speaker 4: that I noticed is the real giants that were killed.
Speaker 4: And whenever I say real giants, I'm talking about the
Speaker 4: best bucks from my area. A lot of times we're
Speaker 4: killed by people that you nothing about deer hunting, and uh,
Speaker 4: they were hunting places that you would never hunt those deer.
Speaker 4: And so that is one thing that got me to
Speaker 4: thinking about hunting areas with uh with the least deer
Speaker 4: sign and and and I believe that's that's one thing
Speaker 4: that changed my hunting is just realizing that, you know, hey,
Speaker 4: I'm hunting places that are just too deary, if that
Speaker 4: makes sense. I need to hunt the places that are buckey,
Speaker 4: not deary.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that is a big distinct, big distinguishing thing
Speaker 2: right there. Yes, but but yeah, like you said, those
Speaker 2: big old guys, they don't want to be surrounded by
Speaker 2: a bunch of kids and moms. Right, that's the old
Speaker 2: grumpy man. This is Clint Eastwood on the front porch
Speaker 2: saying get out of here, don't want to be by myself.
Speaker 3: That's a perfect analogy, Clint Eastwood. I like that.
Speaker 2: Yep, that's that's what we're looking for. Soh so with
Speaker 2: that image in our minds, and I guess that's a
Speaker 2: good way to wrap this up. Nathan. For folks that
Speaker 2: want to follow along with your season or see anything
Speaker 2: else from me, is there anywhere you would direct people
Speaker 2: to go or to connect with you any kind of way?
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, I'm just on Instagram. I'm a mountain
Speaker 4: hunter on there. You can search my name Nathan Kiellen
Speaker 4: or the Stick Boys. You know, I'm really good friends
Speaker 4: with those guys. I've got a few scouting videos on
Speaker 4: their YouTube channel and a couple of deer hunts. I'm
Speaker 4: no videographer or anything like that, but you know, you
Speaker 4: can They've got some really good stuff on there too
Speaker 4: that they've done, you know, so, but yeah, that's the
Speaker 4: that's the two places I'm I'm not real social, but
Speaker 4: I do that a little bit.
Speaker 3: So that's great.
Speaker 2: I've checked out some of those videos and and I
Speaker 2: enjoyed them. There's a nice little bit of combination of
Speaker 2: getting to see what you're doing in the field, but
Speaker 2: then also you explaining what happened or why you did things,
Speaker 2: or even a couple of them, there's some map breakdowns
Speaker 2: which are really helpful to see. So it's good stuff. Nathan, Man,
Speaker 2: I really appreciate you taking this time to talk through
Speaker 2: all this and kind of let me take you down
Speaker 2: the wormhole and into the minds.
Speaker 3: Of these big old deer. Yeah. Yeah, I enjoyed it.
Speaker 4: I enjoy anytime anybody wants to sit and listen to
Speaker 4: me rattle on about them.
Speaker 3: So me too.
Speaker 2: Well, let's plan doing again someday down the road, Nathan,
Speaker 2: and hopefully we'll hear a new story or two about
Speaker 2: that deer. You get a crack out hopefully here in
Speaker 2: a couple of months or weeks. Yep, yep, all right,
Speaker 2: good luck this year, Nathan.
Speaker 3: All right, youtubo buddy, thank you all.
Speaker 2: Right, and that is a wrap. Thank you all for
Speaker 2: tuning in. Hope you enjoy this one as much as
Speaker 2: I did. We are getting into the season. It is real,
Speaker 2: my friends. I'm kicking off my first hunt this week,
Speaker 2: so I will hopefully have a story for you very
Speaker 2: soon about some exciting hunts and, if nothing else, some
Speaker 2: lessons learned, which is always an important takeaway from each
Speaker 2: hunt that we can bring home with us no matter
Speaker 2: what happens at the end of the day. So best
Speaker 2: of luck out there as you get after it. I
Speaker 2: hope you have a lot of fun, enjoy the process.
Speaker 2: The results will follow Until next week. Stay wired to Hunt.