Speaker 1: Boys. Good to see you, Hayden. It's been a while. Hey, sorry,
Speaker 1: I'm late. I crashed my ponty at gast. I can
Speaker 1: do a light polt how to walk through us the way.
Speaker 1: But I'm here now, that's what matters. Give me a
Speaker 1: glass of scotch, please, Hayden. Just two rocks in there.
Speaker 1: I don't like ice. We're starting already, this is happening. Okay,
Speaker 1: just give me the give me the glass, thank you. Okay,
Speaker 1: here we go. It's the most wonderful time to kill deer.
Speaker 1: With the run now, just starting and dashing and dotting
Speaker 1: and leans cutting clean. It's the most wonderful time to
Speaker 1: kill deer. There's far too much ice in this glass.
Speaker 1: It's the half happiest seasing of all. There's gotta be
Speaker 1: at least twelve cues with grunting and bleating and called
Speaker 1: from some leading the last week so fun. It's the
Speaker 1: half happiest season of Oh. There'll be pictures for posting
Speaker 1: and bragging and boasting and trunk beds with big bucks
Speaker 1: and tow there will be narrow missed stories and tales
Speaker 1: of your glories of booner bucks missed with our bows.
Speaker 1: It's the most wonderful time to kill dear, not just
Speaker 1: one lady two. There will be no dose of blowing
Speaker 1: and loom and knox blowing and blood trails so clean.
Speaker 1: It's the most wonderful time to kill dean. Excuse me?
Speaker 1: Can I have a napkin? Please? I just spilt some
Speaker 1: scotch on my loafers. I can't have dirty loafers in
Speaker 1: the studio. Thank you tailgate beers for drinking and big
Speaker 1: buxes thinking and chasing and sent checking doves. They will
Speaker 1: be fighting and scraping and no more escaping and arrow
Speaker 1: shot true hitting, Oh key change. But no one told
Speaker 1: it's the most wonderful time to kill deer. I was
Speaker 1: very unprepared for this. There will be much morning sitting
Speaker 1: in cold fronts, hitting the dawn crispin clean. It's the
Speaker 1: most s wonderful time. Oh, the most swonderful time. Yes,
Speaker 1: the most swonderful time to kill dean. There's too much
Speaker 1: ice in the glass. Two rocks. Okay, there we go.
Speaker 1: It's time to continue the good times. Let's get to
Speaker 1: my conversation with Clint Casper. All right with me now
Speaker 1: on the line. I have the one and only Clint
Speaker 1: Casper Clint, Welcome to the podcast, Man, my man. Mark
Speaker 1: appreciate it. I've been looking forward to this. It's been
Speaker 1: a couple of weeks since we've talked about doing this,
Speaker 1: and the whole time I've been like, man, this is
Speaker 1: this is gonna be fun. I was definitely looking forward
Speaker 1: to coming on. I'm excited to be here. I am too.
Speaker 1: I'm really glad it worked out. Um, you're someone who
Speaker 1: you know. I've been able to watch from Afar for
Speaker 1: for quite a number of years now and been able
Speaker 1: to tune into some the podcast you guys do, and
Speaker 1: I've read your articles and I've always be like, man,
Speaker 1: I got to get that guy in the show, and
Speaker 1: it just hasn't worked out yet. So it's been a
Speaker 1: long time coming. But sometimes the best of things are
Speaker 1: worth waiting for it, so U Clint, I appreciate that,
Speaker 1: and also appreciate the fact that you are doing this.
Speaker 1: You're talking to me right after getting back in from
Speaker 1: the mountains. You're out in Utah right now, right, yes, correct, correct,
Speaker 1: my man. I just just got off the mountain here
Speaker 1: about an hour ago and had a long day of
Speaker 1: chasing bulls and bucks around in the snow. And cold,
Speaker 1: and uh yeah, man, I'm I was looking forward to.
Speaker 1: I'm like, you know what, I'm gonna come inside to
Speaker 1: get a shower, get kind of rejuvenated, do this podcast.
Speaker 1: That's gonna be fun, and then uh yeah, it'll be
Speaker 1: a sleep time here in a few hours, and recharge
Speaker 1: hopefully for another I think tomorrow morning they're talking. I
Speaker 1: think up on the mountain range, I'll be on. I
Speaker 1: think it's gonna be a super balmy nine degrees tomorrow.
Speaker 1: So that's that's always, that's always something looks forward to.
Speaker 1: But the bucks are rutting out here like crazy, man,
Speaker 1: So I'm super stoked about that. Um yeah, I can't
Speaker 1: wait to get back after it. That's awesome. Well, uh
Speaker 1: that you know, it's it's kind of funny you mentioned
Speaker 1: this trip that you're on right now, and I know
Speaker 1: that you are just a grinder. Like if there's anything
Speaker 1: I've noticed about you from Afar, you are you grind?
Speaker 1: Like you just put in the time. You're going NonStop,
Speaker 1: you're traveling over the country, You're doing whitetail stuff, you're
Speaker 1: doing Western stuff. You are a worker. Um, yes, let
Speaker 1: me take a step back, am I right on that?
Speaker 1: If I were to like put a label on you,
Speaker 1: or if I were to say that this is the
Speaker 1: kind of guy Clint is Is Is that right? Did it?
Speaker 1: Did I peg it? Or is there something else? Is
Speaker 1: there's some other way you would define if you had
Speaker 1: to over generalize and define, like what kind of hunter
Speaker 1: you are? Is that it or something else? No, Man's
Speaker 1: that's spot on. I mean I'd love to say I'm
Speaker 1: the most athletic guy on the mountain or in the woods,
Speaker 1: or the best shot or the I mean, I I
Speaker 1: do have to say I do think I'm one of
Speaker 1: the better looking ones. Yeah, yeah, I uh no. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know I kind of got it from my dad. Um,
Speaker 1: you know that the guys just to workaholic and a grinder.
Speaker 1: And he's just you know, growing up on a dairy farm. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, I still farm with him full time and
Speaker 1: and just kind of watching him from being a little kid.
Speaker 1: He's just been a grinder man. I mean, the guy
Speaker 1: just puts his head down and knows that the grindstone
Speaker 1: and that's just you know, that's kind of I guess
Speaker 1: you could say that's what I put my my dollar
Speaker 1: on when it comes to hunts. Is um, you know,
Speaker 1: I just always feel like, hey, there's probably somebody up
Speaker 1: here that can outshoot me, that can out hike me,
Speaker 1: that's probably in better shape or you know whatever. But
Speaker 1: I just I feel like I don't get out worked,
Speaker 1: you know. I mean, I might not win the race
Speaker 1: um to the top, but I'm the guy that just
Speaker 1: every single day is going to keep after it, whether
Speaker 1: it's chasing a big white tail just day after day
Speaker 1: after day, or it's just putting in the miles, you know,
Speaker 1: chasing bulls and bucks um on a mountain. I just
Speaker 1: feel like, you know, the guys that the guys that
Speaker 1: are in that ten percent club, UM, and that's the
Speaker 1: club I always want to be. And I feel like
Speaker 1: ten percent of the guys to kill about the animals
Speaker 1: out there, especially with with me. I've just been bow
Speaker 1: only for going on about ten or eleven years now. UM.
Speaker 1: Loved gun hunting and grew up doing it, but but
Speaker 1: you know, bow hunting is just my jam and UM,
Speaker 1: I just feel like for me, it's if I grind
Speaker 1: and i'm i'm I talk about the three p's a
Speaker 1: lot um, per systems, patients, and perseverance. I mean that
Speaker 1: that's just kind of what I stand on. I'm just
Speaker 1: the guy that's that's real consistent and constant, and I
Speaker 1: just feel like sooner or later, Um, if a guy
Speaker 1: grinds and grinds and grinds, he's gonna luck himself into
Speaker 1: an opportunity. And then at that point it's just about
Speaker 1: confidence and bend in the limbs back and you know,
Speaker 1: I mean, I've I've got a shoot her mentality. Um,
Speaker 1: I'm not afraid to miss. So it's it's kind of
Speaker 1: one of those deals where I feel I feel pretty
Speaker 1: dangerous once I get back to full draw. But sometimes
Speaker 1: it takes me all season to get you know, get
Speaker 1: get on that white tail, or it takes me thirty
Speaker 1: forty days to get on that specific muli or that
Speaker 1: elk or whatever. And I'm okay with that though. I
Speaker 1: like it honestly. I mean, it's a it's fun for
Speaker 1: me to look back on seasons and be like, man
Speaker 1: I hunted that buck seventies some days, or man I
Speaker 1: was in the mountains fifty six days, or you know,
Speaker 1: I mean, I I kind of I don't know. I
Speaker 1: guess I've just grown to really like like to be
Speaker 1: I guess you could say the guy that looks back
Speaker 1: on a season, even seasons when when I don't kill
Speaker 1: a lot. Last year, I killed a white tail and
Speaker 1: didn't feel any Western tags, but I hunted more out
Speaker 1: West than I ever did. And I look back on
Speaker 1: that and I was proud of that, you know, I
Speaker 1: mean I didn't punch tags, but I also didn't settle.
Speaker 1: I had goals, and I'm like, hey, if I go
Speaker 1: down slinging, I go down slinging. But it was a
Speaker 1: grind and a ton of miles, and um, you know,
Speaker 1: it's something that I kind of pride myself on, is
Speaker 1: you know, like you said, just being a grinder, and
Speaker 1: it seems to pay off. Not not every time, but
Speaker 1: it does seem like that gets me into opportunities. And
Speaker 1: then from there it's just all about, you know, making
Speaker 1: the right moves in the final fifty seconds to you know,
Speaker 1: to make an ethical shot and get a bucker bull
Speaker 1: killed the punch of tags. So yeah, man, I know
Speaker 1: you were spot on. I really appreciate that. Um. Definitely
Speaker 1: head down and and uh, you know, both feet forward
Speaker 1: type of guy, that's for sure. That's that's kind of
Speaker 1: kind of where I'm I guess you could say, I'm
Speaker 1: I'm trying to make my make my living off of
Speaker 1: Is that mentality? Well, it's it's it's because of that
Speaker 1: that I think that you are the like two thousand
Speaker 1: per sent best person we can talk to for today's podcast,
Speaker 1: because what I want to do um is is kind
Speaker 1: of a dress where I think a lot of people's
Speaker 1: heads are right now. So when this episode drops, it's
Speaker 1: gonna be November, I believe, And so I don't know
Speaker 1: how you feel in November twenty four, but I can
Speaker 1: tell you how I feel some years, and how I
Speaker 1: think a lot of people feel is is you know,
Speaker 1: September or October one, whenever your opening day is of
Speaker 1: white tail season, like you're filled with hope, right, You've
Speaker 1: got your super optimistic this is gonna be one hell
Speaker 1: of a year. And then as October rolls along, you're like, well,
Speaker 1: late October is gonna be great. So that's okay, And
Speaker 1: if things don't go good, that's all right, because you
Speaker 1: know October seven is just around the corner. There might
Speaker 1: be that big coal from and then that doesn't work
Speaker 1: out maybe, and then it's well, early November is gonna
Speaker 1: be sweet. It's gonna be great, and it's not gonna
Speaker 1: get better, and then that doesn't work out, and then
Speaker 1: maybe November seven is the best day of the run.
Speaker 1: I know it's gonna happen then, and and then that
Speaker 1: doesn't happen, and then you get to like that tenth
Speaker 1: or twelfth or thirteenth, and you're like, oh god, Lee,
Speaker 1: it's getting locked own and bobb. But it could still happen.
Speaker 1: But once you get to late November and if you
Speaker 1: still haven't filled your tag or if you haven't achieved
Speaker 1: whatever goal it is, I think a lot of people,
Speaker 1: myself included, you get too late November and that's when
Speaker 1: you're like, oh crap, like this we're getting I'm getting nervous.
Speaker 1: I'm getting nervous because what we've been hyping up all year,
Speaker 1: the best of the best for most people is behind us.
Speaker 1: So tell me this, Clinton, When you get to this
Speaker 1: time period during your your white tail season, late November
Speaker 1: and you haven't killed a deer yet, how are you feeling?
Speaker 1: Are you nervous? Are you getting stressed out? Or do
Speaker 1: you feel like there's still good stuff ahead? To be
Speaker 1: honest with you, I'm getting excited because if I'm being
Speaker 1: totally honest with you, I hate the right um and
Speaker 1: people are right now are probably like this, who's this guy?
Speaker 1: So my whole philosophy on white tails. And it's been
Speaker 1: this way since. You know, I've been hunting him since
Speaker 1: I was thirteen, just turned thirty four. Um, so you know,
Speaker 1: for twenty years of bow hunting. You know, bucks, Um,
Speaker 1: I have learned and and this is just what works
Speaker 1: for me. But patterns kill big deer. Um. I look
Speaker 1: around at all the bucks I've killed that are on
Speaker 1: hanging on my wall, and those bucks it was a
Speaker 1: pattern deal. Very few were just a random luck. My
Speaker 1: deal has always been specific bucks. Um. I love the
Speaker 1: chess match. I love to find a buck, learn a buck,
Speaker 1: study a buck, and then slip into his bedroom, or
Speaker 1: slip into his dining room, or slip into the living
Speaker 1: room and killing. And that that's just my gems. So
Speaker 1: the ruts stresses me out because I'm a pattern guy.
Speaker 1: Patterns still big white tails. So for me, um, those
Speaker 1: first few weeks in November are very stressful because patterns
Speaker 1: typically are thrown out the door. But as the late
Speaker 1: as you get later into the rut, um, I have
Speaker 1: found that patterns start to show again. Bucks transition back home.
Speaker 1: I'm now locating bucks again in places that I did
Speaker 1: prior to the rut, patterns are forming. Um, I also
Speaker 1: feel like, you know, and this is just my own
Speaker 1: personal opinion, but I think your biggest white tails around
Speaker 1: are on their feet more in daylight towards the end
Speaker 1: of the rut than any other time, because they know
Speaker 1: that window to breed is closing. And for a big
Speaker 1: white tail, it's not like they're like us, where hey,
Speaker 1: we can go have sex and at any playing time
Speaker 1: for for twelve months out of the year. A big
Speaker 1: white tail knows, especially a five six seven year old buck,
Speaker 1: he's been around the block. He knows that window gets
Speaker 1: smaller and smaller and smaller. And he's got three needs.
Speaker 1: He's got a food and water for one, he needs cover,
Speaker 1: and he's got to need to breed. So I mean
Speaker 1: that that breed need. He can't do that every day.
Speaker 1: So I feel like mature bucks are more on their feet.
Speaker 1: They may do more roaming, or you might have more
Speaker 1: random bucks passing through because they're searching, you know, frantically
Speaker 1: searching for the last wave of hot dos or oh
Speaker 1: my gosh, I need to find another dough or two.
Speaker 1: Before this is all said and done and they know
Speaker 1: that's coming, they know that windows closing on. So for me, man,
Speaker 1: I'll be honest, I get super stoked around that Thanksgiving time.
Speaker 1: I've had great luck, great success with big mature dear
Speaker 1: from like to like that. That's honestly probably maybe my
Speaker 1: favorite week of the entire month in November. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: for for the reasons I just stated, I do feel
Speaker 1: like patterns start to show again, and you've got big
Speaker 1: mature bucks on their feet, moving a lot in daylight
Speaker 1: because they know they're on a time crunch. Yeah, how
Speaker 1: long do you think that window last? So I know
Speaker 1: you mentioned is your favorite, But do you see that
Speaker 1: lingering into December at all or when? Like, what's that
Speaker 1: look like that time frame? Yep, yeah, I really do.
Speaker 1: I mean I think even into December, you've still got
Speaker 1: that second wave of doze. You've got yearlings that didn't
Speaker 1: get caught the first time, or maybe they didn't hit
Speaker 1: estrus on the first wave, that they're now coming in.
Speaker 1: I mean, I've had some great, great, great rut hunts
Speaker 1: into December. Now, I wasn't exactly planning on that to happen,
Speaker 1: but I've seen frantically great running action I've seen, you know, honestly,
Speaker 1: probably the best buck fight of my life. UM with
Speaker 1: white tails. Uh, two big typicals probably one to one
Speaker 1: sixty apiece, just absolutely go at it almost to the death. UM.
Speaker 1: And that was on December seven, I believe it was
Speaker 1: like two thousand and seventeen, two thousand and eighteen. I'll
Speaker 1: never forget it. Um. And that's that's the best white
Speaker 1: tailed buck fight. But it was over a yearling um.
Speaker 1: And you know, you could tell she was hot. Um.
Speaker 1: And I'm sure that was her first cycle. And those
Speaker 1: you know, obviously those two bucks new Hey, you know,
Speaker 1: there's not a bunch of does that are left to breed,
Speaker 1: so it was gonna be a fight to the death. Um.
Speaker 1: And you know, the one ended up back and down.
Speaker 1: But I mean it was probably fifteen a good ten
Speaker 1: to fifteen minutes. They locked up seven or eight times.
Speaker 1: The one buck, the one buck took a big he
Speaker 1: took a G two to the side of the neck.
Speaker 1: He was bleeding out both sides. I mean, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I thought I thought it was gonna die. Um. I
Speaker 1: never found him. I got pictures of him in January,
Speaker 1: so he ended up making it. But I mean, I
Speaker 1: really thought he was gonna walk away and fall over,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, oh my gosh. You know, but this
Speaker 1: was all like yards. I actually got down and tried
Speaker 1: to make a stock on them because they were so
Speaker 1: tied up with each other. Um. Yeah, but that was
Speaker 1: December seven, So yeah. I do think it lingers in
Speaker 1: and I think you can get into some great run activity,
Speaker 1: um for sure. Um you know. And and I think
Speaker 1: a lot of guys maybe don't see this, because I
Speaker 1: do think a lot of guys. I just wrote an article,
Speaker 1: uh to last year. Um, I write full time for
Speaker 1: Peterson's Bow Hunting, and I wrote an article for them
Speaker 1: and it was titled, don't get in a rut during
Speaker 1: the rut. I think a lot of guys get in
Speaker 1: a rut during the rut and they lose their mind
Speaker 1: because it's such a guessing game. And towards the end
Speaker 1: of the rut, I think a lot of guys hang
Speaker 1: the bows up, and I think a lot of guys
Speaker 1: hang the guns up, and they're like, you know what,
Speaker 1: We're gonna take time off and we're gonna go watch football,
Speaker 1: we're gonna enjoy Thanksgiving, we're gonna go do all this
Speaker 1: other stuff and I think guys miss a great window.
Speaker 1: Last week of November, first week in December, there's still
Speaker 1: some great rut hunting taking place, and patterns are starting
Speaker 1: to form again. Bed to feed, Feed to bed. You
Speaker 1: got bucks going back to their homelands to try to
Speaker 1: find any dose that they missed. I love that time,
Speaker 1: and I've killed a lot of great bucks during that time.
Speaker 1: But it's funny. Hardly anybody is hunting right then and there,
Speaker 1: and I think a lot of guys they've gotten in
Speaker 1: this rut. Um so years ago I was guilty of this. UM.
Speaker 1: I actually wrote the article based off of me because
Speaker 1: back in my late teens early twenties. UM, I've always
Speaker 1: been a big all day guy. UM. I love saddles,
Speaker 1: I love funnels. I love to hunt. If I'm going
Speaker 1: to hunt the rut, I like to go in all
Speaker 1: day and I like to just see how it pans out.
Speaker 1: So I'd hunt fourteen fifteen days in November. I remember
Speaker 1: the one year I hunted nineteen days dark till dark. Um,
Speaker 1: not in a row, but in the month of November,
Speaker 1: I had nineteen of them, and I used to I
Speaker 1: used to run myself down lose ten twelve fifteen pounds,
Speaker 1: and I would get myself to the point where hunting
Speaker 1: wasn't even fun and I was in this rut, and
Speaker 1: then I would take a week or two off, then
Speaker 1: I'd get back after it again. Well, I was missing
Speaker 1: fantastic hunting because I was burning myself out the first
Speaker 1: three weeks and then hanging the bull up for a
Speaker 1: week or two, and then I got back after and
Speaker 1: I was missing this window. UM. So I had to
Speaker 1: adapt to that and basically get myself out of these
Speaker 1: ruts in the ut. And I think a lot of
Speaker 1: guys are guilty of that, um And it's something that
Speaker 1: you know, it's easy to do because the rut is
Speaker 1: awesome when it's awesome, and it's terrible when it's terrible.
Speaker 1: So it's I mean, it really is. I mean, the
Speaker 1: rut is the greatest thing ever when and it's the
Speaker 1: worst thing ever. And I know you just experienced in
Speaker 1: my home state what sounds like a not so great
Speaker 1: um rut experience that will burn a guy out quick.
Speaker 1: You go five, six, seven days and that farm you're on,
Speaker 1: or that piece of property or piece of public if
Speaker 1: it's just not happening and it's dead, the rut can
Speaker 1: be one of the worst times ever to hunt, dear,
Speaker 1: because if it's not happening there, there's nothing going on.
Speaker 1: That's just how it is. It's either all or nothing.
Speaker 1: So I think the rut itself can put guys in
Speaker 1: a rut, and if you don't mentally know how to
Speaker 1: reel yourself back in or pull yourself out of that
Speaker 1: ditch that you've done for yourself. Um, I think it
Speaker 1: can really be detrimental, you know, to to kind of
Speaker 1: the rest of your season. It really like deflates your tires.
Speaker 1: Will say, yeah, yeah, I can relate to that, and
Speaker 1: I've been that guy many times before. Two. So so
Speaker 1: let's say we've convinced some folks to keep at it
Speaker 1: and hopefully, you know, hopefully they haven't burned themselves out
Speaker 1: so much they can still get after. It's still this
Speaker 1: can be a little bit of a confusing time for
Speaker 1: people because of what you just described a minute ago,
Speaker 1: this fact that you know they're still running stuff happened
Speaker 1: going going on, but then also some deer going back
Speaker 1: to their bed defeat patterns. So you've got like a
Speaker 1: do I hunt rut tactics or do I hunt you know,
Speaker 1: late season, you know, betting defeating type patterns. How do
Speaker 1: you approach when when we're at the very end of
Speaker 1: November or the first week in December, which one of
Speaker 1: those two things are you doing? Or do you have
Speaker 1: some hybrid approach that allows you to take advantage of
Speaker 1: both of those different possible patterns. So for me, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna break it down in two ways. So if you're
Speaker 1: the guy like me mostly every single year, or I've
Speaker 1: got a specific buck I'm targeting. Um, if you're that guy,
Speaker 1: will start with him. What I have found is a
Speaker 1: lot of these bucks that end up leaving their home ground.
Speaker 1: So let's say I've hunted a buck. Our season starts
Speaker 1: in Ohio the end of September. I know he's a
Speaker 1: south wind guy on this farm at you know, he
Speaker 1: beds and feeds and does everything in daylight. It's based
Speaker 1: off of a south wind. Um. Come November he disappears.
Speaker 1: I'm not seeing him. He's not on camera. He's just
Speaker 1: not there. He has ventured off. Maybe he bred a
Speaker 1: few does on his home turf. Now he's heading to
Speaker 1: go run other places. Okay, now we're getting towards the
Speaker 1: end of the rut. So we're in those twenty you
Speaker 1: know the dates of like second, we're getting close to Thanksgiving.
Speaker 1: What I have found is a lot of these bucks
Speaker 1: we'll start to migrate back to home land because they
Speaker 1: know from experience they did not breed every dough. So
Speaker 1: they're gonna come back to home. You know that they're
Speaker 1: coming back to home. And I mean you could almost
Speaker 1: kind of in a way, you know, relate this back.
Speaker 1: I guess too. You know somebody that's I guess you know,
Speaker 1: maybe you've you've you've traveled around for a few months,
Speaker 1: you know, things have been great, whatever, but all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, it's like you're like, Okay, well it's time
Speaker 1: to go time to go back home, or you know
Speaker 1: that's that's just kind of or it's like, you know
Speaker 1: the young kid that's twenty one, that he's got his
Speaker 1: local hometown bars where he knows all the girls are there,
Speaker 1: and then he decides he's gonna venture off and he's
Speaker 1: gonna go three towns over and he's gonna do that
Speaker 1: for a few weekends, but all ultimately at some point
Speaker 1: he's gonna come back to what he knows. Well, I've
Speaker 1: found these bucks will do the same thing. So I
Speaker 1: try to get ahead of that. If I know a
Speaker 1: buck on that farm loves certain winds and likes to
Speaker 1: bed in certain places, I've got cameras running there on scrapes.
Speaker 1: I'm hunting transition zones. I'm trying to get ahead the game,
Speaker 1: knowing he's gonna return. Now, at this stage in the game,
Speaker 1: does are obviously still huge because there are doughs still
Speaker 1: gonna be coming into estrus. Maybe they missed the first cycle.
Speaker 1: Maybe some yearlings are coming in, so I'm paying very
Speaker 1: close attention to what they're doing bed to feed, So
Speaker 1: pattern wise, I'm almost paying more attention to the dough
Speaker 1: patterns at this time, knowing that the bucks are gonna follow.
Speaker 1: So that's kind of in my recipe for success is Okay,
Speaker 1: what did this buck like? He liked south winds, He
Speaker 1: used to bed here, This is what he was doing. Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna now look for those days, look for these places. Okay,
Speaker 1: what are my does doing? Okay, my dad just cut
Speaker 1: a corn field a half a mile south. It's hot.
Speaker 1: That's the hot food source. Now I'm trying to put
Speaker 1: the puzzle pieces together. Okay, south wind, I know where
Speaker 1: he liked the bed here's the hot food source. The
Speaker 1: does are piling in. I'm trying to connect the dots,
Speaker 1: and I'm basically waiting on that buck to show up. Now,
Speaker 1: if you're the guy that had no specific buck and
Speaker 1: he's just looking for any good buck, you're even in
Speaker 1: better shape in my opinion, because I feel like, not
Speaker 1: only are those home bucks gonna return back to your farm,
Speaker 1: but you're also going to have some bucks that are
Speaker 1: frantically searching anywhere and everywhere because they know that window
Speaker 1: is closing. So maybe they're gonna come over to your
Speaker 1: farm and check things out for a day or two. Now,
Speaker 1: they might not be there for long, but if you're
Speaker 1: they're hunting and you've got opportunities. Because I do think
Speaker 1: and what I've seen is mature bucks. I think they
Speaker 1: start to shrink that area that they're running in, and
Speaker 1: I think they start to migrate closer back to where
Speaker 1: their core home areas. But I've still seen a lot
Speaker 1: of romer bucks that probably lived two farms over or
Speaker 1: lived a half mile away, that are frequenting my farm
Speaker 1: here and there, a little bit that I've not seen
Speaker 1: all year, trying to find that hot dough or maybe
Speaker 1: it's a year income into heat. So there again. You know,
Speaker 1: I think if you can figure out what the does
Speaker 1: are doing, regardless of whether you're hunting a specific buck
Speaker 1: or just any good buck, if you can start to
Speaker 1: put the patterns together of Okay, where's the hot food source?
Speaker 1: Where probably are all my doughs betting right now? Those
Speaker 1: but you're gonna have bucks circle back in there and see.
Speaker 1: I like that because in my mind that gives me
Speaker 1: more confidence. Then say November seven, where there are no patterns,
Speaker 1: the does are scared to death. You don't know what
Speaker 1: they're doing on a daily basis. We have no clue
Speaker 1: what are bucks doing on a daily basis, We don't
Speaker 1: even know what bucks are around. Later on in the month,
Speaker 1: those patterns start to show. For me, that's a confidence booster.
Speaker 1: I like that. Like I said, I'm all about patterns,
Speaker 1: kill big deer, and that's what works for me. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, so I get excited come that late time
Speaker 1: because I can start to use trail cameras, I can
Speaker 1: glass fields, I can start to put pieces together of
Speaker 1: what are my doughs doing? Okay, what are my cameras showing.
Speaker 1: I'm starting to now put pieces together on what these
Speaker 1: bucks are probably going to be doing, and I try
Speaker 1: to get ahead of that game, and that seems to
Speaker 1: work out really good for me. Now, I've tried to
Speaker 1: use this same philosophy in the earlier parts of November,
Speaker 1: and the problem is is the does are not consistent
Speaker 1: because they're scared to death half the time. The does
Speaker 1: that aren't in heat are still getting chase, still getting
Speaker 1: run around, so their bed defeat seed to bed. It's
Speaker 1: all over the place, so it's hard to pattern them.
Speaker 1: It's hard to figure out, obviously, what the bucks are
Speaker 1: doing because the rutt just started, so every book in
Speaker 1: the country is covering as many miles as you can
Speaker 1: trying to find that first hot dough or find a
Speaker 1: hot dough. So this philosophy has not worked well for
Speaker 1: me early on in November because the patterns just aren't there.
Speaker 1: But come later on, it really seems like that pattern
Speaker 1: game can really put you in the hot seat. Um,
Speaker 1: especially if you're able to combine some scouting and some
Speaker 1: trail cameras. You know, the cell cans are all the
Speaker 1: rage in the day's world, and this is a great
Speaker 1: time to go Throw them on a hot scrape, throw
Speaker 1: them on a field edge of a corn field that
Speaker 1: was just cut, or maybe you've got a standing uh
Speaker 1: food plot two acres of standing beans or something. I mean,
Speaker 1: you can really be in the money if you can
Speaker 1: figure out hot food source where we're gonna bed. You know. Now,
Speaker 1: like I said, we can start to kind of triangle
Speaker 1: this pattern back together. Um. That gives me a lot
Speaker 1: of confidence coming coming off of just the chaos of
Speaker 1: the rut. Being able to put some patterns together. I'm
Speaker 1: like I said, that gets me super pumped. I feel
Speaker 1: like that's putting more tools in my tool buckets. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I get that. I can I can see how that's
Speaker 1: an appealing thing because you get kind of that. It's
Speaker 1: a little bit of what I think makes late October
Speaker 1: special because late October they're still on a pattern, but
Speaker 1: you're beginning to get some of that extra rut movement
Speaker 1: without total craziness. And this is kind of the same
Speaker 1: thing you've got. There's still a little bit of that
Speaker 1: extra movement, but you begin to return to the patterns. Um.
Speaker 1: So a big part of what you're talking about is
Speaker 1: it seems like if you're trying to target that single buck,
Speaker 1: we get to this time period, you refocus on that
Speaker 1: core range and then you're kind of waiting for him
Speaker 1: to show back up, So either with cameras or maybe observation. Um,
Speaker 1: you mentioned a couple of those different places you might
Speaker 1: put cameras. When you were talking about that, a random
Speaker 1: question popped in my mind, which has been something I've
Speaker 1: been kind of trying to get a handle on in
Speaker 1: my own personal hunts in Ohio. So you're you're an
Speaker 1: Ohio guy, and I've haunted Ohio quite a number of
Speaker 1: years and then disappeared for the last three or four
Speaker 1: years that other things going on and couldn't get down there.
Speaker 1: I got back down to this year and I had
Speaker 1: talked to so many different people this year who all
Speaker 1: told me, man, if you don't put out corn, you're
Speaker 1: not going to see him. And I've never done that
Speaker 1: in the past down there, I've never had problems. And
Speaker 1: then this year, two different places I was at I
Speaker 1: didn't put out corn. Everyone's like that, you're not gonna
Speaker 1: see any here, You're never gonna get them. Um, what's
Speaker 1: this is kind of off topic, I realized, but this
Speaker 1: just kind of popped my mind, and I gotta ask,
Speaker 1: how you have seen in a bating state like Ohio,
Speaker 1: Does it really impact things when you're trying to get
Speaker 1: a deer in a pattern, when you're trying to take
Speaker 1: inventory of deer, when you're trying to do anything like that.
Speaker 1: Does that actually make a difference if you aren't using
Speaker 1: bait but all the neighbors are. Does that ever happen?
Speaker 1: Does it factor in or not for you? I guess
Speaker 1: when I'm getting down. Oh yeah, absolutely, I mean, and
Speaker 1: that's that's the nature of the beast. Um. You know,
Speaker 1: there's great things about being able to do run bait
Speaker 1: in Ohio, and then there's there's negatives. I mean, and
Speaker 1: and that's one thing that it is rough about baiting
Speaker 1: is I feel like you educate people, educate a ton
Speaker 1: of deer very quick off of corn piles. Um. People
Speaker 1: also turn deer, especially mature deer bucks specifically nocturnal, very quick,
Speaker 1: where they might hit that bait pile consistently sixty days
Speaker 1: out of sixty days, every single night, but you may
Speaker 1: not have one day where it's daylight. Um, it's almost
Speaker 1: like you're training a dog to only eat um. You know,
Speaker 1: you only put his food in the silver dish, not
Speaker 1: in the black dish. Okay, So you're training him to
Speaker 1: only eat out of the silver dish. These bucks, I
Speaker 1: do feel like people. I think there's a stigma of all.
Speaker 1: If I throw some corn down in Ohio, I can
Speaker 1: kill a one fifty And I really wish it was
Speaker 1: that simple, because sign me up for that um. But
Speaker 1: I think it's the opposite. I think so. I mean,
Speaker 1: I've hunted white tails in a lot of states, have
Speaker 1: been fortunate to kill white tails in a lot of states.
Speaker 1: I've never seen white tails look up even half as
Speaker 1: much as my Ohio white tails do. I think they
Speaker 1: are conditioned to look up. And I think a lot
Speaker 1: of that is guys hunting over bait, not playing the wind,
Speaker 1: not not really hunting it correctly, constantly hunting over a bait.
Speaker 1: But you know you're educating deer. So to answer your question,
Speaker 1: I guess, in short terms, yes, if you've got a
Speaker 1: farm that's surrounded by guys baiting constantly, I bet you
Speaker 1: those guys have a ton of deer staying on them,
Speaker 1: coming and feeding off them. Daylight activity versus night I
Speaker 1: bet you it's a huge margin. I bet you the
Speaker 1: gap is huge there. I will guess it's a ton
Speaker 1: of nighttime very little daytime. But is that sucking deer
Speaker 1: away from the farm yur on if you have no
Speaker 1: food at all? Oh? Absolutely um, And that is just
Speaker 1: the brutal reality of it. Now, if you've got food plots,
Speaker 1: or you've got safe standing beans, or you've got something
Speaker 1: to compete with that, you're okay. But if you've got
Speaker 1: let's just say timber, and your neighbors all around you
Speaker 1: have um their running bait piles, so there is accessible
Speaker 1: corn there all the time, those dear figure out real quick.
Speaker 1: We can eat all night, be back to bed before
Speaker 1: to daylight, not show up until after dark. And realistically,
Speaker 1: unless they're betting on you, they really don't need to
Speaker 1: come through your wood lot. I mean honestly, they really
Speaker 1: don't unless pressure pushes them there or that's where they bed.
Speaker 1: So you're kind of caught in this very weird scenario
Speaker 1: where okay, at this point, now you've got to do
Speaker 1: food plots or bait or do something to pull deer
Speaker 1: back to you because they're all on the outskirts or
Speaker 1: the edges that they're all on the neighboring farms, and
Speaker 1: it could be super frustrating. I mean, I've had some
Speaker 1: really good farms um get ruined that were like um
Speaker 1: big timber pieces, and all around me the neighbors were
Speaker 1: running couple hundred pounds of of of of bait piles,
Speaker 1: and which is legal. And you know, hey, I mean,
Speaker 1: I'll be the first to tell you. I mean, I'm
Speaker 1: not against by any means running corn, running bait. I mean,
Speaker 1: I mean there's certain farms where I do it myself.
Speaker 1: But it sucks if you're the guy on the outside
Speaker 1: looking in there um almost to the point where you're
Speaker 1: forced to do it in a way, So like the
Speaker 1: saying is, oh, I gotta keep up with the Joneses,
Speaker 1: the Jones. The Jones just put a new fence. Uff,
Speaker 1: I gotta put a new fence. Uff. The jones Is
Speaker 1: just resingled their house with metal. I gotta do that
Speaker 1: to mine. They just painted their their door blue. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna paint my red. It's almost kind of the same
Speaker 1: thing in a way. If all your neighbors are doing
Speaker 1: all this and you're not, you could be on the
Speaker 1: outside look again, which is now forcing you to either ay,
Speaker 1: not see a bunch of deer and just accept that,
Speaker 1: or now you've got to make a change and either
Speaker 1: compete with them, or figure out how to adapt your
Speaker 1: property into having food a food source, whether it's food
Speaker 1: plot or you're gonna bait or you're gonna run um
Speaker 1: some standing crops or whatever it is. But now you're
Speaker 1: caught in the crossfire. Which, like I said, that's that's
Speaker 1: the good and the bad, you know, I mean, I
Speaker 1: mean that's the debating thing. Um. I mean, it can
Speaker 1: be a great thing if used properly. I think it
Speaker 1: can be another real, a good tool. I think it
Speaker 1: could be another great technique. Um. But I don't think
Speaker 1: a lot of people honestly hunt the abait the correct way. Um.
Speaker 1: I think it's just let's slap a stand up twenty
Speaker 1: yards over it, and let's just hunt the crap out
Speaker 1: of it and show at some point. Um, I think
Speaker 1: a lot of out of state guys feel like that's
Speaker 1: how you can come to Ohio and kill a big deer.
Speaker 1: And I always chuckle because you know, if it was
Speaker 1: that easy, everybody and their brother would be killing a
Speaker 1: big deer doing that. And it's it's it's just not
Speaker 1: that simple. It would club instead of ten percent. Yeah,
Speaker 1: let's imagine this hypothetical scenario where someone is maybe right now,
Speaker 1: this time of year, we're listening to this podcast, they
Speaker 1: have been dealing with that problem, and they've been they've
Speaker 1: been like, man, I don't know why my little farm
Speaker 1: I've got access to. Maybe this is their first year
Speaker 1: hunting it and it's just dead. Um. Then you catch
Speaker 1: wind that, oh yeah, this neighbor and that neighbor and
Speaker 1: this neighbor they've been running corn. They've got feeders, YadA, YadA, YadA,
Speaker 1: and so they hear what you're saying, and they're hearing
Speaker 1: you say, Man, sometimes you do need to, you know,
Speaker 1: stick with the jones is if someone wanted to try
Speaker 1: to start running some bait to try to see if
Speaker 1: they can right the ship and still get some action,
Speaker 1: what's the right way to do that? If you were
Speaker 1: going to start now in season, is there any way
Speaker 1: to do that in a way that could lead to
Speaker 1: some good late season success still? And if so, how
Speaker 1: would you do it? I mean, I think I think
Speaker 1: if you're going to run bait, I think there's a
Speaker 1: couple of key factors you gotta look at. Number One,
Speaker 1: you gotta have a location where deer will feel safe
Speaker 1: in daylight. So um, for me, I'm not gonna go
Speaker 1: dump three pounds of corn on the edge of a
Speaker 1: wide open field. That's but that was that used to
Speaker 1: be standing beans. Now it's wide open. I'm just gonna
Speaker 1: dump it on the edge and hope that a big
Speaker 1: buck's gonna show up in daylight. That's not gonna be
Speaker 1: my spot. Um. I'm gonna want something that I can
Speaker 1: get in and get out, But it's secluded um to me.
Speaker 1: I think the biggest problem with with the bait thing
Speaker 1: is deer have to feel safe in daylight being around
Speaker 1: that area. So if it's a wide open space, a
Speaker 1: wide open field, big bucks typically don't feel safe there
Speaker 1: anyway in daylight. Um. Outside of the rut. It's it's
Speaker 1: not like a ton of big deer like to just
Speaker 1: hang out along the edge of some big, wide open field. Um,
Speaker 1: just hanging out for everyone to see. That's just usually
Speaker 1: not what how that goes, At least for me. I've
Speaker 1: never been lucky and had that really take place. If
Speaker 1: someone else has great, UM, jealous of you, but I
Speaker 1: would look for you know, I look for seclusion. I'm
Speaker 1: also looking for south facing slopes. I'm a big south
Speaker 1: facing slope guy in late season because that's where deer
Speaker 1: getting all the sunlight. You've also got the most growth
Speaker 1: that's gonna stay there if you do get some more
Speaker 1: some warm spells, you've got the most tender greenery there.
Speaker 1: So for me, I'm looking at, okay, south facing flow.
Speaker 1: How can I get into this spot to hunt it,
Speaker 1: not be seen, not be heard. I want to be
Speaker 1: able to get in there and refill my bait. You know,
Speaker 1: that's important. So you don't want to be blowing dear
Speaker 1: out constantly going in, going out. So there's you know,
Speaker 1: so we've already touched on a couple of key factors
Speaker 1: here and then, um, the winds a big one. So
Speaker 1: I think where guys really mess up with baiting is
Speaker 1: they don't play the wind. And it's not just okay,
Speaker 1: well this buck likes the south wind. So I'm gonna
Speaker 1: put a bait pile and hang a stand for a
Speaker 1: south wind. Um, And that's just that's that's all I've
Speaker 1: got to do. Um, sooner or later he's gonna come
Speaker 1: walking in. Okay. Well, the problem here with this is
Speaker 1: what guys do is they don't stick to that. So
Speaker 1: they stick to that for maybe a few hunts, and
Speaker 1: then they get floppy now we're hunting it on and
Speaker 1: well it's in east wind. Let's see what happened. In
Speaker 1: my opinion, if you blow a big buck off a
Speaker 1: bait pile like that and he wins you one time
Speaker 1: in daylight, I think you've really tipped him off. In Ohio,
Speaker 1: these bucks have been hunting for a couple of months now,
Speaker 1: So if you get tipped off like that, I think
Speaker 1: you've really, really, really decreased your odds. Um. So I'm
Speaker 1: not a huge proponent. I would tell guys I don't
Speaker 1: really want to hunt right over quote unquote debate. I
Speaker 1: want to kill a buck coming to it. I think
Speaker 1: a lot of bucks like to get to a food
Speaker 1: plot or or a bait station right at last light,
Speaker 1: which makes sense. Um, they're nervous. I've I've seen, you know,
Speaker 1: I've I've watched countless big deer come into food plots,
Speaker 1: come into standing beans, come into a bait pole. They're nervous,
Speaker 1: they know they need it, they want it, but or
Speaker 1: a nervous wreck once they get there. But I watched
Speaker 1: him for ten minutes at a hundred yards away, just
Speaker 1: meander around and look at the squirrels and look up
Speaker 1: in the air. And not a care in the world.
Speaker 1: That's where I want to hunt. So for me, I
Speaker 1: don't want if a buck gets spooked, I don't want
Speaker 1: him to correlate me in the food plot or me
Speaker 1: in the bait pile. I want him to just be like, Okay,
Speaker 1: something doesn't seem right. I'm going to back out of here.
Speaker 1: That's okay, But I'm a hundred yards away, you know.
Speaker 1: So I like to hunt deer transitioning to or from
Speaker 1: these spots. I think your odds of tipping them off
Speaker 1: or lower, and I think you can play with the
Speaker 1: wind a little more, so you can maybe hunt two
Speaker 1: out of the four winds instead of just one, because
Speaker 1: you're not hunting right over that bait. You know. So,
Speaker 1: I've got a direction of Okay, this deer's betting over here.
Speaker 1: He's gonna work in front of my stand, heading to
Speaker 1: the food plot, heading to the corn pile, heading to
Speaker 1: the standing beams. Chances are that's gonna be a pretty
Speaker 1: consistent pattern. So now I can probably base that off
Speaker 1: of two different winds, So now the time I should
Speaker 1: be able to slip in there and hunt. The problem
Speaker 1: with over the corn is you basically have like one
Speaker 1: wind that's gonna work really good for him. So now
Speaker 1: you've got to make that one wind work really great
Speaker 1: for you too. It's pretty hard to do that because
Speaker 1: you're sitting right over the bait. So for me, I
Speaker 1: want to be off. I want to catch that buck
Speaker 1: in a very relaxed manner. Maybe he's a hundred yards away.
Speaker 1: He's not close enough yet to where he's getting nervous.
Speaker 1: You know, he's thirty minutes away from it being dark.
Speaker 1: He's just kind of doing his thing, but he's working
Speaker 1: up to it. I feel like if guys were to
Speaker 1: hunt more like that, I think food plots, bait piles,
Speaker 1: even standing crops, I think odds would drastically go up
Speaker 1: because you gotta remember, these deer been hunted for a
Speaker 1: few months. So at this point, if they tipped off
Speaker 1: to anything, the gigs up, they're out of there. You know,
Speaker 1: they hear something, uh, they get a whiff of anything
Speaker 1: they don't like, they see you. You know, there's a
Speaker 1: lot working against you here, so you've got to really
Speaker 1: have your teas crossed, in your eyes dotted, and I
Speaker 1: think this lets you get away with a little more
Speaker 1: than being right over the food plot, right over the
Speaker 1: bait pile right over the standing beans. You know at
Speaker 1: that point if you screw up, um, they are going
Speaker 1: to correlate that immediately with whoa daylight danger? Nope, nope, nope, nope,
Speaker 1: Like I mean, it might be. I had a buddy
Speaker 1: last year, had a big deer pattern standing beans. He
Speaker 1: was hunting right over the beans. The buck winded him.
Speaker 1: This deer was on a pattern five days in a row.
Speaker 1: My buddy was waiting on the right wind. The wind
Speaker 1: shifts thermals actually or what got him in my opinion,
Speaker 1: but regardless, the wind shifts on him. Um the buck
Speaker 1: busting at sixty yards. This was on January. I want
Speaker 1: to say it was like the tenth that dear did
Speaker 1: not daylight again until February eighth. Our season ended the sixth.
Speaker 1: That dear daylighted for five days in a row, broad daylight,
Speaker 1: I mean thirty minutes of shooting light, broad daylight. He
Speaker 1: got busted one time and that buck said nope, not anymore.
Speaker 1: And it was seven o'clock, eight o'clock, seven thirty. I
Speaker 1: think the closest time was six thirty, and that was
Speaker 1: an hour, hour and fifteen minutes past shooting light. So
Speaker 1: I mean one time. I mind you, this was a
Speaker 1: six and a half seven and a half year old buck.
Speaker 1: But still regardless of even a three or four year old, Dear,
Speaker 1: they've been around the block long enough they you know,
Speaker 1: they can put that together. Hey, no, good smelled something
Speaker 1: I didn't like. That was the end and we had
Speaker 1: brutal cold tempts two ft of snow. I mean, January
Speaker 1: was rough last year, and that buck absolutely would not
Speaker 1: hit that plot until after dark, after he got winded.
Speaker 1: Wouldn't do it, not until literally two days after season
Speaker 1: he daylighted for the first time. Your margin for error
Speaker 1: is just so much smaller once you get to the
Speaker 1: later portion of the year, isn't it. Yeah? Um, so
Speaker 1: I want to I want to rewind just a little
Speaker 1: bit in touch on one more rut late rut layd
Speaker 1: thing before I dive fully into this next late season topic. Um,
Speaker 1: back to that late pre rut. I kind of took
Speaker 1: us off track with the corn question, but when when
Speaker 1: you were in that late November early December period. Still
Speaker 1: I think a lot of what you just talked about
Speaker 1: still applies. But one question that I still was curious
Speaker 1: about is kind of your rut hunting philosophy. I think
Speaker 1: there's there's two camps of people, I think, and I
Speaker 1: think most of us combine these two things. But you
Speaker 1: have some folks that like during the rut, whether it
Speaker 1: be early rut or maybe in this case, the late rut,
Speaker 1: some folks like to bounce around. It's like looking for
Speaker 1: hot sign, looking for hot action here, and if it's
Speaker 1: not happened today, they go to the next draw and
Speaker 1: see if it's happening there. And if it's not going there,
Speaker 1: they're gonna hike around midday and look at this and
Speaker 1: they're bounce and bounce and bouncing. There's another group of
Speaker 1: folks that have this man I'm gonna stick it out
Speaker 1: mentality where they're gonna find that great pinch point. Are
Speaker 1: they gonna find that saddle in the ridge, or they're
Speaker 1: gonna find an awesome dough betting area that sets up
Speaker 1: really nice, and they've got a bulletproof wind that blows
Speaker 1: out over a pond or something. They say, man, if
Speaker 1: I sit here dawn to dusk for three straight days
Speaker 1: or five straight days, eventually that big buck's gonna come
Speaker 1: through and they'll just wear that spot out volume hunted
Speaker 1: because they believe in it. Do you prefer one over
Speaker 1: the other or when do you choose one or the
Speaker 1: other at this time of the rut, the late rut. UM.
Speaker 1: I know I've heard you talk about really liking being mobile,
Speaker 1: but I'm curious, you know, if that applies in this
Speaker 1: situation or not. So I'm I'm I'm a confidence guy.
Speaker 1: Confidence is key, UM. I think if you are confident
Speaker 1: in a spot and that's what you believe in, that's
Speaker 1: what you need to do. UM. I think if you
Speaker 1: or the guy that's like, Nope, I need to bounce,
Speaker 1: I need to look for hot sign. When I find
Speaker 1: hot sign that gives me confidence, I'm gonna hunt that. Then.
Speaker 1: I think that's what you need to do. I don't
Speaker 1: think there's really a right or wrong answer, UM to
Speaker 1: that question. I think it's a great question for me personally.
Speaker 1: It usually floats back and forth from year to year. UM.
Speaker 1: I usually try to bounce around in the middle of
Speaker 1: the early the middle of the rut, I try to
Speaker 1: bounce around, and then closer to the end of the rut,
Speaker 1: I try to get real specific and real calculated on
Speaker 1: what I'm doing because I'm focusing more on Okay, my
Speaker 1: bucks should be coming back at some point. Um, So
Speaker 1: if I find hot sign on a freshly cut corn field,
Speaker 1: or I find hot sign on the down wind side
Speaker 1: of a dough betting area that's couple hundred yards off
Speaker 1: some beans that we just cut, or you know, I'm
Speaker 1: I'm looking for puzzle pieces. And once I start to
Speaker 1: find some puzzle pieces put together, that's kind of what
Speaker 1: I'm doing. Um, I'm not jumping around as much quote
Speaker 1: unquote being mobile as far as you know, place to place,
Speaker 1: spot to spot. I'm more or less trying now to
Speaker 1: key in on, Okay, what spots are going to be
Speaker 1: hot right now? And once I find those spots, I'm
Speaker 1: going to camp out. So I'm kind of combining them
Speaker 1: a little bit because I do want to see, Okay,
Speaker 1: what's happening right now? Where's hot sign? Where? What are
Speaker 1: what are the does doing? Where do they like to be? Okay,
Speaker 1: now I've got these two things pinned down. Okay, my
Speaker 1: buck hasn't showed up yet, but chances are I feel
Speaker 1: like he's gonna come back at any moment in time.
Speaker 1: So now I'm gonna transition and I'm gonna hunt these
Speaker 1: spots that in my mind are hot and I'm gonna
Speaker 1: probably volume hunt them and hope that I do bounce
Speaker 1: into him. Now the other side of this lane. Um,
Speaker 1: if you're not hunting a specific buck, I do think
Speaker 1: right now is a great time to say, Okay, I
Speaker 1: got hot scrapes opened up. On the other side of
Speaker 1: my farm, there's some fresh sign, there's some big rubs. Hey,
Speaker 1: you know what, throw caution into the wind. I'm going
Speaker 1: over there and I'm gonna hunt it for a day
Speaker 1: or two and see what happens. If nothing happens, I'm
Speaker 1: going to bounce around to the other side. I mean,
Speaker 1: like I said, I can see both sides, and I've
Speaker 1: done both. Um for me, I do tend to kind
Speaker 1: of side with the I do want to find fresh
Speaker 1: hot sign, but I'm probably going to camp there for
Speaker 1: a while because in my opinion, now dear more on
Speaker 1: the pattern type game. So those hot spots should stay
Speaker 1: hot for a while, and that's gonna be based off
Speaker 1: probably food, Um what the does are doing. So I'm
Speaker 1: going to focus a lot of attention on finding the
Speaker 1: hot sign via feed via the doze buck sign should
Speaker 1: now be there. Um, that's kind of where I'm going
Speaker 1: to camp out and I'm only gonna make moves if
Speaker 1: something's telling me that I'm not in the correct spot,
Speaker 1: maybe I need to move a hundred yards uphill, or
Speaker 1: maybe I need to you know, uh, swing around to
Speaker 1: the other side of this this betting area that's been
Speaker 1: really hot. You know, Like I m I might make
Speaker 1: little calculated moves, but I'm not gonna make giant jump
Speaker 1: over to the next farm or move a mile away
Speaker 1: type stuff. I'm gonna stay pretty committed to that. But
Speaker 1: like I said, though, I'm focusing on those patterns, and
Speaker 1: I'm hoping that if I put all my eggs in
Speaker 1: that basket, that's confidence for me. It's gonna pay off eventually.
Speaker 1: Sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn't. But for me,
Speaker 1: that gives me confidence UM to kind of go back
Speaker 1: to that um. But but I I definitely can see
Speaker 1: and I've been the guy that just continues to bounce.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna hunt this funnel, I'm gonna hunt this dove thicket.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna hunt the edge of this food slot tomorrow night.
Speaker 1: I mean, definitely, both sides of that coin can be
Speaker 1: the winning ticket. I've got a lot of it. I
Speaker 1: internally have a lot of questions when I'm out hunting
Speaker 1: this time of year about my level of aggressiveness, because like, personally,
Speaker 1: as a hunter, you're trying to take advantage of this
Speaker 1: vanishing window, right, so you might want to be aggressive.
Speaker 1: On the flip side, these deer have been pressured for
Speaker 1: a very long time now, and so they're becoming more
Speaker 1: and more, you know, quick to burn out because they've
Speaker 1: been dealing with hunters for months on end now, especially
Speaker 1: after you know, the two or three weeks of November
Speaker 1: where there's been you know, every bow hunter in the
Speaker 1: world's going out there, let alone a lot of states
Speaker 1: have a gun season open by now. So I'm constantly
Speaker 1: trying to balance out. You know, how aggressive can I get?
Speaker 1: If I want to camp out somewhere and give it time,
Speaker 1: How do I do that and not burn this spot out? Um? Calling, decoying, rattling,
Speaker 1: all that kind of stuff that seems really hot to
Speaker 1: try out on November one? You know, is that to
Speaker 1: risk you know in November because every Yahoo's been doing
Speaker 1: it for twenty seven days? Um? What's your take on
Speaker 1: just like aggressive stuff like that, calling decoying, um, you know,
Speaker 1: just dealing with that pressure versus you know, burnout type
Speaker 1: of risk reward situation that we have now three months
Speaker 1: into the year. What's your take on that? So I'm
Speaker 1: very aggressive in being mobile and moving. I'm not afraid
Speaker 1: to bump a buck out of his bed. Um, My
Speaker 1: philosophy was how bucks bed are If they catch you
Speaker 1: and they blow out the bed did its job, that
Speaker 1: buck will come. He's gonna come right back. Why because
Speaker 1: that spot did exactly what he was supposed to do
Speaker 1: it either when did you? Uh, he saw you, he
Speaker 1: heard you? I mean you know. So if you try
Speaker 1: to break into my house three nights in a row
Speaker 1: and my alarm system catches you every time, I'm not
Speaker 1: gonna go move houses. I'm just gonna be I'm just
Speaker 1: gonna make sure I change my batteries in my alarm
Speaker 1: system because that's doing the trick. Like I'm not leaving
Speaker 1: my my house and my alarm system is doing what
Speaker 1: it's supposed to do to keep me alive. I'm not
Speaker 1: gonna go flee the country and move six states away.
Speaker 1: I think a buck's the same way. So for me,
Speaker 1: I'm very aggressive. Um, what I'm not aggressive on and
Speaker 1: this blows a lot of people's minds And I've written
Speaker 1: quite a few articles, and I've done a lot of
Speaker 1: podcasts with uh the Gang over at w CB and
Speaker 1: and even on my own series of DC Hunt Files
Speaker 1: with Working Class blow Hunter about this, and it blows
Speaker 1: people's mind every time. And they're like, I think half
Speaker 1: people believe me. Half people think I'm a liar. But
Speaker 1: it is what it is. I do not call, I
Speaker 1: don't decoy, I don't use sense um. Honestly, right now
Speaker 1: in my my pack at home, I don't even think
Speaker 1: I have a call in there. Um. It's just not
Speaker 1: my jam. I don't want to be seen, I don't
Speaker 1: want to be smelled. I don't want to be heard.
Speaker 1: I'm the guy that wants a buck to walk by
Speaker 1: completely oblivious to me even being there, and at thirty
Speaker 1: seven yards I left the air out of him. Um.
Speaker 1: He has no, no, absolute, no clue. So I am
Speaker 1: not aggressive in any way, shape or form when it
Speaker 1: comes to calls sense um. It's just not worked out
Speaker 1: for me. Um. I got to ask this question not
Speaker 1: that long ago out of like the one or two
Speaker 1: P and Y are better bucks that I've killed over
Speaker 1: the years. I have one that fell um too, calling
Speaker 1: one um. The amount of big deer that I have
Speaker 1: blown out and scared away via sense calls. It's a lot.
Speaker 1: So for me, it's just not my jam I have
Speaker 1: no confidence in it. Now. If you were to go
Speaker 1: call Austin Chandler from Working Class bow Hunter, if you
Speaker 1: were to go call Ross, Ross, Bigger Um, even Kurt Um.
Speaker 1: Those guys they get after it, They rattle, they call.
Speaker 1: They think I'm crazy, but they but they get it though.
Speaker 1: They're like, hey, man, what works for you works for you,
Speaker 1: you know. And for me, yeah, I'm not a sent guy,
Speaker 1: not a call guy. So when it comes to that stuff, oh,
Speaker 1: I am the least aggressive you'll ever meet, because I
Speaker 1: don't even take the stuff to the woods with me.
Speaker 1: I couldn't tell you last time I packed in whole
Speaker 1: earns um, rattle bag, etcetera, etcetera. It's just it's just
Speaker 1: not my jam um. But I'm very aggressive in moving
Speaker 1: and going after a buck. I feel like, when a
Speaker 1: buck is killable, you gotta pin your ears back and
Speaker 1: go in and go after him. I think a lot
Speaker 1: of guys sit back and wait for this, perfect opportunity,
Speaker 1: perfect day, perfect this, and I think guys let opportunities
Speaker 1: get away from him. Because they don't go hunt a
Speaker 1: buck because they're waiting on all these stars to align.
Speaker 1: I don't think stars align a lot. I think a
Speaker 1: lot of big deer get killed because guys go in
Speaker 1: and put themselves in a position for that deer to
Speaker 1: walk by. He might walk by, he might not, but
Speaker 1: if you're not there, he's definitely not gonna walk by
Speaker 1: it because you're not there. So I'm I'm very aggressive
Speaker 1: on tactic wise with being mobile. Um, I'll get right
Speaker 1: up in a buck's face, close to her he beds um, etcetera, etcetera.
Speaker 1: Doesn't bother me one bit. You tell me I've got
Speaker 1: to go call the buck in and I'm going to
Speaker 1: be a nervous rect That's just not my camp. Like
Speaker 1: he said, it goes back to confidence. Right. Let's say
Speaker 1: we're kind of transitioning more into and I think this
Speaker 1: could be applicable to late November, but also December or
Speaker 1: January or whatever when we're in that late season. You know,
Speaker 1: you talked about how you you want to be aggressive
Speaker 1: and finding those deer and getting close to their bedding.
Speaker 1: Years you talked about how you like to pick up
Speaker 1: that pattern again when they return. How how do you
Speaker 1: go about getting that pattern again, get finding that hot sign,
Speaker 1: or putting the pieces, the puzzle pieces together to develop
Speaker 1: a pattern on a deer in the late season when
Speaker 1: it just seems so easy to trigger this deer. Kind
Speaker 1: of going back to what we were talking about earlier. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I want to get all this information about what this
Speaker 1: buck's doing. But if he wins me one time, he
Speaker 1: might be nocturnal for the next month and a half.
Speaker 1: So how do you personally go about, you know, whether
Speaker 1: it be getting camera pictures or scouting on foot or
Speaker 1: whatever you're doing, how do you start putting that late
Speaker 1: season pattern together without letting them know that you're onto him?
Speaker 1: So I try. For me, the wind is everything I
Speaker 1: you know, a white tail lives and die by his
Speaker 1: by his nose. I'm living and dying by the wind
Speaker 1: in late season. Um. I try to let my glass
Speaker 1: spotting scope, binoculars and my trail cams do all my
Speaker 1: work for me. I don't go down in the timber.
Speaker 1: Um I am. I am being as as you know,
Speaker 1: least intrusive as I possibly can, trying to just find
Speaker 1: the buck or a good buck. Once I do get
Speaker 1: some photos or I do see one okay. At that point,
Speaker 1: now I will start to dive into the timber if
Speaker 1: need be, which typically usually I've got to do, and
Speaker 1: I will strategically based off that wind, only go in
Speaker 1: on days when I know I can step in, hang
Speaker 1: a camera, check a camera, hang a stand. You know,
Speaker 1: everything is based off the wind, and I can't base
Speaker 1: anything off the wind until I get some pictures of
Speaker 1: a buck and then I mark everything down. So a
Speaker 1: buck comes through at ten o'clock at night, what was
Speaker 1: the wind doing? He comes back through at four in
Speaker 1: the morning, what was the wind doing? Big dear, do
Speaker 1: things based off of that wind. There's a rhyme and
Speaker 1: a reason why. So my first step is I need
Speaker 1: to figure out what wind and why that's gonna lead
Speaker 1: me to okay, based off that, he's probably betting here
Speaker 1: or here. So now I'm staying away from any areas
Speaker 1: that he can pick me off, coming and going from
Speaker 1: a stand, coming and going from a camera while he's
Speaker 1: betted in those spots. Um last year was a prime example.
Speaker 1: I hunted that giant eight that I killed. I hunted
Speaker 1: him seventy six days for thirty of those last final
Speaker 1: probably well, let's see the last twenty out of thirty days.
Speaker 1: Last twenty five out of thirty days, I thought that
Speaker 1: buck was dead. Um. I got a photo of him
Speaker 1: on a Tuesday night, right after dark, coming from a
Speaker 1: south facing slope with the wind out of the west,
Speaker 1: knowing that as he worked off this south slope that
Speaker 1: wind was gonna come right across all the wide open
Speaker 1: fields he was heading up to cut cornfields. That was
Speaker 1: allowing him to send check everything as he made his
Speaker 1: way across the south facing ridge. The next day, another
Speaker 1: west wind. It's negative twenty it's even colder. Now. I
Speaker 1: know it's going to be brutal, but I know this
Speaker 1: buck's gonna be on his feed even earlier. I put
Speaker 1: a standing stick set form no vic's on my back
Speaker 1: and I went in and did a hanging hunt, and
Speaker 1: I killed him that night at five o'clock. Now that's
Speaker 1: ultra aggressive, but the window to get that deer killed
Speaker 1: was about two days. I had west winds for two
Speaker 1: more days, brutally cold. I knew the deer. I knew
Speaker 1: that Buck was betting on that south facer. He was
Speaker 1: gonna try to get as much sun as possible. I
Speaker 1: knew he had to move because it was so brutally
Speaker 1: cold foot and a half of snow deer half to feed.
Speaker 1: And I mean, when you lay all day and get
Speaker 1: stiff like that, I knew those deer were gonna have
Speaker 1: to move. So I'm like, okay, I'm gonna go in,
Speaker 1: hang a set and hope that in the next two
Speaker 1: days this buck's gonna walk by. He ends up walking
Speaker 1: by at thirty seven yards the next night, and I
Speaker 1: let the air out of him. That was a super
Speaker 1: super aggressive move, but that was my window. I didn't
Speaker 1: have time to get daylight pictures of him. I didn't
Speaker 1: have time to analyze everything. It was, Okay, he's back.
Speaker 1: It's a west wind. This makes sense. He's betting back
Speaker 1: on the same south facing slope that he bet it
Speaker 1: on an early season. He's coming to this cut corn.
Speaker 1: I have got to get my butt in between those
Speaker 1: two spots and hopefully he's gonna walk by me. I
Speaker 1: got two days of west winds and after that it's
Speaker 1: straight north wind for the next four or five. So
Speaker 1: my window was two days, and I'm like, you know
Speaker 1: what this is gonna and and I'm not one to
Speaker 1: sugarcoat it. I'm like, this is gonna suck. Hanging a step.
Speaker 1: So I left it one thirty in the afternoon. By
Speaker 1: two forty five, I was setting ready to go. It's
Speaker 1: I mean, my hands to this day are still frost bitten,
Speaker 1: and my right foot it's still frost bitten. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: I mean, it wasn't fun by any means, but I
Speaker 1: knew that was my window. Um My mom and dad
Speaker 1: at friends were like, your nuts, there's a weather advisory.
Speaker 1: Don't be breathing in the cold, don't be out there.
Speaker 1: I'm like, I get that, but this is my window.
Speaker 1: If you're not aggressive and you didn't go hang a
Speaker 1: stand and you didn't get in there and mix it up,
Speaker 1: that deer doesn't die. And that's the only reason why
Speaker 1: I killed that buck is because I had to, unfortunately
Speaker 1: pin the years back, put on a million layers stick
Speaker 1: handwarmers all over myself and just go get after it.
Speaker 1: And and it paid off for me. But like I said,
Speaker 1: it was a very short window, and I knew that
Speaker 1: in and in years past, I've set back, Well, let's
Speaker 1: wait and see if he shows back up. Well, let's
Speaker 1: see if he daylights tomorrow. And that's been a mistake
Speaker 1: on that book. I said, Nope, Tomorrow's the day I'm
Speaker 1: going in. I'm hanging the set. If I don't kill
Speaker 1: him Wednesday, I'm gonna hunt it Thursday, another west wind.
Speaker 1: You know. So it was a very aggressive move, but
Speaker 1: like I said, very short time window. And I've learned
Speaker 1: over the years there's just times when you've got to
Speaker 1: be aggressive and you just gotta pin the years back
Speaker 1: and go after it. And you know, hey, he might
Speaker 1: not have walked by either one of those nights, but
Speaker 1: I felt like I had odds in my favor. I
Speaker 1: felt like those were my windows. I had no choice.
Speaker 1: You want to kill this buck, You're gonna have to
Speaker 1: brave the elements and just go get after it. And
Speaker 1: unfortunately or or unfortunately for him, fortunately for me, it
Speaker 1: worked out that way, and he walked by at thirty
Speaker 1: seven and I was able to get him killed. But
Speaker 1: you know that, I think is a good example um
Speaker 1: of being really aggressive in late season. But with a plan.
Speaker 1: I knew I could get in and get out without
Speaker 1: being seen and detected. He wasn't gonna see me or
Speaker 1: win me from where he was betting. You know, I
Speaker 1: had a very strategic plan. It's just I had to
Speaker 1: act quick. There was no. You know, I remember changing
Speaker 1: the kids schedule around with their mom, and she, you know,
Speaker 1: she works, you know, her and I have a great relationship.
Speaker 1: She works with me all the time when it comes
Speaker 1: to hunting stuff. I'm like, hey, I gotta change this
Speaker 1: around what we're doing, you know. I'm like, these next
Speaker 1: two nights, I gotta hunt. She's like, dude, I get it,
Speaker 1: like get it done like you know. Which was great
Speaker 1: because the boys had kind of been following me all
Speaker 1: year with that buck, and I think they did more
Speaker 1: about that deer than anybody else. Honestly, they were. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they were talking about him at school and and I'd
Speaker 1: have you know, I went to parent teacher conference and
Speaker 1: like November, and the teacher was like, so, did we
Speaker 1: kill the Giant eight yet? And she's not, She's not
Speaker 1: a hunter by any means, but yeah, so so anyways, yeah,
Speaker 1: it all worked out great. But you know, could you know,
Speaker 1: is it always gonna work out like that? No? But
Speaker 1: that was one time where I'm like, hey, history repeats
Speaker 1: itself if you don't get aggressive right now, this buck's
Speaker 1: not dying. And I really truly don't think there was
Speaker 1: another window of time to kill that deer. Because I
Speaker 1: shot in January. The season end the sixth of February,
Speaker 1: there wasn't gonna be maybe but one more west wind
Speaker 1: night for the rest of the season. So those two
Speaker 1: days were my days. I had to had to get
Speaker 1: in there and nix it up. And uh, I paid
Speaker 1: the price on my hands. But I do have a
Speaker 1: giant eight hanging on the wall, so it was all
Speaker 1: well worth it. You weren't kidding about frostbite like that
Speaker 1: was an exaggeration. You literally are frost bit. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: both both my hand yeah yeah, I did. Uh yeah,
Speaker 1: both both my hands are Um, they were purple for
Speaker 1: a while. They didn't turn black. But the doctor told
Speaker 1: me flat out, you know, He's like, you, You're gonna
Speaker 1: have this forever, like this is this is gonna be
Speaker 1: a thing. So like if I have a cold beer, um,
Speaker 1: I can maybe have a beer or two, um without
Speaker 1: a couzy. But if I'm gonna sit around and have
Speaker 1: five six beers with a buddy or something like that, oh,
Speaker 1: after about the second one, I've got to have a
Speaker 1: couzy or I gotta be switching hands all the time. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's I definitely paid the price. I shoot a hinge.
Speaker 1: So I never wear gloves, and if I do, they're
Speaker 1: like cut off. So I had handwarmers in my pocket.
Speaker 1: But what it was is that hinge is brass. And
Speaker 1: then the grip on my bow. Um, that's what really
Speaker 1: got me was I was holding my bow. I was
Speaker 1: at full draw two different times. I probably had my
Speaker 1: hands on the release and on the bow for five
Speaker 1: or six minutes, and I could feel it sticking. I
Speaker 1: knew it wasn't gonna be good, but you know, when
Speaker 1: you've got a world class eight in front of probably
Speaker 1: the biggest aid I'll ever hunt at that time, I
Speaker 1: wasn't really too concerned about this, not just different. Yeah, man, Um,
Speaker 1: So it seems like a big part of the success
Speaker 1: there is the big part of a lot of late
Speaker 1: season hunts, which is timing. Um, you had this weather
Speaker 1: window and then you have the camera picture that told
Speaker 1: you like he's close. Um. I want to kind of
Speaker 1: get a little more detail on both of those things.
Speaker 1: But let's first start with the camera thing, because I
Speaker 1: think for a lot of guys, you know, like you mentioned,
Speaker 1: they're kind of waiting for the stars to align during
Speaker 1: the late season UM, and pictures. You know, whether you're
Speaker 1: waiting for all the stars to align or something to align.
Speaker 1: Pictures can be a big part of that. When it
Speaker 1: comes to your late camera or certain late season camera strategy.
Speaker 1: Where where are you placing your cameras in the late
Speaker 1: season and are you running all cell cameras during this
Speaker 1: time of year? Is it traditional and cell like? How
Speaker 1: does that mix up look at this time of year
Speaker 1: and how do you use them different? If so so,
Speaker 1: I'm trying to run as many cells with Lyzie at
Speaker 1: the ums that I can because that's gonna I don't
Speaker 1: have to go in and change batteries, I don't have
Speaker 1: to go in and check the s D card, and
Speaker 1: I can have up to date real time photos UM.
Speaker 1: For me, I'm looking for high volume area of a
Speaker 1: deer to start with. I want hot food source, standing beans,
Speaker 1: specially cut corn field UM. Maybe it's an oak ridge
Speaker 1: that dropped late in the deer or just digging like
Speaker 1: crazy for it. I want to find hottest feed source.
Speaker 1: I want to find the main conjunction or the or
Speaker 1: the main UM. I guess you could say the hub
Speaker 1: of where all the local deer coming to feed. There's
Speaker 1: usually somewhere that's super hot at this time, that's where
Speaker 1: I want to be, so I'll scout find that um.
Speaker 1: For me, it's a lot of eggs field, a lot
Speaker 1: of farm countries, so it's typically usually some type of
Speaker 1: field or some type of Maybe it's some standing beans,
Speaker 1: maybe it's um. Like I said, in an an oak
Speaker 1: ridge that they fell late in it's just getting pounded now.
Speaker 1: But I'm looking for highest areas of volume when it
Speaker 1: comes to deer because I'm not necessarily worried about what
Speaker 1: time a buck showing up to this At this point,
Speaker 1: I just need to know, Okay, this is where this
Speaker 1: deer is concentrating on feeding. Now I can backtrack him
Speaker 1: and try to figure out where's he bed. Why is
Speaker 1: he not getting here until an hour after dark? You know?
Speaker 1: Now I can start to put the puzzle pieces together.
Speaker 1: But I'm looking for you know, basically food food food,
Speaker 1: food food, because right now that's all deer worried about.
Speaker 1: They're worried about feed and cover. So once I figure
Speaker 1: out where the hot food sources now I can backtrack
Speaker 1: and start figuring out based off the wind. Um. I'm
Speaker 1: a huge note guy. Um. I think I do more
Speaker 1: homework for Elk white Tail's antelope and mule deer and
Speaker 1: turkeys than I ever did in any college many year
Speaker 1: of college or high school. Um, I'm always jotting stuff
Speaker 1: down constantly. UM, wind direction, barometer, weather fronts. Um. I'm
Speaker 1: like I said, I'm a big pattern guys. So the
Speaker 1: analytics of this for me, you're huge and patterns usually
Speaker 1: always jump out at me. So on this late season deal, Um,
Speaker 1: it seems like there's always a certain wind direction that
Speaker 1: they love to use, especially in daylight. If they're going
Speaker 1: to come to a food source or they're coming to
Speaker 1: a certain spot, there's always some type of wind direction
Speaker 1: typically that's going to allow them to send check for
Speaker 1: a few hundred yards where they ever get there. Um,
Speaker 1: they're on high alert. They've been hunted for months, so
Speaker 1: that all makes sense. So that's kind of my philosophy
Speaker 1: is figure out hot feed and then I'm going to
Speaker 1: backtrack based off the wind, which should unlock the keys
Speaker 1: to okay, where they betting, Because once I figure out
Speaker 1: what wind he likes, that deer is coming from a
Speaker 1: betting area to get to this speed source. Typically he's
Speaker 1: going to have the wind in his face or quartering
Speaker 1: to him all the time. The entire time in the
Speaker 1: late seas, and that deer wants to know what is
Speaker 1: out in front of mean. Um, you know, he's not
Speaker 1: gonna walk with that wind at his back. He's been
Speaker 1: hunting for months, you know what. We're talking to mature buck.
Speaker 1: So that wind unlocks a lot of secrets to me.
Speaker 1: Once I can figure that out what this deer likes.
Speaker 1: That usually unlocks where he's betting, where a staging area
Speaker 1: might be, etcetera, etcetera, and then from there I can
Speaker 1: figure out, Okay, where's my highest percentage play to kill
Speaker 1: this buck? Do I need to be thirty minutes off
Speaker 1: the food source because he's never getting here in daylight
Speaker 1: based off my cell camps, but he's here right after dark,
Speaker 1: so he is moving in daylight. He's just not getting
Speaker 1: here in time. Okay, I need to I need to
Speaker 1: kill him where he's staging up, where he's transitioning from
Speaker 1: that bed to feed pattern, or maybe he is daylighting
Speaker 1: on the food source, but it's only on a south wind,
Speaker 1: or it's only on a southeast wind. Okay, when am
Speaker 1: I going to have those winds? On those winds? I
Speaker 1: need to be right there, you know, because it is
Speaker 1: nice to not have to go into the timber um.
Speaker 1: I try to set things up where I don't have
Speaker 1: to go down into the timber and I can hunt
Speaker 1: more or less on edges or close to edges where
Speaker 1: I'm not having to go walk through the woods, because
Speaker 1: like I said, you know, you bump one dough during
Speaker 1: this time of the year and she blows for twenty minutes,
Speaker 1: and then everybody else blows and then before you know it,
Speaker 1: all thirty deer have blown out and now you're completely
Speaker 1: wrecked for the next five days. So I'm trying to
Speaker 1: be as as you know, the least amount of intrusive
Speaker 1: as I can with this um, but it is it
Speaker 1: is a system, you know, and sometimes you gotta kind
Speaker 1: of think quick on your feet. Just like you know
Speaker 1: the Big Eight from last year, that was a a picture.
Speaker 1: He's alive, okay, based off what I know, he's probably
Speaker 1: been here. He's coming here to feed. I've got the
Speaker 1: picture of him doing that. I gotta get in the
Speaker 1: middle tomorrow and kill him. So sometimes it's it's you
Speaker 1: almost gotta put together a really quick plan. Other times
Speaker 1: it might take a week or two to really figure
Speaker 1: a buck out um and figure out the best approach
Speaker 1: to killing him, you know, and like I said, the
Speaker 1: wind in the hot food source. For me, those are
Speaker 1: the two things that really kind of hold the keys
Speaker 1: to the car. I guess you could say, do you
Speaker 1: give any consideration to these other factors that that frequently
Speaker 1: get brought up really the whole season, but definitely in
Speaker 1: the late season too, like the weather, like those temperature drops,
Speaker 1: the frigid cold, snow, uh moon, anything moon related, bare
Speaker 1: metric pressure. Do any of those factoring for you? So,
Speaker 1: I'm a huge red moon guy. You know, there's certain
Speaker 1: days of the month where the you know, the sun
Speaker 1: is setting or the sun is setting, the moon is rising. Um,
Speaker 1: I like, you know, I like that that new moon
Speaker 1: right after those red moon dates. I'm a big I'm
Speaker 1: a big new moon guy. Um. That stuff all does correlate.
Speaker 1: But weather is king. Um, I don't care what the
Speaker 1: moon's doing. You get a cold front coming in, cold
Speaker 1: front coming out, or even the backside of a cold
Speaker 1: front in the first warm front day where those deer like,
Speaker 1: oh my gosh, it's thirty degrees instead of ten. Those
Speaker 1: big drops higher low are great. And let's be honest,
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, deer can only sit in the
Speaker 1: cold for so long before they have to go replenish calories.
Speaker 1: So like last year was a prime example that Big
Speaker 1: eight had been gone for a long time. I mean
Speaker 1: we're talking weeks. I had seven or eight cameras running,
Speaker 1: cell cams running for that buck. I thought he was dead.
Speaker 1: But when that cold spell come in of three or
Speaker 1: four days of negative twenty negative fifteen two ft of snow,
Speaker 1: he had to go to a hot food source, and
Speaker 1: that deer had to start moving way earlier than what
Speaker 1: he was doing. He come back to his home area,
Speaker 1: come back to what he knew, bedded on a ridge
Speaker 1: that he knew was safe. It was south space, and
Speaker 1: he's getting the sun. So you know, yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: weather is a huge factor. You give me cold and
Speaker 1: snow in January, and I'm honestly going to tell you
Speaker 1: that's my favorite months of the entire white tail season.
Speaker 1: To kill a big buck. You give me cold and
Speaker 1: snow in January. I am a happy, dangerous man. Yeah,
Speaker 1: especially for someone who loves to pattern deer right, because uh,
Speaker 1: that works in favor for that style honeying a lot. Always. Yes,
Speaker 1: my that makes me extremely happy and in my confidence
Speaker 1: level sores. When I see January second, it's going to
Speaker 1: be fifteen degrees and there's a six inches of snow
Speaker 1: coming tomorrow. Yeah, I'm I'm very if I have a
Speaker 1: buck tag in my pocket, I am man. I am
Speaker 1: chopping up a bit to get after it. Yeah, So
Speaker 1: what do you do when that never comes? Like, what's
Speaker 1: let's say you're after either you're after a specific buck
Speaker 1: or any buck, but it's late season and the season
Speaker 1: is dwindling, and you're just getting mild lousy tempts all
Speaker 1: the way through. At some point, do you just say, well,
Speaker 1: it looks like the forecast is never gonna give me
Speaker 1: that great temp drop. I just gotta do something crazy.
Speaker 1: I gotta try anyways, or or what do you do
Speaker 1: when you're stuck with lousy weather? Yeah? I mean I
Speaker 1: think you've got to go back to you know, you
Speaker 1: you've got to hunt smart and still have a plan,
Speaker 1: but I think you've got to hunt with confidence that Okay,
Speaker 1: one of these nights, this buck's gonna get up on
Speaker 1: his feet and he's gonna want to come to this
Speaker 1: hot food source and he's just gonna decide, Hey, you
Speaker 1: know what, I'm just gonna come here early and you
Speaker 1: catch him working from bed to feed, or you shoot
Speaker 1: him on the edge of a field or whatever. You know.
Speaker 1: I think at that point you're at a crossroads. You
Speaker 1: can either not hunt because conditions aren't in your favor,
Speaker 1: or you keep grinding and you hope that the one
Speaker 1: or two nights out of those thirty days of lousy weather,
Speaker 1: he decides he's gonna get up and move on a
Speaker 1: wind that he likes, and you're just there. Um for me, man,
Speaker 1: like you said in the beginning, I'm a grinder, So
Speaker 1: I'm gonna continue to hunt. I'm gonna hunt smart, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna continue to hopefully let the patterns play out for me. Um.
Speaker 1: That can be mentally tough, because, yeah, it's not fun
Speaker 1: to hunt in forty five degree weather and mud and
Speaker 1: muck throughout January. Um, that's not really forcing deer to move,
Speaker 1: but that also deters a lot of guys from hunting.
Speaker 1: You know, there's a lot of guys that don't want
Speaker 1: to huntree weather, and there's a lot of guys that
Speaker 1: don't want to hunt negative fifteen. So both extremes usually
Speaker 1: take a lot of guys out of the woods. That
Speaker 1: is one good thing, Um, The other thing you've got
Speaker 1: going for you is, you know, on on on warmer
Speaker 1: weather days, UM, when you do have a temperature drop,
Speaker 1: that usually significantly gets deer up on their feet. So
Speaker 1: let's say it's gonna go from forty five down to
Speaker 1: it's fort during the day, it's gonna drop down to
Speaker 1: twenty at night. The next day it's going to be
Speaker 1: in the thirties, and it's gonna go back up into
Speaker 1: the forties fifties again. Okay, that one day is probably
Speaker 1: gonna be your window you need to be in the
Speaker 1: woods because that that weather drop, even though it's still
Speaker 1: not super cold, you dropped twelve fifteen degrees, And I realized,
Speaker 1: thirties not that cold in January, but when it was
Speaker 1: forty six, Now you're dropping down to thirty. So I
Speaker 1: guess you just got to look at it as you've
Speaker 1: got to find confidence, and you've got to find the
Speaker 1: positive in lousy weather in late season, um, and still
Speaker 1: find those little windows where Okay, it's not cold, but
Speaker 1: it is going to go from forty five down to thirty.
Speaker 1: That's a fifteen degrees drop for a deer. That's a
Speaker 1: big deal. That's gonna get them on their feet. You know,
Speaker 1: you've got that brahmic pressure rising and falling because of
Speaker 1: that before and after that day. Those are all things
Speaker 1: that are going to get a deer to get up
Speaker 1: and start moving. So yes, is it ideal? No, I'm
Speaker 1: the guy that wants cold and snow the entire month
Speaker 1: of December, January, and early February, that's me. Do I
Speaker 1: always get that? Absolutely not? But when I do get that, boy,
Speaker 1: oh boy, I'm happy. Yeah, I'm right there with you.
Speaker 1: Here's my Here's one thing I'm wondering about, Like, I'm
Speaker 1: curious how you pull this off with the with the
Speaker 1: late season grind approach, which is, you know, keeping after
Speaker 1: deer day after day after day, you know, knowing that
Speaker 1: you got to catch that one or two maybe that
Speaker 1: one time he makes a mistake in December, January or
Speaker 1: whatever it is. How do you do that without educating deer?
Speaker 1: Especially in your exits, you know, those evening hunts. Getting
Speaker 1: out is so hard, especially when you're trying to hunt
Speaker 1: near hot food source. What's your access and exit strategy
Speaker 1: this time of the year when it just seems like
Speaker 1: really particularly hard to get away with it, especially getting
Speaker 1: you know, if you're anywhere near food at the end
Speaker 1: of the night. How do you how do you pull
Speaker 1: that off? So for for me, I'm still I'm I'm
Speaker 1: basing everything off the wind. So I'm not gonna hunt
Speaker 1: on nights when that wind is not in my favor.
Speaker 1: I hunt winds that are good for the deer. So like,
Speaker 1: if a buck is he's a fan of an east wind, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna hunt on east wind night, but I'm gonna
Speaker 1: make my set up to where that east wind also
Speaker 1: is good for me and the buck. I think a
Speaker 1: lot of guys they they want to hunt a wind
Speaker 1: that's good for them, and that's usually not a good
Speaker 1: wind for the buck. And you've got to think of
Speaker 1: it as, Okay, what win does this buck like? Now,
Speaker 1: how do I make that wind? So there's a lot
Speaker 1: of setups of mine that are very edgy. I am
Speaker 1: quartering a wind, so I am on the verge of disaster.
Speaker 1: But I'm I'm allowing myself an opportunity. If I play
Speaker 1: my scent control right, I play my thermals right, I
Speaker 1: should be able to get away with this. Very rarely
Speaker 1: is it a perfect scenario. And I think that's where
Speaker 1: some guys get in trouble. They're looking for this perfect
Speaker 1: wind for the buck, and then they're trying to make
Speaker 1: that perfect for them. I'm the guy that floirts with
Speaker 1: disaster because I'm a little more aggressive on that. Normally,
Speaker 1: I'm not able to get a perfect wind for the
Speaker 1: buck and make that a perfect wind for me. I've
Speaker 1: usually got to kind of run the quartering wind deal
Speaker 1: where yes, can I get away with this? Yes? But
Speaker 1: could this spell disaster for me too if deer would
Speaker 1: loop around me or they run maybe uh a j
Speaker 1: hook around me. Yes. So I try to set myself
Speaker 1: up with all those things in mind. Um, I'm staying
Speaker 1: after a buck, with cameras, with glassing, with with trying
Speaker 1: to figure everything out best I can. But I will
Speaker 1: not come off my wind plan. I will not hunt
Speaker 1: on a wind that is not right for me. As
Speaker 1: far as I know, I'm gonna probably get winded or like,
Speaker 1: I'm never gonna throw caution to the wind. So I
Speaker 1: will have multiple stand setups that's gonna allow me to
Speaker 1: hunt different winds. But realistically, maybe only one or two
Speaker 1: of those three or four are probably where he's going
Speaker 1: to be killed. The other ones might be observation sits.
Speaker 1: The other ones might be in spots that are a
Speaker 1: few hundred yards off. Could he walk by, yes, But
Speaker 1: realistically it's just giving me opportunity. Yes, is there an opportunity,
Speaker 1: for sure, But I'm not gonna get aggressive and hunt
Speaker 1: him hard on nights where everything's not in my favor
Speaker 1: as far as mainly that wind, because yeah, if you
Speaker 1: get sloppy with entry and exit, if you get sloppy
Speaker 1: with the wind and you're getting winded, I mean it's
Speaker 1: it's only gonna take a few times, and every deer
Speaker 1: figures out what's going on. Um one or two times
Speaker 1: in the big buck figures it out. So for me,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm very very particular with what nights I'm
Speaker 1: gonna hunt. Entry and exit's huge. Um, I don't get
Speaker 1: sloppy with that. If i have to loop clear around
Speaker 1: a half a mile and I'm not getting back to
Speaker 1: my truck till seven o'clock at night and it's dark
Speaker 1: at five thirty, I mean, honestly, yeah, it does suck
Speaker 1: at times, but that's just the game. Sometimes you gotta play.
Speaker 1: Um trying to get off the fields are off of
Speaker 1: food sources where there's a lot of deer Um. I'm
Speaker 1: a big proponent of ironic Um. So it's funny. I
Speaker 1: don't call for d year, but I'll call it to
Speaker 1: get deer out of the field. So I'll run. Um,
Speaker 1: I'll screech on an owl hoot, which will sound nothing
Speaker 1: like an owl, but it's a foreign noise that they
Speaker 1: don't know what's going on, and they'll none of them
Speaker 1: will blow, but they just get the heck out of there.
Speaker 1: Forty minutes later, they're all right back in front of
Speaker 1: my camera. Sometimes I'll bark like a dog. Um. I've
Speaker 1: I've taken a coyote haller in there with me. I
Speaker 1: do things to clear the field that is not human related. Um.
Speaker 1: I've had my dad drives back before on a tractor. Um,
Speaker 1: and hey you know it's past dark. Hey you need
Speaker 1: to spread manure. Come back here close to this field
Speaker 1: and spread it. And that's going to clear this field
Speaker 1: for me. They're used to tractors, they're used to trucks,
Speaker 1: you know whatever. So I kind of get creative on that,
Speaker 1: because yeah, you don't just want to say as screw it.
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna get down and five or six old
Speaker 1: mature does watch a climb out of this tree walk
Speaker 1: across the field. Yeah, I'm definitely not playing that game. Um,
Speaker 1: that is flirting with disaster in a way that I
Speaker 1: don't want to flirt with it. So yeah, yeah, that
Speaker 1: can that can spiral a late season hunt real quick. Yeah. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: What when it comes to that time of year? Client,
Speaker 1: what do you do? What do you do that other
Speaker 1: hunters or that your buddies think is nuts? All right? Like,
Speaker 1: I know you talked about and during the rut you're
Speaker 1: not much for calling a lot of people think you're
Speaker 1: nuts there, But what about in the late season? Is
Speaker 1: there anything you do that's off the wall or unexpected
Speaker 1: or just different than the usual that folks when they
Speaker 1: hear are like, huh. I definitely think the cold weather
Speaker 1: and being able to grind in that in that type
Speaker 1: of environment. A lot of people are like, man, a
Speaker 1: deer is just not worth it to me for that,
Speaker 1: And I get that, Um, I mean I definitely get that.
Speaker 1: But I think for me, my biggest thing is I
Speaker 1: zero in even harder on my tactic in my plans
Speaker 1: because I know these bucks are on edge more so,
Speaker 1: I think I almost get sharper as the year goes
Speaker 1: on and not lazier, and I think it's a that's
Speaker 1: an opposite for a lot of guys. I think a
Speaker 1: lot of guys in late season are lacking confidence. They're
Speaker 1: just kind of lacks of days ago. They're just kind
Speaker 1: of doing it because they need to do it because
Speaker 1: they still have a buck tag, but they're not really
Speaker 1: wholeheartedly in it. Um, They're just kind of like, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: I hunted. Uh, you know, I didn't really have a plan. Um,
Speaker 1: I'm not really sure what the wind was doing, but yeah,
Speaker 1: I was out there, I was trying. I am very, very,
Speaker 1: very calculated, and I'm I'm probably more calculated then than
Speaker 1: I am any other time of the season, and me
Speaker 1: getting floppy in my younger years cost me late season,
Speaker 1: big deer. Um, there's nothing worse than sitting three or
Speaker 1: four hours on a fifteen degree day only two have
Speaker 1: a wind you because you got sloppy and didn't adjust
Speaker 1: your set up for that wind that day and said,
Speaker 1: as screw, and I'm just gonna hunt the stand it's
Speaker 1: already there. I don't want to climb, I don't want
Speaker 1: to do a hanging bang or a mobile type hunt tonight.
Speaker 1: I just don't feel like it. Buck comes in at
Speaker 1: seventy yards and wins you. I mean that's you know
Speaker 1: that happened to me a time or two. And you
Speaker 1: know that kick to the gut was enough for me
Speaker 1: to be like, Okay, if we're gonna do this late
Speaker 1: season deal, we're gonna do it with a plan and
Speaker 1: a purpose and we're not cutting corners. And I think
Speaker 1: now for me, I'm honestly more particular and probably more
Speaker 1: calculated then because I know the stakes are higher times
Speaker 1: running out or in the fourth quarter. Um, at this
Speaker 1: point in time, I've got to pin my ears back
Speaker 1: and go. But I've also got to have a plan
Speaker 1: of attack that's almost foolproof. UM. So yeah, for me,
Speaker 1: I I think it's probably my attention to detail is
Speaker 1: even greater now than it is an the other time.
Speaker 1: And I think a lot of people it's the opposite
Speaker 1: of that, And I think that gets a lot of
Speaker 1: guys in trouble. And like I said, that has got
Speaker 1: me in trouble, and I've learned from that. Um put
Speaker 1: my hand on the hot stove once or twice, and
Speaker 1: I was like, man, I don't like that. It burnt,
Speaker 1: So I don't do that anymore, you know. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: it's hard though. It is really hard at that time
Speaker 1: of year, that's for sure. All Right, I want I
Speaker 1: want to do one last I got one last scenario
Speaker 1: to run past you, Clint. And this is a this
Speaker 1: is a hypothetical kind of situation. I want to imagine
Speaker 1: yourself in. Let's imagine that for whatever reason, I have
Speaker 1: control over your hunting this year. Will say it, We'll
Speaker 1: say it's next year, and before the season starts, I
Speaker 1: tell you, hey, buddy, sorry, but you can't hunt at
Speaker 1: all this year except for one day. You only get
Speaker 1: one day of this hunting season, and you gotta kill
Speaker 1: You gotta kill a mature buck. And if you don't
Speaker 1: kill a mature buck on this one day, I'm taking
Speaker 1: away you're hunting license for an ten years, alright, man,
Speaker 1: super super high stakes. And I'm gonna limit your choice
Speaker 1: of days and tell you that you can't pick any
Speaker 1: day before November, the day that this podcast would hypothetically
Speaker 1: come out, So you get to pick one single date
Speaker 1: on the calendar between November and the end of your
Speaker 1: hunting season. I would like to know what date you
Speaker 1: would pick, why you would pick that date, And then
Speaker 1: I would like to hear what you would, you know,
Speaker 1: assuming you pick that day and assuming whatever conditions you want,
Speaker 1: what would be your best set up? If you could
Speaker 1: describe for me the kind of spot you'd want to
Speaker 1: be in, what all all the pieces to this perfect
Speaker 1: late season set up might look like. To try to
Speaker 1: kill a buck with these very very high stakes, Can
Speaker 1: you walk me through what day and how you do it? Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go with probably around January a twentieth. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna want so. At this point in the game, muzzleoter
Speaker 1: seasons are over. Shotgun rifle seasons are over. Most guys
Speaker 1: are out of the woods. I've pretty much kind of
Speaker 1: you know, everybody's back to the NFL. We're in the playoffs,
Speaker 1: super Bowl time. College football has done it over with um,
Speaker 1: but the NFL is still rocking and rolling. So people
Speaker 1: still drinking craft beer from Christmas or washing football. UM.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna want cold and snow. Um, cold and snow.
Speaker 1: That time of the year it forces dear to feed,
Speaker 1: forces dear to get on their feet. They're not able
Speaker 1: to sit there and burn calories all day and into
Speaker 1: the night. Um. They want and have a need to
Speaker 1: get up and move and get to food. Sources get
Speaker 1: to feed. So my plan is on this one day,
Speaker 1: I've got cold and snow. Um. At this point, I
Speaker 1: got a buck figured out. I know what wind direction
Speaker 1: he likes. Chances are, um, he's gonna bet on a
Speaker 1: south facing slope somewhere, which is gonna get all the
Speaker 1: sun that keeps him in the sun. Now, what I've
Speaker 1: learned from a lot of these mature bucks are they
Speaker 1: like to move with that sunline, so that deer will
Speaker 1: get up and do a little bit of moving to
Speaker 1: keep himself in the sun. But he's not working his
Speaker 1: way out to a food source. So I'm knowing that
Speaker 1: we've got all this cold and snow. Um. He probably
Speaker 1: hasn't been pressured a whole lot here recent because a
Speaker 1: lot of guys have hung it up. They're done hunting.
Speaker 1: Obviously it's the end of season, so he has been
Speaker 1: hunted for months. But I'm gonna go I'm I'm banking
Speaker 1: on I have not pressured this buck. I've I've only
Speaker 1: got one day, so this deer, realistically, he's gotta need
Speaker 1: to feed. I've got the weather in my favor, I've
Speaker 1: got the wind figured out. Um, I've got pinned down
Speaker 1: in the south facing slope that I know he likes
Speaker 1: to bet on. I want to be somewhere probably between
Speaker 1: seventy five and maybe a hundred yards off this hot
Speaker 1: food store, and as this buck works by at about
Speaker 1: twenty five yards quartering away, I'm gonna bend the limbs
Speaker 1: back and I'm gonna crush his soul and I'm gonna
Speaker 1: party the night of the Probably that's my strategy. That's
Speaker 1: my game plan UM for me. I just you know,
Speaker 1: it's tough to be a really really good, cold, snowy,
Speaker 1: late season day if you got it here on a
Speaker 1: pattern and you've got things figured out. I mean, it
Speaker 1: really does stack a lot of chips in your favorite UM.
Speaker 1: Second place would be early season, right off the rip,
Speaker 1: that first week, based off of what summer pattern I
Speaker 1: have and all the pieces I've put together all summer
Speaker 1: trying to figure a buck out. That would be if
Speaker 1: we had a consolation prize date, it would be like
Speaker 1: September twenty seven, when our Steven opens. Yeah. I like
Speaker 1: the plan. It sounds it's well thought through. I think
Speaker 1: you'd be able to pull it off. You'd be a
Speaker 1: keep on hunting and enjoy those beers. Oh love and
Speaker 1: better than a than a good cold a good cold
Speaker 1: frosty beer after a after an arrow runs through a
Speaker 1: big Buck in January. I've been fortunate enough to have
Speaker 1: a couple of those and it, Uh yeah, those beers
Speaker 1: they just taste a little bit better on those nights.
Speaker 1: I'm just telling you, man, I believe it. I believe it, Clint.
Speaker 1: I I appreciate this, man, It's been fun. I'm I'm
Speaker 1: feeling good about my late rut late Hunts coming up
Speaker 1: here now with some new ideas. Um, can you real
Speaker 1: quick give folks the rundown of where they can see
Speaker 1: your work, where they can listen to the podcast, where
Speaker 1: they can find some me or writing anything else you
Speaker 1: want to plug out? Absolutely, my man. So Um, I'm
Speaker 1: I'm the host of CEC Hunt Files via Working Class
Speaker 1: bow Hunter platform. I do a lot of stuff with
Speaker 1: the gang over there, Kurt and Doug, Eric, Austin Ross,
Speaker 1: all the guys over there. I've been with them for
Speaker 1: quite a few years now. Um still still come on
Speaker 1: the actual original series. Um, they've got the Jury Deer
Speaker 1: cast Um series. I get on that from time to time,
Speaker 1: but I've got my own series. It drops every Wednesday.
Speaker 1: CC Hunt files. Um as far as writing goes, Man,
Speaker 1: I've been in that game for I think this will
Speaker 1: be my twelfth year now. I been with Peterson's Ball
Speaker 1: hunting like full time for going on six years. So
Speaker 1: that's kind of my home base. Um. Shout out to
Speaker 1: Christian Burg and and all the guys over there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they take good care of me. They they let me
Speaker 1: kind of pick and choose what I want to write
Speaker 1: and kind of I can throw my ideas out. And
Speaker 1: it's been a long journey. I remember in college I
Speaker 1: started writing, and um, man, I think I got turned
Speaker 1: down like sixteen or seventeen times by like the big
Speaker 1: boys in the industry. And then finally, uh, finally, uh
Speaker 1: Christian pretty much stead He's like, man, I'm I'm just
Speaker 1: getting tired of you. Like I'm just gonna give you
Speaker 1: a shot because you know, once again being a grinder.
Speaker 1: He's like, man, He's like, you know, we don't really
Speaker 1: have space for you, but we're gonna give you a go.
Speaker 1: Um And yeah, it's it's just you know, I'm very
Speaker 1: thankful for that opportunity and that's blossomed int. I've written
Speaker 1: for North American Whitetail and Deer and deer Hunting, bow Hunter, Outdoor,
Speaker 1: live stield, just doing pretty much any of the major
Speaker 1: ones I've I've been blessed to be in in those,
Speaker 1: um you know, home base like I said, Peterson's bow Hunting,
Speaker 1: But I freelanced for a lot of companies and a
Speaker 1: lot of different publications, so that's been a lot of fun,
Speaker 1: you know. And uh yeah, man, just just the dad
Speaker 1: of two that absolutely loves the bow hunt and and
Speaker 1: loves to share in my trials and tribulations of you know,
Speaker 1: my my bow hunting season and whatnot. So that's ah,
Speaker 1: it's me in a nutshell, man. It's it's pretty crazy
Speaker 1: really to see. Kind of as a kid, my mom
Speaker 1: and dad always tell the story. You know, I'm five,
Speaker 1: six years old. I'm at the dinner table. I'm eating
Speaker 1: pork chops, mashed taters and green beans or something whatever,
Speaker 1: and I got a Deer and Deer Hunting begazine open
Speaker 1: and they're like, you gotta put this down, you put away,
Speaker 1: we're gonna eat, you know. And my mom tells the story.
Speaker 1: She's like, you know, you were five years old, looked
Speaker 1: right up at me, mind you I can't read yet
Speaker 1: at that time, but looked right up at her and
Speaker 1: my dad and one of these days, you guys are
Speaker 1: gonna see me in here and they're like, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I bet, I bet we will, And so yeah, it's crazy.
Speaker 1: Man here here I am. I'm a I'm a blessed man. Um.
Speaker 1: As far as social goes, Facebook, Point Casper, Instagram, Casper Clint,
Speaker 1: I run the c C hunt fioed Instagram page so
Speaker 1: you can catch me there, um and whatnot. But uh yeah,
Speaker 1: I can't can't thank you enough for having me on Mark,
Speaker 1: and can't thank everybody enough for all of your support
Speaker 1: over the years with my writing, the podcast, social media.
Speaker 1: I mean it's it's honestly of it has been absolutely
Speaker 1: positive and great. Um and you know, it's it's just been. Uh,
Speaker 1: it's been a lot of fun to be in this
Speaker 1: industry and kind of make a living in the hunting
Speaker 1: the hunting space and the hunting world, and uh, man,
Speaker 1: it's been great to connect with so many people guys
Speaker 1: like you and whatnot. That without the industry and social
Speaker 1: media and different things, I've never connect with. So yeah,
Speaker 1: it's uh, it's pretty it's a pretty crazy ride, but
Speaker 1: it's uh, it's been a fun one and I'm not
Speaker 1: looking to jump off anytime soon. Yeah, man, it's uh.
Speaker 1: It is a a super blessed thing we get to do.
Speaker 1: I'm thankful for it as well. And uh and really
Speaker 1: thankful for you taking some time to to talk tonight
Speaker 1: to this is this is this is great. So appreciate
Speaker 1: you Clinton. Hey, absolutely Mark anytime. We'll I have to
Speaker 1: get you on the h c C Hunt files here soon.
Speaker 1: I'll have to cook up off the brainstorm up a
Speaker 1: good a good topic of conversation. There's quite a few
Speaker 1: of you and I could dive into. But give me,
Speaker 1: give me a day or two to brainstorm something up
Speaker 1: and we'll we'll get you on. Sign me up. I'm
Speaker 1: I'm up for it for sure, and uh go and
Speaker 1: shoot a meal there right, all right, man, that's the
Speaker 1: plan tomorrow. I gotta I got a couple of mile
Speaker 1: hike in to get to this spot. But I think
Speaker 1: it's uh man, I'm gonna grind it out for another
Speaker 1: six days and I think it'll pay off sooner or later.
Speaker 1: We'll see, all right. I believe in your good luck.
Speaker 1: All right, And that is it. Thank you for tuning in.
Speaker 1: I appreciate you being a part of this community. Thank
Speaker 1: you for taking that action, and mentioned at the top
Speaker 1: of the podcast, thanks for sending those emails to your senators.
Speaker 1: Let's get this thing done. Let's have a great hunting season.
Speaker 1: Let's have fun out there. I think when this podcast
Speaker 1: comes out, it's gonna be right around Thanksgiving, so I
Speaker 1: hope you're enjoying some good times, some good food with
Speaker 1: your friends and family. I am thankful for you all.
Speaker 1: I hope you're thankful for what deer and deer hunting
Speaker 1: in this deer in the community have brought to you.
Speaker 1: Let's relish it, let's savor it, and until next time,
Speaker 1: let's stay wired to hunt.