00:00:00 Speaker 1: Hey, this is Tyler Jones and you're listening to the Element podcast. And when that long ago wasn't I thought it was like twenty five seconds. It's just more than normal. Yeah. Yeah, But anyway, if you're listening to Casey Smith right here, he's talking, he's sitting on my couch dusting it up. But it's okay, it's okay. We both have dirty couches. Now, what's been going on date? I know you've been sweating it out. Yeah. Actually today wasn't as bad. Uh, it was hotter temperature wise, but we had breeze all day, which made a huge difference. Um, I was cut man, So it's been all my time on the ground to day saw dusting it up. That's way further from the sun. Yeah. And I can kind of find shade when I do that too, And um, yeah, it's not too bad. We've started starting earlier, so we finished earlier, which is good and bad because I was lethargic this morning at work. Yeah, I guess that extra hour it makes a difference. Yeah, And I like normally I get up in the mornings and work out and like I guess, get my body started. And when we started seven, I don't have time to do that or the want to to do that, so I have to get my body started at work. There's much fun. No, it's not, dude. My body has been slow to react this week too. I wonder if it's something in the air. I think it's that I've had a sore throat for going on two weeks right now, not two weeks. But yeah, it's gotta be allergies that are getting us. Man, folk, show you feel an I'll tell you what. These people in this neighborhood that I'm building the house in, they mow every day every day, so there's always dust and crap floating around in the air, and it's just allergy city over there. But I did see something cool today, though I saw it. Well, I didn't see the birthing event, but I saw a baby fawn getting licked up. Mama just had it. So you can mark it down, uh, two hundred days previous of today's when that dough was bread. You know where that puts it? Second week of November, mid November. How about that? You know, we all always have this theory about, you know, the trickle rut, and still she could fall into that trickle. But I just thought it was kind of interesting that the baby that I saw today was bread. You know, it's like everybody else. Yeah, exactly, that's interesting for sure. Um, and then I've got you know, I guess, you know, I guess the majority of them that is where it happens. But I do have a trail camera footage from last October, uh two four deer walking by video and two dos and two year links. One of them. Well, the two doughs are gray, you know, like they got their winter co coming in. One of the fonds is gray and the other one is red and spotted up a lot crazy. And I mean they just had to have been born a month apart at least, I would think, you know. But yeah, is that is very interesting. Man. I wonder if like that's a mature dough. Yeah, that's kind of more like in the cycle, you know or whatever. I don't know, it's it's a good question. I also kind of wonder if as our buckted ratio reaches a more healthy like her dynamic in in our area, Texas, if the tricker rut will be less, because it could possibly be the fact that you know, it used to be one buck to ten does when everybody's just smoking everything with horns on his head. Uh, and you just didn't have enough ducks to not enough bucks to get the does bread. But now you gotta. I think at least you have a more even buck doe ratio, So maybe you're getting more does bread on their first cycle at in the rut. I don't know that's it could be for sure. I don't know. Really, I guess it's time to get out and call some coyotes. Yeah, I guess last year we got video of coyote with a faun head its mouth. We need to post that. We didn't even showed anybody that, I know what. We need to figure out some way to like. But then it's also a couty that we almost shot but he snuck up on us. So that's I don't I don't know if it's the exact same one, but that video was taken not two hundred yards from where that cock os. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it does man for sure. Um, but it's all right that dough Probably that deer probably would have gotten killed last year because there was like five million people and there's guys that I think I think that they have a LEASA agreement on that public property there. They have Jimmy Hunts the creek and Johnny Hunts and Mick Creek, Bobby's further down the creek and we all just go in and I'm pretty sure they went in with weed eaters and like clear to a path then they're stand. I don't know, man, it was like a beaten path down there. It's pretty crazy. We also put out a trail camera web in kind of that area. Yeah, I mean pretty much that area, but it was like in a it's a big area, so it's like probably like a almost two mile web you know, of trail cameras, and we got all the camera stone that was like four or five of them. We were so excited about that spot. Never went over there once all season long, did not did not. So anyway, anyways, well, we've got a guest today that is like legit, man. Yeah, dude's been been hunting all over the place, hunting for a long time. He's been apparently writing for a long time for outdoor publications. Um, and so we're gonna we're gonna talk to him here in a little bit. Patrick may Teen um kind of a difficult name to say. It is a little bit well if it was spilled phonetically, it wouldn't be. But it looks a little bit like fringe or something them. But yeah, pretty cool dude, Yeah, oh for sure. Yeah. So anyway, I went to the archery shop today, did you really did? Yep? And uh, Richard tunue up now, not Richard, No, I didn't go, you can. And so I went down there and uh, man, they've done some renovations. Looks good in there. I hadn't been there in several years. Uh. And they got a lot of gear, got lots of bowls and stuff. You know, they got it going on. Man, it looks good. There were two tricks. Uh No, I didn't, man, I uh, I don't know. I just feel weird in these shops, you know, like some of them dudes, I know, a lot of them think highly of themselves. And the guy had been talking to and everything. He was real nice. But yeah, I just went there to get my buffers replaced that I had last tired of not shooting in the morning. So um. And then I looked at some of the eastern f MJ's five millimeters and just kind of tolled around a little bit there. Looked at stabilizers which some of those stabilizers are absolutely outrageously priced. I think I could get some PVC and make a stabilizer. That's crazy, the fact that someone cost a hunt bucks no, try to fifty and these products are not like overpriced. I saw I saw products in there from like Hawk that are what they are on the internet. And there were this thing stabilizer. I'm sorry. I know you're supposed to put good components on your bow, but there's a line that how you have to draw a quarter of a new boat. You don't even need one on the try acts some people, some people say, you know, like and you can shoot fine from a tree stand without one. Dudes just want to spend money on their stuff. Man, if they got it, I guess whatever. But yeah, that anyway, I I looked around at that stuff, looked at some stands they had. They carry Millennium and so I was like, hey, I have the micro whatever that eight and a half pounds stand. I wanted to see if my big old foot would fit on that platform, you know, And they didn't actually carry that one um and so he was like, yeah, whoever the owner is, He's like yeah, he was like Brian goes to the shows and if he doesn't think, you know, he was kind of hinting at that, if he doesn't think it's a good product, he's not gonna sell it. But I also kind of know, like it's one of those things also if he didn't think it's gonna sell. And there ain't many people in that area probably hunting public land there, you know, setting their tree stand up, and they don't want to sit in an eight pound, tiny little you know things. So anyway, I figured, you know, kind of take that with a grain of salt, and still I still would like to see it before I buy it, if I do. But they had some muddy vantage in there. The new ones had to know the old ones. Yeah, for sale. Yeah, they got to and uh and I was like, man, I like that. I like that stand. I got a few of them, you know, and uh, good stand. But I like how it like comes real narrow at the tree base where you're not gonna be standing anyway. You're losing weight by doing that, you know. And so anyway that he was like, yeah, I said, I said, they don't sell those or make those anymore, dude, They're out of production. He was like, I don't know, let me look and so we looked and out of production, out of um they were pretty much out of them. They had two more left and that was it. So maybe like one of the few places you can get them where they're like still new in the box. So, I mean they weren't in the box. I guess they were hanging up, but they you know, pretty much new, so anyway, or they looked at it new. I mean they might not might be used, but anyway. Yeah, so I just kind of looked around there for a while. Did you go with the traditional black on your bump stops or yeah? He's like, you want to stay with black? And I was like, yeah, I mean, what am I gonna put some neons on there? The only thing on my boat that's cool? I've got blue ones online. Yeah, it's before I learned that blue is like the wind cover that deer could see really well. So, but blue ones on there, it's good man. That may be why it's are jumped string. He saw it blue movie. You know, yeah, I see it. You figured it out, didn't Chuck Adams used to hunting blue jeans, I think. So, you know, you can take everything with a grain of salt, you know, Yeah, what do we even do and trying to get information here. I don't know. I don't either. Let's let Patrick do that maybe, Yeah, we'll get him on the phone. What do you think sounds good? Alright? Alright, so on the phone right now, we have Patrick may Tene. He's an outdoor writer and an editor for several publications. Patrick, it is approaching a hundred degrees here in Texas. How's the weather there in Idaho? It's a bombing in northern northern Idaho. So we don't We don't see a hundred very often. We were supposed to see it for about the next five days, and luckily they dropped the forecast a few degrees and got most of them under a hundred. So we're feeling good about it. The biggest problem this time of year is NonStop rain. But it's been pretty nice in the the last couple of weeks. Been getting out and doing some scouting. Awesome. Awesome man. Yeah, we talked previously, and it seems like you've been pretty busy. Um, But mostly what we want to talk today is white tails in. I've got I've got a question for your off the bat, and this is a question, so you answered however you want do you think as hunters that we can be snobs? I certainly have. I've you know, had concerns that the industry has kind of gone that way. You know, I got into this industry about I don't know, thirty something years ago, thirty years ago, and you know, we all just used to hunt and have fun and kill a deer. Now you go to a t A or you know, one of the big shows and guys are showing off these pictures of these monster pups, and he makes you not even want to take your pictures out of your pocket, you know, I do see. Yeah, it has gotten a little elitist. You know, it's the money, the big leases. You know, I got the better lease than you do kind of deal. And some of the guys that have to hunt public land or mediocre states in general, I might feel kind of left out maybe, you know. Yeah, I just uh, I've read I've read several of your articles, and uh, not to blow smoke at you or anything, but I think you're a really great writer and I have a I share similar humor, I feel like with you and uh one of them kind of talked about, you know, the the how every one of us thinks our dear the hardest deer in the woods to hunt. You know, hey, that's for sure, man, my DearS, my deer twice as spook you and twice as smart as yours. That's the truth with you here and every every media. Man, it seems like everybody wants to validate who they are, and and uh, well, I what I think it's funny about that if you read these articles and most of those so called white tail experts live in the Midwest, of course, because they kill bigger deer than we do. Some other experts, Yeah, they'll tell you how hard their deer are to hunt, and obviously not that hard when you're killing the home one sixty and seventy every single year, no, no fail. So that kind of humorous. But oh yeah, so you know, on that note, I kind of wanted to ask you. You've got a pretty extensive amount of white tail hunting experience and industry experience as well, and I wanted to kind of ask you how would you define how and why hunting the Midwest is different than anywhere else? Well, you know that's I hunt the Midwest as often as possible because that's the best white tail hunting in North America. Obviously maybe with the exception of like Alberta's just catch one. But uh, you know, I'm in general, I'd say the Midwest, Iowa and the um Kansas. You know, we all know the places. I mean, they're just they're they're better managed, more private property. It's harder to get a place to hunt, harder to secure tag, especially for dunt residents. So and you know they've got superior genetic, superior habitat, superior game management, less hunting pressure, I mean everything you need to grow big deer, and uh, you know that's what makes the Midwest great grocer. They got the genetic right right. So I guess on the on the flip side here, what are the common alleys that you see in places outside the Midwest. I know there's an extreme I could use. I could use my backyard is a good example. I've been on a lot of really fun Deep South hunts, for instance, where you know, you have a lot of fun, but you know it's not the best deer hunting in the world, but you know, the hunting pressure is more intense. Like where I live here in Idaho, you're on the public land, open to everybody. Um, you can have a really great stand that gets gets messed up by another hun You never know what's going on out there, you know, in public land. So it's just the game changes completely, the dear different animals. UM, strategies have to change, you don't. You don't have the leader, you know. I read these stories about these guys who have hunted the same bucks for five years. I have never gotten the same buck two years in a row on a camera here disappeared. Who knows where they go? They migrate out during the snow, the mountain lions get on, the wolf feed on whatever. You know. It just so when I read stories like that, I just kind of chuckle. You know, it's that would be quite the luxury to hunt the same dear year after year after year. Yeah yeah, so uh there in in northern Idaho, you've got wolves and lines which are uh not. Those are two things we don't have around here, um in East Texas. But one thing we do have are um in in many other states as well, UM, the opportunity to feed deer with deer feeders. And therefore there's a deer feeder on like every thirty acres here with a couple of hundreds hunting that feeder. Um, do you think you know wolves and lions or people as predators make for a more aware deer heart overall? Well, you know, I used to joke about that because my first white tell hunting experiences were when I went to college and Texas. I went to college at Texas Tech, and you know, before then, I hunted meal deer and cows, waite tail and help and stuff like that, prong corn and so the sitting it stands was foreign to me. But I used to say, hey, if you can kill a mature doe off of a feeder, you've got it down. Because those deer, you know, they've had a few deer shot around them, they know that corns are out there at its charity, so then they can get pretty tough. But you know another hand, where we have here, where we have all the big predators mountlines in particular, I always feel if I can get the full draw and anchored on a buck, I feel like I've won. That's the hardest part of a deer encounter here. It's just getting drawn on them there so spooky, and they remind me of those Texas corn feed or does you know when I was in college, I was poor. I couldn't afford it, dear to le, so I had the shirt tail onto other people's leases, and so they'd say, well, you can shoot all the dough as you want because the management thing had started. So that was what I was limited to his doughes, and it was it was challenging. It made me into a better boat hunter. Really, yeah, yeah, I can definitely see that. You know, those I've dealt with a few of those wary, old blockheaded uh feeder does they about my days? You know? And they they always seem to uh to always know to look up and what what direction you're sitting over there. And it sounds like to me that you've spent some time uh, you know, like you're saying you're poor in college. I can identify with that for about what should have been four years, but more like seven years of my life in college my experience exactly. So, um, do you feel that, uh going down that path of maybe being a more of a subsistence hunter where you're really you truly are meat hunting as opposed to There's a lot of people, you know, and we're gonna talk a lot about kind of how the industry trends are, you know, in this podcast, but there's a lot the big push nowadays is to justify your cuel because you eat your meat, right Like, that's kind of the cool thing to do, and it it is cool to do, don't get me wrong, But do you feel that like being a true subsistence hunter like somebody who's just after doze and trying to find a way to to truly put food on their table. Does that make you a better hunter or give you a different type of edge? Well, you know, that reminds me of an old I wish I could find it, because I quote it fairly often than that. Can't remember where I saw it, but you know, liking a lot of bow hunters my age that Fred Barrow was was my hero as a kid, and I read everything he wrote, and I can remember reading something like a long time ago where he said, when you start bud wanting shoot every single animal that gets in front of you, it doesn't matter if it's a dough or a spike or a raccoon or whatever. They she said, you need experience. If you shoot those doughes, you shoot those little bucks, you're gonna get that experience. Where it seems like nowadays people are kind of shamed, and so you can't shoot the little buck. Doughs are just kind of yeah, that's for management only, that's not for for recreation. And you know a lot of people are just waiting on that big buck. Well they've never even killed a nice buck and they're waiting for the big buck. And they don't have any experience. So when the big buck does arrive under their stand, they freak out and miss it, you know, So they have no experience. So I encourage beginning bow hunters. Man, if you have an opportunity to shoot some doughes or spikes or whatever is allowed on here you're hunting area or your lease or whatever, man, go for it. Man, that's good practice. And that's that's all I've eaten for the past thirty years is is venison and elk and stuff like that. I depend on it. Well, I Uh, I killed a elk and ate that for one straight year, and I did not get to shoot one last year. And I can tell you it is not as much of a good year if you don't have a freezer. Fully helped me, because that's the best stuff there is. I wish we have to drop so far to get it, but uh, or you know, or four or five deer, you know, and yeah, that's kind of what I was supplemented with. You know. I actually just had a supper of white tail meatballs, which is pretty tasty, become one of my my wife and I was favorite. But uh so it just made some some Kansas Kansas dear meat loafino the other night. Yeah, those are tasty, the good old corn fed deer. Those are where it's at. But uh, you know, earlier you brought up uh, I don't remember what words you use, but I guess allowed. Maybe you said you're allowed to shoot you know, uh doze and spikes or what have you. And we live in a state that uh kind of has determined what we're allowed to shoot through antler restrictions, which I get the point, you know, like, uh, there's a lot of people and the economy is partially based on this, on shooting bigger deer in Texas, right, So there's a lot of people who want to shoot older, more mature bucks, and I get that. I tend to fall into that demographic. But at the same time, I feel like it really restricts the individual's ability to go in the woods and if they you know, if if, if it fits your fancy to go in there and shoot the first four key that you see and you have a good time. I don't know if I like the idea that the state tells you you can't do that, you know what I mean, what do you think about that? Yeah? I mean I agree, um really pretty much on principle. I agree with that whole notion. But you know, the reality is as we now live in a world where there's more people. I mean, when I was right out of high school, I got an elk PEG every year, and the HeLa region in New Mexico now it takes years to draw those. So you know, there's just more people in the woods shooting more gear. I think you've got to do something to manage the resource. And you know, I think making people a little more picky in general may might make people safer that they're not shooting stuff red women the bushes. But yeah, you know I hate to see that, especially with kids. I mean, you and me are going to hold out for a big book because we've already been there and done that. But you know, I feel sorry for the kids, that's who I feel sorry for it. I mean, I've been in camps before we're twelve year old kids. It shoots a hundred inch buck and everyone's given them a hard time about killing a buck that would have grown up big someday. Like, man, that's that's terrible to me. I step seeing that. Yeah, So yeah, the trophy hunting mentality. I mean, I think there's a lot of states with Atler restrictions. Mississippi doesn't, now, I think Pennsylvania maybe. Um. I think it's just a reality of more people, what's happened into that resource. You've got to do something to slow slow down the harvest because you know, you've got places like, oh, like the Northeast. You know, I've got buddies that I pointed with out there in New York and New Jersey. They'll they'll shoot anything that moves that's that they don't get their deer. And there's a lot of people coming up from the city, you know, having the catskills and around decks. It's it's pretty hard on the resource, for sure. Yeah, it's I mean, I I understand that for sure. It's you know, you kind of kind of uh. I understand that there's some biological principle in there too as well, but uh, um, you know, I don't know in a place where we live. You know, we've got a lot of deer here in the state, and so it's it's tough to see that sometimes because I know personally, I shot like a a nine inch wide, like a little year and a half old six point was my first buck, and I have I have never been more excited, you know, from any any harvest that I've ever had, you know. So yeah, I mean my first deer with the rifle was a little fourcorn. My first deer with this with the bow was a little six point. You know, we all start somewhere, right, That's why I say bring up the kids, and they've got to start somewhere. Yeah, that's where the bays come in nowadays, because yeah, yeah, I mean when I started first started bow hunting, the funny thing is you didn't have to choose the weapon in New Mexico when I got or the kid, and so if you didn't get a deer drain bow season, you can hunt in west Over season. If you didn't get a deer with any hunt d rifle season, rifle season that was the big camps with all the family and so even during bow season, everyone is real picky. No one those were legal, but no one would shoot him. It was that mentality back in those days. And then you know, finally I just decided I was going to be a bow hunter and I started shooting does and my buddies were making fun of me, but hey, I got more experience than they did right off the bat. So I mean by the time some of those guys were older than me. But you know, ten years later, I was way ahead of him and bars keeping my cool with big bucks under the tree and stuff like that. And you know, I think the whole game management thing, I mean, you really have to work with what you've got. I mean, one of the things that makes the Midwest outstanding. You know, they maximize hunter opportunity by allowing people to bow hunt, which doesn't have the highest success rate. They hold off with the guns until after the rut, which I absolutely agree with you living in a state where they pound him with rifles through the middle of the rut, But just it lost potential to my mind. You know, that's part of the that's part of the Midwest mystique, is that that game management that we're going to keep our bucks big because we're not going to pound them during the red we're gonna you know, so besides the genetics to habitat, you know, so, um, you know, in an area where you've got natural predators like you do up there in Idaho, wolves and lions, spares, whatever it may be. Um, what are some of the things you have to really focus on in those areas that allow you to be successful. Well, I mean, I don't know that the predators are big issue is just having to hunt very big areas. I mean, I'm hunting white tails here in Elk Country. There are no feeding areas, there are no bedding areas. The whole world is beating and bedding areas. So you know, the predators. I have had good spots go dead because some some wolves moved in. I've had stands go dead because the lions start showing up on camera. But that's usually temporary. But you know, in the bigger picture, predators don't enter the picture. It's it's more it's topography. And we hunt scrapes here a lot during the rut, apple trees early and but you know, you've got to find that that magnet that's going to draw deer from a much much bigger area. Others like naturally, I mean obviously probably at one point are you talking crab apples? Are you talking like actual a lot of feral fruit here, apples, pears, crab apple, stuff like that. And I guess you know, the Northwest is just you know, Washington, apples is a is a big thing. It's just the climate here conducive to fruit tree. So some guy throws an apple core, you know, often bushes it might grow. That's not gonna happen in New Mexico. You don't on the water. So yeah, we've got the apple tree areas that tend to be closer to civilization, although you get lucky. I've got one apple tree that's out in the middle of nowhere. I only know that it got there in our longer ranchers through an apple out you know, so you can focus on that is your food source kind of huh. Yeah. So so you know, our our season opens August thirty, so you know, we have opportunity to shoot bucks on the right here. So usually you're concentrating on food, then you're gonna look around those apple trees and pear trees. Not all of them are located where you can take advantage of them because of the wind of it, and then the farm areas you know around garbanzo beans and and field peas and stuff like that. But then you know, back in the big big woods are lea you can hunt, springs and ponds are pretty decent, and but really during the ruts, really weird things really turn on. You're hunting, hunting scrapes mostly, and lots of cameras. I rent twenty five or thirty cameras out here. What are you what are you looking for in those cameras? I mean, obviously you want to know there's a big buck in the area or whatever your target is, but what do you you know you've got You've got topography like like saddles or points or ridges that they're going to naturally funnel game movements. So you kind of watch those to see if there's a couple of big bucks in the area. Monthly, you're just looking. I mean, we have a ton of country out here, We have a lot of deer, but there's not deer evenly distributed across the entire landscape pocket So you know, you find a piece of habitat that looks fantastic, put a camera there, and you know, two months later, you haven't gotten two or three deer on it. You know, I'll how you find the bigger bucks. And then during the those funnels tend to that's where the scrapes and rubs up here. Yeah, you're a lot of backskin in the snow from from cameras, got a lot of cameras. I can check in the field and backtrack big bucks, see where they're going. We'll see where they're betting, and see where they're traveling. And you find I've found some of my best major scrapes, the ones that appeer year after year, just like doing a lot of back trailing. See, it's so interesting to me that whole mountain whitetail hunting um that that you guys have it there. I just don't it Just I've never hunted anything like that. And uh, I kind of understand what you're saying with the pockets of deer. It's kind of We've tried to talk to a few guys about this, and it seems that every everybody has the same consensus about that, and so it takes a lot of work and scouting to find the pockets. Yeah, it's it's um. Well, I call him honey holes. You have your little honey holes, you know that you find accidentally usually. You know, it seems like if I'm helping to Montreal I wounded deer, I'd find these awesome places because I had the nasty spots, you know, but there's a lot of hike and you know, and then you find them elk hunting to find last year's rub stuff like that. But it's it's definitely different. I mean, I I don't know how I put this, you know, diplomatically. I used to think whitetail hunting was kind of silly. I mean, the whole obsession with it, I thought was kind of silly because when I lived in New Mexico, when I wanted to kill a big white tail, I just went to Kansas, or I went to Iowa or went to Illinois, and um, not until I started going to those places did I have any white tail luck whatsoever. I was really jenks hunting in Texas because I didn't have feeder that was having a hunt the hard way. And um so you know, when I went to Iowa and Kansas and Illinois and started shooting hoping young bucks on a regular basis and then started holding mountain shooting one one sixties on ut in my regular basis. I thought, Wow, this is easy, this is all you gotta do. I want that. So I always thought it was kind of white tail hunting was kind of the obsession of white tail hunting was kind of silly. Then I moved Idahole and I have them in my backyard, and now I totally get it. I mean, we have some one fifties, one sixties here, but they're rare more. You know, realistically, you're hunting on because of the big woods, because they're close to home. You get absolutely and grossed in it. I mean it's it's year round, you know, understanding, I now get it. You know, I now understand the white bells. That's cool. You know, it's funny that you're talking about that, because I like to go on deer drives, uh this time of year around this area. You know, there's a lot of backroads and stuff we can drive around see you see different deer, you know, feeding or whatever. You can kind of assays antler growth, and you know most of them are dear. You'll never get a chance to hunt, but at least you get to see white tails. And I kind of have that obsession. And the other evening and I was going one of these drives my wife, and I just was overwhelmed and I looked to her and I said, I just loved dear, and she laughed, of course, and then looked at me and said, I don't know if you've ever said anything that emotional to me about loving me, But you just saw a wait till dough in a pasture and it caused you to say that. And she was, you know, jokingly concerned. You know, she wasn't really concerned because she gets it. But uh, she may or may not get it, actually, but I'm trying to explain it to her at least, But you know, it just gets in you. You know, I don't know. I guess it's a different experience for everyone. You know, some people that might be going into, you know, one of the big book states in the Midwest, you know, like I or something and seeing big deer and seeing the rut how it's like supposed to happen. But then like, I don't know, for me, it's just the the the versatility of a white tell you know, how like I can drive through a neighborhood and see you know, twenty does who have have made a living eating you know, clover in people's backyards and eating from bird feeders. And then at the same time, I can drive way off in the middle of Noah around here, and a deer that's, you know, four hundred yards away from the from the road sees me barely start to slow down and it's a white flag, you know, and they're off in the in the bushes. You know. It's just so cool how they they just can adapt and they're just such a interesting species. And I don't I don't know if it's kind of what got you or what, but that's just just you know, life in general. It's um just you know, it's well, it reminds me of a Oh I don't remember where I read it. I think like Thomas mcgwaine or something, and he was talking about being at a party in some woman says, what did the deer ever do to you? Nothing? Serious? What do you have to go and kill for? Because I can't explain it, you know, talking like this, why should the the deer die for you? Would you die for them? And he says, yes, if it came to that, And I thought, wow, that is I really believe that's how most real hunters feel, you know, we love. We love what we kill. Some people don't understand that, but that's exactly how it is. Yeah, yeah for sure. So um, let's not put you on the spot. But you said most real hunters. What's it? What's it take to be a real hunter? Well, you know, at the I've had people tell me, oh, I hate hunters. I'm gonna well, I hate to admit it, but sometimes I hate hunters. People that I don't like I aren't real hunters. You know, the guys that go up and shoot up road signs and throw their beer cans out. You know, they have a hunting license in their hunting, but they're not hunters. Yeah, so you know, I think we can all kind of agree on what a real hunter is. The guy that gets out there and and does it and actually cares about the animals and not just want to kill something to hear their gun go off. And you know it's I'm gonna have bad eggs and all sports, but you know, I think, um, I think we all get blamed for some of that bad behavior by guys with the guns who happen to have a deer tag in there. Yeah, yeah, yeah for sure, And I hate I mean, and it's it's, uh, I'm not gonna say of my own doing, but it's it's of some of my I guess cohorts doing. We live in a pretty rural area, you know, and for a long, long while generations passed, poaching was just something that you did. And I it just makes my skin crawl when I hear like a news line or a story where someone just interchanges or uses poaching and hunter as synonyms. You know that it's just completely two different mindsets all together. We still have a lot of that up here. It's very rural and there's there is a cornucopy of mentality kind of like Alaska, you know, where people who have lived here for a long time to say, well, we don't we don't need so stinking licenses, or we do what we want, you know. And you know some of these families, you know, they're eating everything they shoot. But you know, I know of I don't know them personally. I know of people who are spotlighting regularly and stuff like that around here, and they're not doing it to feed their family. They're doing it to rag about some big set of alers. And that kind of stuff just makes me sick. I mean, it just you cheer for the game to catch them red hand. You know, yeah, sure, I feel like you know, but you hear people bragging about stuff like that. I just set him straight. Don't even begin to talk about that stuff around me. Yeah yeah, right now. I don't know if I've ever told very people this story, but I was um spotlighting with a guy in college. It was a friend of a friend and I was there with the friend who we were mutual with, and uh, we're out, you know, looking for hogs whatever. We shot a couple of hogs and then uh, this uh probably you know, mid one forties class ten point jumps up at like sixty yards. Just dude cracks off a shot and misses it, and we left him in the past year. We left him. We left him there, drove off and he had to walk home. And I was, you know, pretty close to calling the game board, except it was one of the situations where you know, there's no there's no animal, which I'm glad for, you know, but it was just it was just unfair animal to me, that someone would care that much until you even want it. You know. It's like the guy who cheats at a three D tournament to win a five dollar trophies, like why I don't I don't you know, And then circling back to the whole trophy hunting thing, it's like, you know, yeah, I'll shoot dose to fill the freezer, but I mean when it comes down to my big tag, the buck tag, I mean, I'm always going to try to kill the biggest buck. And people go, well, you're a trophy hunter. Go yeah, technically, but I said, in my mind, like L hunting here, if I just shot a L I'd be done in a week, always after the biggest bull I know about, because it prolongs the fun hunting that one bull, Hunting that one big buck, especially white tails, hunting that one one big buck is um, it prolongs the fun. You're passing up stuff that you never would have thought of if you didn't know this buck existed. But that really kind of ties into the whole trail camera thing too. Trail cameras are not oathical. It's like I have had seasons ray to not fill my bit buck tag because of trail camera. Yeah, passing up trying to kill a particular buck. Yeah. Yeah, it's the greatest management tool that ever came along for guys who you know, yeah, true, I did that. Last year, I passed up a three year old white tail that was a great deer, especially for public land of Texas, because partially that I knew there were bigger deer in the area, and I just kind of have this I'm an experience hunter. It's what I like to call myself. Like I'm not a trophy hunter. I'm not a meat hunter. Like I'm after a certain experience in the woods. And I don't know if I can tell you what that is, but I know it when I feel it, you know. And that wasn't the experience I was going for at that moment. You know, I wanted to shoot it older more what's your buck? And it's like you're saying, because of trail cameras, that deer he was like a twelve ards, you know, just clueless of my existence. You know, it's for all intents and purposes of chip shot. And I didn't shoot because of the trail camera, and you know, it's impossible guarantee, especially on public land in Texas, you know, like it was, it was a great deer. And and to be honest, like I've wavered after that time since because last year I didn't shoot a buck in Texas, and you know, after the n I kind of wonder if I made the right choice or not. You know, but at the end of the day, I know that, um, that's it. Man. I was excited, for sure, But it was one of those things where if there's any chance that I walk up on an animal and I have any regret in my heart that I actually shot it, that's I don't ever want to experience that, you know. And I knew that that's kind of where I was with that buck, and he just didn't quite fit the experience I wanted. You know. Well, you know what I find when I travel, especially if someone's hosting you and they have expect patients, you know, for for your entertainment. You know, I end up shooting bucks on hunts when I'm traveling, and I wouldn't shoot at home, just because the host wants you to be happy, so you make him happy shooting something. You know that even makes sense? Yeah, yeah, I get that for sure. You know. Usually here, because I do, I scout so hard, and of course the rut changes everything. I have bucks show up, but you know, usually before the season starts, I have my number one, but my number two buck, I mean, I got and it just focusing on just a handful of deer, it really makes it more fun for me. It's, um, this kind of randomly, I'm going to sit in the stand, see what happens. It's like you're you're playing chess with this one buck. He doesn't know you're playing chess, but yeah, but it's it's one of those things where it takes it almost allows you to get deeper and more intricate with your craft. You know, like instead of being a uh, well in y'all's case, you know, August to whenever deer hunter, in our case, October till January deer hunter. Like it's a it becomes a year round passion because you can just envelope yourself so much more, you know, with trail camera's setting and then you know, prepping your stand locations, postseason scouting. You know, it just becomes more of a lost doll, which I dig. Man, I'm all, I'm all in it. You know, well, you know I know that I know that targeting specific bucks has made me a much much more careful, more aware hunter because you know, you have individual stands that you know, because you know, like say that remote AppleTree one of my favorite stands. If I had ten stands like that, I kill a monster buck every year. I have to be very very because that place is like gold. I have to be very very careful with that stand. Has taught me more about getting in and out of stands without screwing things up. The first several years I tried to hunt there, I blew it out. Every year I'd be done in the first three days. That places burned. And now you know, I've learned how to get in and out of ends more carefully. You're more careful about your scent. You don't even get near a stand unless the wind is perfect. You learn to watch the weather a little more closely, so it really makes you a better hunter rather than just kind of randomly walking out licking your finger. Okay, the winds blown out of the west, I'll just stood over your rampoint. Yes, sure, you know. Around here, Um, we kind of have a little bit of an overlap on target bucks. So we have a lot of small parcels or there's a lot of guys hunting the public stuff like we do, and there's a lot of guys targeting specific bucks, and it gets pretty damn competitive. Um, And it seems like you're kind of in a situation similar scenario where there's not a bunch of you know, really big bucks around and whenever there's one around at least here, like it gets talked about. Is is there kind of that competitive nature up there on the public lane you're hunting extent? I mean, we've got so much land out here that's not as common as it what you like to say. I mean, I even hear guys in Iowa talking about like we're all hunting this. You know, twelve of us are on this one buck. But I know one year or that apple tree in particular. Um, I had talked to the landowner, probably too much, and then he told his son in law or something, and his son in law told someone, and then next thing I know, I'm being moved in on and Um, you know that was private land, but I mean it's it's private land in that there's a deed involved. But he let to anyone who wants to hunt hunt there, so it's it's not exclusive. So you know, the next thing I know, I have this guy moving in on top of me. He doesn't know what he's doing. He's hunting on the wrong wind. He said to stand dumb places. And you know, I complained to the landowner and he's like, I don't want to get involved in this, so you know, what are you gonna do? And the funny thing is is I worked around that guy. I said, Okay, how is this guy going to affect the hunting here? And I set up an alternative stand and I ended up killing my number two buck, a real nice, non typical so kind of sort of work to my advantage. But you know, keeping an open mind and not getting stuck in a rut. I think it's really important when you're hunting public land. You got to have a plan B and C and D and and be and be willing to change gears. You know. Yeah, I can't get stuck on like I have to hunt that apple tree. That's my apple tree. You know. I had to make another plan and it made I made it work. I was very very proud of that. Wow, I think I'm actually figuring this out, you know, right right, Yeah, that's cool up. I mean, if you're for the person who's wanting to get into traveling around and hunting different, uh, different environments where maybe they're not going to the Midwest, but they're going, you know, to public land parcels on some of these different tracks. And I know this is a really big question. There's a lot of different regions and areas and habitat types. But uh, you know, where do you start with that. I got to do a lot of desktop scouting. I mean I do it here. I mean I can hunt Washington is just a couple hours away, and hunt here at home. I usually go to the Midwest at some point, and I mean I kind of public land in Kansas and done all right, And just you gotta do a lot of work at home. You obviously, even if you live in Texas, you can't run to Kansas every weekend and scout. So you've gotta gotta do a lot of research at home. Talk to biologists on the telephone, look at aerial maps, just do your homework. So when you get there, you hit the ground running instead of starting off cold. You already have an idea where you want to look and where you want to put stance, and um, it's pretty effective. I mean maybe that's part of growing up hunting in the West, where everything was just kind of running done anyways. But I can show up cold to a place in Kansas I've never seen before except on the computer and usually do all right. You know, it's um. So there's a lot of resources now through the internet. UM. Aerial sites are are fantastics. But even just staring at maps has done me a lot of good. Talking to biologists and you know, sometimes you're talking to biologists, you're just getting a dose of reality. What realistically, what might I find here? He might say, I know, if you see a cop and young, you better shooting. Or you could say, oh, there's some one fifties there, you know, just doing your homework at home, every spare moment, you know, on the computer, on the phone, calling people, and UM, I mean I've made friends because I called some guy at the local sporting goods store and we had a long conversation and became buddy because I went by and saw when I got there. You know, it's um. Keep your ears to the ground, you know that. But you know, hunting out of I think we kind of get used to hunt in our backyards and having all this years of intel, and then you leave that comfort zone to go travel somewhere. So it's kind of born. But you know, as a as an outfitter in the past, and I outfitted for twenty three years, and and having to move to new areas and stuff, you learn how to pick up, you know, new ground really quickly. So I think that's part of what helped me when I, you know, gone out to the Midwest and hunted new places. Have you found that there's a certain distance that you seem to leave a lot of people behind ad or is it just very circumstantial? Well, you know, like here, it's very frustrating because New Mexico, I could leave people behind the backpack about eight or ten miles and there was nobody because I used to hunt cow's white tailor who's white tell? A lot that killed about wells hoping young bucks and a couple of boon and Crocketts with my both that obsessed with it for a while. But that's how I found good hunting. I backpacked, I got way back. But you know, like here, it's the economy here is all logging, and so there are no remote places. You've got to work around roads and four wheeler trails and people. What I found here, and I'm sure I am I believe this will work just about anywhere. You've got to find places not necessarily out walking people, but just finding places where it's so nasty, thick people don't want to fight the brush. And that's what I do a lot here. I mean places where you have to push and crawl and fight to get in there, and then you get into the middle of it and find a little opening where you can shoot twenty yards and set up a stand. And you know, the deer go to those places as a little refugees, you know, and the rifle guys on them because they want to shoot, you know, two or three yards. That's true. So quick question is is kind of off topic, but I need a good pair of brush pants. What are you wearing brush pants? Um? When I'm doing I mean, I'm not really wearing brush pants, but I do a lot of bird hunting. Just the wranglers, the regular old wranglers faced I don't even remember what they call them, um, but they got the canvas on the front or whatever. It's like ballistic nylon or you know, rip stop nyeline or something. I've got several pairs of those and they they fit well. I mean, I've had the siltson ones and they're expensive, they're somethe wrangler ones have worked really well for me. Yeah for sure. So, um do you you know we talked about like distance you can go in and get away from people or you know, like you just said, you know, just go the nasty stuff. But do you feel like there's um, well, let me back up. We live in a world nowadays were like the map scouting thing and the digital maps. It's like kind of commonplace, Like there's a lot of people utilizing that now where in the past, you know, uh g I s maps and stuff like that weren't as common. So I feel like there's people are catching onto the whole. Like you can look at acts and learned a lot of stuff before you even go to a parcel. So do you feel like there's a parcel size that like an out of state or automatically overlooks or do you think that like there's a certain thing like a niche there where you could be a guy who like I'm gonna go only go to like anything that's one sixt year less, you know, because there's gonna be less people hunting that because it's so small. Well I know that, um, you know, on the biggest ones, like some wildlife refugees we hunted in um in Oklahoma. You definitely can out walk your competition get a mile and a half or two miles, and especially in early sweaty both season, and everyone behind because you've got to leave the truck at four in the morning, you know. But some of those places are post stamps, man, I mean, it's like not even it's it's not even a section. One place we used to call the Timber Claim was on the middle of two farm road intersections and there was a patch of true ease, a plain man made planet trees that it couldn't have been more than I bet you it wasn't an acre, but sere funneled through that little Patrick rush, you know. So it was a place where you had drive buying. Go I'm not hunting there, that's ridiculous. There's nothing there, and every deer in that whole area funnel through there. So you know, it's small doesn't necessarily mean bad, especially if it looks so small that everyone else is kind of just missing it. And that's another one of the things that I always say too is look for the ugly places. Um, I mean, I killed a bus that was right behind the farmer's barn and there's garbage everywhere, old car fenders, and and cans. And I remember another place in South Dakota where the deer funnel between two patches of russianale trees and it was literally the farmer's junkyard, the old combines and tires, and the deer just wove right through the middle of that stuff. And we put a pop up blind right in the middle of it. Worked fine, Yeah, that's cool. It makes a rememberable hunt too, you know, you can. It's it's nice to be able to call a deer the toilet bowl book or something like that. Right well, you know, you could be right behind the I don't know what the State Parks Administration building. You could be behind the city dump. You could be right beside some big highway with the power line over your head crackling. You know. It's just places where people are like, I'm not hunting there. That's places ugly here. Those are sometimes some good places. Yeah, no kidding, man, no kidden. And then the other thing I found very useful in a lot of places as a kayak. I mean, we aren't had a place in Missouri. It's old strip mines. I don't know if it was coal maybe, but it was old strip mines. And these these strips were only fifty or hundred yards across, but they were bottomless, I mean hundreds of feet deep, and they went for miles. If you had to walk around him and getting back of them, you would have had to do a lot of hiking and get in the kayak and here across in five minutes. And of course that's getting more common to people are figuring that sort of stuff out, but not everybody. You know, I just don't drop your metal stand on that trip because it it's going to the bottom. That was some a cool place. And a buddy of mine turned me onto that he um lived there and it was it was mining company owned land, but they allowed people to hunt there. Cool, that's what you know. That you had to park in particular areas and you had to walk in just ride four wheelers all over it. But and there were rules of big signs, don't do this, don't do this, but you know, they were kind enough to let the public hunt there. So it was pretty cool. Pretty cool spot. Yeah, that's awesome. So I got a question for you, um, do you think that uh the whole you know, the Midwest style of hunting white tails is to have a food plot or some food source and hunted deer on a bed to feed pattern on a pinch point in the rud or something like that, and put a stand in a tree high Do you think that deer will ever or will ever reach a bell curve that we crested over to where it's more advantageous to actually hunt on the ground because deer so used to looking at guys up in the tree. I don't if they're not getting any hunting pressure, No, I don't think they're ever going to get that smart. But I have hunted places um one right after Texas, the first extensive white tail hunting I did was in the suburbs of Omaha, Nebraska, And just one of those deals were a buddy of mine had a relative who had a friend kind of thing, and so we were hunting suburbia along some railroad trucks. I mean, we didn't have a lot of options, but yeah, it'dn't know any better. And those deer, because everyone had a patch of land hunted deer. Well, not everyone, but the lots of people. There were stands and pole's backyards. Su Bourbon bucks get pretty smart in a hurry. And where we used to joke we need to make pick pit blinds because those deer used to walk around looking up into the trees, and so if we were in pit blinds, they would never seat because they're all looking up. It definitely happens, yeah, Midwest, you know, I I those two just don't get the hunting pressure. I mean, that's why it's so good. It's um the seasons are more controlled, the weapons are more controlled here. Yeah, I feel like that's something that we deal with here too, and I'm sure you do. And I'm kinda I'm all four hunter opportunity, you know, so I'm not gonna just dog it, but we have a very liberal riffle season, you know, where there's a lot of gun hunters and there are some artree hunters, you know, I'm one of those. But you know, those deer as soon as that gun season opens, man, they're on a new level. You know, it's apetually on The season here is like a month and a half long. Yeah, same here, Yeah, and uh they I guess it's like two months in a week. But yeah, you know, we're in the kind of the same boat, you know, where it's just like a really long time period for those deer to Uh, I don't know, it's it's it's it's kind of crazy to watch their patterns change and and see how much of a difference like that rifle pressure puts on on the animals. Well, that's that's certainly happening here. But that's when I say that one thing you can count on rifle hunters, well maybe out here more than anywhere else, because everyone out here wants to be a long range sniper. You know, yeah, how did your deer season goes? He didn't tell you how big as buck was? He tells you off far away. Yeah. Yeah. The rifle hunters here tend to gravitate to the clear cuts, to the log roads where they can watch down they want to see. So I've been very successful bow hunting during the rifle season, well general season. I just climbing into the thickest, nastiest places I can find because the riffle hunters don't want to be in there. They can't see. And it's amazing to me. I mean, I have a stand I think of right off the top of my head. You sit in this sedan. Three yards away is a road, and I can hear four wheelers going back and forth all evening. When I sit in that stand and deer are calmly walking beneath me. But you know it's you have to fight brush to get in there. I considered cutting the trail so I could get in there more quietly, but then someone would find my trail and ruin my spot. But it's, um, you know that's I bet you you could probably find those same situations where you live. Just find some nasty, swampy, thick places that people don't want to be and that's where the deer are gonna go. Yeah, it's good advice. I've got basically kind of a lightning round here, and it doesn't have to be super fast. But several kind of detailed questions that I'd like to ask you when it comes to hunting. How you know it, whether that's they're in Idaho or in some other experience that you've had, but you know, in a in a low we'll start off with this, in a low density area, low density herd number area, UM, how do you approach calling? Well, you know, it really depends on how truncated the rut is. Really. I mean you've got places like in Central Texas where they just they run for three months. UM. Where I used to hunt in college where it's just places like up here in the North, especially where you have they have a very defined rut because they have to those fonds have to drop at a certain time or they aren't going to survive. So calling in low, low density areas can be relatively productive. I mean, obviously you're not going to call deer in you know, they call like say prime South Texas ranch. But if you keep on trying, it's gonna work because those books in the low density area are looking for those does and you you call, they they're gonna come, come to look. But overall, um, I'd say, just as a safe bat. And I even start this way in the Midwest, although you know that hardcore rattling and the grunting and buck roars or whatever you know, whatever that is um work in the Midwest. I always start with the subtler calls, the cantle tickling, the doe bleats. And because if you have a meek box doesn't mean he has small horns. You just didn't like to fight. You know, he may sneak in on you. But on the pressured areas and the areas where the dynamics are all screwed up, or the buck dope ratios are all out of whack. That social calling can really really well for you. I guess that's where calling a local biologists might help you out. Knowing that going in, Um, how are you hanging your stands? You want of those guys like my buddy Casey here that hangs them about thirty ft in the air and makes a jungle gym out of it. Or it really depends on It depends on the terrain. I mean I have stands um because Idaho. I mean, you're hunting these mountain sides and like say, maybe you have a fifty year old logging road that has turned into a game trail. It's a flat shelf, you know, like almost a bench on the side of the mountain. In order to get down wind of that, you have to go downhill. The tree is growing, you know, much lower, so by the time you climb up to get slightly above the level of that bench, man, you're up there fifty or sixty foot. I mean I've had stand where I had a whole set of the ladder sticks and ten screwing steps to get up to and you're using big branches. Yeah, so it really depends. I mean I've killed deer ad put off the ground or the trees. I couldn't breathe too hard or wiggled. Um that really, I think cover is more important than heights. I mean my apple tree stand, and I keep referring to that stands only about ten or fifteen foot off the ground. But it's in a cave. I mean, like the perfect stand because it's there's a cluster of three fur trees growing there and I've cut out branches strategically and I am in a cave. Yeah, and I'm in the shadows, you know, so I don't have to be that high. Um. I know a lot of guys these days, they're kind of doing this thing where they only hunt mornings in like during the rut. Are you do you have any uh mentality on that? In particular during the rut? I mean here, because you know mountain bucks that can move anytime. You're basically you you you stand the stand all day long if you can, if you can stand it. Um. I usually here, especially, I like to get into my stand at least an hour before even the hint of daylight, and just so I can get in there and get every let everything settle down, let my ozonics machine do its thing, and so I'll strap myself in and take a little nap, but then you're ready and I'll usually I have a hard time sitting all day. I'll admit that I usually get out for about an hour and eat lunch and pea and all that stuff, and then um get back in. And it's basically during the rut, warrior in the stand a better chance you haven't killing about I mean, I've killed the two biggest bucks I've killed here in Idaho. We're like between twelve thirty and one THO. Of course, it's the nasty or the weather the morning you need to be up in that stand. In mid day, I mean, it's you never know when. And I saw that in Kansas this year. We were sitting in stands all day long and it was tough. I mean we were peeing in bottles and eating our lunch on stand and it gets really boring. But we're seeing deer at any hour of the day. Yeah, we we experienced that as well when on our Midwestern hunt last year, or just kind of almost all day movement. You know, it's it's a you know, some of that is a testament to the fact that you can see so far sometimes but it's still enough to kind of keep you in the game throughout the day. You know. Well, I think sometimes the deer kind of get habituated to that that early morning and late evening schedule. You know, everyone gets out of the stand at tan and goes and hangs out the camp until until two or three. And I think deer do a lot of moving in the middle of the day, and fairly hard hunted areus because everyone's in camp, right right? Yeah, it makes sense. Um, what are you looking for generally on public land to find bucks in the daytime? Places that aren't getting disturbed, you know, if if there's any kind of human activity, if there's any kind of disturbance, as deers are going to go nocturnal. And that's the biggest problem I have here because like I lived in a neighborhood where we all had twenty forty or eighty acres and we had a million dolls. And when I first moved there, putting out trail cameras getting all these big bucks at night, like, oh man, this is great, And then like two years later you're like, well, dummy, those are all at night. How do you think you're going to kill those? So then I started going up into the big Woods away from the house, getting on the four wheel lear and driving a half hour. An amazing thing is because you always hear about these small core areas that I think these mountain deer, because they have to migrate out in the winter, are used to traveling farther distances. I mean we're talking as the crow flies five to seven miles away. I started finding that a lot of the bucks I was getting on camera at night that was coming down to breed all these doughs we had, I was getting seven miles away in the daytime up in the big woods. That's cool. Yeah, So you know, it's just that all that activity around those houses and everyone hunting their own little property, they had made those deer completely nocturnal. So I thought, well, oh a dear here and nocturnal found the safe spots up there in the in the higher mountain ridges, and they're moving all day long, you know, the thicker, thicker, nastier places. Another stand I mean, Idaho, was Dan's. I mean you might write a four wheel or twenty or thirty minutes and then walk a mile up hill because your stand so I mean during the rut, what what kind of set up do you have when those bucks are moving back and forth from thick brush to dough betting around, you know, neighborhood housing. Are you trying to catch them in between that? Are you just trying to get in there in the mix with them? Now, I spent I spent a good number of number of years the trail cameras trying to push bucks back. By that, I mean i'd catch them here, I'd push the camera back a hundred yards, try to catch him again, keep pushing them back. And I was getting fairly successful at getting to the edge of legal shooting hours out there a half a mile or so. But it was time consuming. He never had enough time, especially in the market off. And what I found was more productive here was I just started hunting scrapes real hard and started making a lot of mock scrapes, and and that was interesting. That's kind of that's a whole subject onto itself. I mean, in a nutshell, what I have found is because I used to take existing scrapes and i'd see them, I'd put my dripper right on in existing scrape. But I was working okay, But then one year I hit on this thing. I'm like, Okay, I'm gonna build my own scrape like literally like screwing licking branches onto the trees in the right spot, just like ten yards away from the existing one. See what happens. It made him more nuts because instead of another buck using that sign board, you know, scrape, which is kind of a community thing here, and I am off to the side, you know, setting up another one and kind of challenging his dominance, I think, challenging his right to this. You know, it's grape that he had built, so I actually worked it better. So I do that a lot. Now it's cut the branch but that I want. And they they're very the key in on certain species, that's for sure. I've learned that here at Cedar and june berry they call it here, and you just cut a branch appropriate size. I screwed right onto the tree with a screw gun. M h. Actually due to my drippers dripping through the licking branch from the branch above that holding the dripper itself, and that had pretty good luck keeping bucks moving into the area. But a lot of what you're doing, too is kind of finding dough rich area. And what really sparked things off is when went one of those doors goes into astro. You've got to check your cameras regularly. Here you'll have a stan that's kind of ho hum, and then all of a sudden, boom, You've got three bucks on there for like three or four days in a row, just hitting it like clockwork, and if you miss it, you miss it. You know, that's pretty neat that. So are you what are you using? What are you using to open up the scrape with it? Initially just a stick where surgical gloves grab a stick from the spots, scrape it out and toss it over your shoulder, and then you know, use a lot of wildlife research products stuff. The scrape from the names are escaping me. The gold anastus is always good. There's this great product is always good, active scrape, I think they call it. And they're starting to make some sprays too, to make it real easy. Because then when I checked the camera, I just walk by and give it some squirts and you're off. You know, you really don't have any other options here. You can't feed deer, well, i'd leave. You can feed deer, you just can't hunt there. But when I first moved here, I was feeding deer to kind of get intel and figure out what I had and backtracking, and the game wardens were kind of getting concerned about that, so I just stopped. I was afraid they were gonna get too excited and try to make a case out of something, because I know, like everyone here feeds the deer in their backyard. There's no one here that doesn't feed their backyard. Ignore that. But if you put food out into the in the woods, out in the public land, there's someone finds it and tells the game ward and then he won't leave it alone. You know, as well just walk off, because yeah, they can't believe you would feed deer and I want to out there. Yeah, but it is good intel, you know, because I know that one of the Iowa outdoor writers that I know, he feeds deer very heavily before season opens, just to kind of take inventory. And he says he actually tells the game board and he's going to do it. And then after, you know, like a week before the season, he abandoned the site. But it allows him to inventory and to see what he's got going on. And here it allowed me to do a lot of backtracking because he would get a buck on camera from that specific site where you knew he was going to come to because there was a corner something there, and backtrack and find out where he was coming from. And that's really when I started keying in on this whole scrape thing. So they'd start backtracking these books and like, oh wow, look at that awesome scrape. And then I started finding that those big major scrapes are showing up in exit actually the same place year after year after year. And that's neat right there. I feel like we could go on forever and ever, and and I just really appreciate all the information that you gave. What's the best way for the listeners to to find more articles that you've written or connect with you in one way or another. I'm the equipment editor inside Archery, so um, you know the young kids there, they kind of keep a YouTube thing going for me. So we got a lot of content there, and you know, wanted to contact me with questions. I'd be the best way to go. And you can see my working deer and deer hunting. I do the bow shop and column and and uh, I got some books out there now, The Hunter's Guide to Better Shooting, Hunter's Digest sixth edition. I just did. And then I have a print environment Shooting book coming out the printer and Environment Hunter's guide Book pretty soon, like in the next month or so. And know, I'm an old guy, so I don't really do the the social media stuff that much. Yeah, that's fine. I wish that I didn't. I can tell you that you've got it figured out so well. Like I said, I went, the kids that inside Archery do it for me. So they're a little computer geniuses, so they kind of run that for me. I didn't content they do whatever they do with it. Yeah, I understand. Well, we're gonna link to all the all of your books that are available right now and a few articles and some of the things that we discussed during this podcast in the show notes below, So if you're listening, please just look down there and click any of the links here in in Patrick, I can't tell you thanks enough. I really appreciate it. Yeah, thanks for having me. It's fun. Sure we'll have to do it again sometime, for sure. All right, we'll talk to you soon. We gotta get truck cameras out stat like, well, you're running behind. Probably not running behind, but it just feels that way. Yeah, you know, I guess everybody's so hopped up about it. Man. Uh, it's just we were sitting outside on a moral day eating ribs with my parents and here strolls to three year old bucks right by the place there, and one of them had about three inches antler hanging out the top of his head. It's so ready. Yeah, it's I mean we're talking earlier, but I think that I think it was like June eight or something, was like some of the first like truck carming footage I can remember of Scar last year. Um, and you could, you know, tell it was a big beer at times. You can see basses and some brows coming out and and everything. So it's getting close, man. I mean the thing, the thing is, uh, you know, you want to get him out there and let him soak, so like that's why I'm kind of anty, you know, I just don't I'm not like trying to get necessarily pictures right now, but get them out there and let them soak for a little bit and you can kind of like we're done with teenager right now, and we can see are we in the right spot to get trull camera information? That way In July and go back, move them or whatever. So it's true. Speaking of trail cameras, you got some of the mail the other day, right, I have had a lot of trail cameras in the mail we did the we got Exodus trail cameras, um, the track truill cameras. So I bought you one for helping me out, which I still even know you're a dinner um. But then, uh, I had those all the time, every like every day, every day. Lucky you. Some people don't. Um. And then uh so anyway, we both got a track, um, and then we're gonna so we're gonna try those out. Those look pretty awesome. I like the functionality of them so far, but I haven't really I've got it. I got one sitting out there, but it hasn't taken a video in like three days. So I'm about to go get some corn and see if I can make something get in front of my camera out out here by my house. Um. But then also we got sixteen Muddy pro Cam fourteen the other day. Yeah it is, and uh man, I think they're going to be pretty good, pretty good deal for us as well, you know. So, um, I'm excited about that. But yeah, we did. I did two little unboxing videos, so if you're listening, make sure you go to the link below and check out both those truck camera unboxing just if you're interested in seeing what they look like and what options they have. I lined it all out in a few minutes and you can listen instead of read through a bunch of details on their website and um, kind of see what they look like and how they work. So go check those out. We hope to get basically a review done of those cameras after we get them out in the woods here for a month or so and kind of see what how they're, you know, how they're working for us, and what we like about them, what we don't, if the sensors picking up well, and everything else. So hopefully we'll get that done. Um. We also are approaching um the month mark since we released rock Trolls video, and that is basically when we're wanting to give away our t shirt. So basically all you gotta do is subscribe to the YouTube channel and comment on rock Trolls. There are very few people that have actually done those two things. Both. We've got some subscribers, we've got some commenters, but people that have done both. There are a few and far between, so you stand a really good chance if you go to our rock Trolls Black Canyon fly Fishing, the Salmon fly Hatch whatever. You know, it's got all that in there. Uh, go to that film and comment on it. Make sure you're subscribed to YouTube channel. That way you have a chance to get a shirt. Also, because we're about a month from that release, we're going to release another fly fishing film. Another fly fishing film. Yeah goodness. This one's much shorter, less epic, but still really cool. Yeah, pretty fast paced. It's very like entertaining in a much different scene than what the Black Canyon film. Yeah for sure. Yeah, it's a mixed bagtime. It's fun. You slayed them, dude. That was a fun, fun little thing. Yeah, that was I mean, dude, I was beat afterwards. Yeah. Bicycles and trains and all kinds of stuff. It was crazy. We caught you caught a had you ever caught a pike before? I had not caught a pike before, So he caught your first pike. So anyway, some cool stuff coming from our TRCP event last year, like media Summit event that we went to last year, almost a year ago. Crazy thing, it's been that been that long. But uh yeah, so that'll be releasing. Uh, we're gonna try to do that Sunday, So when you're listening to this, it would probably be Thursday or Friday, depending on how quickly you downloaded this podcast. And so this weekend be looking for that, um and then we've got a another one coming in about a month after that. It's like your own schedule or something. Yeah, that was cool. So we're just trying to keep you know, give people the opportunity to think one's cool before they see the next one. So yeah, anyway, check those out. Anything else all right, man? Will I hope you guys have a great weekend. I hope you stay cool. I know we aren't. I hope you go out and get the grill hot with some venison or something like that this weekend. And remember this is your element living in

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