00:00:00 Speaker 1: Every buck doesn't need to be a high scoring trophy buck. You're actually doing the herd disservice if you focus solely on score and not directly on age. 00:00:09 Speaker 2: To me, a great hunter can go. Dude, I don't have a pressure pressure to shoot a buck. I don't need a buck to post. There's nothing that you know I is of the age class that I want to shoot, So I'm just not going to shoot anything this year. 00:00:24 Speaker 3: Welcome to back forty, brought to you by land dot com, the leading online real estate marketplace to find your perfect rural, recreational, agricultural, or hunting properties here in the US, and for the next two weeks only go to the meat eater dot com backslash back forty for a chance to win a white tail kit work one thousand dollars. The contest ends August twelveth so don't wait. Sign up for your chance to win the day at the meat eater dot Com backslash back forty. Each week we're going to be diving into an exciting white tail dilemma or question we all face as whitetail hunters, and I brought in a panel of experts carefully hand selected to hopefully help everyone no matter where they're at in their land journey, their white tail journey across the Midwest. The expert panel includes Steve Hansen, Don Higgins, Bobby Kendall, Jeff Sturgis, Skip Sly, Bill Winky, Thomas Mills, Nutt, and Mark Kenyan. To kick off the series, It's a question I feel all hunters face at some point internally externally, and the question is do great hunters really shoot a buck every single year? The panel of experts I brought in it seemingly feels like they shoot their target buck every single year. And as we're building up our own excitement and anticipation for the season, I often feel that it builds up like a pressure cooker and you feel like you have to shoot a buck in order to feel like a great hunter or a good hunter. And this is the question we dive into because I think it provides a clarity and context of how often these experts are really shooting a buck every single year. What does it look like your target buckets killed by EHD or get hits by a car, or you're just having a really tough year. Is it relatable to these folks? And I think you guys will really enjoy this. This kicks off the Back forty podcast and each week we're going to be diving into a different white tailed dilemma and question with the same expert panel, so you can get a good perspective from a variety of different folks on how they feel about a question that we all likely ask ourselves throughout the build up and anticipation of the season. 00:02:27 Speaker 4: So I hope you. 00:02:28 Speaker 3: Guys enjoy it and stick around for next week, and let's get into our expert panel to dive into the burning question, do great hunters really shoot a buck every single year? 00:02:39 Speaker 4: Here we go. 00:02:40 Speaker 5: I don't want to shoot a bunch of one seventies because I look at it up as those year could be real giants a year from now. I'm wanting to shoot the biggest bucks I can possibly find, and to do that, you got to let a lot of really good bucks go. 00:02:53 Speaker 6: Hey, guys, Mark Kenyon here and I want to let you know that you are tuned in today to a brand new mini series here on the Wired to Hunt feed with my good buddy Jake Hofer, who's sitting next to me right now. If you're watching this, and I hope that you listen to the full Wired Hunt podcast that me and Jake did last week in which we fully discussed this new series, the motivations behind it, what we're trying to achieve, what the new format is, and everything. So go back and listen to that episode if you have it. But if you don't want to go back and listen to that, and instead you're in vested in the thing that you just hit on your phone and you want to listen to this right now, Jake is going to introduce himself in the concept real quick for you now as we kick off this brand new series, the Back for You podcast. 00:03:39 Speaker 4: It's gonna be great. 00:03:40 Speaker 6: You're an enjoy it. And Jake, what is in store? 00:03:43 Speaker 7: Man? 00:03:43 Speaker 4: We have a lot of exciting things. 00:03:44 Speaker 3: We all face white tailed lemmas, you know, similar questions here after a year, anticipation and excitement is building like a fever pitch for the season, and so with excitement comes to nervousness. And I had wrangled eight people I really respect, I know really well, and I thought back through my own questions, questions I hear every year, and each week you're going to get a panel of eight coaches for one question, one dilemma leading all the way up into the season, and we're gonna be covering a variety of different topics, and this week we're starting with one. If you've been behind all year, and I hope everyone tunes in each week because there's a lot of value, a lot of different perspectives you can figure out. I wonder what this person thinks about this question and what a different from the next person. And you're going to tune in and get your own information, and I think that you'll find a lot of value and all of the answers under one topic. First up, we have none other than Bill Winki from Michigan, move to Iowa, pioneered Midwest white tail, and is now sharing his own progression on a new farm on his YouTube channel with Bill This Bill Winki. I really hope you guys enjoy this. Bill's going to be on every single episode for the next eight weeks, answering each and every question. And we're leading with obviously, do great hunters really shoot a buck every single year? Okay, simple question? Do great hunters shoot a buck every single year? 00:05:10 Speaker 8: Do a great hunters shoot a buck every single year? 00:05:13 Speaker 7: I probably shouldn't say no, because I've certainly had years where I didn't shoot a buck, So I think that's the risk if I say, yes, they do, but I think yes they should, you. 00:05:26 Speaker 9: Know, I think that put it this way, I think great hunters depends on the definition of how you how you want to you know, put that is, is a great hunter based on success or is it based on you know, doing the best they can in the situation where they find themselves, et cetera. 00:05:47 Speaker 8: So I don't know. I guess if I had to say, a great hunter is. 00:05:52 Speaker 9: Only as good as the as the scouting and the research and the effort that goes prior to the season in the preper as far as you know, shooting his bow and so forth, I would say they should be successful every year, whether you're gonna have the idea when you're not that the great hunters are going to find a way before the season opens to make sure that they're in place to fill at least one tag. I don't know very many great hunters that have years when they don't shoot. 00:06:25 Speaker 3: Anything in the last twenty five years. How many years have you not shot a buck? 00:06:30 Speaker 9: To put in that perspective, twenty five years, probably two or three? 00:06:35 Speaker 4: Two or three? 00:06:36 Speaker 10: Yeah, yeah, OK. 00:06:38 Speaker 9: And it's been sometimes that mess up, you know, and the buck'm hunting gets away. But sometimes, like recently with this new farm, you know, I've been stubborn enough that I say, I'm only going to hunt this farm and if there's not a good shooter there, you know, it's kind of hard to put it this way. 00:06:58 Speaker 8: The more sure bucks are in a person's. 00:07:01 Speaker 9: Hunting area or the on his properties that he has access to hunt, et cetera, the more. 00:07:06 Speaker 8: Successful he's going to be. 00:07:08 Speaker 9: And you know, it's just a numbers game then and again, like I said, a great hunter doesn't leave it up to chance. 00:07:16 Speaker 8: He's gonna make sure that he's. 00:07:18 Speaker 9: Got enough options that he's got to plan ABCD. 00:07:22 Speaker 8: You know they're usually gonna fill tax. 00:07:24 Speaker 4: Next up we have Don Higgins. 00:07:26 Speaker 3: Don is typically hunting a specific bucks, so I wanted to get his perspective if this is accurate. Do great hunters really shoot a buck every single year? Here's what Don has to say, simple question. Do great hunters shoot a deer every single year? A buck every year? 00:07:41 Speaker 8: Well? 00:07:41 Speaker 5: I think some of them do. I think it's all a matter of individual goals. Personally, I'm not one of those guys that goes out and looks to shoot a bunch of deer every year. There's some great hunters out there that shoot multiple bucks every year. I only want to shoot the biggest one I can find, and I don't want to shoot a bunch of one seventies because I look at it as those year could be real giants a year from now. I'm wanting to shoot the biggest bucks I can possibly find, and to do that, you've got to let a lot of really good bucks go. And I just I've been the kind of guy that or the kind of deer hunter that one buck a year is enough for me. Some years I will shoot two and in certain situations, but you know, typically I'm a one target buck a year and possibly use the second tag for a management buck. 00:08:32 Speaker 10: But I just think. 00:08:36 Speaker 5: You can't really define all good hunters as following one set of rules. Some of them, like I said, they just like to shoot a lot of deer, and they do, and nothing wrong with that. 00:08:47 Speaker 3: What's the last year that you did not fill a buck tag that you can remember? 00:08:52 Speaker 11: Huh? 00:08:52 Speaker 5: I think it would have been twenty eighteen, the year right after I shot Smoking and Trump on back to back hunts. I've got enough bucks on the wall, I don't need to hang another one up here, and you're running out of room that too, So I'd say twenty eighteen was probably the last year that I can think of. 00:09:11 Speaker 3: And what about the season before the time before that, I'm putting you on the spot. 00:09:16 Speaker 5: Now, Yeah, I don't know. Back at that period of time, I was probably going about every other year and not shooting a deer, and definitely wasn't because I couldn't. It's just that my goals were a little more lofty than what was available. And as I've started covering more ground multiple states, and as I've been able to take this farm to the next level, I'm able to shoot a buck every year now and in some years two bucks. But I'd never shot more than two bucks in a season ever. And what this season will be, I think it's my forty forty eighth year of deer honey and never shot more than two bucks season, and I have no desire to. 00:10:02 Speaker 4: Next up, we have Jess Sturgis. 00:10:03 Speaker 3: He's from Michigan, moved to Wisconsin, lives in Minnesota now Minnesota and Wisconsin and Pennsylvania every single year, and here's what he has to say. If great hunters really shoot a buck every single year? Do great hunters really shoot a buck every single year? In your opinion? 00:10:20 Speaker 12: Oh boy, I'd say that consistently. Yes they do. And maybe it's not every year, but it's you know, eighty percent plus. And I've talked about that in videos. Eighty percent rule. If you do things right on your property where you hunt public land, private land, that you should see that eighty percent mark over a ten year period right around they're shooting those target bucks that you want to in whatever neighborhood you're in. 00:10:47 Speaker 3: Do you think that's relative to where they're at in the country too? Obviously? I think I think it still sticks true to eighty percent of you know, I think representation of the area. 00:10:56 Speaker 10: I think it's most white till properties. 00:10:58 Speaker 12: And the reason I say that is especially on private land, and you can apply this to public in a lot of ways too, is that you do something than ninety five percent of other hunters don't. 00:11:09 Speaker 10: Whether it's the discipline. 00:11:11 Speaker 12: Of how you hunt, really the choices you make of where you go when you go, being more limited in your hunting approach, and being more of a tactician, A lot of people just fall into the same routines and rots every year. And that's why I firmly believe that only five percent of the habitat holds the majority of mature box during the daylight. 00:11:30 Speaker 10: Now at night they have a three mile. 00:11:32 Speaker 12: Home range, And unfortunately people focus on that so much and it almost is disheartening. But when you look at it where bucks actually spend their daylight time, it's less than five percent of the habitat, and you either find it on public land or you build it on private land, and then that allows you to tap in if you make smart, smart hunting choices, then that next step to not ruin that five percent and allow you to tap into the majority of those bucks every year. 00:11:56 Speaker 10: So I believe you can do that just about anywhere. White tail rooms. 00:12:00 Speaker 3: Okay, how many how many people do you think that that would I would put in the category of serious hunters that are at eighty percent success right over a ten year period. 00:12:09 Speaker 12: Well, that's good question. I would say ten percent or less. And I have a I call it five percent club. You know, whether you're whether you're you're in that club building it, or you have that land that's a five percent club, or you're a hunter, it's in that five percent club, and it's not. It sounds, you know, almost condescending to other hunters or the majority of hunters to me. But at the same time, you're just doing something different. It's no different than in life. There's people with small businesses. If you've been a successful entrepreneur, you know what it takes to do that. It's a lot of hard work. And I'll give a quick example public land. How many people, Jake, do you think dedicate ten whole days to scouting public land per year? 00:12:54 Speaker 10: What do you think that percentage would be? It's probably five percent, and so ten days. 00:13:00 Speaker 12: If you think about that, how can someone who's hunting public land devote ten days? Now, maybe they don't have a family, but let's say they have a family, they have kids. When are you gonna do that during the week Are you going to take time off from work to do this? So you usually do it on the weekend, that's a Saturday and entire Saturday. What if I used to hunt Ohio, I drive seven hours to Ohio this year again we'll drive. Since ninety three, I've hunded more years than not. I've hunted Pennsylvania and that's a twelve to fourteen hour drive from home. So think of that amount of time it takes to devote ten days on our private land. 00:13:32 Speaker 10: We work one hundred days. Yeah, one hundred days. 00:13:36 Speaker 12: And so to be in that five percent club on private land, I'm not saying you have to work that many days, but you're just doing more. You're working more, you're planning more, you're strategizing, and that's your approach or access everything. 00:13:49 Speaker 10: So it can be done by anybody. 00:13:51 Speaker 12: But does everyone want to have that more entrepreneurial spirit and bust their butt and sacrifice to do that? 00:13:59 Speaker 4: Next time we have Bobby Kendall. 00:14:01 Speaker 3: Bobby's from New York, move to Illinois, hunts all across the Midwest, typically hunts a specific deer or works to find a specific deer. And here is his answer to a white tailed dilemma or pondering question. Do great hunters shoot a buck every single year? 00:14:16 Speaker 4: Simple question? 00:14:18 Speaker 3: Do great hunters shoot a buck every single year? So I think it's a little bit of a loaded question. 00:14:23 Speaker 11: I think if you strip it down and you say, you know, if a great hunter has the ability to hunt a buck, him versus the deer, and there's no other outside factors, I think ninety eight percent of the time they're going to get it done. There's obviously other factors though, you know, ehd comes in and kills her deer, a neighbor kills her deer. But part of what makes great hunters great hunters is they're great at finding deer. So in generally, generally they're going to have multiple deer found, so they're gonna hedge those you know, things from happening. And you know the other phenomenon that kind of happens is I think as hunters, as we as we go along in our journey, our bar gets raised. So like I know, guys their bar is so high that they might not shoot deer because your odds are just thing so much less to find that deer to hunt. But I think if you strip the question down and say the great hunters in this country they found a deer, there's no outside factors and it's them versus the deer. I think the odds are they're going to get a crack at them high ninety percent of the times, if not one hundred percent. 00:15:33 Speaker 3: Do you think that the progression of a deer hunter, their goal gets higher and higher and higher that it almost truly becomes a game of one in one hundred, one in one thousand, just to find a deer that they want to pursue, and that becomes the hardest part. 00:15:49 Speaker 11: I say all the time, the hardest part about killing a big deer is finding a big deer. You got to get really good at finding a big deer to get really good at killing a big deer. So yeah, I think you can kind of almost phase yourself out or make it very hard on yourself. I for one, still am a sucker for it, so I don't discriminate a whole lot when they get big, I'm chasing, so but yeah, I think I think the great hunters we just learned so much now with trail cams and information and stuff. It's just it's really hard they have so they're always ahead of the deer, you know, and they have so much opportunity to catch up with them through the season because of their knowledge and their strategies and stuff, and it's I think it's it's really hard for the deer to get away from the true killers in the in the countryside. 00:16:38 Speaker 3: One tip to find more big deer you mentioned, that's that's the almost the name of the game. People have a good foundation of maybe for you, for example, setting up a farm and making it really efficiently. Is there a silver bullet a finding big deer or is it a game of a million? It's just math, it's just probability. 00:16:58 Speaker 11: I mean, where we're sitting now, it's one of the most awesome setups I've ever seen, right here next to me. But it doesn't matter if there's not a big deer here. And even though it's a really good area there's they're very well could not be a really big deer here. 00:17:11 Speaker 3: So you have to you have to. 00:17:14 Speaker 11: The tip is always searching, always trying to find one. Running cameras. That's that's a trick to it. Running cameras. That's the most efficient way you can glass and stuff, But running cameras in every nook and cranny you can, and always trying to gain new spots, whether it be buying, leasing, scouting public or permission pieces. So I think a lot of the great hunters I've met, they've got this personality trait where they like obsess almost and they almost like won't accept failure, like letting the deer be with them win. And so I think that personality trait like not giving up on them and then there's one other way. I think these people that know what they're doing might not kill one, and that's you know, very close to where we're at, and you remember the story. Uh, you know, you get a really special deer and you're willing to, you know, play the long shot game, and you know you're not really in the game, but he's around, and so you spend years chasing one deer that is hard to hunt in the sense that he's not really on your farm, and so there's not a whole lot you can try to do stuff, but you know certain deer you know, in this case, it's deer with swimming across the Illinois River and spending his fall range on the other side of the river. So so yeah, sometimes it's just a matter off. You make a decision to chase a certain deer even though the odds are low and he might not even ever be on your farm. So that would be another reason I think great hunter. So I guess the answer the question is not necessarily a great hunter is not going to kill a big buck every year, because there's different factors and different reasons why not. But if they have the ability to play the game with that deer, in his core or right there around his core, and there's no outside conditions. They're almost always going to have multiple opportunities. With or without a farm developed, they're going to have multiple opportunities thinking like a deer and get getting a shot at them. 00:19:06 Speaker 3: Next up we have Skip also from Michigan, moved to Iowa twenty some years ago and is a white tail fanatic. Is all about improving habitat and giving deer everything they need. But the question is do great hunter shoot a buck every single last year? Okay, here we go, do great hunters really shoot a buck every year? 00:19:26 Speaker 2: I would say no. I would say a great hunter, in my mind, would be somebody who doesn't have that pressure anymore to shoot a buck. And there's just certain circumstances in certain certain years where unless you're going to like the extreme, extreme lengths to go travel to new areas that you just don't have a buck you want to hunt, those years just happen. I don't care if it's on big farms, I don't care if it's on small farms. Maybe it's an EHD breakout that hits a whole region. Maybe you're like, hey, I had ten farms to hunt and Ehu went through there and there literally is nothing I want to hunt. So to me, a great hunter can go Dude, I don't have a pressure pressure to shoot a buck. I don't need a buck to post. There's nothing that you know, I is of the age class that I want to shoot. So I'm just not going to shoot anything this year. And I've had those years where it's like there's really nothing I want to shoot, and I probably would still end up shooting something, but i'd go after like, you know, I would put a bigger target on like a six year old cold buck that you know, if I wanted to shoot one really good high score in dear year that that wouldn't fit into that category. But you know, in my younger years, when I had like the crazy ambition, but my standards were maybe slightly less, I would say I was. I was a good hunter in my younger years. 00:20:54 Speaker 3: I was. 00:20:55 Speaker 2: But we had so many different trips planned because I was so ambitious and so over the time with where I'd go. 00:21:00 Speaker 3: So we'd be like, Okay, we'll go. 00:21:02 Speaker 2: To Michigan, we'll go to Illinois, we'll go to Kansas, We'll go to Iowa. Fill in the blank. I mean like, well, yeah, I'm going to get a buck with all those places. But you know, so now, I'd say a lot of more mature hunters that are a little bit older, they don't haunt like that. They don't hunt in all these states. They're not doing it to film a TV show. Where if you're filming a TV show, you know, and you just need to get footage of kills, you're probably shooting several bucks every year. Now, if I ask those people truly, did you really want to shoot those bucks? Where those really what you aspired to do? They say, no, I just wanted to get footage. Well, I don't want to do that. I'm not here to get footage. I'm here for my own experience. So it depends what your goals are. Like I said, if you're filming, it'd be different. But I don't count that because they're literally it's part of their business. But I think like for my I just answer it for myself. And I'm not considering myself a great hunter. I'm not saying that at all. But I can get on mature bucks every single year. Some of them just might be lower scoring, and you know, I might have some mature bucks around every year too, that I could shoot and I'd be like, hey, I got a seven year old buck, but it's not gonna like make me like super amped to do it. So I'll make sure like somebody else has a chance at him, and I'll try and get like a friend on it, or a kid or my son or my nephew or whatever, somebody who's like, wow, this was amazing this you know this buck. They go nuts because I'd rather see them shoot it now than me and be like, yeah, you know, it's a nice buck. It's older, and I'd be appreciative, but I know they'd be far more appreciative. And that just comes with like getting older, maturing, getting super old like me and complacent. You're just like, yeah, I don't need to shoot another deer, and watching other people shoot it is rewarding to me. So there's my long winded brand answered that doesn't really answer the question. So I'd say, no, they don't shoot him every year out of the last ten years. How many how many years did you not shoot a buck out of the last ten. 00:23:08 Speaker 3: If you have to think, I don't think. 00:23:10 Speaker 2: I No, I didn't ever have any issue. There was a few where I'm like, you know, there was a giant that went through my ground that I just picked up on or a farm that I had, and I'd try and hunt for him and then he'd vanish or whatever. Just like, yeah, my opportunity's gone, So let's refocus on a deer that I could have been hunting the whole time. And it's kind of like, yeah, that still would be fun and it'd be a challenge. You know, maybe there was a just a giant, you know, one nineties or something that was old that I lost a chance at, and I'm like, Okay, there is still this one seventies. It's very hard to hunt, and he's kind of unique. Like I actually coincidentally looking at some sheds that could maybe fit into that example, like like like this is a deer that we actually like go last year that will be unique this year and he'll be old, and if there was nothing else to hunt, like I could be like if he puts on a little more mass, a little more size, I'd be a little well, he can still add some more so that we let him go and I would hunt that if if like, hey, there's nothing gigantic to hunt, which or might not be, and then I've had years where there's a giant to hunt where I'm like, yeah, I've shot some bucks like that before, so I'll let him go. I don't want to shoot him this year. We'll see if he can make it. We'll just see what he does next year as kind of an experiment and just as a fun challenge. So no, I think I've shot a buck every probably every year for the last ten years. But I also have like farms all over the place too, where I can just be, well, there is a good one over here, and just when you farm and you have different pieces all over the place, it's just so much more opportunity. It just is my younger years, it was harder. It was all it was all permission, and you know, you couldn't even run back then. I didn't even run trail cameras. Really, it was just go hunt there and hope you get lucky and just throw things at the wall, like hey, I'll put up fifty tree stands and just try all these different farms and hopefully I get lucky. And a lot of times they did. Sometimes I didn't. Yeah, but yeah, I'm pretty consistent. 00:25:26 Speaker 3: Now. Next up we have Steve Hanson grew up in Illinois, was hunting Puple Ground in the eighties, moved to Iowa in the nineties, and I really think you guys will appreciate his answers. Steve has a bunch of experience of working on so many different farms over the years and really tries to do the best for the resource. 00:25:44 Speaker 4: Here's what he has to say. 00:25:46 Speaker 3: There's this pressure that everyone feels like they need to shoot a buck every year. Right, do you think great hunters really shoot a buck every year or should shoot a buck every single year? Yes, but. 00:25:58 Speaker 1: They should concentrate him on harvesting mature bucks. Every buck doesn't need to be a high scoring trophy buck. You're actually doing the herd disservice if you focus solely on score and not directly on age. So you know, like a state like Iowa where we're allowed three bucks, it would be you know, most people, the average person or even someone who has access to a lot of land. You'd be doing the farm and injustice if you harvested the three best genetic bucks and left all the call bucks junkers. You know, old mature bucks that need to go. So, you know, if someone who considers himselfs an expert hunter or however, you want to, you know, discuss that they should absolutely be harvesting bucks every year, whether they're high scoring or just old mature bucks. 00:26:44 Speaker 3: Yeah, so there's there's true conservation and management. Yes potential by hey, I don't have a high scoring quote unquote giant who hunt. I need to focus on this old. 00:26:55 Speaker 4: Scrappy exactly eight point that's. 00:26:57 Speaker 3: Seven years old or six years old or five year old top Now where. 00:26:59 Speaker 1: You're ac and and even you know, you get into a state like Kansas, they've got a little bit more of a problem because they're only allowed one bucks. So that's gonna you know, those people would have a bigger challenge. They would have to probably devote more of their time to hunting for a high scoring mature buck. But before the season ended, I would recommend you still harvest something because there's a segment of the buck population that needs to be harvested that I've noticed has been overlooked on a lot of properties. 00:27:25 Speaker 3: Do you think there's always some sort of self pressure people typically, Yeah, you know, throughout their own season. Doesn't matter if you produce content or right, you just regular guy. 00:27:37 Speaker 1: I think everybody because because you know it, and it builds because all year long, you're doing projects on the farm, you're doing things to aid in that the ultimate goal of harvesting that buck. So if that's not occurring, you know, your co workers, your family or wife, she's like, well. 00:27:53 Speaker 4: Doing vacation. 00:27:54 Speaker 1: Yeah, you've been out there for months doing stuff and you haven't got one. You know, it's kind of so you got to kind to look past that and make sure you're hunting for the right reasons and you know, focusing on maturity as your number one goal and then you know score as a second one. 00:28:10 Speaker 3: Do you think that pressure is the self Pressure is a good thing or a bad thing. 00:28:15 Speaker 1: It depends on the individual. You know, some pressure is obviously good because it forces you to work harder and you know, get up earlier, hunt later, you know, all the things that should make you more successful. If it manifests itself to the point where you're obsessing over it, or you're actually harvesting, change your goal and you harvest a lesser quality buck because you're under so much pressure. 00:28:37 Speaker 10: In that case, it's a negative. 00:28:38 Speaker 3: So next up we have Thomas Mills now lives in Wisconsin in the Driftless region, hunts a shared permission property primarily and has set the county record multiple times for archery big bucks. And here's what he has to say, if great hunters really shoot a buck every single year? All it's a simple question. Do great hunters really shoot a buck every year? 00:29:00 Speaker 10: Oh? 00:29:01 Speaker 13: No, they definitely do not. 00:29:04 Speaker 10: That's it. 00:29:05 Speaker 13: You know, to be a great hunter, you have to set a certain level of standards. And if your standards are set high enough, then you're not going to achieve those standards every time you step foot in the woods, right, You're certainly not going to achieve them every year. And you know this is a kind of reversus this concept, right, the enemy of great or the enemy of good is great, you know, when you're trying to like be too much of a perfectionist. On the other side of that, if you truly want great things, then you have to give up good things. Which I say at clients all the time. You can't kill great deer if you're killing good deer. You have to be willing to eat your tag from time to time to increase the quality of animals on your property. Right, it specifically bucks, So you're not going to kill a big deer every year. And also, you know there's always going to be situations. Some of the most challenging deer to hunt. The reason why they get big, you know, depending on the area you're in, especially, it's because they're not that easy to kill, right, So you can't always expect to figure out a dear in one year. And sometimes there's things that we can do as land managers to improve our odds year and year out where you know, maybe that four year old bucks on our property X amount of time this year, look at their habits, look at where they're spending time. How can I improve that situation? So maybe next year he spends more time or he's more consistent. Every year is a building year, and you're not going to kill a big buck every year. And if you want to kill big bucks the best bucks you can, then then you can't kill the lesser bucks in a year just because you don't have a bigger buck or you couldn't kill that buck, and you know, you settle for something else. So absolutely, without a shadow of a doubt, I would say the best hunters out there understand that patience is beyond just sitting in a stand one day or even you know, grinding out one season. 00:30:58 Speaker 10: It is a long term. 00:30:59 Speaker 13: Game and the more you learn that, or the more you observe in general, the more you will learn that from every situation and how it pays back dividends. 00:31:09 Speaker 3: So over the last ten years, how many times have you ate a Wisconsin tag? 00:31:13 Speaker 13: Oh, in the last ten years three and those three years, I had encounters with my target book all three of those years. I've also gotten a lot pickier with the shots that I'll take. You know, I had a buck, one of my bucks at thirty five yards for fifteen minutes one day, and there's just it just wasn't confident in taking the shot. You know, stuff like that happens. That to me was a success. I crossed paths right where I wanted. You know, all the things that I anticipated putting my theories together panned out. It was just that one little thing, and I chose not to force the execution because I don't want to injure the animal. And then a couple of the other ones were dear that their home shifted, their home range shifted a little bit, so when they were younger, they were actually on our property more, which kind of threw me for a loop as far as like you're anticipating historical data to repeat itself. But it's actually changing in a way that's not positive. 00:32:11 Speaker 10: Now. 00:32:11 Speaker 13: Normally, if I would recognize that, I would shift away from them, but I didn't have a better option than those years. They're kind of a slump lot of surrounding neighbors, harvested four year olds, five year olds, and you know, trying to target a little bit older age class. 00:32:24 Speaker 10: So there just wasn't a lot of opportunity in those years. 00:32:27 Speaker 13: But three out of the last ten years, I've eat my tag and then usually when I do that, the next year pays back dividends, right, So that's just kind of the way it goes. 00:32:37 Speaker 4: That makes perfect sense. 00:32:38 Speaker 3: And I've asked the question everyone and I should have asked the same follow up question every time of you know, over the last ten years, how many times you know, eight a tag? But I would say that seventy and eighty percent of you know, filling attack on a successful buck has been the trend for the most part. So if someone's out there, they don't feel if that leer was last year where you didn't fill your tag, maybe this is the year. This is the year when you get a two ex return by maybe passing a year. 00:33:06 Speaker 13: Yeah, and I would just say, you know, if I'm after my target book and I have that encounter, like. 00:33:12 Speaker 10: I said, I see that as a success. 00:33:14 Speaker 13: If I'm after my target book and I'm not having encounters, that's what I see as a failure in my mind, right, I want to have encounters with that buck. I for a long time, I worked really really hard to have one opportunity at a mature buck of season. Now I've kind of figured things out right, and I've also made some tweaks on the property, and now it's not uncommon to have five, six, ten encounters with mature bucks, you know. But again, there's always that one buck that I'm focused on. And sometimes it's hard. You know, you're crossing paths, maybe you come through, then he comes through on camera, you know, so you know he was there, you're just timings off a little bit, or you see him but not within range of the stand, or things change, you know, pressure increases in the property, unforeseen circumstances. Those are things that I look at as a failure, and also what are things that I can do to get better to prevent failures like that from happening in the future, And you know, kind of break that down it's like a postseason debrief, like, oh, you know, what could I have done differently? Essentially, But on the other side of that is just not having the target buck that you want, right. So I've been there before too, like, oh, there's a year where there really wasn't a buck that I was crazy to go after. So I you know, we're all busy, and for me, it's like, you know, I don't need to just go out and kill one hundred and forty ish inch four year old, you know, and the size is all relative, right, I'm going for age class more than anything. So if there's not a higher caliber deer out there, I'll probably still hunt, but I'm not going to hunt as hard, you know, if I don't have that deer, and I'll have the patience to just let some of these younger up and comers stay on the property, not pressure them off, not let my guard down to where I'm just like, there's not a buck out here I want to kill, So I'm gonna you know, I'll be doing projects, has at work, checking cameras, all willing nearly like totally off script of how I would normally operate if I was trying to pursue a target book, so you just back off, keep the pressure, have that patience and self control so that those four year old deer five year old deer again. 00:35:17 Speaker 10: Whatever is lower than the age class you want. 00:35:20 Speaker 13: Those deer are sticking around on your property more and setting you up for the opportunity and years to come. 00:35:25 Speaker 4: Last, but not least, we have Mark Kenyon. 00:35:27 Speaker 3: You know who Mark is if you're listening a Wire to Hunt from Michigan. And I really think you guys will enjoy his answer to this question. Here we go. There's a real simple question. Do a great hunter shoot a buck every single year? 00:35:41 Speaker 6: I think the answer is no, not necessarily. I think most would have an opportunity to do so, but I think many choose not to because I think most of the great hunters out there will always put themselves in a position to kill deer, will always themselves in the position to probably have a good chance at killing a mature buck. But also many of those greatest hunters get to a point where they can very picky, very selective about what do they want to put their tack on. And I think a difference between like pretty good hunters and great hunters is that once you get to great I don't think goals and expectations are the same as they used to be when they were just like really good hunters. And so I think when a really good hunter or a good hunter, there's this cliche thing about the stages of a hunter's life, right, It's like he start, he's like he's trying to figure out how to do any of this stuff, and you fear out how to kill your first dear, like awesome, I want to kill a bunch of deer. And then you faire out how to kill a bunch of deer, and then it's like, okay, now I want to kill like a bigger deer, and then I want to kill like a really big deer, and then maybe it's like the one deer, and then you get to a point where I don't even care if I kill anymore deer because I want my grandkids to kill a deer, I want my son to kill a deer. I want to just have this place or this experience or whatever. So I think for a lot of people, when they get to that like great deer hunter stage, many of them are at the point where like, hey, you know what, it's I want that one deer or I want this to be a puff that I've known for four years, that's an eight year old or a seven year old or whatever it is. And so I think just because of that, they care less about I need to kill a bunch of deer. And so I think that there's less pressure, like internal pressure or even like external pressure to like get a good deer every year, because at that point, if you've gotten to the point where you are a great hunter, I don't think you care at all about what the outside world thinks about whether or not you kill a deer every year, or you probably don't even care because you've killed so many deer to that point that really it's now what's going to make me happy in this moment, And maybe that means it's, you know, spending more time with the kids and killing a bunch of does. And yet if the one special deer or whatever it is isn't this year, no big deal next year. But I do think that anyone who's a truly great hunter would be in a position that they could kill it da nice deer every year. They just might choose not to. When I look at like most of the guys out there that I would consider truly truly great. I think that's the case. They certainly could, but they might choose not Tom, And you know, there's always gonna be weird freak circumstances too that just like take your goal out of the picture completely, right. I mean, there might be some people who all they would want to kill is this one deer and then EHD hits or something like that, and so for those people, that changes the game. So so yes, I don't think they have to kill a great deer every single year to be a great deer hunter, but I certainly think that they'd be in a position to do so because those truly great ones are always putting in the work, are always making sure they have options, are always making sure that they have their ducks in a row enough to be able to be to check that box there. 00:38:52 Speaker 3: You guys having That is the conclusion of the first episode of the Back forty podcast. It seemly feels like these guys that we just chatted with shoot their target buck every single year. 00:39:01 Speaker 4: But you heard it here. 00:39:01 Speaker 3: Great hunters may not shoot a buck every single year. So that pressure that you're building up throughout the year, don't let it get to you, because even these guys don't fill a tag every single year, so I hope you guys really enjoyed it. Next week, we're gonna be diving into a new and exciting question and dilemma, and that is the best part of my farm has bad access? Should I hunt it? How do I hunt it? We're going to get into that. So we will see you next week on the back forty podcast.