Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, home of the
Speaker 1: modern white tail hunter and now your host, Mark Kenyon.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. This week on
Speaker 1: the show, we are joined by Dr Grant Woods of
Speaker 1: Growing Dear TV to discuss exactly how he'd handle some
Speaker 1: of the most challenging deer hunting and management scenarios in
Speaker 1: the white tail Woods. All right, welcome to the Wired
Speaker 1: to Hunt podcast, brought to you by First Life and
Speaker 1: to Dan the show. We're kicking off a new month
Speaker 1: long series. Now. I hope you guys enjoyed shooting month
Speaker 1: back in July. I certainly did. Was what I needed.
Speaker 1: This year is all about shooting for me. I'm feeling
Speaker 1: good about it. These folks helped me out, and uh
Speaker 1: I am now and hopefully you are now ready to
Speaker 1: fully turn our attention to hunting, because guess what hunting
Speaker 1: season is just about here? I mean, jeez, guys, I
Speaker 1: mean for some of you, just a matter of weeks
Speaker 1: probably right. There's some August openers, some early September openers.
Speaker 1: I think my first hunt of the year is going
Speaker 1: to be somewhere on mid September. But man, it's coming
Speaker 1: up fast, and uh, I'm excited. So from here on
Speaker 1: out through the rest of the fall, we're gonna be
Speaker 1: a focused on chatting with the best deer hunters in
Speaker 1: the world to get you and me and all the
Speaker 1: rest of us ready for our best season yet. It's
Speaker 1: gonna be some really good stuff and to get things going,
Speaker 1: my thought was to do a whole month of our
Speaker 1: what would you do episodes. We've done these over the
Speaker 1: past couple of years. Uh so hopefully you're familiar, but
Speaker 1: if you're not. The basic gist of it is this,
Speaker 1: I get some great hunter on the line, and then
Speaker 1: I present them with a bunch of different, very scific,
Speaker 1: unique hunting scenarios. I'll tell basically a story like it's
Speaker 1: this day, it's this place, it's this kind of thing,
Speaker 1: and here's what's going on, and then I asked them
Speaker 1: to explain what they would do in that circumstance, why
Speaker 1: they would do it, how they would pull it off.
Speaker 1: And you know what I found is this has ended
Speaker 1: up being one of the best ways to get new
Speaker 1: ideas and a new perspective from these really good deer hunters.
Speaker 1: And it's a lot of fun too, So I'm pretty
Speaker 1: stoked to do a full month of them. We've got
Speaker 1: a really, really good lineup schedule for you here and
Speaker 1: we're kicking it off today with a true legend. Dr.
Speaker 1: Grant Woods is one of the best in the world.
Speaker 1: He's a long time wildlife biologist, he's a thought leader
Speaker 1: in the deer management world, and he's the founder and
Speaker 1: host of Growing Dear TV, which is you know, for jeez,
Speaker 1: well over a decade now, when it's been one of
Speaker 1: the best and most popular online hunting series that there is.
Speaker 1: He hunts and manages a great, big property down in
Speaker 1: southern Missouri, but he's also traveled and consulted and hunted
Speaker 1: all over the country. So he's just this wide kind
Speaker 1: of wealth of experience and expertise, and I think it's
Speaker 1: the perfect person to help us kind of shift our
Speaker 1: preparations into the season into overdrive. So that's the plan
Speaker 1: for today. That's the podcast we've got. I just finished
Speaker 1: my podcast with Grant, just finished chatting with him, and
Speaker 1: I can tell you it lives up to the bailing.
Speaker 1: It really was a good one. So I'm excited for
Speaker 1: you guys to hear the rest of this. But I
Speaker 1: do want to give you a quick update some housekeeping here.
Speaker 1: If you're listening to this on the day that this
Speaker 1: episode drops, which is Thursday, August four two, I gotta
Speaker 1: give your heads up that today is the last day
Speaker 1: of our season openers sale for meat Eater and our
Speaker 1: family brands. Right as you guys know Why're Hunt is
Speaker 1: part of the Meat Eater network, and this is basically
Speaker 1: our our biggest sale the entire year. Tay's the last
Speaker 1: day over at first Light. They got off almost the
Speaker 1: entire inventory. It's off a bunch of our favorites from
Speaker 1: FHF in Phelps game calls up to fift off, and
Speaker 1: then there's a bunch of logo wear and some knife
Speaker 1: bundles and different things on sale at our Meat Eater
Speaker 1: store where we stock all sorts of different hunting gear
Speaker 1: now too. So it's a lot to keep straight, I realized.
Speaker 1: So to make things more simple, we actually just started
Speaker 1: a new kind of curated gear page for me. And
Speaker 1: I know I mentioned last month I was gonna do
Speaker 1: some Wired Hunt monthly gear picks and I told you
Speaker 1: to go over to the Wired Dunt website. Well we
Speaker 1: kind of shifted things a little bit. We've actually got
Speaker 1: a new page now where I'm gonna be putting some
Speaker 1: of my favorite items for each phase of the year,
Speaker 1: and you can see those recommendations right now. And so
Speaker 1: right now, a bunch of my selections for like the
Speaker 1: late summer scouting period and the early season hunting period.
Speaker 1: A bunch of that stuff's on sale today August four.
Speaker 1: So what you gotta do if you're interested in checking
Speaker 1: out a few of these things, You go to store
Speaker 1: dot the meat Eater dot com, so that store Dot
Speaker 1: the meat Eater dot com slash mark, and there you're
Speaker 1: gonna see stuff like my favorite, uh the gear I'm
Speaker 1: wearing for early season hunting from first let you'll see
Speaker 1: the hoodie I wear, You'll see the pants I wear,
Speaker 1: You'll see the face covering I wear. I also included
Speaker 1: this new cooler I've been using all summer, my new
Speaker 1: favorite cooler I recommended on there, and my top recommendation
Speaker 1: for super cheap, budget friendly binoculars. If you want to
Speaker 1: get a pretty decent set of glass for not a
Speaker 1: ton of money, there's a recommendation in there for you
Speaker 1: to So go to store dot the meat Eater dot
Speaker 1: com slash mark to see my recommendations. If you're listening
Speaker 1: on the fourth, you can still get those sale prices.
Speaker 1: If not, still check out those recommendations if you're in
Speaker 1: the market for anything like that. Uh that's my little
Speaker 1: spiel and my update. And with that out of the way,
Speaker 1: it's time to get to our first episode of What
Speaker 1: Would You Do Month with the one and only doctor
Speaker 1: Grant Woods. Let's go all right back with me on
Speaker 1: the show is Mr Grant Woods. Grant, thank you so
Speaker 1: much for being here. Hey, mark us for having me.
Speaker 1: It's been it's been too long. I think it's been
Speaker 1: a couple of years since we've had you on the show.
Speaker 1: And uh, every time we chat though, it's it's one
Speaker 1: of the best ever. So I'm glad we're getting back together. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, I enjoy our visits also, and this is
Speaker 1: kind of a unique one. I mean we've talked in
Speaker 1: the past on Whyed Hunt about general land management things.
Speaker 1: I know we did a podcast with the Druries a
Speaker 1: few years ago were wedove into stuff with e h
Speaker 1: D and diseases and drought and stuff. But today I
Speaker 1: kind of want to run you through the gauntlet if
Speaker 1: you're if you're willing to go there with me, Grant,
Speaker 1: I want to I want to pitch a whole bunch
Speaker 1: of hypothetical hunting scenarios at you and and then just
Speaker 1: see how you would handle them, what you would do,
Speaker 1: what your thought process would be, what kinds of things
Speaker 1: you would be thinking about, um, anything along those lines.
Speaker 1: We're gonna kind of go from land management stuff all
Speaker 1: the way through early season, mid season, late season, and
Speaker 1: kind of cover whole swath of different possible circumstances a
Speaker 1: hunter might find themselves. And so are you Are you
Speaker 1: game to go on that journey? Yeah? Yeah, that sounds fun.
Speaker 1: This is this is sounds awesome. Yeah, it actually is
Speaker 1: pretty fun. I enjoy doing this. So I I say,
Speaker 1: rather than beating around the bush, we should just jump
Speaker 1: right into my first one, which is a slightly it's
Speaker 1: probably gonna be a concerning, depressing thing to think about,
Speaker 1: So forgive me to start here, Grant, But I want
Speaker 1: you to imagine this scenario. Imagine for some reason you
Speaker 1: had to sell the proving grounds, like right now, in
Speaker 1: the middle of the summer, last minute, or you wanted
Speaker 1: to do it for for whatever reason. But the proving grounds,
Speaker 1: your home turf, your home farm you worked so hard
Speaker 1: on over the years, is now gone. And it's let's
Speaker 1: say August fifteen, let's le's hypothetically imagined. And now you
Speaker 1: have just picked up a new property to hunt this year.
Speaker 1: But it's just a lease. It's a smaller property. And
Speaker 1: this just you know, for this year, for the intro,
Speaker 1: we're just going to pick up a lease to get
Speaker 1: me through this year. We'll see what happens after that.
Speaker 1: And on this lease you are allowed to do some
Speaker 1: minor habitat improvements. But there's a farmer on the property
Speaker 1: as well, and he just doesn't want you to mess
Speaker 1: with his fields. He doesn't want to mess with his
Speaker 1: crop fields. Everything else is fair game. Though you can
Speaker 1: mess with the timber a little bit. You can mess
Speaker 1: with any kind of openings. But here's the rub. You
Speaker 1: only have two available weekends in the summer to make
Speaker 1: whatever changes you want. So you have two weekends of
Speaker 1: time to do something fast to get ready for this
Speaker 1: first hunting season on this new lease. So my question
Speaker 1: for you, Grant is this, with this very short amount time,
Speaker 1: very late in the year, on a new place, what
Speaker 1: would you do with those two weekends? What's the best
Speaker 1: bang for your buck and and most efficient impact you
Speaker 1: can make given those constraints. What would you do? What's
Speaker 1: your thought process? And that is a scary scenario there.
Speaker 1: Uh And I think my first thing because I'm gonna
Speaker 1: be thinking about this like a lot of us, you know,
Speaker 1: while I'm working, or do it driving down the road,
Speaker 1: even though I have two weekends to have boots on
Speaker 1: the ground. So I'm gonna I'm gonna whip out my
Speaker 1: online map, which for me is huntsed in, and I'm
Speaker 1: gonna do just the opposite of a lot of people.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna look at my property, but just as importantly
Speaker 1: it's a small release, I'm gonna look at the neighborhood.
Speaker 1: I want to try to find the best sources that
Speaker 1: you can detect from a satellite image of food covering water,
Speaker 1: because those resources are gonna impact how dear travel through
Speaker 1: or use my leaks. Of course, look at food we
Speaker 1: mentioned as a farmer probably doing a single rotation, so
Speaker 1: he's got corner beans, but he's not double cropping most likely,
Speaker 1: since that's rare. So I'm gonna try to learn what
Speaker 1: he's planting. And I can probably do that some extent
Speaker 1: by the you know, if I get it last year's
Speaker 1: satellite view. Uh And it's corn. I can assume he
Speaker 1: went to beans this year with pretty good accuracy. But
Speaker 1: I want to see much food is in the neighborhood.
Speaker 1: Maybe see if there's any timber work around me, there
Speaker 1: some bedding areas and clear cups or something, because when
Speaker 1: I start any new project, I want to identify the
Speaker 1: best sources of food, cover and water, find the one
Speaker 1: that's the most limited, and and put that where I'm hunting. Yep,
Speaker 1: that that makes sense. So can you can you maybe
Speaker 1: take it one step further them? So let's let's imagine
Speaker 1: we'll sorry, go ahead. Yeah, so I'll use my imagination
Speaker 1: a little bit. And I mean gonna say it's pretty
Speaker 1: homogenous habitat. I don't I don't see any fresh clear
Speaker 1: cups on the neighbors or a you know, a bedding area,
Speaker 1: and all the farmers seem to have the same practices
Speaker 1: in the neighborhood, and all the farmers are harvesting their crops.
Speaker 1: Let's just say I don't know where we are north south,
Speaker 1: but let's say abou October one, there's still some hunting
Speaker 1: season out there when when the crops are standing, but
Speaker 1: they get gone pretty quick, and and combines are super
Speaker 1: efficient anymore. And this particular farmer is not using any
Speaker 1: cover crops, and so he said he didn't want me
Speaker 1: messing with his eels. But I'm gonna try to beg
Speaker 1: him to just let me broadcast. I'm not doing anything.
Speaker 1: I'm not adding any chemicals. I'm just gonna broadcast some
Speaker 1: good food plot blend, and in the back corner were
Speaker 1: likely the deer may have done some damage to his
Speaker 1: agg crops anyway, And and see if I can't get
Speaker 1: you an eighth acre quarter acre back corner fields just
Speaker 1: makes some little high deal food plots. Those are easy.
Speaker 1: I don't have to worry about clearing trees or anything.
Speaker 1: I'm not disturbing the soil because it's gonna be bare
Speaker 1: after harvest. I'm just broadcasting seed right before rain. Hope
Speaker 1: it rains on one or two weekends I have, or
Speaker 1: right after that, and then I'm gonna get boots on
Speaker 1: the ground. And that first day, man, I'm almost jogging
Speaker 1: through the woods. I'm just I've got limited time. I
Speaker 1: am on every trail and every side ridge and the
Speaker 1: elevator ridge, and I'm not gonna wear as much about
Speaker 1: the bottoms because i know the wind's gonna swirl down there,
Speaker 1: and I prefer to bow hunt early season, so it's
Speaker 1: gonna be a little tough running the bottoms. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: put my eggs in the basket on the ridge tops
Speaker 1: where the wind and thermals are gonna be more predictive
Speaker 1: bowl and more consistent. And what I'm really looking for
Speaker 1: is white oaks, because deer like white oaks over red
Speaker 1: oaks during the early season. Potentially know the farm place
Speaker 1: maybe got a para tree or something by it that
Speaker 1: would be an attraction during the early season. And just
Speaker 1: as importantly, I'm looking for any dry ponds or openings
Speaker 1: where some sun is reaching the soil and I can
Speaker 1: just take a rake or backpack blower and blow the
Speaker 1: leaves and duff out away and again broadcast some seed.
Speaker 1: And in that timber spot, I might go out a
Speaker 1: bag of tin, tin, tin or something and again make
Speaker 1: that attractive food source, because when all the farmers harvest,
Speaker 1: deer coming to my little food clots. M I love
Speaker 1: it now, both in your little timber spot and in
Speaker 1: the corners of these fields where you're gonna broadcast after takeout,
Speaker 1: What specifically would you try broadcasting in that kind of situation. Okay,
Speaker 1: So just being really candid, I just designed the new
Speaker 1: blends for me, but I shared that recipe of the
Speaker 1: green cover so anyone could get it. But I maintained
Speaker 1: about ten or fifteen ton on your little high deal
Speaker 1: of food plots. And I've just learned through the years
Speaker 1: that you know, there's no new magic being but oats
Speaker 1: and folks, there's you know, everyone's well I got big
Speaker 1: buck oats or yellows or whatever. There's there's you know,
Speaker 1: code taller notes and non cook code taller notes. But anyway,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna have oats and radishes and buck leats and
Speaker 1: a few little soybeans in there to just get there early.
Speaker 1: Those are really great early season attract its north to south.
Speaker 1: And then I'm gonna have some blanched clover and a
Speaker 1: few things like that in there, just gonna come on,
Speaker 1: you know, a month into it or so until it
Speaker 1: gets really cold and then really light up next spring
Speaker 1: for the turkeys. Just gonna those things are just gonna
Speaker 1: blow out of ground that following spring. And then I'm
Speaker 1: have a little cereal ride because once you get if
Speaker 1: I'm fair enough north and it gives code and my
Speaker 1: oats might frost off or just really become dormant and
Speaker 1: get eight to the ground. Sarah ye grows down to
Speaker 1: twenty eight degrees. So if it's twenty eight degrees and
Speaker 1: the mat checking about serial rise, it's say it's been
Speaker 1: zero for five weeks. Then it warms up the twenty
Speaker 1: eight degrees, it's gonna grow a little bit. Of course,
Speaker 1: that fresh photo synthesis fresh vegetation is gonna attract deer
Speaker 1: during the late season. So I'll have a blend. I
Speaker 1: always prefer blends over single species. If you like that blend,
Speaker 1: it's called heidi Hoo. I call little food box hide Hoo.
Speaker 1: And that's exactly what I'm planting this year. Awesome now,
Speaker 1: you know, just as an aside to everyone listening, you know,
Speaker 1: you and I Grant, we did a we did a
Speaker 1: podcast like I mentioned a few years ago, all about
Speaker 1: your Buffalo method as you were calling it um, where
Speaker 1: you talked about the importance of diversity and blends and
Speaker 1: everything like that. Highly recommend anyone who has a little
Speaker 1: bit more time than two weekends, but who really wants
Speaker 1: to rethink the way they do food plots in a
Speaker 1: more sustainable and soil friendly way. Highly recommend looking up
Speaker 1: the Buffalo method. Are you basically following the same program
Speaker 1: these days or has that changed dramatically in the last
Speaker 1: couple of years. Yeah, change little bit as we continue learning,
Speaker 1: and you know, just again there's no new magic being,
Speaker 1: but just trying different combinations of species. We kind of
Speaker 1: refined our techniques. My soil is improving. You've been your
Speaker 1: market really rocky, tough place. Uh, my soul is making
Speaker 1: more gains now, and it's easier to make gains early on, right,
Speaker 1: Like it's you know, it's really easy to jump when
Speaker 1: you're starting at the bottom, but it's really tough to
Speaker 1: get that last. But just about stuff we've learned in
Speaker 1: timing and techniques, we're making faster gains now and so
Speaker 1: much of a difference. We actually now call it the
Speaker 1: release process. I I kind of consider it releasing creations
Speaker 1: potential because I've just learned through the years that their soil,
Speaker 1: even degraded soil, if you treat it right, just within
Speaker 1: a year or two, it has so much potential. I
Speaker 1: haven't I haven't paid for any fertilizer set a little
Speaker 1: higheal if food plot or something in eight years now.
Speaker 1: I haven't bought any herbicide and a couple of years.
Speaker 1: I'm just I spend and I like tractor time. But
Speaker 1: you know, I my technique, I spent a lot less
Speaker 1: time on a tractors gives me more time to go
Speaker 1: being a tree stand or hang a tree stand or something. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: I gotta tell you, Grant. Since that conversation where we
Speaker 1: dove into that, I have spent the last two years,
Speaker 1: you know, trying something you know, a poor man's version
Speaker 1: of what you're doing, and and have seen you know,
Speaker 1: pretty darn good success and have really enjoyed diving into
Speaker 1: this different way of going about things. So so thank
Speaker 1: you again for for sharing what you've been doing and
Speaker 1: how you're doing it, because it's been helpful to me
Speaker 1: and I'm sure many many other people too. So it's
Speaker 1: cool to see that come together. Okay, so here's here's
Speaker 1: another scenario. Well we'll say, well, let me take I
Speaker 1: guess we'll stick with the original property that we're talking
Speaker 1: about here, but let's let's give it a little bit
Speaker 1: more specificity and say it's forty acres, that's it, and
Speaker 1: it is a mixture of that timber and some of
Speaker 1: that agg like we talked about, it's surrounded by similar
Speaker 1: here's the problem, here's the thing you discover um for
Speaker 1: the next year. Let's say you discover that you have
Speaker 1: a neighborhood around you of folks who are hovering on
Speaker 1: your property lines um in a big, big way, like
Speaker 1: to a point where it's dramatically impacting you. You're seeing
Speaker 1: them all the time, that bumping deer. Uh. It's become
Speaker 1: something that's been become a real challenge and in one
Speaker 1: way or another for you. So now you're entering your
Speaker 1: two how if at all, would you adjust your property
Speaker 1: your plan and let me take I guess. Let me
Speaker 1: add one more thing, which is that you now own
Speaker 1: this forty acres, so you can now do whatever you want.
Speaker 1: You bought this for me. Now you can change things up,
Speaker 1: and you're trying to deal with these line hugging neighbors
Speaker 1: that have been a challenge. What do you do now? Yeah,
Speaker 1: in those situations, I like to make my cover round
Speaker 1: the outside edge for cover reasons. I like it really thick,
Speaker 1: and not only so people can't see in, and a
Speaker 1: lot of them don't even want to walk through it.
Speaker 1: So I'm gonna I'm gonna purposely designed my bedding areas
Speaker 1: or my daytime cover areas on the edges of my property.
Speaker 1: Uh and and deer will bed on edge no problem.
Speaker 1: And then as part of that design, I have to think,
Speaker 1: how can I locate the property? Is my only access
Speaker 1: to the south, or can I you know, pay the
Speaker 1: neighboring farmer a few bucks and come in from the east,
Speaker 1: or you know, how can I get there? And I'm
Speaker 1: gonna really intentionally design my little higdio food plots so
Speaker 1: I can approach hunt nexit with multiple wind directions without
Speaker 1: a learning deer. And that may mean I'm just taking
Speaker 1: a backpack blower and making a walking trail around the
Speaker 1: whole outside of property because I only have one access point,
Speaker 1: and depending on the wind that day, I'm just going
Speaker 1: on the down wind side. I may go three quarters
Speaker 1: of the way around, just so I don't booger up
Speaker 1: the deer walking through the middle, and then cut in
Speaker 1: the hundred fi yards to my my scrape line and
Speaker 1: my food plot or whatever. And I'm and I'm gonna
Speaker 1: have to hunt really strategically because there's always advantages. You
Speaker 1: can always make limon AIGs somehow, if the neighbors are
Speaker 1: kind of line huggers and probably careless hunters and putting
Speaker 1: a lot of pressure on deer. And I can create
Speaker 1: my property and hunted in a way that becomes a
Speaker 1: de facto sanctuary, less pressure than the other properties. I'm
Speaker 1: still hunting it, but I'm thinking through how I approach
Speaker 1: hunt next that every time I go there, deer are
Speaker 1: gonna naturally want to be on my property even though
Speaker 1: it's forty acres. And they give a real quick perfect
Speaker 1: example that years ago at Situay, which is a twenty
Speaker 1: eight thousand research acre research property in southwest Georgia at
Speaker 1: the University of Georgia heads up lot of research, I
Speaker 1: was prostrat Tod got to work on a little bit.
Speaker 1: Another colleague of mine built four eighty acre enclosures that
Speaker 1: were kyle proof couch a big problem down there, about
Speaker 1: a footing a half deep wire on the ground and
Speaker 1: four ft tall and had a bunch of GPS color
Speaker 1: does in the area. And the bottom line is when
Speaker 1: it comes fawning season, the majority of doze out of
Speaker 1: all that land in those areas went into the a
Speaker 1: d acre coyot proof enclosure to fawn because they knew
Speaker 1: it was safer. M and so you may not be
Speaker 1: able to reduce a Hunderson the pressure or certainly you
Speaker 1: probably can't remove a hunbersond predators. But if you can
Speaker 1: reduce the pressure or predators lord in your neighbor, then
Speaker 1: you know, it's kind of like you and I being
Speaker 1: thrown in the middle of Ukraine right now or something. Man,
Speaker 1: we're going for cover, We're going We're never totally safe,
Speaker 1: but we won't be as safe as we can. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that makes that makes sense. One kind of follow up
Speaker 1: when it comes to, you know, paying extra attention to
Speaker 1: your access. You know, there's more and more people these
Speaker 1: days it seems like, um, you know, kind of leaning
Speaker 1: towards wield access as a way to reduce the pressure.
Speaker 1: So whether with a bike or an e bike or
Speaker 1: a UTV or a buddy driving in with a truck. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, where where have you fallen these days more
Speaker 1: recently on that side of things? Do you do you
Speaker 1: do that a lot? Still? Is that a part of
Speaker 1: your strand? And I do? I do Mi langel steep
Speaker 1: So I'm kind of chicken right an e bike up
Speaker 1: down my heels. I'm afraid I'll take a face plant somewhere.
Speaker 1: But uh, buggies, four wheelers, your wife taking you to
Speaker 1: pick up if you're not lucky, whatever it is anywhere.
Speaker 1: I'm pretty blessed with a you know, pretty good sized property.
Speaker 1: But dear, here here vehicles, my place, neighbor's place, local
Speaker 1: highload ever every single day. And and so I have
Speaker 1: no problem getting dropped off three feet from my stand
Speaker 1: in a vehicle at Tendle three in the afternoon. I
Speaker 1: would much rather do that than walking quarter mile in
Speaker 1: there and the wind's blowing across me that whole quarter
Speaker 1: mile and making a big old sense dream out there.
Speaker 1: So for years we've been big on getting dropped off
Speaker 1: or you know, getting in there without walking. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: the last thing I want to say about that, you know,
Speaker 1: if you have a property it's pretty secluded and you
Speaker 1: haven't been there all year, and an opening day hunt season,
Speaker 1: you're buzzing every road with your UTV, you're probably you know,
Speaker 1: you're probably burning up the deer a little bit. But
Speaker 1: if you're you know, you're like me. You're checking truck cameras,
Speaker 1: you're working food plots, you're moving stands. They're just used to.
Speaker 1: But it's it's not something that alerts Dear Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: all about, you know, maintaining consistency. And once they come
Speaker 1: to realize that wheels and vehicles are a consistent thing,
Speaker 1: it no longer is out of the norm and they
Speaker 1: can they can live with that, right. Yeah, that you
Speaker 1: may see one that bounces off in the woods fitty
Speaker 1: yards and watch as you go buy or something, but
Speaker 1: not like they smelled a big o ugly guy walking
Speaker 1: out through there. And so man, last time I smelled
Speaker 1: Dad at thundered rolloud, Mama fell over dead. So I
Speaker 1: don't want to smell again. Yeah, for sure. All right,
Speaker 1: let's let's step away from that hypothetical and now kind
Speaker 1: of go back to your current situation. You're on the
Speaker 1: proving grounds and I don't know exactly when you plant
Speaker 1: your your fall release blend, but let's say you whenever
Speaker 1: that period comes and goes, you plant your fall you
Speaker 1: broadcast your fall blend into your spots in that late
Speaker 1: summer time period, and you're supposed to get great rain.
Speaker 1: But let's say like the next day, the forecast completely
Speaker 1: changes and now there's nothing. And you mentioned to me
Speaker 1: earlier today that you're in the midst of a real
Speaker 1: gnarly drought. So Let's say this drought continues and you
Speaker 1: go a week without that rain, and then two weeks
Speaker 1: without that rain, and maybe three weeks without that rain.
Speaker 1: Now opening days is either here or almost here, and
Speaker 1: all that stuff staring you in your face, and you
Speaker 1: have this this dried up, almost non existent food plot.
Speaker 1: What do you do in that situation to salvage your
Speaker 1: situation if at all? Yeah, great points A long back up.
Speaker 1: We're gonna plan about forty five to sixty days before
Speaker 1: the average first frost date in the fall here if
Speaker 1: there's slat of food that happens to be bout October
Speaker 1: fift so, you know, August fift on when the weather
Speaker 1: person says, we got a really good chance to rain
Speaker 1: and we're going to a spread seed and we've had
Speaker 1: you know, eight chance for and it doesn't rain. I
Speaker 1: assure you, in a little small hunting pot or hidio plot, squirrels, cardinals,
Speaker 1: turkeys or whatever can wipe out a bunch of seed quick.
Speaker 1: And I don't know how to eat that much. You know,
Speaker 1: you at thirty parns out there and you see a
Speaker 1: few squirrels right now, you know it's a big deal.
Speaker 1: You know, next time you go after you got a
Speaker 1: boot and crockett squirrel running around and no seed german ating.
Speaker 1: Uh So that's a real pain and I'm always gonna
Speaker 1: have four or five options. I like to monitor scrapes
Speaker 1: year around. You know, those bigger communal scrapes. They're probably
Speaker 1: not pawing the ground, but they're using the overhanging limb.
Speaker 1: I love bottlenecks. I mean, I'm a I like a
Speaker 1: good bottleneck as much as I do anything. So I'm
Speaker 1: going to create bottlenecks pinch points by whatever method I
Speaker 1: need to on that property is that's making a gap
Speaker 1: and you know, an inter your fence, or have a
Speaker 1: pond and surely dry or you know, whatever it is.
Speaker 1: I'm looking for those bottlenecks because, dear, unless they're unless
Speaker 1: they've been disturbed there, they're gonna use bottlenecks every day,
Speaker 1: and you want to hunt them knowing that disturbance is
Speaker 1: a real no no. And one thing a good friend
Speaker 1: of mine from Wisconsin, I've always kind of tinkered with it,
Speaker 1: but he's I think he's perfected it. He vic takes
Speaker 1: a stick or a piece of grape vine or something
Speaker 1: like that instead of making a full moss grape which
Speaker 1: I do every year, you know, driving my tea post
Speaker 1: and ground and wire a tree or a branch to
Speaker 1: it or whatever. And he just takes some peer record
Speaker 1: and hangs these sticks down out of the tree on
Speaker 1: a trail or a food plot or whatever, about four
Speaker 1: feet off the ground. And I don't know what it
Speaker 1: is that the deer. I hate to use the word playing.
Speaker 1: That's what Disney is, but uh, they bumped those sticks
Speaker 1: around for twenty minutes at a time. It is shocking
Speaker 1: to me. And I'm not taking any credit. My buddy
Speaker 1: Vic does this and just had tremendous results. They spend
Speaker 1: time there, They turn a different angles so you get
Speaker 1: a get shot angle to the tree you made the
Speaker 1: moss scrape out. I was not blocking your view if
Speaker 1: they come in the wrong way. So I'm gonna have
Speaker 1: some of those this year in various places. So it's
Speaker 1: it's just a piece of grape vine or branches hanging
Speaker 1: down off of some pear cord, basically as a licking branch,
Speaker 1: but a vertical kind of hanging a vertical licking branch.
Speaker 1: But it's got a lot of movement to it. You know,
Speaker 1: you may tie it five six ft above, or you know,
Speaker 1: why are the limb isn't that situation? And his trail
Speaker 1: camera videos, My goodness, those deer spent a lot of
Speaker 1: time there. Interesting. Now, is there any planting option, like
Speaker 1: if you have that drought the last three more weeks,
Speaker 1: is there something that you would try to still go
Speaker 1: back out and broadcast, you know, into late September, or
Speaker 1: something that can get you a little extra anything, or
Speaker 1: is it out of the question at that point. Now,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna plant that same blend against seal rise, really
Speaker 1: drought resistant and colde herty. But I'm gonna wait for
Speaker 1: soil moisture. I'm I'm too old to waste money on
Speaker 1: seed anymore. If there's just no moisture and no rain
Speaker 1: in the forecast, or the forecast doesn't pan out as
Speaker 1: you would anticipated, I'm gonna give some more seed. And
Speaker 1: at that time, you know I've missed the ideal planning window.
Speaker 1: Now on ten days before the first expected frost, now
Speaker 1: you know these are average frost days, so ours is October.
Speaker 1: I've seen it. Not a cross here until mid November.
Speaker 1: So I'm gonna gamble. Okay, We're gonna get some more
Speaker 1: warm temperatures, members not just warm temperature, though you need
Speaker 1: a certain amount of sunshine for those plants to photosynthesize,
Speaker 1: and those days are getting shorter and shorter. But I'm
Speaker 1: not throwing out hopefully it terms green when food is
Speaker 1: you know this when food is short for deer in
Speaker 1: the dear world, Uh gosh, I think they probably a
Speaker 1: green pickup. So I want to turn it green if
Speaker 1: I can, and and and and also I love to
Speaker 1: turkey up, so I want that green spot out. There's
Speaker 1: a strep zone in the spring. Also, is there like
Speaker 1: a cut off date? Is there any dates where you're like, okay,
Speaker 1: it's it's finally too late to try. I mean, if
Speaker 1: you're getting frost for for here, I kind of figure
Speaker 1: like November one is you know, I have failed. There's
Speaker 1: just no way to salvage this. And at that time,
Speaker 1: I'm not having much weed pressure or anything. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: wait in frost, seeds and clover as soon as I can.
Speaker 1: In the spring. Let's shift away from property work now
Speaker 1: and and talk a little bit more on the hunting side.
Speaker 1: Let's say we're moving into opening day of hunting season,
Speaker 1: and to make this, you know, applicable to as many
Speaker 1: people as possible. Let's say that the property you're hunting
Speaker 1: is on the smaller side. It's it's it's not huge,
Speaker 1: it's kind of I don't know, let's say a hundred
Speaker 1: some acres give or take um. But there's a lot
Speaker 1: of people around it. There's a lot of folks the
Speaker 1: hunt in the neighborhood. Let's you know, we'll put you
Speaker 1: up in northern Missouri, maybe more towards the you know, St.
Speaker 1: Louis area, So there's a lot of folks that get
Speaker 1: after it. Okay, And opening day is in the forecast.
Speaker 1: You're looking at it and you're thinking, man, I've had
Speaker 1: this game plan in place. There's a big shooter buck
Speaker 1: that's been you know, he's been showing up on camera.
Speaker 1: I've got, you know, everything lined up for this. I
Speaker 1: know that first day is is usually one of your
Speaker 1: best chances because there haven't been people hunting. But here's
Speaker 1: the big issue. The weather forecast for opening day and
Speaker 1: the next few days after that is very hot, a
Speaker 1: subpar wind, muggy, just just kind of the worst case
Speaker 1: scenario as far as what you dream of for great
Speaker 1: deer hunting conditions. So the question is this grant, do
Speaker 1: you go and hunt opening day despite the lousy weather,
Speaker 1: because you know it's your only hunt pre hunting pressure
Speaker 1: before other guys mess things up. Or do you say
Speaker 1: no matter what, I'm not hunting there until the perfect
Speaker 1: weather or the perfect wind, and you wait till four
Speaker 1: or five days into the year, risking the possibility that
Speaker 1: your neighbors might hunt all four of those days and
Speaker 1: booger everything up regardless. What would you do in that situation? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I am with the I do not like high humanity days.
Speaker 1: Your sin It's just whiff and everywhere. Uh So I'm
Speaker 1: not I'm certainly not hunting my prime areas. I usually
Speaker 1: have what I call an observation stand. You know some
Speaker 1: people called the brother in law stand. You don't think
Speaker 1: you're gonna really see a shooter buck or maybe no
Speaker 1: dear there just because it's opening day and I've planned
Speaker 1: to be off work that day, I'm going hunting. But
Speaker 1: it's hot and muggy and the wind is still. I
Speaker 1: am not going to a good area. I'm just going
Speaker 1: on edge and probably got my binoculars at the ready
Speaker 1: morning do my bow. I'm just you know, looking three
Speaker 1: ft of yards out. I had that kind of visibility
Speaker 1: and I'm not going to a good area even now.
Speaker 1: I mean, uh that here at my place, if if
Speaker 1: the conditions aren't right, I'll go set on a you know,
Speaker 1: a bluff on a ridge top and look over areas
Speaker 1: or something. I'm not going into a primary, those those
Speaker 1: primaries that you've worked, you know, maybe hanging stand and
Speaker 1: cut some lanes or playing a little food plot or whatever. Uh.
Speaker 1: Dr Carl Millery used to be in my roommate for
Speaker 1: a little bit of University Georgia. Bryant guy has done
Speaker 1: some great research. And we know that deer have memory
Speaker 1: and it and I would rather give up five days.
Speaker 1: And my other thinking here is, if it's bad conditions,
Speaker 1: although the neighbors are probably getting busted and maybe a
Speaker 1: learning deer they've got a chance to bumping him in
Speaker 1: my land, they're probably not killing a lot of deer
Speaker 1: because the conditions are so bad, certainly mature deer. So
Speaker 1: I'm gonna let them hunt, and I'm just gonna let
Speaker 1: him maybe push a couple bump up key bucks in
Speaker 1: there to my area and let them realize that's a
Speaker 1: safer part of your home range. And I'm just gonna
Speaker 1: do an observation ye, okay, I follow you. Here's another one.
Speaker 1: Let's and I think this is actually something that you'll
Speaker 1: be able to relate to. I think you had a
Speaker 1: somewhat similar experience um with a buck you called swoops.
Speaker 1: But let's say you've got one buck on your property
Speaker 1: that you have been after for several years and he's
Speaker 1: been on your mind. He's been the one, and for
Speaker 1: whatever reason, he's always been one step ahead of you.
Speaker 1: You know, he's he there, only shows up in daylight
Speaker 1: when you're you know, on vacation, and then when you
Speaker 1: go hunt, he's shown up there you or he's in
Speaker 1: the standard hunting yesterday, and then you go back there
Speaker 1: and then he's where you were the day before, whatever
Speaker 1: it was. He's always where you're not, and you're always
Speaker 1: close but not close enough. You've hunted him. Let's say,
Speaker 1: you know, we'll say not six or seven years like
Speaker 1: you did, but let's say you hunted him to previous years.
Speaker 1: Now you're into year three, your third year hunting this buck.
Speaker 1: Now you have two really good years of history with
Speaker 1: What kinds of things would you focus on or change
Speaker 1: when it comes to your hunting strategy or setups or
Speaker 1: scouting and trail cameras, anything like that to dial in
Speaker 1: in now on year three, when you're saying, gosh, he's
Speaker 1: evade to me for so long, I have to make
Speaker 1: it work now and you decide to switch it up,
Speaker 1: what would those things be? Yeah, that is a great
Speaker 1: scenario that I think a lot of the space. Um,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna I keep camera pictures of bucks that let's
Speaker 1: just say, you know, three years old or older year
Speaker 1: after year after year. You know, I'll give him a
Speaker 1: name or put him in a file or whatever. And
Speaker 1: the first thing I'm gonna do is really study. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna get a pencil, pencil on paper out and I'm
Speaker 1: gonna look at the dates and exactly where that camera
Speaker 1: was or where he was. I'm gonna I'm gonna plot
Speaker 1: it out. I mean, because I have found it. Oftentimes
Speaker 1: the mature bucks, even more so as they reach older
Speaker 1: age classes, not only have the generic path of they
Speaker 1: may show up on the exact same day at a
Speaker 1: food plot of location of scrape that they did the
Speaker 1: year before. It is something it is really uncanny to
Speaker 1: me and how accurate that is. So I'm really going
Speaker 1: to look at the plast and say, Okay, early season.
Speaker 1: He's using the south part of where I get the
Speaker 1: hunt and specifically this white Oak ridge or whatever it is.
Speaker 1: And then about two or three weeks into it, I
Speaker 1: don't get any more pictures him now, and they everybody
Speaker 1: start figuring some pictures the next ridge over. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: really point that data down, and then I'm gonna ask
Speaker 1: myself to be honest with myself and say, why have
Speaker 1: I not tagged that bug? Where is he busted me?
Speaker 1: What am I doing wrong? It's not the deer's fault, right,
Speaker 1: He's just doing his thing. It's our fault. And I'm
Speaker 1: gonna really review my hunting techniques, my choices, my timing,
Speaker 1: because I need to change. I do not want to
Speaker 1: do the same thing I've been doing. And and I
Speaker 1: think those two things paired have helped me tag some
Speaker 1: bucks that have avoided me for multiple years, which is
Speaker 1: frustrating and fun at the same time. Right when that
Speaker 1: when that does come together, you know, a year or
Speaker 1: two or three later, whatever, guys want a reward. That
Speaker 1: is so so so true. Well on the trail camera
Speaker 1: from this is something I'm always curious about different people's
Speaker 1: takes on this. When you're trying to zero in on
Speaker 1: one specific buck Uh, let's say maybe maybe do this
Speaker 1: with swoops and maybe not. But when you're trying to
Speaker 1: zero and note a deer, let's say you have just
Speaker 1: the one that you really want and you're trying to
Speaker 1: close the net around him in one form or another.
Speaker 1: What do you do with your cameras differently, if at all,
Speaker 1: to help you fine tune that pattern? Do you start
Speaker 1: moving in the men tighter and tighter into one area,
Speaker 1: or do you put more out in his range? Or
Speaker 1: do you never change your trail camera strategy and always
Speaker 1: have a basic blanket approach year after year because you
Speaker 1: know you still want cameras in the north corner because
Speaker 1: maybe a new buckles show up. What's your take on that? Yeah? Great,
Speaker 1: great thought again, Mark, I do change my choke camera
Speaker 1: placement pretty frequently based on m R i most recent information.
Speaker 1: And in that scenario, I'm I'm gonna work really hard
Speaker 1: not to crowd or alert the deer. Alerted deer is
Speaker 1: so much tougher to hunt. And and so if I
Speaker 1: you know he's back on the south FORDI again, he's
Speaker 1: back in there. I'm gonna just place cameras along roads
Speaker 1: or edge as a plot or somewhere I can get
Speaker 1: mid day that there's almost zero champs. I'm gonna bumping.
Speaker 1: It's hot enough to sin is rising years rising. I'm
Speaker 1: probably going in with the sync control. Even know I'm
Speaker 1: not hunting, but I'm not penetrating, you know, a hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty yards in the timber to get to that
Speaker 1: wideoat tree or something. I'm just not gonna take a
Speaker 1: chance of busting that dear out there. So I may
Speaker 1: move some more cameras in the area, but they're gonna
Speaker 1: be on the outskirts of the area. I just want
Speaker 1: to see if I can find him, and if he's
Speaker 1: coming and going. And I have done this and I'm
Speaker 1: always surprised at Okay, here's a spot on this road
Speaker 1: and see thirty yards. There's really no redeeming reason here.
Speaker 1: But I'm I'm just gonna put a camera because I'm
Speaker 1: not getting anything on this camera on the other side
Speaker 1: of rhim and you whip it out there, you know,
Speaker 1: call it gut instinct, call it whatever it is, but
Speaker 1: you don't really see any reason put it there. And
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, at Bucks walking seven yards from
Speaker 1: the camera. So I'm gonna put my cameras in his area,
Speaker 1: but I'm not going very far off the road or
Speaker 1: where I can access real easily. Yeah, what about camera density? Um,
Speaker 1: you know how many cameras you'll put in a small area.
Speaker 1: I spent some time last fallow Tom Inderbo, and I
Speaker 1: was shocked by the way he uses cameras. He will
Speaker 1: in a in an acre area like an acre food
Speaker 1: plot or a little acre betting knob. He'll have three,
Speaker 1: four or five different cameras in this little area pointed
Speaker 1: in every different direction, or two sides of the trail,
Speaker 1: or both sides of the water hole and two different
Speaker 1: trails that come into it. I mean, he very very
Speaker 1: thoroughly covered certain zones. Do you ever do anything like that,
Speaker 1: or or if not, what is the density you get
Speaker 1: so that you can, you know, get the full picture
Speaker 1: or at least enough of the picture. I do that
Speaker 1: when I do suspect there's a certain buccan area that
Speaker 1: I or one of my guests or someone would like
Speaker 1: to tag. And Tom is a very skilled outdoorsman, so
Speaker 1: I'm certainly not going against Tom. But I do the
Speaker 1: same thing, but not just Willie Nilli. I mean, I
Speaker 1: know there's something going on in there. I can't quite
Speaker 1: figure it out. And again I'm not going to way
Speaker 1: through the betting area to do this, but as close
Speaker 1: as I can get and feel I'm not disturbing to
Speaker 1: do all stack several an area I kind of look
Speaker 1: at like trapping if a if I've got to get
Speaker 1: the crossroads and there's a lot of coyuchsign there, I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna put one trap there. I'm gonna put three
Speaker 1: or four because of course, gyles often travel as smaller units.
Speaker 1: And if I think I got a buck man he's
Speaker 1: crossing this rib somewhere, you know, going to this water
Speaker 1: source somewhere, Heck, yeah, I'm gonna put three or four
Speaker 1: cameras in there because I'm just guessing otherwise. So one
Speaker 1: more trail camera situation then for him, and this will
Speaker 1: kind of will zoom out to a slightly more generic situation.
Speaker 1: So let's let's not say we're trying to kill one
Speaker 1: specific buck, but instead this is just pay you know,
Speaker 1: let's go back to that forty acre property you mentioned earlier.
Speaker 1: You've got this forty acre property, and now I want
Speaker 1: to just better understand how you what your what your
Speaker 1: typical starting point trail camera setup would be. So let's
Speaker 1: imagine I'll give you a little more detail on this property. Now,
Speaker 1: let's imagine this forty acres and you have two food plots.
Speaker 1: Those are your two food sources. The rest of the
Speaker 1: forty acres is tim or brush, that kind of stuff,
Speaker 1: of which two really good betting thickets are within. So
Speaker 1: you've got two food plots, you've got two really great
Speaker 1: betting thickets. And let's say one of those thickets is
Speaker 1: in the valley, one of those thickets up on a bridge. Okay,
Speaker 1: there's your there's your property. You have four cameras at
Speaker 1: your disposal. Where and how would you place your four
Speaker 1: cameras across this type of property. If it's early season
Speaker 1: and I don't believe deer dispersed and chasing acorns all
Speaker 1: up down the ridges, I'm gonna focus on those food plots.
Speaker 1: Assuming I've got a decent food plot crop in they're
Speaker 1: planning to establish one, And even if the deer getting
Speaker 1: near after dark, I'm gonna pay attention to, you know,
Speaker 1: what direction they came from where they exited, and once
Speaker 1: I get a hint of a pattern, then I'll chase
Speaker 1: them a little bit, you know, back up hundred yards
Speaker 1: or yards or whatever. I myself stay out of bedding
Speaker 1: areas until the pre rut and then I try just
Speaker 1: out if I can. I just that's a real sensitive
Speaker 1: area deer. Having a lot of GPS collars on deer
Speaker 1: throughout my career. If you bump a deer from a
Speaker 1: bedding area, they tend to get a little bit more upset.
Speaker 1: And if you're bumping off a food source or something
Speaker 1: like that, and they expect to be bumped around food sources, right,
Speaker 1: that's how they're created. They get this big old room,
Speaker 1: and I often try to share with people, and I
Speaker 1: usually get some odd faces. But a deer's number one
Speaker 1: predator defense mechanism is not its nose or size or
Speaker 1: his ear. It's it's belly. And in reason it's it's belly.
Speaker 1: You know you've watched ear. They especially to heavy pressure.
Speaker 1: They come out where there's some sun hitting the ground
Speaker 1: or getting native native forbes or food plot or whatever,
Speaker 1: and they eat real quick, and then they go back
Speaker 1: into bushes and they regurgitate it and show it up
Speaker 1: more and swallowed again. If they had to eat like
Speaker 1: we do, they'd be standing in that food plot for
Speaker 1: an hour and be much more exposed to predation. So, uh,
Speaker 1: food is key to deer. They're gonna need it every day.
Speaker 1: Dey are gonna consume approximately lots of variables in here.
Speaker 1: Don't send me hate mail, but about five of their
Speaker 1: body weight to day driveway. That's all the moisture. So
Speaker 1: you got lush clover. It could be seventy water. So
Speaker 1: now you're talking about eating a whole bunch of pounds
Speaker 1: every day to get that driveway. So they're gonna eat
Speaker 1: a lot and that's gonna be a daily routine. And
Speaker 1: if they're not coming to daylight, I still gained critical
Speaker 1: information of where they're coming from, when where they're going.
Speaker 1: And by the way, if I could add, truck cameras
Speaker 1: are awesome. I'm a kind of truck camera for you
Speaker 1: can have too many. Um, don't tell my wife I
Speaker 1: admitted that. But if you go to the skin and
Speaker 1: ship your buddy kills a deer, and no one likes
Speaker 1: to do this, right because you get your hands and
Speaker 1: smelly whatever. But after you're done a vis rating, it
Speaker 1: go up the esophagus. If it's a bug, pullow it
Speaker 1: out you know you want in a cape or whatever.
Speaker 1: But because what you find is that you know that
Speaker 1: your buddy harvested this deer forty five in the morning,
Speaker 1: and you got the esophagist, you're gonna get a pretty
Speaker 1: good idea where he was the previous hour, because food
Speaker 1: moves a little bit slow. And you say, oh, man,
Speaker 1: he's known in the neighbor's cornfield. There's some corn up
Speaker 1: there about six inches down from his throat or you know,
Speaker 1: whatever it is. That's your timetable. We call that scouting
Speaker 1: from the skinning ship, and it's a little bit more
Speaker 1: accurate than looking in the room. And because once we
Speaker 1: get some room and it could sit there quite a while.
Speaker 1: It does sit through quite a while. Of course, they
Speaker 1: just start breaking down from the acids in there. But boy,
Speaker 1: and you can get the softish. You can just backtrack
Speaker 1: a cup hun her yards and know exactly where that
Speaker 1: deer was. That's a great idea. I like that a lot.
Speaker 1: So let's move the time forward. On that scenario you mentioned,
Speaker 1: you'd be focusing on the food plots in the early season.
Speaker 1: With this, you know, forty acres, two plots, two thickets,
Speaker 1: one ridge. Once we get a little later in the year,
Speaker 1: when when would your trail camera placement shift if at
Speaker 1: all as you get later into the year. Yeah, if
Speaker 1: I noticed the browse pressure decreasing, I'm I'm always gonna
Speaker 1: have a utilization cage and all my plots for multiple reasons.
Speaker 1: But one is during hunting season. You know it's foot
Speaker 1: tall inside your basket and eight inches tall outside, and
Speaker 1: now all of a sudden, there's only two inches difference.
Speaker 1: I know that the deer have left to go chase
Speaker 1: a corns or local agg field or something, and I
Speaker 1: need to be hunting somewhere else. And so you know
Speaker 1: our white oaks hit the ground. Guys at my house
Speaker 1: or you know, neighbor's house swears big white oak out
Speaker 1: the yard, and it's just raining. And that's five minutes
Speaker 1: from where my hunt. I need to be chasing those
Speaker 1: white oaks. And I'm gonna go to the ridge top. Now,
Speaker 1: deer're gonna eat on the side ridges and the bottoms,
Speaker 1: but my chances of my wind staying in a constant
Speaker 1: direction is way higher on the ridge top. So I'm
Speaker 1: gonna just get on that ridge top. Bucks love the
Speaker 1: cruise that ridge top because it's easier, less calories to
Speaker 1: the cruise during the pre rutt and rut and find
Speaker 1: me some great, big old white oaks that are cruising
Speaker 1: up there. You know this this is anything but scientific,
Speaker 1: But through the years I've seemed to notice, you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's like almost every property un list was clearer
Speaker 1: cut twenty years ago or something that could be that great,
Speaker 1: big old treat. It's twice as big as the other
Speaker 1: trees made. There's a fence halfway going through it or whatever.
Speaker 1: They couldn't cut it, and it's almost I Dear use
Speaker 1: those giant trees as road markers. Oh, we turned right
Speaker 1: up here at the big tree. Yeah. I know it
Speaker 1: sounds so, you know, kind of quacky, but so many
Speaker 1: times when I you know, buddy ay Man, I know
Speaker 1: you're passing through once you come home on one afternoon
Speaker 1: and he doesn't have me to dance. How go you
Speaker 1: got this race? Go down this ridge and hunt. I
Speaker 1: don't have you in tweet what I'm doing my default
Speaker 1: and net scenarios find the biggest tree on the ridge,
Speaker 1: because I believe, Dear use that as a road mark
Speaker 1: m I feel like, anecdotally, I've seen the same kind
Speaker 1: of thing too, and it fits into Dove's tails perfectly.
Speaker 1: To my next question, and maybe your answer will apply
Speaker 1: to this too. But another situation similar to what you
Speaker 1: described that a lot of people dread is the band
Speaker 1: in her acorn year, like the year, and let's say
Speaker 1: they're in like a big timber area like you hunt,
Speaker 1: you know down there in southern Missouri, where there's acorns everywhere.
Speaker 1: How how do you narrow things down and approach your
Speaker 1: hunt when they can eat every darn place they turn? Okay,
Speaker 1: so we gotta think this, dude, there's acorns everywhere. That's
Speaker 1: not a limiting factor. Um. You may know in the
Speaker 1: pass as certain trees for whatever reason, your preferred the
Speaker 1: acorns there first over other trees. But what else is there?
Speaker 1: So if acorns aren't working for me because they're everywhere,
Speaker 1: is there a redline? Is there a pinch point going
Speaker 1: in those acorns? Acorns are really dry. If you're eating
Speaker 1: a lot of acorns are going to water. That's a given.
Speaker 1: Acorns have low moisture content compared to lush plover soybeans
Speaker 1: or something, so they're if they're really on acorns. People
Speaker 1: get all goofy about acorns, but what else they have
Speaker 1: to have? Every day? We'll have to have water. I
Speaker 1: still got you, Mark, yep, I still got you. Sorry.
Speaker 1: So water can be a big thing when deer heavy
Speaker 1: on acorns and water unless you got a you know,
Speaker 1: a lake or a big creek or something's gonna usually
Speaker 1: be a more limited factor. And by the way, again,
Speaker 1: you know, don't have data to prove this, but I've
Speaker 1: seen it a lot. Do you prefer drinking out of
Speaker 1: a little pond, you know, a cow track something small
Speaker 1: that a big rushing river And if you think about
Speaker 1: when they're by that big rushing river, they don't have
Speaker 1: near as good predator fence that's making noise kind of
Speaker 1: reduces their hearing potential, and you know, and the a
Speaker 1: preador could trap them against the waterline, make them get
Speaker 1: in the water. So I love a little ten or
Speaker 1: twenty ft pond h for deer hunting. Does your does
Speaker 1: your take on the big acorn near it all change
Speaker 1: from time of year? So does water really play into
Speaker 1: it earlier in the year but not so much during
Speaker 1: the run? Or is like that kind of thing the same,
Speaker 1: You're gonna run the same pro Graham in the heavy
Speaker 1: acorn years. No matter what which is find the limiting
Speaker 1: factor in this case maybe water or that pinch point
Speaker 1: and play that one. Yeah, pinch points are always awesome.
Speaker 1: But water, of course, they're in your season. You would
Speaker 1: expect it's hotter, and deer don't have sweatguns, sweat glands,
Speaker 1: excuse me. They pant to get rid of water like
Speaker 1: a dog. So you're eating something really dry. It's hot
Speaker 1: and dry outside. Water just becomes even more valuable at
Speaker 1: that early season, and then a little later during the
Speaker 1: pre rut, where the bucks aren't necessarily on a feeding pattern,
Speaker 1: they're eating that they're you know, the first five percent
Speaker 1: of dose are receptives, so they're bouncing around trying to
Speaker 1: get that limited date. Uh again, they're moving like they
Speaker 1: have to have water. They're like an athlete, they have
Speaker 1: to have water. Uh So, water I think is especially
Speaker 1: in areas where waters are more limited. I mean water
Speaker 1: in South Florida is not a limiting factor. Don't try
Speaker 1: to hunt water. You probably get bit by a gator
Speaker 1: and be it's just everywhere you know, you just you're
Speaker 1: not there's no pitch point there. But if you're in
Speaker 1: ridge and valley type stuff, there's not a creek and
Speaker 1: never valley up. A little pond on a ridge stop
Speaker 1: can be a great place to hunt during those times.
Speaker 1: The early early season, it's hot if it's hot and dry,
Speaker 1: and during the pre rut win deer just running a lot,
Speaker 1: covering a lot more yards per day and needs some
Speaker 1: watery Speaking of it being hot, then let's let's consider
Speaker 1: a new scenario that's the opposite of that. So let's
Speaker 1: say it's October, mid October and the first big cold
Speaker 1: front of the year hits. It's dropping i don't know,
Speaker 1: twenty five degrees cooler than it was on the previous
Speaker 1: days high and you have some weird scheduling things of
Speaker 1: going on, and you are only available to hunt the
Speaker 1: next morning after the cold front hits, or that evening.
Speaker 1: So you get you can hunt the next day after
Speaker 1: the cold front. It's either the morning or the evening.
Speaker 1: You can only pick one. Which of those sits would
Speaker 1: you choose to hunt? Why is that? And then you know,
Speaker 1: paint for me your perfect spot for that kind of
Speaker 1: hunt on that kind of day. I'm gonna throw in
Speaker 1: just a couple more variables. It's almost always easier for
Speaker 1: hunters to move into position in the afternoon when we
Speaker 1: would think dear or bedded up. Yeah, I love morning hunting.
Speaker 1: But unless you've got that special stand and when I
Speaker 1: call it backdoorsdy and you dear out in the beanfield
Speaker 1: and you're coming in totally opposite direction and it wins
Speaker 1: right and you just let them come to you. Afternoon
Speaker 1: hunts are easier for hunters to get in position. So
Speaker 1: I'm gonna weigh that in and if everything's equal, I'm
Speaker 1: going with the afternoon hunt. Um. I love hunting the
Speaker 1: day after the front goes through. And if that front
Speaker 1: past midday night and hunt in the afternoon, that would
Speaker 1: be awesome. But weighing those odds of the first one,
Speaker 1: I might fudge a little bit towards the afternoon hunt.
Speaker 1: By the way, I like about a ten percent or
Speaker 1: more greater temperature change. A lot of people get hung
Speaker 1: up on the actual degrees, but ten degrees between seventy
Speaker 1: and eighty and ten degrees between twenty and thirty there's
Speaker 1: a whole big difference there. So I'm looking for a
Speaker 1: percent change, and and I really like days that are
Speaker 1: ten percent or more change. That's favorable. So if it's
Speaker 1: warm in the fall and it's cooler tempercent cooler, I
Speaker 1: really like that. If it's been wicked code and the
Speaker 1: first day it warms up ten percent deer you're gonna
Speaker 1: be everywhere, They're gonna be feed. So I look at
Speaker 1: as percent change versus an actual number, and I liked
Speaker 1: right after the front is past, if I can approach
Speaker 1: hunt next without alerting deer, Okay, I love it. So
Speaker 1: that first evening then is your chance. You've got the
Speaker 1: nice temperature drop. Can you paint for me a picture
Speaker 1: of what that location would be, Let's say, on on
Speaker 1: your home farm. Can you imagine what you're you know,
Speaker 1: all of the things being equal with no obviously we
Speaker 1: have no m R. But if you could imagine a
Speaker 1: perfect situation for October fifteenth, you're waiting for the afternoon hunt.
Speaker 1: What kind of spot would be perfect for that day
Speaker 1: in your mind? Yeah, if we have a wide oak crop,
Speaker 1: they're going to white oaks here in most places, and
Speaker 1: we we have white oaks, but we have probably eight
Speaker 1: decent red oaks or a white oaks or kind of
Speaker 1: pinch points, if you will. And so I'm probably gonna
Speaker 1: be in wide oaks, big mature white oaks, and I'm
Speaker 1: gonna be on a ridge top, not the deer again
Speaker 1: or eating on slopes. But my wind is gonna the
Speaker 1: wind direction is gonna stay much more consistent on the
Speaker 1: ridge topic. And I kind of explained that if you're
Speaker 1: a trout fisherman ever fishing good trout stream, there's eddies
Speaker 1: everywhere because it's hitting the rock or cutting a buy
Speaker 1: ank or whatever. And then if you go to the
Speaker 1: big metro area and they got these concrete ditches for
Speaker 1: flood control, there's no eddies out there because the water
Speaker 1: is not hitting anything. And so that's so true for
Speaker 1: air movement. So I love hunting Western Kansas. I look
Speaker 1: like a really good hunter in Western Kansas because the
Speaker 1: wind comes off the rockies today, it did yesterday, did
Speaker 1: a hundred years ago. I'm just gonna do it the
Speaker 1: next hundred years. So the wind direction is pretty dog
Speaker 1: on consistent unless there's a big front or storm going
Speaker 1: on and it comes off those rockies and just sweeps
Speaker 1: across that flat prairie out there. And so you know
Speaker 1: the wind direction and everything's in section line, so you
Speaker 1: can almost always get east of it. Wind's gonna be
Speaker 1: out to west something west and and get to your stand.
Speaker 1: And the same thing is true if you're if you
Speaker 1: own the property or if your Grandma's properly or whatever.
Speaker 1: And you've done some habitat work, and you have done
Speaker 1: t sized timber standard provemtter. You know, you took out
Speaker 1: a bunch of lower quality trees and left the best.
Speaker 1: There's fewer eddies out there, there's more room for the
Speaker 1: wind to build up speed going tree to tree. When
Speaker 1: you're hunting in closed cannot be thick forest. There's gonna
Speaker 1: be eddies everywhere, and it's really tough not to get busted.
Speaker 1: So I've been there. Um. Would your answer to that
Speaker 1: question on choosing the morning or the evening my original question,
Speaker 1: would that change if I fast forwarded the date from
Speaker 1: October up to November or would you still pick that evening? No,
Speaker 1: you know, in November I probably have to skip work,
Speaker 1: get in trouble and hunt. Both times. You gotta be
Speaker 1: out there. But I love mornings in November. I'm a
Speaker 1: morning person. I'm a morning hunter. But that time year,
Speaker 1: I feel we can get away with more entering our
Speaker 1: stand because the bucks are not on a pattern. They're
Speaker 1: they're looking for a date and they're not on a pattern,
Speaker 1: or rarely are they on a pattern, and so you
Speaker 1: I'll risk more getting closer to betting areas or whatever.
Speaker 1: Take a more direct route, because the buck is liable
Speaker 1: to comfort about anywhere unless you got a really great
Speaker 1: pinch point. You know, it just narrows down, the river,
Speaker 1: narrows you down, whatever. And I'm gonna be hunting mornings
Speaker 1: that time of year, and it means if I can,
Speaker 1: but if only one in the morning. Yeah, I like
Speaker 1: your idea, just paying the in the consequence of skipping
Speaker 1: work and making it happen. I got another one here.
Speaker 1: That's that's a little bit of a downer, another downer
Speaker 1: here for you. But let's say you hunted your evening
Speaker 1: of October and let's say it worked out great. You
Speaker 1: picked that perfect spot and the buck comes in and
Speaker 1: you get a shot at the deer. In your mind's
Speaker 1: eye when you think back on this shot. Now, let's
Speaker 1: say you're not filming, so you can't actually look at
Speaker 1: the film, but in your mind you're thinking, man, I
Speaker 1: think I think it hit lungs, maybe like back of
Speaker 1: the lungs. And you decide to get on the blood
Speaker 1: trail within an hour hour and a half something like that,
Speaker 1: and the trail isn't as good as you're hoping for.
Speaker 1: It's kind of spotty and it takes you, you know,
Speaker 1: past two hundred yards. You're still on blood, but it's spotty,
Speaker 1: and you have not found him. Now after about two
Speaker 1: fifty yards, it's been you know, two hours probably now
Speaker 1: since the shot. What would you do in that specific scenario?
Speaker 1: You think it's back of lungs, two hundred plus yard
Speaker 1: kind of spotty blood trail. Do you keep pushing a
Speaker 1: deer like that? Do you stop? Uh? And let's say
Speaker 1: this was an evening hunt, right, so it's after dark. Now,
Speaker 1: how would you handle this specific tracking scenario? Yeah, and
Speaker 1: unless there is a big rainfront moving in, I'm backing
Speaker 1: out October fifteen. Most of the white tail's range. It's
Speaker 1: cool enough meat and take an awful lot without spoiling
Speaker 1: way more than I think most hunters realize. And I'm
Speaker 1: just backing out. I might have been tempted to back
Speaker 1: out a hundred yards. Now, I'm gonna try if I
Speaker 1: recover the raw to really studies smell, touch, how sticky
Speaker 1: as the blood, of course, what color it is. I'm
Speaker 1: trying to gain as much intail from the arrow and
Speaker 1: the spore on the ground as I can before I
Speaker 1: ever get ting her yards down the trail. But if
Speaker 1: I'm tuner yards and the blood trail is not changing,
Speaker 1: it's just drip, drip, drip, I'm backing out for sure. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and back out all the way till the next morning,
Speaker 1: Is that right? Yeah? I'll be there sunrise about it
Speaker 1: next morning, not at in time. But the odds are
Speaker 1: really great. The deer has either passed or it's gonna survive,
Speaker 1: or it's gonna survive for five or six days until
Speaker 1: the infection. Stepson, Well, I hope, I hope in that
Speaker 1: scenario when you wait the next morning, he's right there
Speaker 1: and you've got him. But we're gonna we're gonna pretend
Speaker 1: like you didn't, and we're gonna pretend that it is
Speaker 1: now the third week of October and you're hunting again.
Speaker 1: And here's a scenario that I've actually been in myself.
Speaker 1: This is this is pulled right out of my own history,
Speaker 1: and it's one I've had different. You know, I think
Speaker 1: a lot of us have had something similar to this. Um,
Speaker 1: you're hunting this buck. You've gotten daylight trail camera pictures
Speaker 1: of him, a handful of evenings in daylight in a
Speaker 1: small heidy hoole food plot. You have hunted that spot
Speaker 1: two times in the month of October so far. So
Speaker 1: over the last twenty one days, you've one in twice
Speaker 1: after him. It's like you get a daylight picture, maybe
Speaker 1: in your cell camera, and you think, all right, I
Speaker 1: got the same conditions that go back in the next
Speaker 1: night he's a no show. And then it happens again,
Speaker 1: like a week later, you get the daylight picture of
Speaker 1: my food. You try to hunt him there again. The
Speaker 1: next night, he's a no show. Each time you've done it,
Speaker 1: the same thing has happened. What do you do in
Speaker 1: that scenario if you're trying to get that buckets now
Speaker 1: the third week in October, you've had this thing happened
Speaker 1: a couple of times, what if anything would you do
Speaker 1: to try to fine tune moving in towards the you know,
Speaker 1: pre rut into the rut. Yeah, probably gonna go back
Speaker 1: to an early conversation and reposition a few cameras in
Speaker 1: the area and not in true too much, but try
Speaker 1: to pick up some more intail and I would really
Speaker 1: consider my approach. Is this buck really that random? And
Speaker 1: it may be because my joke cameras will getting picture
Speaker 1: once a week, and no, those are the toughest bucks
Speaker 1: to hunt, or or am I lerning this dear somehow
Speaker 1: getting there? And often we think, well, the truck camera
Speaker 1: picture shows him coming from pick a direction to west,
Speaker 1: He's better way down, not holler somewhere. But many, many
Speaker 1: times deer have a very secuitous or curby route getting
Speaker 1: to where they're going to feed or wherever they're going.
Speaker 1: And heck he maybe you know, he may be walking
Speaker 1: thirty yards from where I'm parking my vehicle or walking
Speaker 1: in or whatever. And so I never count on until
Speaker 1: unless I really know my habitat, and I've maintained my habitat,
Speaker 1: I've done long improvements, and I'm kind of planning how
Speaker 1: dear are going to travel. We really never know how
Speaker 1: dear are getting there based on a still picture. I
Speaker 1: would add this though, Um, I have no problem hunting
Speaker 1: the same stand for many days in a row, if
Speaker 1: I'm very convinced I have not lerned, dear. If you're
Speaker 1: not learning, dear, it doesn't matter. You know, people always
Speaker 1: ask me, hey, can you have to stand more than
Speaker 1: one one day? Can you hunt a two days? You know,
Speaker 1: in a hundred days. If you're not learning deer. May
Speaker 1: not be a good choice to hunt it that many days,
Speaker 1: but it's all about learning deer. Like I have a
Speaker 1: buddy here lives close by me and good mountain hunter.
Speaker 1: He missed, you know, the buck of a lifetime here
Speaker 1: in Nilo's arts with the bow at twenty yards of
Speaker 1: a big oak tree and bucker Darrow hit the ground
Speaker 1: and you know, ran off. He just said, calls me up.
Speaker 1: Just just sit I said, Man, that deer just hurts
Speaker 1: some noise. I can go back. If the winds are
Speaker 1: saying tomorrow, I'd go back there, no problem. If he
Speaker 1: did not look at you, see you act like he
Speaker 1: smelled you. He just hurts some noise, and he probably
Speaker 1: does not associate that with human danger. You know, a
Speaker 1: similar kind of offshoot of that we talked earlier about
Speaker 1: how how we both prefer you know, wield access or exit.
Speaker 1: What about that kind of situation like hunting the same
Speaker 1: place and every night to get out of you get
Speaker 1: picked up. Do you feel like it eventually has some
Speaker 1: kind of a cruel of negativity where you know, you
Speaker 1: hunt that stand six times in November throughout October and
Speaker 1: you get picked up every night. Is eventually that going
Speaker 1: to start to kind of wear on things or you
Speaker 1: you feel like that's pretty bulletproof and you can get
Speaker 1: away with that over and over as long as the
Speaker 1: other things you mentioned are true. Yeah, as the other
Speaker 1: factors come into play, I don't worry about I think
Speaker 1: about golf courses or going down you know, any city highway. St. Louis, wherever, Atlanta. Uh,
Speaker 1: they're really conditioning those things as long as they don't
Speaker 1: associate them with danger. Right. There's some great research where, uh,
Speaker 1: everyone sees people hunting over feeder in South Texas and
Speaker 1: you know, twenty bucks file in seventeen thousand doos it
Speaker 1: seems like or whatever, and you know day after day, Well,
Speaker 1: that's limited hunting pressure on those big ranches. If you
Speaker 1: go to the deep South where hunting is you know,
Speaker 1: like going to school, you just do it every day. Um,
Speaker 1: those feeders get so much pressure do you become extremely
Speaker 1: nocturnal feeders and you'd be much better to hunt some rails.
Speaker 1: So it's got a little You need to take all
Speaker 1: these I guess in context a little bit. And my
Speaker 1: big thing is that try to not alert deer because
Speaker 1: I think we'd all rather hunt a golf course deer
Speaker 1: than the middle of the public land there where the
Speaker 1: deer just got stand there and looking at you, and
Speaker 1: so I like to and golf courses at man, they
Speaker 1: got herbicide and fungicide and secticide and mowing and people
Speaker 1: and golf carts. Old lady who laying in the bush
Speaker 1: is looking for a golf ball, and the deer don't care.
Speaker 1: They stand around right because there's no perceived danger. Or
Speaker 1: my favorite one is I used to have quite their
Speaker 1: work for DLD Department of Defense, you know that's been
Speaker 1: about timson or budget on environment or wildlife whatever. And
Speaker 1: and many times I've seen you know, a hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty of America's best in their practiced with automatic weapons
Speaker 1: and twenty deer feeding on the down wind side. And
Speaker 1: there's two major lessons there. The deer totally conditioned to it.
Speaker 1: Of course our best. They're not shooting at them because
Speaker 1: they'd probably you know, have to go to the brig
Speaker 1: or something like that. And they're always gonna be in
Speaker 1: a predom it down the inside. Because gunpowder is a
Speaker 1: hypercent nitrogen. That's probably the most fertilized place on the
Speaker 1: base where all those gunshots should going. Verst blowing that
Speaker 1: gun smoke, and they will be our our trap ranges
Speaker 1: or anything else. You'll see a ton of deer on
Speaker 1: the big shooting ranges, usually because it's super fertilized with nitrogen. Interesting,
Speaker 1: very interesting. I want to take one step back to
Speaker 1: the the original question that that food plot where you're
Speaker 1: getting the daylight pictures, but then every time you go
Speaker 1: in there the next day, he's not there, even though
Speaker 1: he was daylight the day before, and you mentioned, you know,
Speaker 1: you should do a little bit of oh, I don't know,
Speaker 1: kind of assess your access and think about, you know,
Speaker 1: am I blowing him out? Am I learning him some way?
Speaker 1: I've sometimes thought about that and and just not known,
Speaker 1: and I've been mad. I don't know. I don't know
Speaker 1: if I am. I don't think I am. But I've
Speaker 1: sometimes thought, I'm just gonna throw a curveball. I'm just
Speaker 1: gonna take a completely different route than I ever have,
Speaker 1: and it may be way longer, way more pain in
Speaker 1: the butt. Maybe it will hurt me in other ways.
Speaker 1: But I have sometimes thought, like, hey, just try something
Speaker 1: completely different than you always do because something's not quite
Speaker 1: working in that way. UM, do you ever consider that,
Speaker 1: do you ever do something like that. I do, but
Speaker 1: I will admit it's usually out of frustration and often
Speaker 1: not the best choice. I mean, if you've got a
Speaker 1: planned route, you're pretty confident it's not learning dear, your
Speaker 1: your buddies dropping you off. You're walking down the road
Speaker 1: or whatever, versus going through the bushes and brush and
Speaker 1: making a lot of noise and leaving a lot of
Speaker 1: scent on stuff you're wiping on getting there. Probably not
Speaker 1: the best I'm not saying it hasn't worked for people,
Speaker 1: but probably not the best idea. I would probably be
Speaker 1: more likely to if I had an extra stand. I
Speaker 1: need to pull that stand just moving if I if
Speaker 1: I have truck in or pictures in. The buck again
Speaker 1: always comes in from the west. I'm gonna move down
Speaker 1: in the in the timber fifty yards and see if
Speaker 1: the staging out there out of view of me. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that makes a lot of sense, uh, speaking of bucks
Speaker 1: out of are kind of out of range, but maybe
Speaker 1: in view. I've got another scenario here that speaks to
Speaker 1: her that, you know, I think we can speak to
Speaker 1: what to do in a situation where there's that buck
Speaker 1: that's out of range. Let's say, continuing down the calendar.
Speaker 1: Late October, We're sitting in a tree stand somewhere and
Speaker 1: we see a mature buck that you're interested in shooting.
Speaker 1: But he's about a hundred yards away, and he is
Speaker 1: on a path that if he were to continue about
Speaker 1: another one hundred yards, he'll eventually pass through your wind. So,
Speaker 1: in this scenario, late October, hundred yard away shooter buck,
Speaker 1: but heading towards your wind eventually, what's your go to move?
Speaker 1: Are you gonna aggressively call? Are you gonna not call
Speaker 1: at all because you're worried he'll eventually circle down wind?
Speaker 1: What's your take? How do you handle that? Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: a great question mark, And and one of the most
Speaker 1: important things about calling or running is considering to win
Speaker 1: and the buck's likely path. I think that's more important
Speaker 1: than the actual call you're using. Um So, if he's
Speaker 1: a hundred yards from hitting my wind, I'm probably gonna
Speaker 1: grunt because I'm gonna gamble. He's gonna turn. He's not
Speaker 1: coming straight to me, but he's gonna turn and get
Speaker 1: shooting range before he cuts my wind. If he's third
Speaker 1: yards from hit my win, his arc is probably gonna
Speaker 1: take him into my win and I'm just I'm not
Speaker 1: gonna add I'm not gonna let him pinpoint me by calling,
Speaker 1: and I'm just gonna let him hit my win and
Speaker 1: and wish he had. Yeah. So I I used to
Speaker 1: grunt call launch, one of my favorite tools. I don't
Speaker 1: blind grunt much because unless I'm just in a stand,
Speaker 1: are you on my backs to a river or highway
Speaker 1: or something, They're just not getting behind me, very likely
Speaker 1: blind calling. I had a really good friend, Selver, really
Speaker 1: good friend Mickey Helixon, did a bunch of work with
Speaker 1: jeep or radio collars and rattling on a large ranch
Speaker 1: in Texas, really high dollar research when we were both
Speaker 1: were in grad school many years ago. And I don't
Speaker 1: remember his acting numbers, just like thirty years ago. But
Speaker 1: I think as many bucks circle around him, he they
Speaker 1: would have observers up in these thirty ft tall stands,
Speaker 1: and he'd be on the ground rattling, and he only
Speaker 1: saw like remember bucks, because the rest come in from
Speaker 1: behind him and winning him. So but the bucks he
Speaker 1: saw where bucks he had to see out in front
Speaker 1: of him with a positive win and rattled, and they
Speaker 1: did come in and he saw them. So I'm a
Speaker 1: little selective when I use my grunt, but I have
Speaker 1: no problem throwing it out there as long as I
Speaker 1: think the bucks natural path is going to get to
Speaker 1: me before at least in shot range, before he cuts
Speaker 1: my wind? Is there? And I know it's just you
Speaker 1: probably don't have a hard line, But is there any
Speaker 1: kind of if you had to put a number on
Speaker 1: it about what distance is that that that buck needs
Speaker 1: to be away from hitting your wind where you'll feel comfortable.
Speaker 1: You mentioned that thirty yards will be too close, but
Speaker 1: is there a maximum? Like? Is it sixty? Is it?
Speaker 1: Is it? What would that never be? No? I think
Speaker 1: it kind of depends on the lay of land. You
Speaker 1: can kind of look up there in envision. Wear's a
Speaker 1: buck most likely to travel? You know? Is there a
Speaker 1: bunch of rocks or a fence or something that's gonna
Speaker 1: turn him towards you a little sooner? I think that's
Speaker 1: a side by side. I will tell you one time, Uh,
Speaker 1: I was hunting on a property where we really needed
Speaker 1: to remove a lot of females and a female six
Speaker 1: month old deer come in and you know, Landard just said, hey, Grant,
Speaker 1: and you're shooting buck you want? But I really need
Speaker 1: to shooting. Never know, you can in the States really
Speaker 1: liberal seasons, and still sure enough, you know, thirty four
Speaker 1: minutes for a dark, this young of the year female
Speaker 1: comes in, gets about seven yards away, and I said,
Speaker 1: well that's what the you know, my my host told
Speaker 1: me to do. So I launched a narrow and it
Speaker 1: it dies seven yards behind me. They're like, okay, one
Speaker 1: one tag down, think about and it's just, you know,
Speaker 1: it's prime. Now we're twenty minutes from dark and food
Speaker 1: pot behind me, acorns in front of me. I'm it's
Speaker 1: it's a good setup, sitting there, setting there and fair enough.
Speaker 1: I look over in a a very mature DearS easing
Speaker 1: up to ridge. He's down there by eight yards and
Speaker 1: he's kind of coming a direction that's gonna bring him
Speaker 1: behind me to that faun and stood in my shooting lane,
Speaker 1: and I'm going, oh my goodness, this is horrible. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's you know, it's a four day hunt. Here comes
Speaker 1: a nice buck, but it looks like he's gonna miss
Speaker 1: my shooting lane and over that fun and that's exactly
Speaker 1: what happens. And it's important, member, dear, do not associate
Speaker 1: dead animals land around like we might associate find a
Speaker 1: dead person in the woods while we're hunting or something
Speaker 1: at all. So he walks up and this is way
Speaker 1: preru reil, early season. I can't get a shot to
Speaker 1: the back of the tree brush. I didn't trim me
Speaker 1: limbs out the back, and he's smelling the fawn and
Speaker 1: you know, doing the normal buck thing like oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: this is just you know, so close but so far
Speaker 1: away and um. Then he walked over and smelled my arrow,
Speaker 1: which he wasn't expecting, and that kind of alert him
Speaker 1: a little bit, and he kind of just started cut
Speaker 1: and half circle, and when the half circle hit my range,
Speaker 1: I poked one through the boiler room. So in that case,
Speaker 1: in that particular case, being patient work, but I didn't
Speaker 1: grunt because I thought the grunt was out of season.
Speaker 1: It's early season, and the smell of that female on
Speaker 1: the ground was too much of a combination and it
Speaker 1: just worked out right. And and by the way, I'd
Speaker 1: like to share here that about twenty of the mature
Speaker 1: bucks I've tagged since I've been on enough to keep
Speaker 1: records have been tagged out of that same standard blind
Speaker 1: that I had already harvested a dough that hunt, not
Speaker 1: a week before, not the day before that same hunt,
Speaker 1: like an hour before or thirty minutes before. And I've
Speaker 1: never had a big buck come in and bust out
Speaker 1: there because there was a dead dough laying on the ground.
Speaker 1: I just hope if I'm firing hunting, I double shoulder
Speaker 1: shoot and try to drop him right there. It within range.
Speaker 1: I don't want him running over the hill. And in
Speaker 1: my mind, that is the best attractant I've ever used,
Speaker 1: was a dough harvested during that same hunt. Do you
Speaker 1: ever get him? I guess, I mean, I guess that
Speaker 1: example you just shared. Have you ever had other situations
Speaker 1: where the buck smells that dough and comes right into
Speaker 1: arrange to that spot and stops me? Oh? Many times
Speaker 1: we have many episodes showing down. Yeah, I mean every
Speaker 1: it seems like every year here, one of me or
Speaker 1: one of my guests, whatever has that scenario right here
Speaker 1: on the proving grounds every year. Because we try to
Speaker 1: harvest a lot of dos and my neighbors try to
Speaker 1: harvest a lot of bucks, you kind of find that
Speaker 1: balanced in there. And uh, I mean it's happened that
Speaker 1: my daughters and Daniel and myself multiple times and these
Speaker 1: are you tend to be often pretty mature bucks, and
Speaker 1: they're walked right in there, especially during the rut Missouri's
Speaker 1: farm seasons during the rut, and they're poked her antlers
Speaker 1: inner and try to get her stand up. They do
Speaker 1: not associate death like we do. I find it dead
Speaker 1: human out there in the you know, in the timber.
Speaker 1: I'm freaking out and you know, calling the cops or something.
Speaker 1: But beer just do not have that response up it all. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a good reminder. What about this one? This is
Speaker 1: this is kind of a different iteration of that shot
Speaker 1: example I mentioned earlier. You know, I talked about you
Speaker 1: get the shot that's not necessarily as great a hit
Speaker 1: as you wanted. YadA, YadA, YadA. What about a situation?
Speaker 1: Will say, it's early November, it's a morning hunt. You
Speaker 1: get a shot of deer and you just miss completely.
Speaker 1: You blank on this buck. The buck runs off. What
Speaker 1: do you do in the hours following that, Let's say
Speaker 1: the misses like nine am. What do you do from
Speaker 1: nine am through the rest of that day. Do you
Speaker 1: just keep on hunting or do you back out and
Speaker 1: go home and shoot? Do you do anything to check
Speaker 1: what's going on? What would you be thinking about or
Speaker 1: considering or doing after a misslike that on the I
Speaker 1: am early November. Yeah, so I think most of us,
Speaker 1: if we're honest with ourselves, we know we shut our
Speaker 1: eyes or punched the trigger. You know, we did something
Speaker 1: and then they heated a battle. It's a little tougher
Speaker 1: to uh sort that out. But if I whipped the
Speaker 1: shot I missed, I'm the blame, not the bow, not
Speaker 1: decide I missed. I'm right there in the tree, and
Speaker 1: I do a lot talking to myself about my confidence
Speaker 1: because my confidence is the the most the worst part
Speaker 1: of my shooting skill at that time. If if I
Speaker 1: turned around to the cameraman or just think myself, Manna,
Speaker 1: the pin was solid, it was just setting there. How
Speaker 1: did I miss that thing? Then I'm probably getting down
Speaker 1: it and probably what I would do. I didn't have
Speaker 1: a squirrel. I'm a hillbilly, so I didn't have a
Speaker 1: squirrel al like Wuever. I don't know if you know
Speaker 1: a squirrel areas something. It's dumb or something, But it's
Speaker 1: gonna be tuned. I take tuning very serious, and it's
Speaker 1: gonna fly like my broad heads and I'm gonna back out.
Speaker 1: Are she right from the tree there? You know, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna find a rotten stump or something and I'm gonna
Speaker 1: whip it. And if I hit, then I go, well,
Speaker 1: I did just miss. And if I also miss a
Speaker 1: foot or two or ten ft or whatever it was,
Speaker 1: and I'm going home and tune them. What about that
Speaker 1: self talking you mentioned, like, if your confidence is shot,
Speaker 1: you're gonna kind of talk to yourself, like what goes
Speaker 1: on in the head of grant Woods after a whiff?
Speaker 1: How do you psych yourself up? How do you shake
Speaker 1: yourself out of it? What does that look like? Mark?
Speaker 1: I'm sixty one and I've had two kidney transplants. I'm
Speaker 1: in great health, as you know. Uh, but I'm too
Speaker 1: old and had laid during the bed too many times
Speaker 1: waiting for it to go beep them next time to
Speaker 1: make excuses in my life anymore so for me personally,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna own my heirs. That's just something I lived
Speaker 1: by and so I'm gonna admit but and usually I
Speaker 1: whipped it. Here as a bow hunter, here's my thing.
Speaker 1: I I have pretty good warm after all these years,
Speaker 1: and you know, I shoot decent them. I can make
Speaker 1: it happen. When I air, I shut my eyes target panting.
Speaker 1: After all these years, it didn't matter if I'm shooting
Speaker 1: at a target or a deer or a hog or whatever.
Speaker 1: When I missed, it's like nine, it's never the bow's fault,
Speaker 1: almost because I have my bow to and I'm I'm
Speaker 1: gonna know my equipment. I shut my eyes, and it's
Speaker 1: amazing how far that pen can move between when you
Speaker 1: you tell your brain release and when you actually release
Speaker 1: if you shut your eyes. So for me, just personally
Speaker 1: me again, I'm gonna with the squirrel area arrow and
Speaker 1: I'm gonna tell myself, you keep your eyes open. If
Speaker 1: you know some people tape on their bow, pick a
Speaker 1: spot or some of those saying like that. Mine is
Speaker 1: keep your eyes open. And if I keep my eyes open,
Speaker 1: it's it's probably gonna work out just fine. I mean,
Speaker 1: you always, you know, you can drop your bow, booging
Speaker 1: up your sides. But if I dropped my bow, heaven
Speaker 1: forbid going into a stand. I'm gonna shoot with my
Speaker 1: phone light or something. For I ever get up mass stand.
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna set there and worry on morning, because
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna be a good hunter. Yeah. Yeah, I've
Speaker 1: been through those situations myself too, and uh and yeah
Speaker 1: it's no fun, but she's gotta push through it and
Speaker 1: own it and get better. Right. I think for all
Speaker 1: of us this is maybe a little off target here,
Speaker 1: and no pun intended that if we own our mistakes,
Speaker 1: life just goes a lot easier. So true. One of
Speaker 1: the most important things I feel like my dad ever
Speaker 1: taught me was just accept responsibility for stuff. There's no
Speaker 1: better way to deal with something than accept it, take responsibility,
Speaker 1: and do something about them. Let's take I'm gonna I'm
Speaker 1: on your dime here, but I'm gonna take this one
Speaker 1: step further, please do uh. I have a counselor, not
Speaker 1: a counselor, but a wise person that teaches me a lot,
Speaker 1: and his statement is your lack of responsibility becomes someone
Speaker 1: else's responsibility. And I think when it's framed like that,
Speaker 1: at least to me, I'm I'm gonna be better accepting
Speaker 1: my own responsibility. Yeah, out of out of almost the
Speaker 1: guilt of forcing that obligation on someone else. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, take a simple thing, Okay, I my wife's
Speaker 1: been take care of her dad, and I leave a
Speaker 1: mess in a scenk and she's had a long day
Speaker 1: and she comes home, she's got clean it up. That's
Speaker 1: the way off subject. But you know, hecky, I'll take
Speaker 1: five minutes clean it up. Take care of your own responsibility. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: we'd be We've all been in a much better place,
Speaker 1: I think if we could always live that way. Right.
Speaker 1: It's one of those sometimes easier saidly done things. But man,
Speaker 1: absolutely a lot of truth to that. Okay, I got
Speaker 1: a few more of these for you, Grant, and then
Speaker 1: I'll let you let you off the hook. Let's talk
Speaker 1: through one thing that happens every I don't know, three
Speaker 1: or four or five years, it seems across the country,
Speaker 1: and people always bemoan it, which is we get to,
Speaker 1: you know, the peak of the when it's spoke us
Speaker 1: to be the best part of the hunting season, you know,
Speaker 1: that first week or two in November. Let's say, for
Speaker 1: this scenario, will say November seven, right, And a lot
Speaker 1: of people like to say that's maybe the best day
Speaker 1: of the year. Sure, I've heard of luck. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: here's the catch. Conditions are poor. We've got the hot, muggy,
Speaker 1: nasty November that when people get it, they're just so
Speaker 1: bummed because they sunk their week of vacation time into it.
Speaker 1: Let's say November seven through the twelfth and thirteen is
Speaker 1: going to be in the you know, whatever it is
Speaker 1: for your area. Let's say it's gonna be the sixties
Speaker 1: or seventies, which is too hot. Will you dramatically change
Speaker 1: the way you hunt that week out of the usual
Speaker 1: because of the temperatures, or you can hunt your usual
Speaker 1: primo red spots despite it. No, I probably will. And
Speaker 1: it's not that the deer aren't moving. You know. I
Speaker 1: was involved in a research project many years ago, university stuff,
Speaker 1: and several of US researchers around America put together about
Speaker 1: fourteen thousand fetal date So humans go to the doctor
Speaker 1: and they take an ultrasound and mas your crown to
Speaker 1: rump of a fetus and tell you your baby's gonna
Speaker 1: be born. Ex you can also back date to the
Speaker 1: point of conception. And so for deer, we we really
Speaker 1: know where they breed in most areas. Some states don't
Speaker 1: take very specific data. But that's not a mystery. You
Speaker 1: don't have to print a new calendar every year. We
Speaker 1: know what's going on and so you're gonna know the
Speaker 1: peak or to rain angel whatever. But if it's just
Speaker 1: really hot and you know, deer got fat on and
Speaker 1: they're you know, they're in really good shape. No one
Speaker 1: likes running a sprint when there's you know, got a
Speaker 1: big down code on. So they're probably gonna move a
Speaker 1: little bit more at night, but they're still moving. It's
Speaker 1: the prom You're going to the prom um. But I'm
Speaker 1: gonna hunt areas where because it's warm and muggy, my
Speaker 1: sense is gonna be really tough to control. And maybe
Speaker 1: on code days, I got some areas where the thermals
Speaker 1: are sinking down and I can slide in there in
Speaker 1: the colde morning, do good. I'm gonna avoid those areas.
Speaker 1: My number one thing year round or what during hunting
Speaker 1: season is not to alert deer because there's alway almost
Speaker 1: always another day, right unless it's the last day of season,
Speaker 1: there's another day. But if you're alerted deer and book
Speaker 1: rug this pattern for a week or two, it's really tough, honey.
Speaker 1: So I'm going to hunt that that week that time.
Speaker 1: I'm in the Midwest also, so you know, Halloween to November,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be out there somewhere and and in the
Speaker 1: conditions are rough, I'm still gonna be out there, but
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be really picky about where I put my
Speaker 1: stand so dere can get within range. M Are there
Speaker 1: any other types of areas that you would think would
Speaker 1: be more attractive at that time of you're like, I
Speaker 1: mean some people would say hunting more towards water on
Speaker 1: those hotter right days, anything like that. Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: there's there's goodie that. I mean. I like to put
Speaker 1: all the odds in my favor. So water in a
Speaker 1: bottleneck that's just uh down with in of a bedding area,
Speaker 1: So a bucks cruising through there looking for a receptive
Speaker 1: dough and you can get a drink loaned away. Uh
Speaker 1: you know, I'm gonna put two or three things together,
Speaker 1: not just one thing. Yeah. Yeah, I don't remember who
Speaker 1: said this, but I remember hearing from someone once where
Speaker 1: they said that they will never sit a stand or
Speaker 1: a tree or blind or anything unless there's three really
Speaker 1: really good reasons to be there. There's got to be
Speaker 1: at least three travel corridors or three you know, motivations
Speaker 1: for a deer to be in that exact spot. And
Speaker 1: that's always helped me really fine tune things. It shouldn't
Speaker 1: be just like oh there's one trail. It's gotta be
Speaker 1: this and this and this all lined up right, you know.
Speaker 1: And so there's there's so many more factors, like, you know,
Speaker 1: you're in southern Ireland, there's food everywhere early season. Food
Speaker 1: may not be the big play, right and you're in
Speaker 1: the smoky mountains and there's not much food anywhere. Food
Speaker 1: is a huge play on the exact same day, same conditions.
Speaker 1: So we really need to do some consideration of multiple
Speaker 1: factors when we oft how we're gonna hunt, the techniques
Speaker 1: we're gonna use that day. Yeah, yeah, so true. I
Speaker 1: want to ask you about something that once caused you
Speaker 1: to get hate mail from what I hear. Um. Let's
Speaker 1: say you're out, it's later in the year. Now it's
Speaker 1: gun season, which in Missouri, what that opens somewhere in
Speaker 1: mid mid November, right November to Thanksgiving. Yeah, yeah, so
Speaker 1: it's guns season and you're hunting a spot. It's kind
Speaker 1: of you can see down to a brushy kind of opening,
Speaker 1: and your big shooter buck you've been after, steps out
Speaker 1: in that brush stuff and it's a mixture of grass
Speaker 1: and some you know, some woody, browsy kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: That buck is within the shooting range. He stopped, he's broadside,
Speaker 1: but his vitals are covered with some of that grass
Speaker 1: and brush. You can see through it. You can even
Speaker 1: see his shoulder, but there is stuff in and around it.
Speaker 1: And you would have to punch through some of that grass,
Speaker 1: some of that rush with your fire room. Would you
Speaker 1: take that shot? And why or why not? Yeah? So
Speaker 1: I did have that ZAC scenario, as you know, and
Speaker 1: I did not, and man I got loaded up with
Speaker 1: hay mill hold. I didn't know. There is that many
Speaker 1: ways to call a biologist to it, but the TASTI um.
Speaker 1: But here's the thing. We used to teach some deer
Speaker 1: hunting schools and we would take and this isn't exactly
Speaker 1: like grass, it's pretty dog on clothes. We would take
Speaker 1: eighth inch doll rods, so real flimsy doll rods, a
Speaker 1: little wooden rods, and drill holes in the tubah fours
Speaker 1: and just dack these little doll rods in there. So
Speaker 1: a thirty caliber bullet just couldn't get you. Either hit
Speaker 1: it in the middle because I'm not that great a shot,
Speaker 1: or hit it on the edge. You were not passing
Speaker 1: a bullet through two ft of these doll rods without
Speaker 1: hitting one. You may barely wing it, you may center
Speaker 1: punch it. And we put it out there to hundred yards,
Speaker 1: and then we put a you know, great big old
Speaker 1: targets paper moving paper actually at one meter and three
Speaker 1: meters or one yard and three yards behind it, and
Speaker 1: at one yard behind it. We used to hit the paper,
Speaker 1: but not where we're raiming. You hit the deer in
Speaker 1: the bud or the nose or something like that. Go
Speaker 1: above and boat blowing at three meters. We usually didn't
Speaker 1: cut paper. That bullet was turning sideways so fast wore
Speaker 1: three O thirty six. So a lot of that hate
Speaker 1: mail had to do with I was choosing the three
Speaker 1: O eight and I you know, a lot of words
Speaker 1: with a few uh agities. Not included was you're not
Speaker 1: shooting a bow, shoot through the grass. You're not shooting
Speaker 1: a bb guns shoot through the grass. You know, if
Speaker 1: you're if the three O eight won't do it, take
Speaker 1: you a three d wind mag And I will say,
Speaker 1: only way a hundred senty pounds. I'm not shooting a
Speaker 1: three hunder wind maag in a white tilt here um.
Speaker 1: But the bottom line is bullets or you know, picking number.
Speaker 1: They're moving two or three thousand feet a second, depending
Speaker 1: on how you're loaded, what you're shooting, and you think
Speaker 1: about anything moving that fast. It doesn't have to hit
Speaker 1: hardly anything to change its course. And the bullet is
Speaker 1: a long cylindril shape. So if it just gets just
Speaker 1: ever so slightly out of straight straight towards the target,
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, it's it's creating an eddy. It
Speaker 1: gets a lot of wind on one side, the direction
Speaker 1: is going, and it's creating an eddy on the off side.
Speaker 1: Like if you have a canoe, if you're fisherman or
Speaker 1: kayak or whatever, and you want to cross a pretty
Speaker 1: fast stream, just go straight across it. You put your
Speaker 1: canoe or kayaking there at forty five degrees. You don't
Speaker 1: have to paddle. It is just shoots you straight across
Speaker 1: because it's pushing on one side and making the eddy
Speaker 1: on the other, and it just takes you straight across. Well,
Speaker 1: that's exactly what happens with a bullet quickly, within inches.
Speaker 1: So I passed that deer. I ended up harvesting him
Speaker 1: last year years later with a bow, which was much
Speaker 1: more thrilling because he was so odious and a smaller rack.
Speaker 1: But gosh, I have chased that deer for many, many years,
Speaker 1: and for me and just the responsibility I personally accept
Speaker 1: as a hunter, I'm not gonna risk wounding the deer
Speaker 1: versus harvesting the deer. So I did give that deer pass,
Speaker 1: and I hope I would do the same thing again,
Speaker 1: um with no matter what caliber I'm shooting. And and
Speaker 1: I just realized through personal experience and through talking with
Speaker 1: the engineers at various AMMO plants, that bullets deflect easily.
Speaker 1: There's not really a brush gun. So I'm like, well,
Speaker 1: I got dad, he's oh forty five seventy here. I
Speaker 1: just shoot through whatever you know I shoot. I hear
Speaker 1: stort a time. I got this email a bunch. Well,
Speaker 1: I've shot through a bunch of three inch saplings and
Speaker 1: killed deer. Man, you can't keep from hitting a three
Speaker 1: inch sapling. You better go to rain some more. But anyway,
Speaker 1: for me, in my level of respect for the creators
Speaker 1: what I want to do in life, I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: take that shot. Yeah. I think very often the best
Speaker 1: shot taken is is none. And uh, respect to you
Speaker 1: a lot for doing that. It's always one of those
Speaker 1: things that's easier said than done. And in that moment
Speaker 1: when something you want so badly is right there, it's
Speaker 1: it's really hard to have that self control. But but
Speaker 1: you're right, you can't you can't ever get a bullet
Speaker 1: back and you don't want to go south. So yeah,
Speaker 1: and when I was young, and I took some a
Speaker 1: few shots and didn't recover, dear, So I've learned that lesson.
Speaker 1: I'm not I am not perfect. And you know, when
Speaker 1: I was young, I was like every other hill Bill
Speaker 1: and yours arts. I had my lever action thirty thirty,
Speaker 1: thinking we were gonna do a man drive on National
Speaker 1: Force when there was no brakes, no openings, no nothing.
Speaker 1: You know, that's just how we hunted it. So I've
Speaker 1: had the advantage to learn him some of those lessons
Speaker 1: through time and and and the victory the you know,
Speaker 1: the glory of the victory to me is not equal
Speaker 1: to the pain of defeat. So I just don't want
Speaker 1: to wound an animal if I can avoid it, if
Speaker 1: I can put the odds of my favor to avoid it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so true, all right, Uh, this one's not really a
Speaker 1: hypothetical scenario. But I gotta ask you about it anyways,
Speaker 1: because it's so intriguing to me. Um, I've heard you
Speaker 1: talk about hunting like a bobcat. Could you could you
Speaker 1: explain to me what what you mean by that? What
Speaker 1: does it mean to hunt like a bobcat? How do
Speaker 1: you do that? And like what's the situation when you
Speaker 1: would actually take that approach? Love hunting like a bobcat.
Speaker 1: So bobcats, you know, they may have a DN. They
Speaker 1: don't go to same den every day, or usually don't.
Speaker 1: They got two or three places, been on wind direction
Speaker 1: or coyote scenario, whatever, but they you get them on
Speaker 1: your choking. If you're in bobcat country, you get pictures
Speaker 1: of bobcast just walking logging roads all time. They're just
Speaker 1: they're just moving down the road and never they get
Speaker 1: in their hunting areas. Not one area they bobcats. Based
Speaker 1: on GPS scholars, when I tend to hunt here today
Speaker 1: and there tomorrow during Mar's like, they know, while I've
Speaker 1: been through there, I I swooped the game. I need
Speaker 1: to hunt a different area next day. And I'm not
Speaker 1: saying that's what they do, but that's what the data
Speaker 1: seems to show. And so they're just cruising until they
Speaker 1: get to their hunting place and then when they're hunting
Speaker 1: up most hunters have seen this in a standard blind man.
Speaker 1: It's it's not take ten steps in the next and stop,
Speaker 1: it's step stop, step stop, set down, look, stop stop.
Speaker 1: They spend more time still than they do moving. So
Speaker 1: we call this and we call it spot and stock.
Speaker 1: But bobcat hunting is actually stalking trying to spot. We're
Speaker 1: stalking trying to spot, and with the boat, it's a
Speaker 1: real thrill when you get when you walk up within
Speaker 1: thirty yards of a bed of deer feeding deer. My goodness,
Speaker 1: you just had about a hundred fifty inches to that rat.
Speaker 1: Because there's gonna be an awesome experience. I mean that
Speaker 1: that hundred inch deear it comes at two fifty every
Speaker 1: day of a month um and and I love doing
Speaker 1: this in habitat. That's quite enough to let you do it.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, a bone dry day in October
Speaker 1: with six inches of oakley as you're not gonna do
Speaker 1: it very well with the boat, but get some moisture
Speaker 1: or down south, you know they thin about every fifth
Speaker 1: rold pines very commonly, and I love getting on the
Speaker 1: end of that pine stand where you know, where the
Speaker 1: winds in my face and just creeping up and barely
Speaker 1: peeking around the corner and you know, maybe see a
Speaker 1: deer too, fall are dear, you don't want to harvest,
Speaker 1: and you slide through there and go to the next
Speaker 1: row and you finally find a deer you want the harvest.
Speaker 1: Then you back up one row and you know, cut
Speaker 1: that distance and then just barely quietly stock within range.
Speaker 1: That's just a thrilling for me. Way to hunt, just thrilling.
Speaker 1: You're not sitting to you're not looking at your phone,
Speaker 1: you're kind of you know, your predator mode every second.
Speaker 1: And and years ago, many years ago, I was something
Speaker 1: with a buddy on public land and western Kansas, one
Speaker 1: of the first years they allowed non resident hunters a
Speaker 1: hunt out there. And we were just setting in a
Speaker 1: big old public area of native grass. It was too
Speaker 1: tall for me to see over it. Setting down. I
Speaker 1: remember sclearly, and I'm kind of a tall guy, and
Speaker 1: I stood out like a sore thumb if I stood up,
Speaker 1: So I was crouching all morning. It's very uncomfortable crouch
Speaker 1: and looking crouching looking and about nine thirty or so
Speaker 1: there was some bagg fields down the bottom and this
Speaker 1: public land on top. And we saw this to me
Speaker 1: really good leaving point bud just giant shoulders. End up
Speaker 1: playing about three hundre pounds come up in this c
Speaker 1: r P and um bed down and in CRP in
Speaker 1: one night there is a tree or a landmark. He
Speaker 1: just beds down about six dred yards away. We're looking
Speaker 1: across the valley we were hunting for this purpose, sitting
Speaker 1: on one side looking into the other side. They were like,
Speaker 1: oh my gosh, it really happened. And so we're all
Speaker 1: exided and and we can't go straight to him. So
Speaker 1: we drive around a section line, get the wind right,
Speaker 1: and you can't see anything, and the bedded buck and
Speaker 1: you know, five ft tall Swiss grass, you can't see anythings.
Speaker 1: So we're crawling and peeking over and looking, and about
Speaker 1: eighty yards out my buddy sees something not moving and
Speaker 1: it ended up being a time to this buck, and
Speaker 1: we crawl on up there and we get up there.
Speaker 1: It's just such a cool hunt. Get about I don't know,
Speaker 1: fifty yards away. I happened to be hunting with a
Speaker 1: recurve at a time, and uh, spot a cock feasant
Speaker 1: between us and the buck. We're afraid to flush that peasants.
Speaker 1: We just lay there until he feeds on through. My
Speaker 1: buddy stays back and I'm you know, elbows and knees,
Speaker 1: barely pushing and pushing my bow in front of me.
Speaker 1: And he's laying and this is so typical for big bucks.
Speaker 1: Right below an old terrace, so she's to be nagg
Speaker 1: Field years ago and highly erosion prone soils. There's a
Speaker 1: big terrace and he's laying night blow it and I
Speaker 1: get to the top side and this, this is a
Speaker 1: large deer, and I'm just like, for three minutes, I'm
Speaker 1: just an awe. I've never been that close to a wild,
Speaker 1: free ranging big buck. I'm just I'm sure my buddy's thinking,
Speaker 1: why is wrong the woods? Why is this shop? And
Speaker 1: and finally I realized I was under with a sixty
Speaker 1: inch black widow recurve. And when I'm laying on the ground,
Speaker 1: I can't pull the thing back right. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: just too much grass and away and stuff. So he's awake.
Speaker 1: He's kind of like they do head up too, and
Speaker 1: this could and he's got this hell to his back
Speaker 1: and he's just moving his head about thirty degrees watching
Speaker 1: the front. And finally I just said, okay, when he
Speaker 1: gets to the farthest one side, start swinging back on
Speaker 1: my stand up and shooting one motion. Of course, with
Speaker 1: a recurve. I'm an instinctive shooter. He just pull it
Speaker 1: back and launch right. And so that's what I did,
Speaker 1: and I pegged this big old buck and it was
Speaker 1: such a super high stimulation hunt that that's when I
Speaker 1: started trying to hunt like a Bobcap. And again, you know,
Speaker 1: if I don't think it's any deer in the area,
Speaker 1: I'm getting to where some deer in the area, and
Speaker 1: I'm slowing the way down, and I do more looking
Speaker 1: than I do walking, and not if the wind changes,
Speaker 1: I changed my direction. I got my little puffer bottle
Speaker 1: or whatever, going leaves whatever. I just keep the wind
Speaker 1: in my face and maybe a big acorn flat and
Speaker 1: I think, well, I think deer passed through here about
Speaker 1: eight thirty nine and morning being acorns and I cam
Speaker 1: feder Roe Street or going through. I love hunting like
Speaker 1: a Bobcap. And even with the bow folks being shipped
Speaker 1: thirty yards and I would say the number one thing
Speaker 1: is wind direction. The number two things patients, all my
Speaker 1: buddies want to go too fast. Well, Grant, I don't
Speaker 1: see any deer and hunter yards ahead of us. Let's
Speaker 1: just walk the next on the yards. Are you making
Speaker 1: so much noise? I mean I'm going step of time
Speaker 1: and I actually see as many deer to my side
Speaker 1: as I do in front of me. Or just come
Speaker 1: into yoursel. You just get a tree, betune you and
Speaker 1: then let them walk by. M Yeah, I can see
Speaker 1: the appeal. I've I've gotten more and more willing to
Speaker 1: try things on the ground like that, and it continues
Speaker 1: to prove to be a lot of fun and surprisingly effective.
Speaker 1: So I love it. You know, so few people hunt
Speaker 1: like that anymore. It's almost like their guard is down
Speaker 1: on that, right. I mean, yeah, I really enjoy it.
Speaker 1: I highly recommend if you you know anyone, to at
Speaker 1: least give it a try, just once and see if
Speaker 1: you don't really like it. Yeah, yeah, I agree. Alright, Grant,
Speaker 1: I got a final set of rapid fire questions, just
Speaker 1: looking for like a like a one word or couple
Speaker 1: word answer. We'll bounce through these really quick, and then
Speaker 1: you will have made it through with the gauntlet. Okay,
Speaker 1: so here's here's the final rundown. You're ready, Yes, sir, okay?
Speaker 1: Does the moon matter to dear movement? Yes? Or no? No?
Speaker 1: Would you take a fifty yard shot at a white
Speaker 1: tail with your bow? No? If you could only have
Speaker 1: one of these tools for the rest of your hunts
Speaker 1: for the rest of your life, would you select Rattley,
Speaker 1: Antler's or grunt tube to expandable or fixed blade broadheads?
Speaker 1: I'll go through it. I currently use fixed blade. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Should you stop a moving buck with some kind of
Speaker 1: sound before shooting with a bow? Yes? M Which state
Speaker 1: has better hunters? Missouri or Georgia? Oh lord, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: get individual. All right, here's the last thing. Let's imagine
Speaker 1: for a second that I have control of the world.
Speaker 1: I rule the world, I have a magic on and
Speaker 1: I am going to revoke You're hunting privileges grant for
Speaker 1: the next twenty years unless you kill a mature buck
Speaker 1: in one single day this coming season. So you get
Speaker 1: one day. I need you to pick the date on
Speaker 1: the calendar. What day are you gonna pick for this hunt?
Speaker 1: And then please give me details of the one specific
Speaker 1: location that you're gonna pick for this very high stakes
Speaker 1: hunt November five, Western Kansas, where it's wide open and
Speaker 1: the travel corridors are probably obvious for Mars love it.
Speaker 1: I love it? What kind of what kind of like
Speaker 1: paint for me? Like the tree stand location more more detailed,
Speaker 1: might be a ground bind. There's not a lot of
Speaker 1: trees in western Kansas. Um And again, I'm gonna want
Speaker 1: three things. I'm gonna want a couple of trails merging
Speaker 1: into maybe a fence gap. And and typically my hunt's
Speaker 1: out there will have a CRP field that I think
Speaker 1: dear betting in and the bean ralph alpha field where
Speaker 1: I think they're feeding. And I'm gonna be in between
Speaker 1: in the smallest gap I can find on the satellite image.
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna walk. Typically this is a creek bottom.
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna walk the whole thing. I'm gonna find
Speaker 1: the narrowest gap so the buck is unlikely to pass
Speaker 1: out of range. That's also favorable for the wind. And
Speaker 1: I love those Western creep bombs because they tend to
Speaker 1: not be straight but wind a lot, So somewhere in
Speaker 1: that bottom the wind is gonna be perfect for the
Speaker 1: wind that day Yeah, man, that sounds like a good spot.
Speaker 1: I have confidence in your choice. I think you'll get
Speaker 1: it done. Grant, that is it. That is the the
Speaker 1: what would you do gauntlet? You you pass with flying colors.
Speaker 1: Oh you're kind, You're kind. Thank you for being patient
Speaker 1: with my rambling. Oh no, I thoroughly enjoyed it. Uh
Speaker 1: for folks that want to follow along with with all
Speaker 1: the cool stuff you're doing, can you can you feel
Speaker 1: us in on anything new to look forward to this
Speaker 1: fall or where we should go to see all your
Speaker 1: great content? Mark? How about I share something to you
Speaker 1: I haven't shared with the rest of the public. So
Speaker 1: my life case now, I've been very blessed and through
Speaker 1: the years, not all at once, through twenty plus years,
Speaker 1: we have accumulated a pretty big piece of land here
Speaker 1: in the Ozark Mountains, all timbered roughs, deep, rocky. This
Speaker 1: is not you know, high dollar Iowa land. And we
Speaker 1: have sold the northern fift hundred acres to close here
Speaker 1: in about a couple of weeks, where I've spent the
Speaker 1: vast majority of twenty years working and are moving our office.
Speaker 1: You've been here, Mark, and our house, all our chill
Speaker 1: cameras are hunting equipment to the southern nine hundred acres
Speaker 1: where there's nothing, just a couple little food plots, not
Speaker 1: all the t s. I not all the burning because
Speaker 1: I love a new project. And you know I mentioned
Speaker 1: ROM sixty one. I gotta know a good project or
Speaker 1: two in me, I believe Lord Willing, and so I'm
Speaker 1: really excited about starting over and sharing the Because the
Speaker 1: techniques I used fifteen years ago I may not use anymore.
Speaker 1: I've refined, or I've learned a quicker way or a
Speaker 1: cheaper way or whatever. So I am so excited to
Speaker 1: start over. And I will tell you, and you get this,
Speaker 1: because you're a producer. You don't do something that significant
Speaker 1: just to get new content. You don't. This is my
Speaker 1: true heart, to really refine. My northern property is not perfect,
Speaker 1: but you know we're we're in the ose Arts and
Speaker 1: we harvest dog on large bucks for the oz Arts,
Speaker 1: and we figured out how to hunt it and we
Speaker 1: kind of not the situation. And I'm just looking forward
Speaker 1: to the new challenge and and starting over. You know,
Speaker 1: there's all kind of low grade hardwoods that need to
Speaker 1: be improved, and cedars to be cut, and more fire,
Speaker 1: more prescribed fire and I probably get done and trails
Speaker 1: to make and little higdeo food plots to make. So
Speaker 1: I'm super excited about that. Man, I totally get. It's that,
Speaker 1: it's the puzzle, it's the mystery, is trying to figure
Speaker 1: it all out. That's that's what does it. It's it's
Speaker 1: the shot. The trigger pulls just a tiny, tiny little
Speaker 1: bit of it. And I'm excited for you. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: I'm I'm still looking forward to it awesome. So I'm
Speaker 1: sure we'll be able to see all that I'm growing
Speaker 1: dear this coming fall and next year. You keep working
Speaker 1: on it. Yeah, you know, Mark as we uh you know,
Speaker 1: we make a new show every week and so we
Speaker 1: don't have a production calendar like a lot of people
Speaker 1: do that. That's great. I'm glad they do. We're just
Speaker 1: filming every week, so we're filming whatever we're doing. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: we I have ideas for about ten hideo food plots.
Speaker 1: We're gonna restart them because we'll be planting about a
Speaker 1: month and that means we're you know, killing some saplings
Speaker 1: or having a little prescribed fires to make a seed bed.
Speaker 1: We're just just come along and see what we do.
Speaker 1: It sounds like a heck of an interesting thing to
Speaker 1: fall along with. Well, Grant, thank you, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 1: I knew this is gonna be great. It proved to
Speaker 1: be so. And I really appreciate your sharing this with us. Mark.
Speaker 1: I appreciate your friendship and I look forward to seeing
Speaker 1: you again soon. Let's get together soon. It'd be great
Speaker 1: to catch up more in person. I love too, all right,
Speaker 1: and that is a app thank you for listening. That
Speaker 1: was good, wasn't it. That was fun? It's got me uh,
Speaker 1: got me ready? I mean, I am so ready. If
Speaker 1: any of you guys have listened this year on the podcast,
Speaker 1: you know that last season was a challenging one for me,
Speaker 1: kind of burn out by the end of the year.
Speaker 1: Took a little bit of time away this winter, and
Speaker 1: I am fully recharged. I am fully jacked to get
Speaker 1: back after it and uh and this one really helped
Speaker 1: continue that momentum. So be sure to go following with
Speaker 1: Grant stuff. Like I mentioned already, Growing Dear is a
Speaker 1: terrific YouTube show. Everything he puts out is just top notch.
Speaker 1: There's lots and lots to learn from Graham, so be
Speaker 1: sure to subscribe follow along with his stories Until next
Speaker 1: time my friends, thank you and stay wired.