00:00:02 Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your home for deer hunting news, stories and strategies, and now your host, Mark Kenyon. Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. I'm your host, Mark Kenyan. In this episode number two D and forty one and today the show, Dan and I are breaking down our upcoming hunting plans and strategies, and then we're answering listener questions on topics such as October calling strategies, how to hunt in tough wind areas, how to break down and learn a new hunting property, and much much more real quick before we get this one started, want to thank our friends over at Lacrosse Footwear for their support of this podcast. As I've mentioned this year, I'm wearing the Alpha Burly pro boots from Lacrosse. They've been doing great. They are a E high rubber boot. They keep me sent for you when I'm walking through the woods because that that rubber holds onto as little scent as possible. They keep me warm when it's cold. Today, this big cold front pushing through, It's gonna be in the forties this afternoon when I'm hunting. That's gonna be probably the coldest temperatures. Um I've hunted yet this season, and I know my feet are gonna be completely fine. My boots have eight grams of fencilate insulation, which keeps them playing warm. I've warm boots similar to this way down into the zero below zero temperatures, and as long as you've had a good wolf sock on, you're gonna be just fine. But at the same time, I've worn these boots into the eighties and nineties, and as long as you have a nice moisture wicking wolf sock on, that's gonna keep you comfortable even in these warm days too. So it's a very versatile boot. Can get you a crossing rivers, it can get you climbing hills, and can get you climb into a tree. Whatever you need to do. I've found that this boot works pretty darn well for it. If you'd like to check out some of the other options, though the Lacrosse has there might be another version that's better for you. You can go on over to Lacrosse footwhere dot com and see what they've got. The last thing I'll mention is just that the new season of The Meat Eater TV show is available on Netflix now. I mentioned it last week. I just want to mention it one more time. It is a Netflix original. That's the first time a hunting show has ever been featured on Netflix in that way, which is a pretty big deal in something I'm really excited about. So heading on to Netflix check out the season. It is great. I've not gotten to watch all of it yet. I've seen my Caribou episodes and I watched a couple more last night. I've been really impressed with that. I've been hearing nothing but good things. So if you haven't checked it out yet, I do think you will enjoy it. Netflix is where you'll find it. It is the new season of the Meat Eater TV show. I hope you guys enjoy that, and uh look for more to come. I do think you'll be seeing some more whitetail stuff and yours truly on some meat either episodes in the future, so keep an eye out for that too. Now to the show, all right, Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, brought to you by Onyx and today it's just a good old fashioned Mark and Dan podcast, and uh, I'm pretty happy about that. What about you, Dan, I'm pretty happy to mark any time that I can. Just here's what I'm gonna say my my my wife had to go out of town for uh for the night, right, and it is. I'm not complaining about it. I'm not you know, you know, I don't know complaining about it, I guess. But she went out of town for the night. So last night I was in charge of the kids all by myself. Right, No podcasting stuff was taken care of. Nothing other than kids was the main focus this morning. You know, five thirty wake up call, kids are up, feed them, get them ready for school, you know, get everything together. And I feel like I need to take a napp right now. So if my wife ever does listen into this podcast, kudos to you for doing what you do. Yeah, man, kudos to you. Um, because I had my son yesterday all day just myself, and that was like, oh man, how am I going to get me work done? How do you accomplish anything when you have a child with you the whole time? Like, I don't know how you manage three of them? Um, it's not easy. Put him to bed. And then that's when I started working, man, and uh like eleven o'clock at night. Yeah, yeah, it's it's not no easy chore. Uh. So I'm glad that they are school or daycare or wherever it is that they are right now. So you've got a little time to do this. Um And into your point, you know, I feel like this time of year especially, you know, I just needs some Buck talk. Like I I just when I'm driving on the road or something, I'm just like, I'm wanting to strategize about stand locations or talk about Bucks. I got on trail camera or something like that. And so I end up calling some buddies and they're working or they're busy doing families stuff, and I'm like, how come no one's ever available just to talk Bucks to the So that's what we've got going on right now, which is a which is a beautiful thing, dan. Um. So that's what I wanted two things today. I wanted to talk Bucks, talk dear, talk about what we've got going on, anything that's happened here recently, what our plans are coming up. And then I put out a call last night for questions from listeners and we got just tons, got hundreds. Um, So there's a lot of good questions that we can try tackling. Yeah, we're definitely not gonna cover all of them. But we've got enough to to talk for hours probably, So that's my game plan. If that sounds good to you, absolutely, I'm ready. Well, um, just before we started recording, you started saying like, oh, I'm so excited because I got this buck. And then I said, stop, don't tell me anymore, right, do you want to tell me about that now? Yeah? Okay, So here's the deal. I don't know about you, but right when you get your SD cards, you flip through them as fast as humanly possible, right, I mean that that's me. And what my computer does is I'll hold down the button flipping through them, and it skips pictures if I'm doing it really fast. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So I went back uh the other uh this morning actually after the no, it was early this morning, before the kids even woke up, flipping through trail trail cameras pictures and lo and behold, I get three pictures of a buck. Remember that shed hunting day where I found like nine sheds and forty minutes nine or ten sheds. Yeah, the big, the biggest antler I found, um was a buck that I was kind of hoping I would have ran into last year. Um, just pictures of him no, no encounters, and he didn't show up on trail cameras the first you know, the first two polls, and so I I'm flipping through these pictures come completely different trail camera early September. Three pictures gone. And but that tells me he's still alive and that historical data from last fall may come into play of where this buck is is at. So I'm excited that I got you know, I slipped down down and caught these two pictures on camera against three pictures, and dude, he he put on a little time length, but a ton of mass. He's a he's a big nine pointer. Nice those heavy antler deer're just playing cool. Yeah, And it's one of those pictures that, Yeah, the velvet's gonna come off, I would say in the next week or so of from when where this picture was taken. And just a ton of mass. And oh man, I'm just I hope I run into him. I'm putting him at a five five year old four, maybe a four, but I'm I'm guess in five. So how many different four or older bucks? Because four is kind of your your age, right, You're trying to shoot a four year old or older? Um, typically at least what what am I trying to say here? How many different bucks like that? Do you think that you've got run around? Based on the camera pictures that you have so far, based off the camera pictures that I have so far, I probably And I'm gonna I'm only gonna go back as far as September one, because I feel that anything before that is kind of just, I know, just entertainment to get that kind of yeah, appre shift and we have this shift, right So I'm gonna say that right now, I have one, two, three, four five bucks right now on that well, from based off the last trail camera poll, five bucks that are four year old or older. Nice, So you got Narlie, Charlie, you got Dork six. Then I completely forgot about Dork, so six. So Narlie, Charlie, Dork, You've got this new buck you just mentioned, You've got, uh that buck you passed on last year that you saw popping up again? Um, what are the other two? Anything notable about about the other two? The other two are one is probably a mid one forties ten I think he's a four year old, and then another one is just a gigantic bodied small I would say like one one thirty class eight pointer, just kind of a you know, a buck that I don't know even as an even as a mature buck. I may I may pass him, you know what I mean, just not doesn't make my jaw drop, you know, with all the other stuff that's running around. Yeah, you've got options, that's for sure. H Well, that sounds like a pretty good I mean, And that's just what you've got a camera. I'm sure every year, right, there's a whole bunch of new bucks that start cruising through. During the run, we see there's there's two there's two big shifts on my well, kind of three, but there's the September shift that's a huge one. And then the crops come out and there's an adjustment. I wouldn't call it a shift, but an adjustment. And then somewhere around the October uh time frame is when I feel that the deer that I'm getting trail camera pictures of and the deer that I'm seeing from the tree stand are the deer that I'm going to be hunting, right, those are the deer that are sticking around. They're not going to another location. And uh that I guess that small crop adjustment probably kind of coincides with the October another October shift, So I don't know. Well, basically, I'm going hunting this weekend, I'm going hunting next weekend, and then I should have an idea of what a really good idea of what's running around on the farm. Yeah, and how much time do you have budget for your RUT vacation this year? Two weeks? So you still do have the two weeks. Nice. I wasn't sure if you were in a half to half that because of the Elk trip. Now, that Elk trip was kind of like my wife's vacation for the Elk trip. That was like a even trade type of deal, the wine trip. The wine trip. Yeah, okay, well that was a good deal. Um. Interesting that you mentioned that you found like some bonus pictures on your camera that you had missed before, because I kind of had the same deal happened this past weekend too, Um, I sort of. I went out this last Friday, was really rainy day, and I thought this would be a perfect day to go out there. It was a good win for the for the Holy Field property, and with the rain, I thought this is a good time to go out there on the four wheeler and check some cameras and hang a couple of new ones. And I wasn't planning and hunting this spot for a long time anyway, since I you know, hunted that first night that didn't work out, so um, so I snuck in there and pulled two cards and then hung to new cameras. But one of the new cameras I was gonna go hang is in the spot that traditionally I always get pictures of Holy Field, like come September when he shows up, this is one of the first spots I start getting pics of him. And I've been kicking myself because I was just so busy in August running around like a chicken, my head cut off, try and get things set up. I never ended up hanging a camera. They're like I usually do, so this whole time and thinking, man, if I had a camera there, I probably would have got pictures of him if he's alive. Um, I just got to get out there and get this camera up. So finally Fridays it will do that. So I drive over this section and I get there and I walk up to the tree where I usually hang one, and there's a camera and I'm looking at him like, what, like, when did I do this? I apparently had hung a camera on this tree in January and I've not checked it a single time since. I don't know how that's possible, because I've walked past it a b jillion times and shed season. I mean, I drove past it in the spring turkey hunting, and I just must have assumed like that I left the camera out and and not turned it on, and just kept telling myself, I'll grab it later, I'll grab it later, and then just totally forgot about it during the summer because I went up and looked at it, and when I pulled the card and went and eventually checked it, that sucker had been taking pictures from January all the way until September, ran that entire time taking pictures. Um. So that was exciting because all of a sudden, like, oh man, this camera'sn't run this whole time. It's in a pretty good spot for summer pictures. Even so I started checking it, and a whole bunch of bucks on there during the summer, a bunch of deer that I did not get on camera anywhere else that were just showing up here. Um, a lot of nice two year old maybe a couple of nice three year old bucks. Um. And then into September some hard horn deer, but no holy Field. So it was a bonus. It was a bonus. And that there was, you know, a bonus, whole bunch of pictures and some better looking buck, like some deer that will be really nice in a year or two, um that I wouldn't know where around otherwise, but no holy Field pictures. There's one picture of a super big body deer, but he's just enough out of frame so that his his antlers you can't see his antlers, but you just see this big body in the back of like the very back of the antlers almost if it's very low light. UM that I'd be stretching saying it was him, but it was enough. I was like, hmmm, I wish I got a better picture of that one. UM on the rest of the camera. Same kind of deal young bucks, but as of now, no for sure mature buck citing that I can definitively say, oh, this is Holy fielder, this is this buck or anything. Right now, it's just a bunch of young bucks. And does um the next day or let me take back the day before that actually, did I tell you about this? I don't think I told about this. UM. The day before the trail camera day, I went out for an observation sit and I just went on the ground and sat on a hillside off the pretty darn close to the road. Actually just sat inside some standing beans and a slightly better angle where I could see the front food plot system on this property. And I could see all the way down this power line clearing um, so you can see the whole power line. And then I've got a second food plot way back there that you could see two. And I just set the spotting scope up and watched it all night right, and with like about a half hour left of daylight, I saw a deer came across the power line, pulled up the spotting scope, got it on him and was able to film it with my little digit scope adapter on my phone right, and it was a good buck. That was what looked like a good buck. And in like the second a half clip I have where he looks my direction and turns his head. In that one frame where he's looking at the camera, it looks like holy Field. It's got the right like the main beams coming up off the head angling out, curving back in like that all matches up with him. Um. But it was so fast, and the quality of the foot of just is so low because of how far away it is. It's it's too circumstantial. It's safe for sure. But that was enough to give me like another possible, um, possibility, that could be him. Yeah, that is it though, That's all I've got as far as holy Field proof for evidence. It's it's it's very much like I don't know alright. So in the in the whole, in this this career or this storyline that you've had with holy Field, has he ever disappeared for a while and then returned? So? Yes, yes, um, so what he's in the first two years he was like super visible either on camera or in daylight from the beginning of September through December. In fifteen he was like that. In sixteen, was like that in two thousands seventeen. I wasn't seeing him, but I was getting pictures of him from September on right. But starting with gun season last year, he disappeared off the map. Man. I did not see him or get a single picture of him anywhere from November, but I found a shed in February. UM So since last fall he's been a camera ghost, a siting ghost. Um except for one time. My wife actually drove by a field near this property. I think I mentioned this last winner, but I didn't. I haven't been thinking about it recently, but she said that she thought she saw him standing out in the field in December last year. UM So that is a possible sighting. Otherwise he's been pretty much ghost mode. So if if I guess, what I'm trying to get at is that he survived long enough to drop his shed that I found in February, but was not once shown up on camera from November on. So that makes me think that it's possible he could be alive and still just be ghosted on the trail cameras now, because he did that for a handful of months last fall without me knowing. Right, hypothetically, it could be possible this year. Maybe he's just is totally onto like, maybe he's just is to the age now he is not going to move into these food plots or fields at all. You know, That's where all my cameras are pretty much. I've got one camera's back in the Betting Air that I set in early August that I'm not going to go in and check until I hunt back there. Um. So maybe he just is staying back on this cover. I don't know, Um, but it sounds like as the rut, you know, as October. As we go through October, we get to the rut. It sounds to me like over the years, just like most dear movement, his pictures increase and his sightings increase. Yeah, definitely. So the hope is that, you know, if he is alive, once we get to the end of October, that will happen and he'll start moving again, or at least moving somewhere where I'll be able to see him or get a crack at him. But you know, don't go chasing waterfalls. Exactly how long do I stay, you know, focused on this deer that may or may not be around, I don't know. Um, you don't. Yeah, you just don't know. So to this point, you know, and like we talked about last week, I'm just continuing to stay in observation mode. When I can. I'm gonna sit out there and try to glasses these fields. Um, I'm gonna check cameras every I don't know, probably not every week, but two weeks or I don't know, somewhere between every one to two weeks. I'll be checking the cameras when wind dictates and when rain does, and once they cut the beans out of this property, I'll just start driving the truck back there. Sometimes I think, again, anytime I can go in the vehicle, that's gonna make it pretty low impact. Um, and just keep monitoring and if he shows up, then I'll start doing something. If not, I will focus on this other spot, you know, these other two spots I've got to hunt. Um. So that's that's kind of what I got going on as far as Holy Field in Michigan hunting and stuff. I hunted that new property again the other night. Didn't see much at all. Um, But I am going to go there tomorrow because there's a big cold front hitting. Dude. Dude, my two favorite words, right, cold front. Yeah, and it should be still pretty cold for you by the time you start on this weekend. Right, I'm going out tomorrow night. Oh you are right, I got, I got, this is scheduled, right, So the cold front came through. I haven't I haven't even been in a tree standard all this year. And I said to the wife I go cold front coming through. I haven't hunted this entire season yet, and I'm going out tomorrow, So the my first sit of the entire year is going to be eleven days into the season and I'm looking at the weather right now and we are literally going to have a twenty degree temperature drop from the high on Wednesday to the to the high on Thursday. Dude. The feeling that I get on a day like that, like when you're when you're taking your pre hunt shower something that packing up all your stuff. On those days where the big cold front pushes through and all the conditions are like on point, I have this like my stomachs churning. I'm like tingly when you just feel like this could be it, you know. I live for that feeling. Yeah, So over the years, I would get real excited about that. But then there's the voice in the back of my head that says, listen, man, you're you're going in and you're gonna be You're gonna hunt. So you have to make sure that the strategy on this hunt is on point, because these bucks aren't gonna be running around the timber chasing does yet. They're gonna be going from a more than likely going from a betting area to a food source, and you just have to try to find someplace from that point A to point B where they're gonna be cruising and with this cold front, they're gonna hopefully be on their feet. But you still have to remember time of year, right, It's not like it's going to be the rut. Yeah, this is this is mid October. Things are, like you said, not like November. Certainly. You know, as we've talked about many times over the years, there's not a ness. There's not necessarily any kind of like biological lull. There's things that are changing that if as a hunter, if you're able to adapt to those changes, you can still get into good action this time year, especially if that cold front happens. But you've got to make sure you are in the right place, is doing the right things. So how much rain have you had up in Michigan. It's been a lot of rain the last week or so. Okay, so Iowa has had seventeen straight days of rain and and I think starting this afternoon there's gonna be no more rain for the next I think three or four days. So my theory is that these bucks are gonna get up. They haven't been able to make sign consistently in that time period. So tomorrow morning, starting tomorrow morning, on their way back to bed and getting up and going to the food source tomorrow night, they're gonna start laying sign and a lot of it, a lot of checking and freshen up those scrapes, probably right. That's that's my theory anyway. Okay, so you've got tomorrow evening off, you're hunting this cold fronts pushing through twenty gree temperature drop. Um. Last week when we were chatting, you mentioned the fact that, based off of some historical pictures of Narlie Charlie, you think you know how to backdoor. Hum, Um, are you going after Nari Charlie tomorrow? No, not tomorrow. Um. I'm I don't have the wind I need yet. It's kind of a northwest wind. I need a straight north wind or a northeast wind. And I think I'm gonna get that on Saturday night, which, let me check here, I think, yeah, I'm gonna I think I'm gonna get that on Saturday night. So Saturday night is when I'm gonna make a move in on him. Okay, And Sunday morning. Okay, So let's let's talk Thursday first, and actually before that, I've been getting messages and emails from people complaining about you for not having sharing, for not having shared a picture of Narlie Charlie yet, I just dude, if it was my own, if it was my own property, I would, but it's not and very tight to the vest this year, Yeah, you have to. Since I've since I've started this podcast with you and started my own podcast, I feel like there's been a lot more not only questions about where do you hunt, but from from local guys, but just more people making themselves visible on the farms that I hunt, even though they technically don't have permission to be there. I don't know even some of the surrounding properties get it. And I'm I don't know. The thing about it is there's a there's a chance this buck isn't even on the property right now, So I don't know. Tough ship, guys, I can just tell you all listening that it is a very nice dear. I'll tell you that. Um. Okay, So Thursday, then, if you're not going after Charlie, what is the game plan? The game plan on Thursday is to go to the local farm, right I'm based or it's a local farm that there's two sections of it, and there's a really good pinch point on public property that I access through my private farm, but my tree stand is gonna be on public property. So it's just like the public peace is this really long rectangle that goes straight north off of a road. And if you want to get in there and you're let's say, if you have to park at the parking lot for the public land peace, you gotta walk through the entire property and you're blowing everything out. So two things are gonna you know, two things rings. And why I like to hunt there is if hunters do come in, they bump deer right to me. Or I'm on a an undisturbed pinch point on a on a creek that butts up against this huge field. So these deer are they're really funneled down into this this crieck system that's in between two pastures in this field, and it's just a lot of historically a lot of sign a lot of good deer movement. I'm gonna be up from that a little bit tomorrow night. Uh. From on the down, it's gonna be on the up wind side of a betting area, but my wind is gonna be if I go too far, my wind is gonna be blowing into the betting area. But with this north wind, it's gonna be I'm gonna be kind of on the corner of it and but off just a ways so that when the deer start coming out of this betting area to this um, to this acorn flat which is kind of a staging area, and then eventually to what I think is going to be a food source right now, start starting here pretty soon in Cornfield, that I'm gonna catch a whole bunch of traffic coming out of these these two betting areas that funnel right to me. And that's the goal is just to watch. My goal is to hopefully watch it, pray to deer walk by, and just or get my eyes on something worth shooting. The last two years, man on this farm really really good one sixty class ten pointer and uh he he would definitely be a shooter if I go in and uh have an opportunity at him. Yeah, man, that's exciting. Um. If a buck comes by, If a buck that's like definitely a four year old or older but not like a jaw dropper comes by you on your very first hunt of the year, and if you take that buck, right, you only get one archery tag, right, So that would mean you don't get to take a sta have a Charlie or Dork or any of these deer on your main farm. Would you shoot that kind of four year old tomorrow or no? And I mean it's just obviously I have options, right, and I don't want to make myself sound like this giant big buck killer, but the with what I have on my main farm and me not even hunting it yet, I will. You know, last year I passed two deer in the low one fifties high one forties arena. I would definitely pass that again, even if it was a four or five year old buck. I mean, it would have to be pretty special for me to skip out my entire rut vacation chasing some world class deer on my other farm. Yeah. Well, you know how it is in Iowa because I understand that there's booners behind every tree, every and there's there's I'm the only hunter in the entire county booners behind every tree. So just just let them walk man, that's right, dude. I got like five pictures of people I don't even have a clue who they are on on my main farm, just walking around out in the woods, just wearing nine finger Chronicles T shirts. Yeah right, Oh man? What would you do if you saw someone that was trespassing in your property but they're wearing like a nine figure Nations shirt? Um? Would you be piste or would you be kind of irritated? But then like, but they're a fan, I let him go. Oh no way, I'd sell them out. I throw them right underneath the bus called called d n R. Well you heard it here. Folks don't cross the line, right, Oh man? Okay, so Thursday plan going on this new property. What about the weekend then? Okay, well the weekend is down at the main farm basically setting up cameras or checking cameras. I got four more cameras. I need to hang up and get those in some historically good spots. I'm gonna be hanging a camera when I go in on my gnarly Charlie hunt, and I'm trying to think just I'm gonna hunt Saturday morning. Check all my trail cameras are all but three of them because the other three are you know, only only going to check those when I go in and hunt. But we will see what they say, and I'll make I'll make a move off that. If I don't have anything you know, real, I don't know, substantial on those cameras, then I'll I'll go in, I'll make a move on Gnarly Charlie, and I'm gonna leave that tree stand up right there, and it's going to be there for the season. Then, So the Saturday morning hunt is not the Gnarly Charlie hunt. Um, it might it might be, It might be. It just depends on wind direction. Okay, well we'll tell me this. I want to understand what your first hunt on Charlie will look like. So whether it's Saturday morning or Saturday night or Sunday morning, which every day you get the right wind, can you like talk through this scenario for me, Because you mentioned you think you've got this this good idea of how to get tight to where you think you might be betted. I'm curious how you're gonna get in there, what the actual setup is going to be. So, I mean, it's gonna be an it's gonna be awkward, I'll put it that way. And the reason I say that is because I have to you be creative in my access route, because I have to. I have to use some a crick to basically just make a huge loop and come in from a completely different direction, lower terrain, and then work my way up this. I guess a small drainage and pop up on a ridge where my wind is going to be blowing right back down into the valley. But it's it's gonna be the trail that I think that these deer are using kind of comes in from an angle. So it's gonna be one of those quartering winds, uh, one of those quartering wind scenarios where if I have a north wind and they're coming up, if they go too far to the west, they'll bust me, but the trail in the terrain kind of pinches him. All two, stay to the east of where my stand is gonna be and and I should be able to get a good view of the valley below. So that's that's just kind of how it is. Okay, Now, are you gonna like when if you go in there? Are you gonna hang a camera somewhere around there when you go win? So that you can try to better understand if he isn't there or anything that absolutely absolutely and I'll let that soak. That might be one of the cameras that I only check when I hunt that area. Um and I don't even use that data until next year, you know what I mean? So based off of your hunch you have here and that intel from last year, and the conditions we have this weekend, yeah, unlike, uh, if we're gonna do like the Spencer new hard thing here, like on a one to ten scale, how would you rank like your optimism as far as like chances of of a mature buck encounter or shot this weekend like these next three days. I mean, my optimism is that an all time high, But that doesn't translate into you know what I mean, That doesn't translate into anything really. I mean, I feel that if I play my cards right, I will run into something what particular, dear, I don't know, but it's a good betting area, um, and it's in where I'm going to be setting. Is in between a good betting area and a really good food source. On another kind of staging area that's an oak flat before it gets to a crop field. And I tell you man, if I do it right, I'm I'm confident I'll see something. But you know who knows what bucket is. These deer aren't like on my farms and the country that I hunt in. It's not like what you what you read about on let's say like Dan Infult, where he hunts specific buckbeds over and over and over again. These deer don't have specific beds and they will they will go to an area and find whatever they're most comfortable with. Now, this area could be two three four acres or it could be like my farm, which there's several different ridges and it just depends on how far they want to walk. Almost it's not like they're going back to the same bedding area every single day because the wind is different every single day. Interesting um hm I. And that's why I to the listeners of this podcast is a lot of people try to take um strategy away from someone else who's been really successful. And I'm not trying to take anything away from those people. But the deer are not doing the same exact thing on your property that they're doing on my property. Right, you have to be able to take away principles and use those principles I can't. I'm not gonna sit here Mark and tell you how to hunt. I might be able to throw some ideas your way, and I don't think that you're gonna be able to give me advice on how to hunt my property specifically, I mean specifically, right, we can take we can give each other some ideas, but man, the deer on my farm are not doing what the deer, let's say, in Wisconsin Marshland are doing, or or South Dakota, you know where there's no trees. You know what I mean. Everybody has to has to use their brain. Yeah, it's kind of the trust and verify kind of deal. We're taking these ideas trust that works for these people in their situations. But then you need to see, okay, can this be applied to my situations so substances, you need to verify that by way of observation, trial and error, um, and all that kind of stuff that, like you said, that applies to anything that you say, or I say, or any of our guests say. Um, but but that is I guess, um, yeah, I guess that just kind of applies to everything. So I mean you can take away, for example, if I said, Mark, you need to get down winto that betting area. That's that's a very generalized statement. That is always good for hunting a buck during the rut. Right, get down wind of that betting area. Right, anybody can take take that away. But I don't know if that betting area is on a river bottom or if that is on a ridge or where if it's Yeah, you know this is true. This is an important thing to to to kind of qualify anything we talked about. So, um, yeah, so I want to pivot a little bit. Damn, unless you've got any other major updates on your hunts. No, no, no, no, But my question is, and I know you kind of roughly when or you know, very high level went over it, But I mean, what is what is your strategy on your Michigan farm from kind of on a macro level? I mean, are you are you just gonna sit back and and wait or are you gonna be aggressive on some of these other I know, I know you mentioned you were going to kind of just wait on your your local or your your property and then go hunt this other property. But are you making any type of big moves with this cold front coming through? Yeah? So to your first point, the macro strategy on like, there's there's three properties that I've got to hunt in Michigan. Basically, they've got a bunch of other kind of a handful of other small spots I can hunt here and there, but i have three kind of main quality options. I've got the holy Field Farm, i have this new big permission property that's on the west side of the state. And then I've got our northern mission again deer camp up there. So my holy Field strategy, as I kind of mentioned earlier, is to basically check cameras and on nights when I can swing it, drive out to this area and observe the fields and down the power line of stuff and try to see is holy Field alive? Is he moving? Otherwise I'm staying out of there completely until around Halloween. Once Halloween hits, then I'm going to hunt it hard, assuming that I think holy Fields alive at that point. So probably from the thirty one through the seventh of November, I've got kind of budget to hunt every day on that property, and I'm going to be focusing on these betting area spots that I've set up over the last two years where I had my close calls of holy Field last year, and a bunch of other bucks you know should have shot him last year, and one of these stands. This summer, I went in there and prepped and fixed up three new locations back there that in past years I never used to hunt back there, and then two years ago I all of a sudden discovered, Oh, you're an idiot, Mark, you should have been hunting here during the run. This is where it's really happening. So that's my game plan for that first week in November is to hunt that back area. If holy Fields alive, I think that's gonna be where I'll get a shot him. And then on the seventh and November, I'm going to the other property and uh, the Meat Eater crew, Ronnella and those guys are coming down and hunting that property with me for a week, um and we're gonna be filming that first show. So that's the first two weeks in November, one week after holy Field, one week on this new property, and then after that going up to my Northern Michigan deer camp for the gun season trip that I always do. That's what November looks like. Um, So up between now and then though, between now and that October ish time frame. W I wanna start hunting holy Field. I'm kind of just doing a little bit of bouncing around. I'm uh doing the observation as I mentioned for the holy Field property. On the days that look good where I think I definitely should be hunting, I'm gonna be going to the new property and kind of dabbling there. I don't necessarily want to push into the very best stuff. Um I feel like there's enough kind of safer locations that I can get into just to learn, you know. I'm just it's a big property, it's a new property, um So, I just want to kind of learn it, observe, see what the ebbs and flows are of this area. Um But when I like this cold front hunting or this cold front coming this week, I'm gonna go to that new property and a hunt one of the better sections on one of these little food sources tied to a betting air that I can sneak into. Um So, I'm gonna be doing that kind of thing. And then a day here and there going up to the Northern Michigan property just again get a couple of hunts in their check cameras see what's going on. Um So, I'm not really swinging for any fences yet. Between now and then, it's basically gonna be learn the new property, observe the Holy Field property, get some hunts in, UM, want to hit some public land stuff. Furter is gonna come down next week. We're gonna do a little bit of public land and running gunning. We're gonna go up to the deer camp in northern Michigan for a day and a half do some stuff up there. UM. But this brings me to another kind of thing I need to talk about, which is kind of my first UM encounter with the well not my first encounter, but you know, we talked about before I had kids, before I had eight son um, how that's going to impact my hunting, and how it's going to impact my ability to travel and all these kinds of things. And I knew it impact things. I knew would make things more difficult, but I wasn't exactly sure how I was going to rack to that. How my plans have changed because of that. UM. So now something is changing because of that UM. As we've talked about. In September, I was gone a ton I was gone, and even in August, right I was gone for a week and a half in August on some um, non hunting but other kind of work related trips. Then September I was gone. I think it was twenty days out of the thirty days in September I was gone. And then in October I had planned this like nine or ten day trip to the Boundary Waters to Minnesota. That I had a five or six day trip to Nebraska. UM, and then the rut starts right then, and then it's you know, three weeks NonStop between them doing all those things I just told you about. So I got home from Montana and I'm looking at my calendar. I'm like, holy smokes, my wife's been by herself basically for almost three basically three weeks. I'm gonna be home for seven days and then take off again for this Boundary Waters hunt. Um. Meanwhile, she's trying to work because she works from home, so she's supposed to be doing work while she's at home, but she's taking care of our our baby the whole time. UM. So that over the past week or when I got back from Montana, I started thinking about this, and I'm like, how can I possibly take off again for another ten days or whatever it might be after just being home barely at all and not seeing my son hardly ever, and not really contributing as a member of the household. UM So, I have decided to postpone the Minnesota Boundary Waters hunt to the next year. I just don't see how I could possibly leave for ten days right now and then be home for four and then go on this, you know, three and a half weeks of different rut obligations I have. Um. I just there's just no way I could do that and still have a wife and son when I get back home. Um and just you know, put my wife in such a tough position. So it's a it's a huge bummer because it's a trip that I was really excited about. It's something we've talked to a good amount of people are really interested in it, um And I wanted to help bring attention to the Boundary Waters area and some of the things going on right now and the threats is facing. Um So, I'm really disappointed that I have to do this, and I feel bad about it. Um But it's one of those things I think as a father, this is one of those things where, yeah, this is my job, but also I still need to find ways to balance it in the right way. Um, And I feel like this is one of those things I had to do in order to to prioritize family in somewhere. You know, absolutely, man, And you know what, I've talked with some of these other guys who are quote unquote in the industry similar to yourself. And although you don't produce a television show, these guys they are gone for over two hundred days a year if not more, going on hunts, producing their television shows. And they have kids, wives and kids at home, right. So it's like one of those things where I think a lot of people who say, hey, I want to get into the hunting hunting industry, they don't understand that if you know, yeah, going on all these hunts would be completely awesome. However, there there's a lot of sacrifice that's that has to be made as well. Oh yeah, yeah, it's not not easy, and I'm not I'm not traveling that much, but I travel certainly is ramping up with all the new stuff going on these days, and that's something I know I'm going to be increasingly you know, trying to deal with in balance. So um, yeah, so that's that's what's going on, So I'm not doing that hunt. So because of that, I'm gonna be around though all the way until the October, which is nice to be able to be home for almost a month straight, um, and then just doing those things I mentioned, Gonna bounce between the new property, northern property, observe holy Field property, and get some quality family time. And I don't think I'm gonna hunt this weekend or the next weekend. I'm actually gonna take those weekends off and just spend time with the family, try to do some things around the house, just try to cross my teas and dot my eyes and try to make sure everything is just good at places that can be before before late October shows up. Um. But but I do, and I will be still wanting to talk about the Boundary Waters area, um, so on some future podcasts and some social media content. I still want to talk about what's happening there because, as we mentioned on this podcast way back in February, when I originally brought up the idea of doing this hunt, the this is this really special place. It's incredible wilderness area in northern Minnesota. All these lakes and rivers and big woods, timber and and deer and moose and wolves and tons of walleye and pike and just incredible area. Um it's the most visited wilderness area actually in the United States. And there are these two minds being proposed right on the border of this wilderness area that the water systems there, if there's any pollution or leakage from those mines, is going to go right into this incredible wild place. And there's been this big battle over the past couple of years about getting these leases approved, and just recently here the the Interior Department has approved as as is allowing this process to move forward. Now. Um, so it's a it's bad news on that front. It's really bad news on that front. Um. So I'm gonna try to get some more information about that out there to the wire Town audience. If you've been kind of following that, I want to make sure you're you're up to day and what's happening and how you know you might be able to make your voice heard because I am going to go do this hunt next year. It seems like an absolutely amazing place and uh and I want to make sure and I think we we all should try to make sure the places like that and experiences like that. You know, we're still available, um for for your kids, Dan or my kids. Um for They're still to be clean, pristine wild places to go, you know, experience the wilderness. So that's that's my story in the bound Waters. More to come. That's a big deal. Yeah, it is. Um So hopefully we can still raise a little awareness around it, and then next year leading up to that hunt, I'm sure there'll be lots to talk about. UM. Check this out. October, I am going to my very first ever back Country Hunters and Anglers pint Night in Iowa. St We are starting a a chapter in Iowa. That is awesome. Dude, I'm glad you're gonna be at that. It's a great organization, yep. So I'm pumped that a lot of other guys like myself have put interest into into that and uh we are We've all I mean, we've already had some pint nights in some other towns, which is great. Um. I haven't been involved in in that section of it, but I know this one's gonna be local and I will be attending it. So I'm pretty punked for that sweet October eighteenth. Where's it? Uh in Iowa City. Well, it's not in Iowa City. It's in a town called Coralville, just north of Iowa City, at a bar called guss Is. All right, Gus is October eighteen in Coralville. What time? I think it starts at six o'clock six or seven? Sweet. Well, if you're a listener going out to the pinte in Iowa, um, that's that'll be cool. Event I've not been able to be to the pint night here in the last couple of months, but they are always a good time and a great way to get some like mine hunters and anglers together. So on that point, we have many, many questions. Yeah, we got to pivot to the questions because we've got a little over half hour left to tackle about two thousand questions quickly. Though, before we move on to our Q and A section, let's take a second here to thank our partners at White Tailed Properties. This week with White Tailed Properties, we are joined by Neil Hogger, a land specialist out of Wisconsin, and Neil is going to be talking to us about how the shopping process is different in areas that are famous for big deer. Well, Buffalo County is a nationally known county obviously, Um, a lot of the land there that comes on the market and sold really never make its makes it to the market. So that's a major difference. So it kind of like Polk in Wisconsin. It's a top ten Pope and Young County excellent hunting, but it just doesn't have the notoriety that Buffalo County ass So to find property in Buffalo County, I think the approach needs to be you've got to get us close to the center of influences. You can working with an agent like myself with white tailed properties. Uh, you know, we're moving and shaking in these counties all the time. We're constantly talking to people or people are approaching us. So if you're looking for quality land, I think you've got to get to the center of influence. And that's a guy like me um and kind of like Polk, which is, you know, just as good hunting. You could you could search some typical avenues of of white tail properties, real estate websites, land Watch, type prop property real estate websites, Zillo even, and you can find property there um just as easy. But in an area like that, and probably for a buffaloot too, I'd say get to a guy that is selling land. You want to land specialists, not necessarily a residential real estate agent, because they'll have the insights that you need. If you'd like to learn more and to see the properties that Neil currently has listed for sale, visit white tail properties dot com. Backslash Hogger. It's h A U G E R so. So I wrote an intro intro music for this portion of the podcast. Whenever you're ready, just tell me. Okay, I'm ready. All right, Q and A, Q and A time for Dana Mark two answer some IM Q and A. All Right, there we go, ladies and gentlemen, it's time for some Q and A. Here's your host, Mark Kenyan. All right, So we're going to have to do this as a recurring segment, and every time you need to do that music, it might be different. It might be different every time. Oh, I think it's terrific. Alright. So the first question of the day is and I didn't take the people's names. I just copy of the questions and just listen for your question. But here's a question. I've heard you guys joke about the acorn crunch before. What exactly was it? I'll take this one Mark, Yeah, take this one real quick, Dan, long story short. It was two two leader bottle you know, like what you would get bottles of pop in right though, the two Leader containers of pop. Those two lids right the screw on lids with all these cuts in them, a little spring in between, and you just would scrunch those back and forth in your hand. And it was supposed to replicate the sound of a deer eating an acorn, which would cause other deer to come in to that sound. There you go, the acorn cruncher, acorn cruncher. And it is, you know, kind of comical idea, but hey, maybe work for someone. I don't know. There's probably one guy out there who shot a just a h a giant like booner using that, and he probably has that in his bag of tricks every single year. If that person is listening, please reach out to us. I would like to I'd like to hear that story. Um okay, next question, how often do you use a grunt tube in October or not at all? Is it just a waiting game? Go for it? Mark? All right, So for me in October, the only time I'm using the grunt to this month is just maybe as like a light kind of contact grunt looking for a little bit of curiosity, at least in the early parts of the month. So you know, if I'm in the tree right now, if I see a buck that's out of range, um, I might just do a light once or twice, just to see if I might be getting curious and maybe come in. But I'm not doing it aggressively, and I'm not blind calling, you know, So that by that I mean I'm not just sitting there not seeing any deer, but doing a bunch of grunting hoping to catch something's attention. Often the distance. Um, as you get into late October once it definitely feels like that rut is ramping up that pre ride activity. Once you're seeing bucks getting aggressive with each other, maybe some sparring or um, you know, different things like that going on, maybe a little bit chasing even the beginning at that first dough and estris popped in the last couple of days of October. At that point, then I will use a grunt too much more as I would in November, which is, you know, if I see again. I don't like to do a lot blind calling really ever, but if I see a buck a shooter buck out of range, I typically start with a contact grunt of some kind try to get his attention. If that doesn't work, I'll get a little more aggressive and do a little more like a roar. If that doesn't do it, the last thing I would try it would be a snort weeze, which is that kind of sound which is like this really aggressive, like hey man, I'm gonna kick your ass. Is basically what's the what a deer says when he makes a snort we's and that's very aggressive. I would only use that during that time period where bucks are you know, it's you know, sizing each other up and duking it out over ladies. Um. So that's kind of my grunt call progression that I'm using during that kind of pre rut to rut phase. Um. The only other thing I'd say about grunting is that if you do one of those things and the buck reacts positively and starts coming into you, don't do any other calling. Once you get the reaction you want, I would stop calling and just let him come. And then on the other side, if he reacts like really negatively, let's say I do that snort weez and he tucks his tail and like starts slinking away or bounds away. That's saying like, hey, he doesn't like that, don't keep calling stuff. You're just gonna make the situation worse. I think at that point then I just quiet down and let him go his way and just kind of realize, Okay, it's not happening. Um, that is my quick take on it. What do you think, Dan? Pretty much the exact same man. I don't even bring my rattling antlers in the tree with me until you know, late October. Uh, the grunt tube is always with me. And this time of year, let's just say for this weekend, for example, something comes out of range and it's within my window of wind, so to speak. Um, just one bra. If he doesn't hear me, bra bra, and then that should get his attention. And if it doesn't, I wait for him to acknowledge it or just keep on moving, because sometimes they'll hear it and they don't care, and then other times they'll they'll look over. And then once they look over, like you said, no more calling, that will bite you in the butt. Yeah, yeah, all right, so we are we're on the same page of that. From how about this one. How do you hunt a buck that only shows up on trail camera in the middle of the night. Okay, so you got two options here, right. This happens a lot for guys who have their trail trail cameras on field edges. Right, you don't, I mean you check your trail camera and you're like, oh man, it's you know, it's it's ten o'clock at night. I can't you know? How do I How do I know where this deer is coming from? Look at look at your map, Look at the top of study that trail camera picture to where this deer is entering. Is he entering from the left, Well, maybe he's coming on the left side of the ridge. Is he coming is he coming in on the right, Well, maybe he's coming from this area? Then if you really want to, depending on there's so many different variables, but take your stand, do a run and gun and go into the timber a little bit more and set up and maybe try to catch him in a staging area or on a travel route before he gets to um gets to that trail camera or on a terrain feature that will prevent you from being seen not only from access but setting up your stand from their betting area, and then you can I don't know, that's a little bit more aggressive. The other option is to when I get a trail camera picture of a buck at night, let's say midnight, one am, two am in the morning, Dude, I don't even know where that buck's bed for the most part, and then I treat it like that buck doesn't even exist, to be honest with you, because you can't hunt a deer at night. So yeah, yeah, I would echo a lot of what you just said there. I think the two options are either number one, if you're getting the middle of the night picture of a deer, to your point, that means typically that that deer is not betted close to where your cameras, so he's not living right there. So you can do one of two things. You can either number one, do what you just said in the beginning, which is try to find where he is. Try to get closer to where he has betted. So if you've got some kind of hunt or data that points to the fact that, well, yeah, he's shown up at ten o'clock at night here at this camera, but that's because I think maybe he's betted quarter mile over this direction, I can get closer to that, and you could try making that move like Dan said, that's a little more aggressive, but you could try that or make you know, get closer and closer, Maybe move that camera with you and then keep tad and maybe now you're starting to get a picture of him just an hour after dark. Well, now you know you're getting a little bit closer to that. Um. Now, of course this changes as the season progresses, right because once we get into the rut, then that kind of normal bed defeed pattern is going to change a lot. But that's one option, or the second option again echoing what you said, Dan, is the fact that don't hunt that deer until he does start showing up in daylight. So if you don't have the ability to relocate, or if you think he's betted on some other neighboring property that there's no way you can get closer to it, then I'd say keep the pressure low in that area until he actually is moving in daylight, when you actually have a chance. Because if you hunt that property hard right now, because you're getting pictures him in the middle of night and you're just hoping one day he shows up, you're leaving your scent in there. Every time, you are probably educating does in the area. You're probably educating other bucks, And every time you do that, you're probably impacting your chances of success in the future for that Buck because he's smelling you or the does that he might be chasing in November, they're real rising that you're in there, so they don't move in daylight, or they move to a different property, different stuff like that. So don't screw things up until he does start moving in daylight. So try to find a way to safely check that camera once a week or something. And when you do see him show up in daylight, or you do see him show up, you know, close to daylight, then I'd say, when the conditions are right, we know, when you get the right wind or whatever, strike hard and fast, when you've got that daylight movement. That would be my my two thoughts agreed. Okay, Um, this is one that you answered on Facebook. Damn, but I have to say it, Dan, if you could, if you could have your finger back, but could only use crossbows for the rest of your life, would you do it? Finger stays off my friends, I don't need it, I don't need my I don't need my right finger gott to use that compound. Huh, that's right, that's right. I love that one. And then then i'd have to change all my settings, right, I can't be nine fingers anymore. I have to be ten fingers again. There's no no ring to that. Yeah, there's and they're no going back. No, you're right. Um, Okay, when you're doing your running guns setups, how much trimming do you do? Are you forced hunt areas that aren't as thick to allow you to get in and hunt them without need to trim a lot? Or do you just trim it all up, you know, as much as you need to? Are you you start this one? Okay? So I will say that I do as little trimming as possible, um, simply because to the point he made, you know it can it's hard to get in and get a spot trimmed out without making a lot of noise, without leaving sign you know, without branches beyond the ground, just different things that cause spooka deer if you're in there and trying to set up to hunt right now. As a little disturbance as possible is the name of the game. So I try to minimize my trimming. But you know, I'm also not going to leave a limb up that I think is gonna keep me from getting one of the most likely shot opportunities. So I'll get up there and I'm gonna map out where exactly I think those shots are gonna come, and I will, you know, take twenty minutes to very slowly and quietly cut a limb if I think that's going to be an important place. I do definitely take limbs into consideration when picking my trees, though, So if possible, if I possibly can be in the right area and being a tree that doesn't require as much trimming, I'm gonna do it as long as I've got the adequate cover. Um, you kind of want to find that best possible scenario where the trees in the right place, there is some cover up there that's gonna keep you hidden in the tree, but not so much that you need to cut down fifty limbs just to be able to get a shot. Um, that's not always going to be the scenario. So there's gonna be some days when you get trim more, and there's gonna be some days that maybe you need to live with just a tiny bit less cover than you'd like. UM that balancing act is something that you're gonna have to make that decision based off of the experiences you've had in the past and your comfort level with that. Um, that's I guess my take. Yeah, for the most part, I'm the same man. I get up and I try to trim as little as humanly possible, and a lot of it depends on where I think the deer are coming and going from. If I feel that I'm setting up relatively close, I'm trimming way less right and I'm probably not getting as high and my running guns set up because the higher you get, the more you have to trim. So it's you know, these running guns are sneak attacks. Dude, you wanna you want to You want to get in and get out without the deer even knowing you're there. So you know, trimming a lot, I mean that means you're having to take a pole saul and cut like thirty yard shooting lanes. I'm not doing that. Yeah, yeah, just it's really hard to get away with that kind of thing. Yep. Um, speaking of running guns, someone in here, I don't I'm not seeing it right now on my little list, but I know that somebody asked if you Dan have considered trying to saddle after hearing about the fact that I've been using it and liking it and that stuff for your running gun idea. Yeah, man, you know, the tree saddle is definitely the fat or the popular notion right now in uh for the running gun guys out there. For me, man, I don't know. I I like, I like the idea of it, and I'm sure it's very comfortable, and I would I would have to play around with it. But right now, man, I just can't get over the fact that if something comes in when you're in a saddle, when something comes in fast and hard and it's on the opposite side of you, on your non it would be on your dominant hand, but you're non dominant shooting side, so you have to twist all the way in the tree. And that just to me not only seems like a lot of movement, but just an awkward shooting form. Where yes, that same kind of thing happens in a tree stand. But I'm able to have stable footing, and I don't know, I I just can't get past that how having to swing the whole body around on the tree. Let's say if a doe pops up and then a buck blows in chasing her or something like that. You know what I mean? That makes sense? No, it does, and that is the one scenario that's tougher out of the saddle. Um, you're right about that. UM. I will say that it has been much easier to maneuver in the stand for in the saddle than I even thought. I Like, in that Montana hunt on day three, I had a shooter show up right and right in front of me and then go behind the tree I was in, and I was able to way easier than if I'd been standing the tree stand. I was able to swing almost an eighty degrees around the tree to still be able to almost get a shot at him as he went around the other side. UM. Now that was my left side and forward side, so it wasn't the scenario you listed there. UM. But yeah, my point being, I think it definitely. I've found there to be some really nice versatility with certain situations. I haven't encountered the one you mentioned yet, So TBD on that. UM. For me, the only the only other thing that you might want or not considered, but another reason why it might not be as good a fit for you is because of those bad knees you've got. Um. And I'm saying that's not You're not not trying to give you a hard time, but because I know you have talked about some knee issues. Um My buddy Dustin, had he blew out his uh oh gosh, this is a c L or m c L or some some cl he blew out something. Um, And he tried to use the saddle the other night and within like an hour of standing on those steps or what he was using some steps on the tree. Um, it was really really hurting him having that consistent pressure on it. So it's it's different physically, It's not like just sitting. You definitely do have more tension. You have weight on your feet or on your knees. Um. So I think there's a certain level of like physical fitness or health that is kind of important to have when using a saddle that maybe isn't quite as important when sitting on a ladder stand or something. Something to think about. Next question, My stand has deer entering from every direction. I literally have deer come from everywhere during my first sit. How do I play the win game in that kind of situation? Man? That's tough. I mean, I have some river bottom stands that are that are like that, and it sounds to me that he is in a circle, right, and he's sitting in the center of the circle. So my suggestion would be to not sit in the center of the circle and sit off to one of the sides closer to the line of the circle, and that way you're you're going to be able to have you know, play the wind a little bit better in in that scenario. But if it's the only option, then I would say, man, get high, go in there, and go in there and try to get um uh, some really good shooting lanes trimmed out before the season starts or after the season ends. Not this year, probably because it's too late, but get as you maybe get a little higher, or depending on the scenario, this might be a good option for a ground line to help reduce some of that set m. It's an interesting idea. Um yeah, you know, that is a tough scenario and kind of along the lines of what you were saying, one easy solution would be, don't sit in that spot right, adjust your location to try to better place yourself from wind perspective, so there aren't dear entering from every direction, or taking advantage of some kind of terrain feature that might you know, cut off their movement and allowing you to have a safe wind section um, or maybe set up so that your wind blows down a creek drainage or over a ridge or whatever. UM. There's options like that. Sometimes you're just gonna have to assume that you're not gonna be able to get away everything. So on something like this my holy Field property, it's got a very high deer population and there's some areas of the property that if I want to hunt it, I know that eventually there's gonna be dear every direction at some point, and you have to go in there making some assumptions and make a sacrifice. Like, all right, I gotta hunt the spot because it's really good, and I know I'm going to have to sacrifice something. So just make sure that the section that you're sacrificing is the very lowest odds area, you know, be thoughtful about at least and realize that, okay, I gotta give up something. Make sure you're going in there when that's something you're giving up is the smallest possible window of risk. Um. And then of course play your scent control as best as you possibly can. So do everything that you know of to try to minimize your scent imprint, whether that be washing your clothes, storing them somewhere that's sent free, spram down with stuff, making sure that you are washed down if possible, to make sure you're not extra stinky. Um. You can try different things that me and Dan have like ozonics units or nose jammer or scent crusher or you know, there's a lot of options out there to try to deal with scent. Um. I think a lot of them help. I don't think any one of them will help you become sent free, but they can help. So try some of those things. They've helped me, they've helped Dan Um. I like your idea, Dana, trying to get really high, that's something that might work. Or the ground get down low that might help. UM. If you're in an area where you've got some terrain, you might be able to take advantage of thermals. So this might be a spot that if you're hunting in a low spot, maybe that is the morning progresses, you're gonna have that thermal start pulling air up the ridge behind you. You might build get away with something in that scenario if you take advantage of that. UM. But again, it's just really hard to answer these kinds of questions without knowing the specifics. So that's a little bit of general advice. I guess yep. Um okay, here's another good one. Um, without the use of trail cameras, how would you break down a piece of property in season if it's a property you've never hunted before? For me? For me, man, it's just it all comes down to being mobile, right. I mean, if you if you don't have trail cameras, right, you're not going to use them. I'm taking that out of the equation. The only way for me to know what is in there and where you know where the deer are coming from is to go in and scout and hunt at the same time. Right, you go in with the stand on your back. You you walk in, you scout it, and you hang up on front, you hang on fresh sign. I mean, that's that's just the first thing that pops into my head. The reason I say that is because if you're going and you're doing scouting in season, you're laying down unwanted cent you're putting on wanted pressure on the herd, and that all that's doing is just kicking out the highest quality deer in that area because they will smell you and they will alter their their route. I guess their pattern on that farm because of you. So the best way to do it is hanging bang What I mean I do? That's dance life philosophy right there, folks. Uh um, yeah, I tend to agree with you in that without cameras, you are dependent on either looking at sign or taking observation data into account. So what you're actually seeing, dear do um? So the first thing I would say is scout the heck out of the map. Look at the aerial map, look at the top of map. Try to identify the key things based off of assumption as you're making from that map. So, where do you think that the food sources are? Where? Do you think the best betting airs are? Where? Based off the trainer aerial maps? Do you think that some funnels or pinch points might be just those base sit kind of features that we use white tail hunters like t kian on identify those best areas on your maps. Then I would dive in and depending on how much time you have, Like if this is like a five day hunt or something like that, and you've got to make it happen. And it's during the rut. Um, maybe it's a public land hunt or this new private land peace. Um. I think that I do not typically do this, but I know a lot of guys do, and I could see why it would make sense, and I probably will do this more often. When I'm trying some new areas out, like this new Nebraska place I'm going to, I might take this tact, which is take a day or half a day during the middle of the day, if if you maybe a rainy day or a windy day when you can get away a little more and do a scout like go and walk to those best looking areas and see like yes or no, are they what I thought they were? And knowing that you are gonna make a big risk on that first day, you're gonna blow some stuff out probably, But if it's during the rut, you might deal get away with it. It's better to learn a bunch on day one and bump a few deer versus and then hopefully will take advantage of that and hunt informed the rest of the time, versus going and blind without knowing anything and just sitting on the edges and waiting for something to come to you without you know, getting any of that intel. So there's a balancing act you have to make right there, and it's always going to be based on how much time you have, how much can you get away with. But the long story short of it is learn as much as you can when scouting, have your stand or whatever with you. Hunt, observe, adjust, hunt, observe adjust. That's how I would go about breaking it down. And typically I would be hunting from the outside in. I would try to be sitting somewhere I can observe and see an area and then see, Okay, it looks like most of the doughs are coming out of that corner of the field or that clearing of the CRP, and then the next day get tight to that and then you're able to see back in that cover a little bit better and then you see, okay, yeah, there's a buck that's cruising down winto there, and then I can adjust the next day eight yards further back. UM. That kind of um step by step strategy is probably the way I go about him. Yeah, and our guests that have been on this podcast, who are you know the guys who go on public ground or wherever out of state trips, A majority of the time on those trips has spent scouting before they go and actually make a move, right, So ye gotta have It's just you need that information. Hunting blind is just waiting for something lucky to happen is usually not the way to go. YEA next question, I've heard Dan mentioned before that having a ginger beard helps kill big deer. I'm going to test this theory this season. I was wondering if he had any tips on styles or grooming that might help. Also tips on how to deal with a wife who's not a fan of the ginger beard. Well, I don't know about your wife. My my wife doesn't mind my beard, right, she doesn't. She doesn't like it Yukon Cornelia style where it's just it and bushy. But here's the catch twenty two, My friend, you can't drop the hammer if you don't have the Yukon cornelius. Does that make sense? Yeah, you gotta have it first before you can shave it off. That's right, And then rutt hits drop the hammer the wife. I know this is there's probably kids listening, but be prepared. The kids for the kids, be prepared because the wife might, you know, get aggressive in her tactics. If you know what I mean, when you drop the hammer, you set when when you drop the hammer, Yeah, alright, orschal barf. Yeah, it's it's high risk, high reward. It's kind of like going in deep to the betting area. It's that kind of situation. So moving on, that's a question. Someone speaking of someone also asked if we think that Mark's baby face scares off dear. That's like if I almost feel like if I hung around you freshly shaved, that people would think that I'm trying to traffick you across the United States, like my pimp. Yeah, like, oh, okay, okay, we gotta go. I'll go down a rabbit hole. Next the next question. Let's then not get too off track here, Um, okay, let's see here. What's another good one. Um, if you had to chew well man, that's okay, here's sort of good question. Do you feel that starting to concentrate on bucks early in your hunting career has hurt you or could hurt someone you know? So does that or that's part one of the questions, And then he says, do you think it would be beneficial for new hunters to start feeling a lot of dough tags before focusing on bucks, so when the moment of truth does come on a good buck, they actually have some experience and have been there before. Um thoughts on that? Then, Okay, here's what I'll say on this. If you are a parent and you start your kid off with a giant deer, what does that kid really have to look forward to? Write? This kid is gonna this kid is gonna go one or two directions. He's gonna say, well, man, I can't shoot a deer that big every year, and I you know, I don't want to shoot a small deer, so I just won't hunt anymore. That's just what I see when I see these people. You know, it's like, hey, look at Johnny's first kill was a hundred you know, hundred deer. I mean, I don't I think that if you want to get comfortable around deer, you have to just go and hang around deer and shoot deer. And I feel that for a new hunter, you go out, you fill those tags and then you stare step up right. I mean, you have to learn. For me, I kind of I don't want to say, I regret focusing on big deer a lot because I got an education and I got it fast, and that education is worth a lot to what I'm doing today. But like for my children, I'm going to let them go out and do whatever they want. If they want to shoot a spike, I'm gonna let him shoot a spike. If they want to shoot a dough, I'm gonna let him shoot a doll. And I'll be there for any advice, but I'm not gonna tell them what they can or can't shoot. Yeah, I agree with you, and I do think that to his point. You know, go out there, do whatever you want, whatever makes you happy. But there there's always this risk when the hunting media US included talks about hunting mature bucks or big bucks or whatever. We talked about that a lot, and if you're a new hunter and you're hearing that, it might be easy to think, oh, well, that's what I need to do too, But you don't. You don't go out there, have a good time. Learn. As Dan said, take it one step at a time. It is not easy figuring out this whole deer hunting things. So don't expect that your first year or in a handful of years you should be out there shooting four year old deer. It's just not gonna happen in most cases. So go out there and shoot the first year you get to answer. If that's you know, if you want to fill that freezer, if you want that experience, that's awesome. Go out enjoy that, get that meat, and then it does prepare you much better for the point if you do ever want to start targeting older deer, Like the question asker said, handling that moment of truth, there's nothing that can prepare you to better handle the moment of truth, especially if it's a mature buck. Then having already pulled the trigger on a lot of other deer, nothing, no amount of practice in the backyard is actually going to simulate the experience of a real live animal in front of you that you need to aim and get a good, quick click, quick, clean, ethical kill. On that experience right there is something that I think that any new hunter needs to get out and just start having. So go out there and shoot some does shoot young bucks, get some amazing protein on your plate, and and learn from that and enjoy that experience. That's what I would say. Word up, word up, um, let's see here, October lull. We've talked about this in a jillion times, but we should just give it like a thirty second cliff, not from both of us, just for someone new. Do we believe in the October law? Dan? What's your cliff? Notes? All right? Dan does not believe in the October law. I will give you a slightly more elaborate version of that answer. I will say that the October lull is not what most people think it is. Most people think that the October law is this time period during the October where dear move less and it's really hard to kill dear. That's not true. Research has shown that buck movement and dear movement in general typically tends to trend up through the entire month of October. But that doesn't necessarily mean that hunters are going to see that, because there's a bunch of different changes happening happening in October. Number one, A bunch of hunters are now in the woods in mid October. Dear adjust to that that change their behavior. They change where they move, they change when they move. Number two, a lot of food sources are changing. You've got some crops that are coming out you've got some crops that are maturing. You've got some crops that are um not as attractive to deer anymore. You've got acorns dropping in the woods. You have a whole bunch of stuff like that that changes deer patterns. Again, if you don't adjust to the deer's changing patterns, you're not going to see that movement. Number Three, the cover available in most areas is changing. You've got leaves dropping, You've got certain grasses that are starting to get matted down or leaf covers coming down. That's opening up the area, opening up the timber in certain ways. So areas that deer felt comfortable moving during daylight on September when there's leaves everywhere might not feel the same way on October seventeenth when the leaves are coming down. And now it's why it open in there. So those deer are going to change where they move during daily because of that too. Again, if you don't adjust for that, you're not going to see the movement. So I would say that the October law is a reality for a lot of people simply because they're not adjusting to these changes. That's my take on the October law. So can you have success during the law. Yes, if you're able to adjust to those changes and you have places and you know how the deer change, if you can get in there, yeah, you can definitely get it done. If you don't understand how those changes are happening, if you don't know where the deer have moved to or how they're changing their behavior, if you're just gonna be going in there blind in mid October, that might not be as good of an idea. You might in that situation put yourself in a better position if you buy your time a little bit until later into the month when you're gonna get another pick up and movement around that pre rut time frame. So it just depends on your circumstances. That's kind of my take on the on the quote unquote law. Would you argue with any of that dinner, I would not. Long story short, You're not gonna kill a deer mid October when it's seventy five degrees outside on a field edge, right, or you could right. There's no rules, there's no black and white. There's always exceptions to the rule. Um, is the that being said drinking game still in effect? And if not, can we bring that back I had to stop. Yeah, stop, you're you haven't said it as much anymore. But back in the day, man, what last year, two years ago? When you first started, it was it was like almost like some people would say, um um um. It was that being said, what do you think about this? Dan, and and that being said, let's move on to the next point. If there was a person doing a drinking game, man, send my regards to their family. I'm sure they're dead. They had a rough year back in exactly. It's a whole lot of podcast drinking. Um. Okay, So I think that Unfortunately, I'm gonna have to pull the plug on this one because I have another meeting I have to get to. I feel like there's so many other questions that we didn't get to answer. H do So we were we should probably do a part two maybe here next week or something. We'll we'll tackle some more listener questions, um, because I know there's a lot of good ones in here that that would be helpful. So let's let's throw a time out on this one. Let's wish everyone luck this uh this coming week, and Dan um do me a favor. Kill Natalie Charlie so we can all see what this deer looks like. Huh. Alright, man, I'm gonna give her a try. Alright, good luck, my friend, and we'll see you next time. Same to you. And that's gonna do it for us today, folks. So thanks for tuning in. Hopefully you enjoyed this. We will try to tackle more questions next time around. Until then, make sure you're falling We're done on Instagram and Facebook, in YouTube, and as I mentioned at the beginning, check out that new season of the Meet Your TV Show on Netflix. And otherwise, all I can ask of you is to get out in the woods, have a great time, shoot straight, get some backstraps on the grill, and enjoy this most wonderful time of year. So thank you again. I appreciate your support, and until next time, stay wired to hunt. H