00:00:02 Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your home for deer hunting news, stories and strategies, and now your host, Mark Kenyon. Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. I'm your host, Mark Kenyon. This episode number two hundred and sixty one, and today in the show, we're joined by Field and Stream hunting editor Will Brantley to discuss late season hunting tactics, last minute hail Mary strategies, and lessons learned from his two thousand eighteen season. All right, welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, brought to you by Onyx, and today, as I just mentioned, we are joined by Will Brantley and he's gonna be joining me shortly. He is a serious white tailed nut. He's a terrific writer and editor and someone you'll find frequently within the pages of Field and Stream and Outdoor Life magazines. And he's also just a just a good guy. I can't remember if I told this story or not on the podcast in the past, but way back when I was still working in my full time job, before I had a podcast or anything like that going on for written for magazines, I met Will at a film school and while there I was just kind of peppering him with all sorts of questions about how to get started in the industry and how to get published in magazines and everything like that, and he was just so gracious and patient to to listen to a crazy kid like me and to answer all those questions. It was it was just a huge help, and it really, I think in many ways led to directly to me being able to get published and you know, all the subsequent um things that I've been able to do over the years since he had a he had a big hand and all that. So all that is to say that Will is going to be a great guest and on our show today with him. You know, given the fact that the final days and weeks of the hunting season are here for many of us. Some of you maybe your season is already closed, but for a lot of folks there's still little this season left. Because of that, I wanted to do two things. Number One, for those of you that are still hunting, I wanted to pick Will's brains for some new ideas, some different things we can be thinking about right now to kill mature deer as we enter this final phase of the season. And then secondly, I want to get Will to participate in what I personally like to do at this time of year, which is this season and review where we look back on lessons learned, maybe some mistakes made, maybe some changes we want to make in the future. I kind of had Will kind of go through a review like that with me too, and we learned some really interesting things. So that's what we did. I think it's a really interesting conversation. I'm excited for you to hear it. But real quick, before getting to that, I do want to make one quick plug. Uh. If you've been listening to the podcast This Fault, you've heard me talk a lot about this Michigan buck I was hunting this year, started calling Frank. You know, I ended up killing him a few weeks back. You heard me tell the full story in the podcast. You've heard all about it, but now you can actually watch it. The film from that hunt has finally launched, and I'm just really excited about it. Um As you know, this dear was the was the largest and most impressive deer I've ever had the chance to hunt. So so that's cool on its own, but more than that, it was just such a such a cool experience, such a cool hunt. The way that kind of my My season began kind of a disappointment around holy Field disappearing, but then having this wonderful surprise. The way that all came together in this film, I think, um, it just turned into something I'm really really happy with, So I'm excited for you all. Check it out. You can head on over to the Wired to Hunt YouTube channel to watch it. The title of the video is my once in a lifetime Michigan Buck, So check that one out. I hope you enjoy it. I thank you for watching it. And with that out of the way, I think we should just get right to the first episode of two. All right with me now on the line, we've got to repeat guest, my buddy Will Brantley from Field and Stream. How are you well? I'm good, Mark, Aw you done, buddy, I'm doing doing great. It's it's been a little while too since we've been able to catch up, so just personally, I'm kind of glad that we're able to do this. So thanks for making the time to chat. Oh absolutely, man, I'm glad you had me on and yes, and in too long since we've been able to sit down and chat deer hunting. Looks like you had a heck of a good season. Huh. Yeah, you know, I can't complain it went. It went pretty well. So it's one of those things. Though. Now that we're into the new year, I'm just trying to knock on wood or cross all my fingers and make sure whatever whatever mojo I had doesn't disappear. Oh yeah, yeah, no, it was. I was kind of like you this year. I sort of had a a little bit of a lucky rabbit foot in my pocket this dear season. For whatever reason. My wife told me several times, you need to get out and by damn lottery too something and uh and yeah. As the season kind of comes to a close. On the one hand, I'm like, well, um, I'm kind of ready to be down with deer heading for the year and start thinking about some other stuff. And on the other hand, I'm like, man, I hope this luck kind of sticks around for next year. So yeah, but those are those are good problems behalf. It is. It is. It's funny, you know, I was. I was talking about this the other day as I was thinking through my season, and um, you know, one of the things I noticed is that so often when it comes to you know, in particular if you're trying to hunt mature white tails. So often the difference between filling a tag and not could just be the tiniest, tiniest little details. You know, It's like it's a game of inches, and you know you could look at For me, it was a difference between my two thousand seventeen season and my two thousand eighteen season. Largely did the same things, largely put in the same amount of work. Um, But in two thousands seventeen, all those tiny inches went on the wrong side of the scale. This year, all the tiny things were on the right side of the scale, and I filled those tags this year. I didn't film last year. And it's just you know, it's just like this, by the skin and your teeth, they can make all the difference. Oh it isn't it. I mean, man, that is just uh, let's just hitting the nail on the head. I mean the the buck that I killed in Kentucky this year. Um. You know, yeah, you credit the hard work you put into it in the food plots and uh stand placement and playing the wind and all the things that go with it. But like really getting that buck into bow range the morning that I did, Um, I've seen him quite a few times. It all kind of came down to a water puddle in the field. Um, we had a big rain a few days before, and um, the bucks, well, the deer that uses field and you know, in general, we've got about half of it in food plot. In the other half just kind of you know, just kind of follow field and they'll walk up one of two lanes on one side of the field of the other and m and for whatever reason, for a few days they had most of the buck traffic had been on the other side of the field. They had just started using that lane. And of course the standard I had set was was to hunt a lane on on the other side of the field where the deer traffic had been like all season. And I the morning that I killed that deer, I was sitting there thinking, I'm gonna move this stand like I you know, I've sat here, I've watched several shooter bucks go down that field on the other side. But we've had a huge rain and there was just a big water puddle kind of blocking the trail on the other side. And when my buck came out, he came out in the food pud and he's kind of meandering down. I'm like, well, here we go, he's gonna take the other path. And it's like you got it to that water puddle and just stepped around it right on my side and walked through my shooting lane. So uh, you know, at the end of the day, like you said, you credit a little something like that, and you know, I guess that's where the old thing better be. It's better to be lucky than good comes from. So yeah, I'll take that. I'll take that every day. And so often though, it's you know, you want to be in a position where the luck piece is like the final piece of the pie, and it's not the first piece of the pie, because if it's the and I think that's the situation where you can do everything you possibly cand to be in that situation and take advantage of when it comes. So that's pretty awesome. Um. You know, I wanted to kind of focus most of our conversation on late season, you know, because it's beginning of January in my season in Michigan just closed, but there are a lot of people still that still have a few weeks in some states of a month. Um, but I guess before we do that, I kind of am intrigued by what you just mentioned with your hunt there in Kentucky. Um, and I know, I think I saw you killed a really nice deer in Tennessee too, Is that right? I did? Yeah? Yeah, I killed him on Thanksgiving morning, and and that one was just almost pure luck. Shot him while I was walking to the stand after getting out there late. But um, you know he was he was chasing the dough and uh, you know knew the deer was in the area. Um or knew a nice deer was in the area, you know. We Um it's a place that a buddy from from college. Now we've we've of this this farm for quite a few years. Of course, I live right on the Tennessee line. It's uh, you know, it's not like it's a big long trip for me to get there. I buy a license for both states every every season, and and it's been nearly as much time hunting in Tennessee as I do in Kentucky. But this farm that that my buddy and I've been hunting, um, it just has a lot of deer on it. Um we've never uh we've we've never run many trail cameras there. We don't have any food plots. We don't have any mineral science, but it's um, it's just a good mix of habitat. It's kind of a kind of a long, really thick, uh series of drainages. That's it's kind of surrounded, uh in the big picture by a lot of agg fields. And we've hunted it early season, we've punted it late season. But we've we've come to realize here in the last few years that um, you know, after a few years of hunting, that we've we've figured out where, you know, some of the sweet spots are, especially during the rut, and um, so we've kind of uh kind of adopted the approach of you know, we we make sure our stands are are setting and you know, and everything's checked out and uh, new straps and all of that, new lifelines and stuff are all are all on the stands and they're ready to go and ready to hunt, but we don't, uh, we don't step foot in there to hunt until usually about the first in November. And man, we've killed some really nice year there in the last couple of years by doing that. And this one, this one that I killed this year was was one of those, uh, one of the stands that I like to hunt. There a lot of a lot of bucks on there, and um, you know, like I said, it was Thanksgiving at the rope still going on, but it was kind of getting at that stage where it was late in the rut and definitely getting to that stage where I had been in a tree a lot and was was tired of getting up early and tired of sitting in the stand and I just almost slept in that morning and um, last minute other side of what I'll, I'll get up and go for a little while. And UM was honestly, um looking to shoot a dough or two that morning. I had a had a new rifle that I was that I was field testing that I was gonna be taking on a nail count later uh later that month, and just kinda was wanting to get some time with that. But got out. There was a clear cold morning and I was sneaking my way to the tree and it's already daylight, and UH saw a dough standing uh standing in one of the little uh roadways there that the farmer uses to kind of get his uh get his UTV around the place. And sat down and was, um, you know, kind of thinking about shooting her, honestly, and then this book stepped out right behind her, and um, by the time I got on him, he was back in the woods and they sort of, you know, chased one another around there, and then he came out and gave a shot. So, um, that one was a lot of luck involved in that one, but I'll definitely take it. So he was a really nice, big, big, pretty eight pointer. Yeah, beautiful inful deer. Um. So now, yeah, maybe it was a little bit lucky that you were walking in and happen to see that dough and and got set up on her. But was there anything that you did, whether it be walking in carefully that morning and to keep an eye out, or or was it other things you did in the month leading up to it that that you think maybe you could credit for the fact that this buck was even around. Well, I think I think, um definitely, I mean on the walk end, you know, I mean I was, I was carrying a rifle, and if you're um, you know, if you're carrying a rifle, uh, just because you sleep in, just because you don't get out there until daylight, until it's light and if I mean it was light enough to shoot when I got out of my truck. Um, but I though the deer were going to be on the move, and you know, also it was UM, I wasn't stressing getting into the stand a little bit late, a whole lot anyway, because it was going to be a really clear, calm morning and it was pretty cold that morning. We had a real heavy frost. And UM that's something that that I've heard the juries talk about a few times, and that UM and their experience they they see, you know, the heaviest deer movement on on those really heavy frosty mornings, um on up in the morning after after that frost burns off. And I've absolutely found that to be true around here. And UM, and so I wasn't I wasn't really expecting just a ton of action until later in the morning anyway. But yeah, I mean I was. I was picking my way to the tree. I picked a route where I knew I would have the wind in my face as as I worked my way to the stand, And so I mean I was, I was hunting my way there. And I've done that a lot over the years. You know, I'm not always in the stand uh an hour before daylight. Sometimes I found that, UM, you can get a shot at a deer on the way to your stand, especially if you you know, if you happen to be gun hunting, then uh, it can actually be more effective to sleep in for a little while. So yeah, yeah, Actually it's those little things that you do it as a as an experienced hunter. You maybe didn't give it too much thought afterwards, But in the fact that that you were careful walking in, that you thought about the wind when you were heading in, that you hunted your way to your stand, I think there's a lot of people, especially newer hunters, that in that situation, they'd be like, I just gotta barge in there, get to my stand real fast, not worrying about anything, and in that same situation might have never had that chance that you had. Um. Well, yeah, and I mean there there's so many I mean, any time you go into the deer woods. Um, whether it's to man, whether it's to check a trail camera or put a you know, put a fresh strap on a on a tree stand, whatever it is that you're going to do, should always go in carefully, should always go in. Uh, you know you can't you can always go in with the wind in your face. But at the very least, like you know, if it's a place that you've hunted before, you should have an idea where the deer likely to be at any given time of day, and just about practice really where or less at the time of year. I don't like to walk in and blow my scent right into what I know is a betting area if if I can help it at all, and uh, you know, and and then obviously if I'm if I'm hunting, if I'm a little late getting to the tree, whether it's early in the morning or late in the evening, you know, I've gotten in the stand before with just an hour a daylight left, and your chances of killing one are still better there than they are on the counts. But um, I'm not gonna run into my stand and break a sweat and spook deer on the way. And if I can help it, I'm gonna try to hunt my way in there so white tails can be killed off the ground. Yeah, yeah, true, It's it's something that I feel like, it's it's kind of picking up momentum again as far as trendiness in the white tail hunting space, first it was with ground blinds, Papa blinds, and everything, and now you're starting to see some people getting into spotting stock a little bit. I actually killed one with a bowl on the ground this year. I'm gonna say, yeah, you killed one at West somewhere, didn't know. Yeah, Nebraska just kind of was sneaking in it was gonna hang a hanging a saddle and hunt, but then ended up seeing a nice buck on the ground and made a stock on him and ended up setting up in some seaters and killed a different buck about an hour or two later. But but it kind of opens your eyes to the possibilities out there. For sure. Yeah, for sure. Um So, now that we're talking about this, we just talked about this Tennessee hunt. You mentioned that the buck you killed in Kentucky. Um, this time of year, a lot of my conversations with the folks and with some of my friends who are locally revolve around kind of a year and review, you know, looking back on the whole season and trying to think about what do we learn, what mistakes do we make, what do we want to do differently next year. Um So, since we're already kind of on that topic, I saw that you wrote a little article kind of in the same vein over on Field and Streams website reviewing some of your top late seat or not in late season, your top season lessons um from two thousand eighteen. Um, you know, when you look back on this past season, are there a few things that really stand as far as what you learned or what you took away from this year? Yeah? For sure. I mean I'm kind of mentioned in the lead of that story. I mean, you know, just purely going by the numbers, I had a good year. I shot a couple of nice books and and kill a few those for the freezer, and um. Just I mean, you just had a good season. I mean, if you purely measure success by you know, by deer tax fill, I mean, yeah, it was a good season. But um, but more than that, um, And I suppose it's a it's a product of of doing what we do for a living. You know. I'm always looking for some little takeaway, uh, some little lesson that I can that I can learn from the woods and um cash back when I was when I was freelancing full time, I would get in a stand and I would constantly, constantly be looking for little details that I could work into some kind of a story. Pitch, you know, something that helped me be successful and and so um with an eye for those things this you're in particular, I had a lot of takeaways, um, just things that that really seemed to you know, that really seemed to work for me and um, and that was kind of one of the one of the goals of putting that story together. And so um. Some of the things that I wrote about in that piece, I mean they weren't uh. Some of them had to do with uh, you know, well with with uh stand access and and it's kind of a lot in the vein of what we were just talking about about being careful, um, not only about how you go in but um, but there but the routes that you that you choose and really planning planning every setup around how you're going to access it. And I think whenever I was, you know, whenever I was a newer hunter, I would see a spot that that looked really good, see a lot of you know, a lot of deer sign or see a lot of deer, and man, I've got to have my stand up right there the next evening and um, you know, kill a lot of deer like that. But it sometimes you would uh you could burn a spot up pretty fast like that. And I've come to uh, come to understand, and I think it's also personally due to um, you know, having a couple of small properties of my own hunt um and and hunting them for a lot of years, you start to realize, you know, you can see things um in the deer movement with your own two eyes that the trail cameras. You know, trail cameras are an amazing tool, but there's certain things that they just can't teach you, you know that that actually hunting a place for a few years can and so UM you start to pay attention to those things, and you start to kind of put together some you know, some plans uh for you know, for future sets. And I think one of the things that I've learned above all else about a lot of my setups, especially sets for mature deer, is that you know, how you get in and out of a stand uh uh is at least of it at least as important as you know, really like the you know, how good a sign uh is around that stand, or how good the pine point is or on that stand or whatever it is that you're set up on. You have to be able to get in and out of it without spooking deer. And it's it's just it's just hugely important and so I've kind of made it, um, you know, sort of a point with with all of my sets. You know, you always have a spot in mind of of where you're gonna shoot the deer. Whether it's a you know, whether it's a you know, pinch point that you're hunting with a with a path in front of it, or a or a scrape line or a bait pile or a food plot or whatever it is, you always have somewhere in mind where you're planning to shoot the deer. And not only do you want to hunt the wind direction on that, but man, I just made it a practice. I do not want to cross that spot either getting into or out of my stand where I plan to shoot the deer. And um, you know, it's it's a simplistic rule and there's more to it than that, obviously, but just by following at rule alone, UM, I found that you bump way if you're a deer, Um, then you will, you know, if you've got to walk across the food plot or whatever it is in the dark to get to your tree, so that's definitely a big one. Um, definitely an important one, you know. On that note, something that I remember reading I don't know a few years back that the kind of stuck with me was an idea that that Bill Winkie was talking about when he mentioned that more often than not now he well, he used to and you kind of alluded to a similar thought process. He used to pick a spot to hunt based off of whatever the destination was for the deer, like whatever it's the scrape or the food plot or the whatever. And then he would say, Okay, now I see this thing that you're gonna want to use that the deal will be passing by. Now where do I find the tree? And he finds the tree he wants to hunt, and then he thought about, okay, now how do I get in out of here? And he said that that seemed to be maybe the wrong way good about it? And he started reversing that, and he started saying, Okay, what are the best ways I can get in and out of this property? And he finds a different access and exit routes, and then he started saying, okay, now where is there a good tree and a good reason to hunt along that great exit or access route. I thought that was a really interesting way of looking at things again, pointing to the necessity as it's it's yeah, that's that's exactly right, And I mean that's um, you know, that's a that's definitely probably a more concise way of saying what I just rambled on and said. But uh, but yeah, it's absolutely true. It's it's kind of a reversal and thinking as a hunter. Sometimes we are looking for um, that great food stores that you know, that hot fresh sign, and like, man, you know, how do I set up around this? Um? And obviously that stuff is still really important to find. It's it's it's the essence of scouting for deer um. But when you're thinking of how to hunt it, uh, you know, sometimes right over the top of that sign or right over the top of that hot spot is um. Sometimes it just can't work um, or or it at least can't work more than a sit or two before you know those they are gonna be onto you. So planning something like that especially, man, I think it's especially importantly if you're hunting smaller properties. Um. You know, a lot of guys are you know, they have a fire place and that's where they hunt the duration of the season, and um, you know to to continually. Um, I'm not of the opinion that you know that a small property is something that you can only hunt, you know, a couple of times a year and then it's burned out. Um. You know, I've I've seen that that's just not true on our farms. But you do have to be careful how you hunt them, and you have to be careful about you know, where you you know, where you set up and win. Now later in the season, Um, you know it's you get to this time of year when time is running out. Yeah, I'll start moving, you know, deeper into the core of the property and and start you know, pushing those souh, pushing those rules a little bit, um, just to you know, just kind of as a hail mary chance to to get a chance at a big deer. And uh, you know, if you bump one out during the last week of season on, he's got all the next all summer to get over it. So um, but you know, to manage that hunting pressure throughout the season that stand access, it's really important. Yeah. You know another thing I saw you mentioned when it came to access in your article was how you found some success using an a TV to get picked up on locations, and that has been that's been a world changer for me too. I've been able to sucker my wife into picking me up from one of the small properties that I hunt, and that I don't think I would have killed the buck I did in Michigan if it weren't for that, because it was in this little tiny area like five to ten acres. Probably that I kept having to hunt because I was the only place where this buck was showing up in daylight. So I hunted it a lot more than you might think you should. Um. And if I had to leave, even by foot, I would have spooked so many deer every time. But by getting the a TV or the truck driven up close to where I was hunting, that allowed me to get away with so much more. I thinks, Oh, yeah, yeah, I I think so. I mean, you know, obviously, you drive up on a deer in an a TV or on the tractor and your trop and we and we use all of the above. Um, you're gonna bump them off or wherever they're standing. But gosh, man, I mean over the course of the year, Um, the deer that I hunt on our places, they see my tractor go by, they see my truck go by, uh so many times. And and to the point where, like um, I have a lot of our best stands are set up right on an access road. Our trail cameras are set up right on access roads, or food plots are planted in such a way that you can drive right up. Not all of them, but most of them. And that's um, that's all by design so that you can get in and out of him. And yeah, I mean, UM, my wife Michelle probably deer hunts more and more than I do. Probably maybe not quite as much as I did, because she's the teacher and doesn't get the time, um, but but she loves it. And so we just made it a point this year that that when both of us were hunting, um, there was always a planned exit route. And you know, if one of us got stuck in the tree with with deer around, you know, we were texting the other and like, hey, I'm stuck, You're gonna have to come get me. And we did that all season long, and it takes a little longer and sometimes you're less sitting in the dark in the tree for a while, but it is well worth it in the long run. Yeah, yeah, agree, speaking of that kind of this kind of I guess thought process to how you approach your hunting season, just being really detail we're in it, or trying to be smart and strategic about it. Another one of the points you talked about was um persisting smartly, you know, making sure well, I guess rather me trying to explain it. Can you explain what you meant by that in the example you shared? Yeah, Well, I mean you take all of the uh, you know, all the points that we talked about, um about good stand access, you know, whether it's the entry and exit route that you're taking on foot. We've got some stands that we that we access by boat, um, you know, or if it's in a spot where hey, I'm gonna have to have somebody come pick me up the dark on the tractor, you know, on a four wather or something. Um. Take all that stuff in the in the mind, um and and put it into place. And then like I was talking about with with a small farm, I mean, um, there's been kind of a kind of a trend I guess in the in the deer hunting world, particularly you know, for guys who are really after mature deer. That that I've noticed as a as a writer and communicator in the past five or six years, and that, um, guys are very cautious about when they hunt and they want to be sure that that the conditions are just ideal, that that all the stars are aligned perfectly before they ever make a move. And I mean being conservative, I think is is great. Uh, it's a it's a it's a good strategy. But you know, I've also seen it go to the extreme and where people almost talked themselves out of hunting all together. And um, you know, and then check a trap. Cameron. Guys, you know there was a big deer under your stand in broad daylight a week ago and we're waiting on things to just you know, to get you know, quote unquote right. And so man, it's uh, you have to go. Um, you have to hunt. And that persistence, um is is uh you know, is what pays off in the long run. I mean it's time in the tree and I mean you know it as well as anybody. Um. During the early season, Uh, you're hunting bachelor groups of bucks here in Kentucky, UM, that are coming to a food source, but they're not coming to the same spot every single night. You watch a bean field, you know, five nights in a row, and you may see the group every night, but um, they only hit the same trail twice, and so you just have to play the odds. And it's just you know, it's pretty similar to the situation that you had with your deer in uh in Michigan this year. You knew where that deer lived. Um, you knew a couple of areas that he was walking by. He didn't walk by him every day, but you just had to put yourself in that situation where you had seen him the most and you know, and then just stay after it. And finally he walked by. And it's and it's the same way, I think, regardless of where you're hunting white tails. And so that's smart. Persistence means, you know, you're still doing all the things. You're still planning your entry and exit, you're still playing the win. Uh, you're still picking the stands based on the time of year and and your most recent information and all that good stuff. But you also have to just be in the tree. And man, I you know, you hunt a whole month in November, Um, during the rud and and those whole day sits, you you log a whole lot of time without looking at a deer and uh, and it's actually, uh, it's actually pretty tough. But um, if you're there when that buck finally walks by, that's that's when you get a shot at him. And so that's that's what I meant by that, UM, persistence isn't just going hunting every day for the sec of going hunting. It's it's uh, making a good decision about going hunting every day if you can, but most people can't. So as as often as you're able to get out there, yeah, it's I feel like this is a huge turning point for me too, was when I went from trying to hunt like by proof force to then becoming a hunter that hunted much more, you know, strategically. I guess I used to think if I hunted every single day, every hour that I possibly could, that was gonna kill me, dear. And you know, as we both know, if if you're hunting just to hunt all the time, you're gonna you're quite likely screw things up unless you've got a smart way to do it. UM. So making that transition to starting to pay attention to the timing and conditions and when to hunt certain places and how to hunt certain places. But then to your point, you can go too far in the wrong direction. So it's like finding that right balancing point where you're hunting enough, putting yourself in a position to be successful, but doing it in a in a careful, well thought through a way. I mean, that's like I feel like this is more of an art than a science, and more and more I dive into this, it becomes like this careful pulling of all these levers and almost I don't want to call it a magical way, but it's just I don't know, every one of us has got to kind of build this intuition or instinct around when to make these moves, when to pull back, when to strike, when to watch, and that kind of comes with experience and messing up a lot and then learning from it. Right, Oh yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean you as hunter, as you gain experience, you start to recognize periods of time where you know what, I'm probably not going to kill a deer today, and it's better to uh, you know there to get caught up on some work. And I went probably three weeks in the month of October this year, with you know, barely climbing into a tree. And Um, when I was a younger bow hunter man, I'd be in that tree every day and shooting every day that walked by and and having a big old time at it. But I didn't get as many chances that mature bucks later on. And so um, with that being said, uh, when the conditions were right in November, Um, I was in a stand just you know, every every minute that I that I could be. And so you learn to recognize when uh, you know, when the stars are aligning and it's it's not gonna be probably not gonna be one particular day, but it might be a period of time. Um. Just again, I keep using your your Michigan Buck as an example because he's the perfect in that story, is a perfect example of just what we're talking about. I mean, you knew, um, that deer was there, and you knew he was moving through there on occasion in the daylight, and the only way you were going to kill him was to be there when he happened to walk by you and you you know, either in bow range or finally with a gun in your hand. So um, that's that's what it takes. Yeah, yeah, it's it's it's it's always easier. What am I trying to say here? Hearing that is one thing. Knowing how to execute on that though, is like the other. Right, it's a lot. It's a lot easier to say it than do it. And I feel like it sometimes just comes down to personally seeing the results once you do start making the right decision when it starts like clicking to play sometimes. I mean, at least that was that was how it was for me, and starting to see some of these things come together helps helps a lot. Um. So were there any other things that that really stood out? I know you you listed a whole bunch of different um examples, but were there any other top aha moments. Well, there's been a few on the land management front um that I've been paying attention to for the last few years. But I think kind of um kind of really came to fruition, so to speak, this year. Um, you know, one of them, uh is uh I had a point in there about timing your you know, your dough harvest. Um. You know, we we get in a zone one Kentucky County, so we we get unlimited uh antler us tags uh in in several the counties that I hunt here in Kentucky uh and then in Tennessee. The units that I'm in Tennessee, you can kill. I believe it's three does a day. And so we we shoot a lot of those. We we have a lot of deer here. The density is pretty high, and um, you know, man, there's no better practice for being able to hold it together on a big deer than shooting a bunch of dose uh. And again, whenever I was a little bit younger bow hunter, I've man, I put that into practices about every time I was in the tree. If a dog came through, I was you know, I was gonna shoot her unless I could see a buck taser UM. But you know, the last few years, um, I I've kind of changed that focus a little bit. We we still shoot a lot of those, and I shot several this year. UM, But I like to I could really focus my dough shooting in early September. And what I found is that you know, you'll you'll find some family groups of dose and then they'll move around uh and and established fall ranges and things, just just the same way that bucks will UM. And you'll really see a lot of that, you know, a lot of that shifting around in the early season. And but I found it like by by the time the mass has fallen and they've you know, they've kind of gone through that. Uh. It seems like, you know, about mid October, if you get a family group of does that's hanging out in a certain area, be it, you know, around one of your food plots, you're your favorite white oakridge or whatever it is, they're probably gonna be there through November if you don't mess with them. Um, and uh, you know, if you're not spooking them, and certainly if you're not shooting into them, um, they're probably gonna be hanging around. And there's just no better place to be during the ruttan around a bunch of oaks, I mean, the best bait that there is. And um, and so that's um, you know that That's definitely something I've learned, is you know, kind of blending the strategy of you know, as a manager, you wanna try to keep the herd in check and and you know shoot the correct number of those for a for a property, but also as a hunter, um, you know you need to put uh you need to keep those things in mind, like why why are those bucks going to be in a certain area during the rut, And yeah, they can pick a dough and get locked down with but I'm not. I don't worry about that as much. UM, you know, during the rut, you know of having too many dose around um within reason of course. UM, I have found that that no one, we're a family group of those uh is feeding and where they're bedding and honey really in essence hunting those those If I'm not locked onto a particular buck on my cameras, if I just hang out in that area where I know those dose are gonna be, um, I'm in a pretty good spot during the rut. And I think that, UM. It certainly worked on on killing my my Kentucky buck this year, although I had a lot of trail camera pictures of that, dear and it and it definitely worked on my Tennessee buck. Um, I knew there were kind of dose in that area. And um, you know, although I didn't have any pictures of that buck, I knew going in there in November in a place where we hadn't been killing a lot of those up to that point in the season was probably gonna be a pretty good play. Yeah, So I'm curious if you've ever seen this. I had. I've talked to a few folks that have mentioned the idea of of actually paying attention in some places to specific Doe family groups. And when you know, they tend when that matriarch Dough maybe tends to come into heat and seeing that happen kind of consistently. So this dope family group that seems to always be in this little section of the property, they tend to see like a bunch of action around that area, and that dope family group maybe we'll say early in November every year or maybe late October, and then they see that same thing happened year after year and have started to build a kind of focus their hunts in different places based off of what they think are year after year trends with the same does coming in around the same time. Is that something you've ever heard of or seen anyway or pay attention to. Well, I wouldn't say, you know, I followed it as a as a year after year thing. I mean, again, we have so many Doughs around here. It's you know, it's difficult to pinpoint one family group um, you know, over the course of a few seasons. But I can say that there's some areas of uh you know, of ideal habitat um. You know a lot of times around food plots and things, um, where you can depend on there being uh one or two or several family groups of dose And yeah, I mean over the course of a single deer season, you'll see those individual groups and uh, and you'll start to be able to pick out the individual animals and you can tell which, you know, which dough is the matriarch and um, yeah, I mean you just like I was saying while ago, if you can pattern those groups of dose um and not spook them on your way in and out of the stand, and not shoot them when they come in there in the bow range, however tempting it maybe uh, it's um, it really is setting you up for a really good situation. And November and you know, like, um, the spot where I killed my Kentucky buck was on a food plot. I had been seeing there at leased two maybe three family groups of those hitting this plot just virtually every evening, and and I'd hunted this this place a lot um because I was seeing a few pretty good bucks in the early season that we're hitting these food plots on occasion in the daylight, and these groups of those I mean I came to recognize them, you know, when they would come out and different groups would come out of different areas on the field, and um, you know, right around the first in November, Uh, they just um, you know, they just started disappearing. It seemed like you would still see some of the fawns coming out, and and it was a good you know, it's a good queue that a couple of those older doughs were in heat or at the very least they were tired of the young bucks chasing them all around the fields. And um man, when I started uh started hunting that in uh in early November, it was just a buck factory. I mean they were dear that I had never seen cruising through there at all hours of the day. And uh, you know you uh that that wasn't by wasn't by accident. I don't think. Yeah, I love when that happens. So in two thousand nineteen, is there anything that you have already thought through from this past season that you want to do differently next year? Is there anything that you are not going to do again? Or that you are going to fix, or that you're an altar based off something you learned recently. Um, you know what I mean. I think I'm forever tweaking. Uh, you know, the actual ambush the tree stands said, that's a ground blind set up with whatever it may be. I mean, even with you know, with all the factors in place of access, you know, you can almost always get in any tree and think, Man, I wish it was just a touch hower, just a touch lower, I'd cut this line. You know, whatever it is, there's always some way to make it a little bit better. And um, you know we're we're in a situation on with a couple of our with our family ground that that I hunt so much with with the shells. She was in a pretty bad car accident several years ago and uh and has some lasting damage to her hip. And because of that, she has a really tough time, um, getting in and out of the lock on stand. She can do it as she has to, but it's just that kind of that motion of stretching her legs to make that last step and kind of swinging over into the stand like she can. You know, she might have pain for a few days after that, and so as a result, we end up hunting out of ladder stands a whole lot. And um, you know, most of the ladder stands that you bow off the store shelves are about eighteen feet tall, and you can get away with it with a bow, um, particularly if you're very careful about them. But um, at the same time, they're definitely not as effective as uh you know, as a as a lock on stand or even the climber um that's you know, a foot you know, or higher up in a tree. And so when I look at that, I mean, I definitely want to take some of our sets where we you know, where we have ladder stands that might be a little bit shorter. I want to get some color stands in there, and uh you know too, Um, I want to look at some other ways that we might be able to help Michelle get in and out of some lock on stands that are a little bit higher, because I definitely believe that being higher up in the tree, you know, just as a as a practical rule means you get busted by feer deer. Um you know, say you know that it's a it's an age old debate that deer hunters have you know, how how high does the stand need to be? And yeah, I mean I've killed them off the ground as we were talking earlier, and I've killed him out of stands that were ten feet off the ground. But day in and out, Uh, if I can be twenty ft or higher in a tree, that's where I want to be. And so, um, it's something that I want to look at a little bit uh next year. And then there are always things that I want to do, um from a management perspective, I mean, new food pods that I want to try, Um, you know, new areas that I I do a lot of a lot of prescribed burning in the in the in the late winter, and areas that that I want to um that I want to burn this year, and and you know, kind of rechards some old fields. And then also I'm I'm kind of starting to get into trapping a little bit. I'm I'm wanting to you know, uh do my part to take a few coyotes off the landscape and hopefully reduce a little fun predation and things like that. So yeah, I mean there's always always a to do list. So that's that's what January for, right, it is making a bunch of resolutions that we that we can't keep, hopefully that we can keep. But but yeah, man, the wheel never stops turning on the white tail season, though, doesn't it. I mean, it's just every month of the year there's something you can be working on or thinking about. And uh, I guess that's that's why I love about It can really be such a such a great part of your entire year. All right, Well, before moving on to our next kind of topic of conversation, I want to take a quick second to thank our partners at White Tailed Properties and Spencer New Hearth. We'll take it from here. This week with White Tailed Properties, we were joined by Andrew Schultz, a land specialist out of Illinois. And Andrew is going to be telling us about how shopping for land in the winter is different than other times of year. You know, there's lots of differences, but the main difference is the foliage that's um out on these properties. So with the lack of foliage, it's great for being able to walk around that property, um see deer sign from the past season, really get an idea for what trees around the property? Uh, what types of species of plant life? And animals are using the property, and so that's gonna be the best reason for looking at ground in the wintertime versus the summer spring, when there's a you know, leaves on all the trees, it's hard to see, it's hot, there's mosquitoes, there's ticks. Might not be quite as enjoyable of an experience. Um, if it's me, I'm picking the cold weather and I'm learning everything i can about that property after most of the hunting seasons are over and you can see a lot of the property. Um, that's my favorite time to walk a farm to really and truly learn a lot about it and do so fairly easily. If you'd like to learn more and to see the properties that Andrew currently has listed for sale, visit white tail properties dot com Backslash Schultz. That's s h U L t z. Um. But I guess you know, we might be getting ahead of ourselves because there are a lot of people still out there who who don't want to do a season and review yet because they still have a bunch of season left. Um. I know I've got friends still in Iowa that are hunting, and other's Ohio definitely as a whole lot of time. There's a bunch of states with times still left. Hum, So I want to make sure we touch on that, touch on some late season hunting kind of hell Mary, late season kind of things that we could try to pull off here at the end of the season the beginning of the new year. And this kind of came to mind for me because you guys had a recent feature. Um, I think it was the most recent issue of Field and Stream. You guys called it The Closers, and you interviewed four different hunters about their four really unique approaches to hunting the late season. I really, I really was intrigued by some of what these guys had to say. Um, you covered one guy who was hunting out on the planes kind of spotting stock late season hunting. Then you had your more traditional hunting food sources late season approach. Another guy talked about tracking deer in the snow, um, and then another suburban hunter. So some really interesting unique ways to think about hunting here in December, January, etcetera. Um, can you can you kind of walk through I don't know, were there anything? I know you worked on that piece some as well as a couple other guys. Were there any of those late season, I years, or strategies that stuck out to you is particularly interesting or are worth noting, Yeah, for sure, Um, you know, and and and just kind of to your earlier point about opportunities, I mean, um, here in Kentucky, the archery season runs for several more weeks here in the mid January and uh in the gun season, I believe it's still in in Tennessee. So uh. And then guys should get a little farther south from here, down in the areas of Alabama and Mississippian things. I mean, the rut is just now uh kicking. So um for for a Southern hunter, there's a you know, the late season, there's there's a lot of opportunity. Um. And you know, to to that point, one of the guys that, uh that that I interviewed for for that Closers feature was was j Maxwell and Ja lives uh in the Atlanta area, and um, he's one of those guys. Man. I've talked to j a bunch over the years. Um. He killed uh. I believe at the time it was the state record both kill in Georgia killed it, um in Fulton County killed it in a you know, barely in the suburban and he killed that deer during the rug just this giant, non typical and I interviewed him for you know, for a few different stories, um when he killed that deer. And he's one of those guys that you get him on the phone and you can just tell that, man, this this guy is a hunter. Um really, regardless of of what the what, what the critter at hand is, I mean, dear turkeys or whatever. I mean, you can just tell that this guy is good at it. Um. Uh, both by the things that he says and and you know, the you know, the skills that he brings up. He's he's just good. And so always UM, I always like to get J on the phone and discuss different tactics, and in this case, we were we were discussing kind of late season hunting in the South. Uh. And um. He he has places where he can go out and hunt in the county and traditional farmland, but he prefers to hunt actually in those suburban woodlots in Atlanta. UM, partly because a lot of them are boh only there's a pretty high deer population and then there guess just some stud bucks down there. And he's he's shot quite a few of them. And so you know, in the in the Deep South, um, you know, your your late season weather can feel you know, it can feel a whole lot like October. Uh. In the in the Upper Midwest, I mean it may be you know, maybe fifty degrees for days on end, and um, you're not getting a lot of really cold weather that's forcing deer in the you know, in the big agricultural food sources. And then in the place like a like a suburb of Atlanta, those food sources don't exist, you know, the deer eating whatever brows they can find between one subdivision and another. And so the things that that Jay does to uh, to get on deer at that time of year, I thought, we're pretty interesting. And I mean they you know, it's uh, it's not advice that that only works there. It's um, it's advice that that can work really, I think regardless of where you're hunting deer. And a couple of the things that he mentioned that I thought were really cool. One, he is a really aggressive caller. Um. You know he was talking about how from about the first of October to the end of season. I mean he is, uh, he's rattling, he's grunting, snort, weason, you name it. And whenever I was, you know, a younger deer hunter, I used to call a lot of used to rattle a lot of saw it work on, you know, in all the videos and things, and and wanted to tray from my compen and I had some success with it. I called in some deer um. But you know, I guess over the years I became um more conservative as we were talking about earlier, and so yeah, I might run out of deer. I might rattle every now and then, you know, if I if I saw one out cruising and didn't think I was gonna get a chance. But beyond that, I didn't do a lot of blind calling. I just you know, I didn't want to call any unwanted attention to my setup, you know what I mean. I figured I was in the right place, and I just, you know, gonna let things happen the way that happened. But um man J was talking about if he sees a spike, he's calling at it and he's gonna try to get it to the base of his tree. And you know, for for one, I think it gives him confidence to call deer in and then he was also saying that, you know, like when you're calling it a little buck, you never know what's you know, just over the hillside listening. And so I personally, UM did a whole lot of deer calling this year, a lot of rattling a little ground man. I called in a ton of bucks, and it was just like once I called in that first one of the season, it was just like my confidence just got higher and higher. And UM rattled in a bunch of deer in Kentucky and and uh spent four or five days in Kansas. Of course, do in Kansas are pretty easy to call in, but nonetheless you can uh, you know, when you're rattling in several bucks a day, it just really gets your confidence going and it works everywhere. And and I really I probably wouldn't have done that if not for talking to J about that. And he was referring specifically to the late season when he said, you know, look the dear, Yeah, they're they're focused on food. The main part of the rut is over, um, but that doesn't mean that it's overall together. Um. You know, there are still some late those fawns uh whatever, you know, whatever, they may be coming into heat uh, throughout the winter and um, and so the bucks are susceptible to coming into calls and UM. So you know it's uh, I think the strategy of UM yeah, I mean you're definitely hunting diminishing food sources late in the season, but you shouldn't just you know, I guess in a in a way, you shouldn't forget. Um. You know some of the uh, some of the things that um, you know that that that are potentially good rud hunting strategies as well. Um. You know your dear calling um folks and does again. I my buddy Miles. He's a Western hunting guy from Colorado. He was in here a few a few weeks ago for our late December muzzle letter season here in Kentucky. He killed a really nice buck on our place that came out from chasing. Does you know several weeks after the you know, the rut is supposedly over. So UM. Jay said that in you know, when I was interviewing him, that he didn't really believe in a second rut, so to speak. He just believes that, you know, once the first few does come into heat. Um. Yeah, there's definitely a main event, but there's still some breeding that goes on right up probably until the bucks are dropping their antlers, and I kind of agree with that. So yeah, you know, I remember, as we're talking through this, I remember another thing I think that Jay had said to which which kind of alludes back to what we we're talking about earlier, when it came to your tree stand heights and stuff like that. I think he mentioned that he likes to hunt even higher in the late season because of reduced cover. Was that remember that, right? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, he likes to get you know, twenty or twenty five feet up in the tree. And I actually have the have the store in front of me right now, and he he likes to look for trees that have you know, two or three trunks um, you know, or two or three big forks, um, just to just to break up the outline even more. Because yeah, I mean, um, you know, if you're hunting the whole season, the would look a lot different in uh, you know, in in January than they do the first October. There's uh, you know, comparatively no cover out there, so um, getting those few extra feet up in the tree, I think a really big difference. Yeah, yeah, it's I've I've certainly experienced the downsides of not doing that on some of my some past years, I've had like a go to tree stand that's always so good, and then you know, forget about what it's going to be like in the late season. Then I've got up there in late December and climb in there and just realize, oh wow, I'm hung out to dry right now. And then the first first mature dough walks in the in the range and just spots you right away. I mean, there's no worse feeling than that. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, that's no good at all. Um. Were there were there any other standouts for you from from that piece, whether it be with j or the other guys, maybe you talked to Dave or Scott after their conversations with use, Well, you know, I mean, it's um, it's a it's a pretty foreign thing to me living where I do. Or we may get, you know, a few dustings of snow a year. But Joe dinto the the guy who does uh, who does a lot of tracking in the Adirondacks. I mean, that's just cool, um, you know. And he's another one I didn't interview Joe. That was that was one of Dave's pieces. But um, he's another one of those guys you can just tell about what he says that that that the as the hell of a hunter. Um and uh, you know, in that specialized situation, he sounds like he's probably pretty good at it, and um, you know, and I think one of the neat things was we think of I mean, at least I do. I've never you know, tracked the buck in the snow, but I would think of it as, um, you know, probably something that's that's pretty tough to do. Uh and and you know, get uh and get a good shot at one and uh you know this guy's uh, this guy's point of view was like man like, um, I don't know why some why everybody doesn't do this is the easiest way in the world to kill a big here. And uh, you know, it was just neat to uh to see that and to see that perspective. I mean, it's such a different strategy from sitting in a tree and trying to call him in or you know, uh, hunting Nebraska plat in the late season, whatever your usual go to late season strategy is. I mean, tracking one down in the snow in the Adirondacks and that's that's pretty badass. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Every time I read about someone doing that, I get really intrigued and keep on. Maybe I'm gonna try to plant trip like that for next year, because it just seems like such an interesting experience and such a great learning opportunity to I feel like, I think that these days, we we just have got so hung up on whether it be trail cameras or you know, all these different things that allow you to see big deer on food plots or out in the open. It's it's really easy to to rely on some of these new approaches versus going back to just look at things like tracks and kind of your old school woods been shipped type of tactics. That there's something to those as well. Um. So I'm definitely gonna try to start focusing on things like that more myself and um And it certainly seems like this this Joe is a perfect example of how how effective it can be. One of the things he mentioned too that stuck out to me is as smart um is the fact that a lot of people when they try tracking deer in the late season, they're they're almost too conservative and careful and they just like edge their way along so slowly the entire time. And he mentioned the fact that no, you need to you need to go walk fast and catch up to that deer until you see him slow down. And the way that you know he's going fast, I think that he referred to as the deers on the highway when he's just going straight. When you follow this big track, he called it a quote, holy shit track is what he wants to wait for, I think. Um, and so, so move quickly when he's moving straight, because he's moving quickly too. But as soon as you see him swing to the left of the right, that's kind of the sign that he's he's left the highway, he's got unto the off ramp, and now he's heading towards home. Um, and so that's when all of a sudden, Okay, now you slow down because he's slowed down too, and now he's gonna be he's gonna start his kind of meandering towards his bedroom. He's gonna stop in the kitchen and maybe nibble a little bit. And you need to look for those signs. And once you see that he's gone off the off ram, then you stop and you glass and you take one step and you stop and you glass. Because I think, and I could be getting this confused with another fifteen different pieces I've read about this kind of hunting lately, but I think you said, you know, once you see them get off of the off ramp, you're probably within two hundred yards. I think was there was the number you put out there, and um, and that was like a really really insightful specific piece of advice there that I thought, Man, you could even if you wanted in a late season kind of hail Mary approach at this time of year, if you're down to your last couple of days of this season and you don't have some kind of lockdown strategy where you know this buck is going to come out to a food source. If you don't have something that lined up, what a cool thing to try. You find a big track, even on private land, even in Michigan or Tennessee or wherever. Um, if you've got some snow, give us a shot. You don't. I don't think you need to have the big to the Adirondecks to to do it, And of course that helps, but you might be a fine success just right here on smaller properties. Well, you know, it's one of those situations where I think, um, you know, a big chunk of public ground. Um, even if it's a big woods public ground, you know most of the year you're gonna look at that. It's like, man, I really wish I had a nice private spot with a soybean field on the hunt. But like in that situation, you need room. Um, you need room to cut a track, uh, and you need room to be able to follow it. You know, it would it would be a shame if, you know, if your passion was deer tracking and you you know, had to had to stop every day because the deer got to a property line you couldn't cross. So I mean, in that situation, a big piece of public ground could you know, could really offer an advantage. And I mean I think that's um, that's probably one of the one of the reasons why Joe looks to the Adirondacks. But you know what I mean, you look at that advice that he ave about, you know, following the highway to the off ramp and all that. I mean, you think, gosh, what a what a woodsman to be able to like to him, that answer is so obvious to give, but to somebody who's never tracked a deer, You're like, oh, well that makes sense, you know, and uh, it's pretty cool to get to talk to guys like that, um, who are just really really good at what they do, and it might be a really specialized way of hunting that like you know, again I don't I don't get any snow around here during deer season, so I'll probably I may never track a deer, but it's still pretty cool to read about it and uh and read about the way a really good hunter and a different part of the country does things and and it's successful. Oh yeah, fascinating. So so then what's what's the Will Brantley late season recipe? How do you approach it? Well, you know, it's it's not um, you know, For for one, I I personally, um haven't hunted the late season just a ton because we're in a one buck state in Kentucky. And uh most years, fortunately I've I've killed my buck by the late season. Um, but the last few years, uh, you know, I mentioned my buddy Miles, who's who's come in and and uh hunted late season with us here. Well, gosh, she's been coming in six or seven years in a row now, um and uh, and he's killed three good bucks here in the past. He killed two this year. He killed one in Tennessee and and one in Kentucky and uh and killed a good one uh in Kentucky last year. And that was you know, both of those were mid December hunts and kind of after the after you know, definitely after our peak of the rut. But still when some things we're going on. I still think there were a few uh, you know, a few those maybe coming in the heat, and definitely some bucks interested. But I think that the take away from from the good deer that that he's killed just in the past couple of years during the late season has has definitely been uh, you know, probably even more of a hyper focus on some of the things that we were talking about earlier about your stand access and um, you know, and choosing the conditions and things like that. And um. The deer that Miles kill with us last year, UM was in a stand I knew, um, you know, about where this deer was bedding. He was coming out of a pretty big woods area with a lot of cutover stuff. I knew the deer was bedding in that area somewhere, and we'd hunted this deer pretty much all season, from the early season through the rut around this one particular food plot, and had gotten a lot of pictures of him. But I had a stand set in this bedding area, and um, we avoided it all season, mainly because there was no way to drive a four wheeler into it to get somebody out of it, and um, there's really no way to sneak into it of a morning without you know, you may get in there without bumping the deer, but you may not. But um, you know, I knew after our gun season this deer was still alive, and uh, you know, and so we Miles and I kind of went for broke. I said, you know, hey, we're gonna put you. Uh, we're gonna put you in the stand. We may spook the deer before you get a shot at him, but you know, we've only got a few days of the season left, so this is where we're gonna go. Um and uh, you know, there was a little masked uh left in this in this area. But more importantly, I think it was just right on the bread, on the edge of where this buck was betting and kind of between where he was, you know, where he was bedding and seeding all year long. And I mean it wasn't wasn't rocket science on picking the spot, but it was, you know, it was kind of that last minute, go for broke approach. And he killed that deer his his first evening in that stand. So um, this year was it was a little different. Um. You know, he he he killed his buck, you know, chasing dose in a food plot right before dark, out of a out of a box line. And the and the buck that he killed this year was was a deer that gosh, we had a ton of pictures of him two years ago and then he just sort of disappeared and we got killed. Um who's a real tall tight right eight point A couple of years ago we named him up Tight. Actually I hate naming dear, but this one just begged for a name, so um and uh. And then I was just out of town on a hunt and Michelle was pulling trail camera cards and got a picture this year and man, he'd gotten pretty uh, pretty cool, growing a bunch of kickers and things around his bases and just sort of showed back up around, like I say, around Thanksgiving and was sort of hanging around our food plots, and I assume, um, probably because we had a couple of family groups of dose around there, and you know, he showed up in daylight. My house killed him. So um, you know, good good food sources and and good stand set ups. I don't think my strategy would change a whole lot in the late season versus any other time of year, other than I might get a little more aggressive on some of the places that you know that I'm gonna sit or you know, try to access. Yeah, that's an interesting point because I feel, at least for me, there's there's two times of year when I feel like it makes sense to to go for the home run, to take that risky aggressive move. It's it's either the rut because you've got this disproportionate chance that deer going to be a little bit off their game. There will be a little bit um I don't want to say stupider or something like that, but you've got a little bit more of a chance of than making a mistake, and so it makes sense to kind of go for the home run during the rut and then and then to your point, this time of year, the late season, because what do you have to lose, right the season's gonna end anyways, Um, might as well give it a shot. And UM, it's interesting that that worked out for you guys. And that kind of worked out my hunt. This this bucket killed in Michigan. I he showed up in daylight that morning. I saw him from a long distance away. I was, okay, I have to get in there and hunt right there tonight. But the wind was pretty darn lousy for it. It was I would never I would never hunt this area with that wind. But I said, well, it's it's December. He's here this this one day. He's not consistent at all. Um, he's been like once every couple of weeks, kind of dropping in. Um, I have to I have to strike. It's kind of an now or never. And so I tried to find a way to to take a risky situation, minimize the risk as much as I possibly could, but just went in knowing like, hey, there's a fifty chance it's either I'm gonna blow everything out here or I'm gonna kill him. But sometimes you have to you have to do that. Yeah, Yeah, you gotta have the confidence to you know, hey, all the all the pieces are here to tell me that there's a pretty good chance he's gonna come by this afternoon. Now you know, he I'm a spooking But you know, like say, you've, uh, you don't have many many chances left by this point in the season, so you've gotta try. Yeah, yeah, you mentioned, Um, you mentioned those two things. Sometimes you're more aggressive and you're smart water stand sites, and then you've gotta be hunting the right food. Um. What what kind of late season food sources are worth king in on in the places of you hunt Tennessee, Kentucky. Um, whether it be you know, planted crops or native for it, what do you guys really focus on this time here? Well, so far as native stuff, Um, you know, mass is still important at this time of the season. Now, we had kind of a spotty mass drop here. It was really really one of the best mass crops. I think you can get the hunt and that some trees were just dropping like crazy and others had nothing. So you know, if you could find a really good white oak that was dropping, uh, you were gonna see some deer under it. But you said, by this point in the season, you know, most of the white oaks have been pretty well and but we uh, we have a lot of different red oaks species, and um, although they're not as preferable to deer, uh, they still eat them, and they definitely eat them late in the season. And what what I find around here anyway, is that on a lot of the oak ridges, the red oaks will tend to grow right on the very tops of them. You know, I guess where the soil or whatever it is isn't quite as good as what I've been told anyway, And uh, you'll get a lot of deer action, um cleaning those things up, some of the big post oaka acrens and things like that. So they definitely hit those, um if you can, if you can find them, and and I mean again, uh hunting masts. It's um. Sometimes you you walk past a bunch of trees and there seemed to be acron's land everywhere on the ground, and then you get to one particular tree that they're hitting and that doesn't look any different than any of the others. I can tell any difference in the nuts, But for whatever reason, there's that one that they like. And we you know, we we were running in in Tennessee the other day and there was a there was a red oak tree like that that for whatever reason, that deer were hammering it and walking past fifteen other red oaks, it looked just like it to get to it. So um, so that's a that's a big one. Um. You know, we still have some green stuff um growing pretty much year around around here. You know, they'll be um different little pieces of uh you know, forbes and and native vegetation and things like that, and and deer are always gonna gonna nibble on that stuff. And from a food plot perspective, I mean, I plant most of my food plots are a blend of uh la, dinald, clover, chickory, and oats. Um. I do plant some brassicas, and a lot of times they won't even eat them around here until after the season goes out. We usually just don't get weather cold enough to to really uh to to make braskas that attractive. I mean, I have had some askt plots that were hit pretty hard. But um, I've got one that that I planted and I walked through the other day and they're turn ups the side of the softballs just laying there on the ground and it doesn't look like they've been cut. They hit the they hit the greens early, you know, when they're first coming up, and you actually can get some pretty good early season hunting over him. But then through the course of deer season, they just they just don't mess with them. My whole lots. It makes a really pretty food plot, but they just don't eat it a whole lot. So um, the clover, the chickory, and the oats, I mean they in this at this latitude, they are green just almost year around. I mean, if we get a really deep freeze, you know, late which which we usually will, I mean, they'll go dormant for a while. Um, but from most of deer season they're gonna be pretty green. And uh, and the deer are gonna eat that stuff. I mean, if you can get any really anything that's that's green like that, um, they're gonna be on. And then of course you're you know, your harvested grain fields, your your cut corn fields, and you're and your bean fields and things. They're gonna nibble around in those and we get a lot of our um, a lot of our farmers will do a cover crop of some sort um, usually wheat, sometimes uh, you know, sometimes rye. Every now and then some of the organic farmers will will drow oats into the field. Uh di, coon rad issues will get some of those. But um, you know, any of those, any of those pit crop fields that have had a cover crop, especially with a cereal grain, are gonna have a lot of deer on them this time of year. So yeah, yeah, definitely seen similar things up here in Michigan. Um, no, no one thing that is different. I imagine we talked about how you know, there's this careful balancing act we have to make all throughout the season between when do you strike when you get aggressive versus when do you played a little more safe and maybe observe or maybe don't hunt some days and during the late season. So much of what I'm doing up here in Michigan usually or or anywhere in the Upper Great Lakes maybe Wisconsin Minnesota is is keying in on certain weather events that really pushed deer out to feed. So like a big snowstorm coming through, or like arctic temperature, something really extreme like that can really get deer, especially that mature buck that maybe wasn't moving in daylight at all. That might finally get them up and moving. So when I see something like that come through, I market on the kaler, you know, gotta hunt on that day. Um. But somewhere like Kentucky or Tennessee, that's kind of mid country. Uh, you probably don't get big snow events like that. You probably don't get those big arctic temperature events. Is often at least um so so correct me if I'm wrong. But if that's the case, what do you key in on as far as weather factors or anything like that to to kind of guide you during the late season. Well, I still like to look for cold fronts, um. You know, I like to hunt, you know, in the if if I can catch an afternoon when a cold front is is just about to pass through, when it's you know, the tampaster has fallen and it's kind of a steady drizzle, um, before the wind really kicks up. I mean, I seem to always see deer on their feet during those conditions, really, regardless of whether it's the early season or the very last day, those conditions seem to put deer on their feet around here. Uh. And then um, in the late season in particular, I think those postfrontal high pressure days when it's you know, the sun is bright and it's cold and still and there's a heavy frost like um, those days, I mean you you almost always can can count on, you know, pretty consistent deer movement and uh you know, man, besides that, um, late in the season, I mean the temperature and in the stage of a cold front aside, Um, I like sunshine. Um, you know, we are our winners are especially this year, like we get a lot of days rich forty five degrees and drizzling rain, and it just seems like it is like that, you know, for days on end in the in the wintertime in this part of the world, and it gets muddy and sloppy and all of that, and um, you know the sunny days, Um, the clear sunny days. I just I don't know, I like to go outside on days like that, and it just seems like wildlife, you know, they just as a rule they take advantage of weather like that when the norm has been kind of cloudy, gloomy, you know, just just kind of bland weather. So sunny afternoons in the late season, you know. I I can't I haven't documented that or anything, but it's just one of those things that I do seem to see more dear on their feet when I'm out and about you know, um doing my things. So, um, those are the conditions that that I kind of like to look forward at least this time of year. Yeah, yeah, I feel like, Um, I feel I've heard similar things too, and even I think lots of times you'll get those nice sunny days tend to come with that postfront high pressure system, right, Um, so you kind of get those those coinciding factors that all of a sudden make it especially good. So when you get that those are that's another one of those check it on the calendar, gotta make it happen kind of day. If you have the flexibility. Um, I feel like late season especially is, and it's it's important all year round. I guess early season in late season maybe more so, but it's if you can there's gonna be a handful of special days each year that are gonna be just just a notch or two above all the other days because of some kinds of system moving through, and if you can find a way to have the flexibility to make sure you're there on those couple few special days. I'm not saying that they it's always gonna work out. It's not not saying that you're not going to kill a deer on on a random day that all the factors aren't aligned. But it just seems to be that if you can take advantage of those few special ones, you're gonna just put yourself in a little better position. That's that's worth doing if you can. Oh yeah, absolutely absolutely. Sometimes some days you get in a tree and you just know things right, you know. I love I have a totally different physical feeling on those days, Like it's usually when I'm getting things ready at the house, doing my final prep, loading the truck, whatever it might be. On the days where you just have that feeling your gut like it's a kill day, where you just know everything's lined up. That's one of my favorite things all year round as far as like hunting, Like what you just know when those special days are there. I don't know, the sense of anticipation, excitement is just it's turned up to eleven on the dial, and I live for that. So so all this stuff's great, and it's it's the knowledge is so important when it comes to hunting all year round, of course, but late season especially, um, but I think sometimes the toughest thing is just staying motivated, you know, after a long hunting season. You're tired, you're worn out. Maybe things have been going bad. Um, it's cold, you're recovering from eating turkey and ham and hundreds and hundreds of pounds of stuffing and mashed potatoes. It can be kind of tough to pull yourself back out there. Do you have any kind of final parting words of wisdom as far as that side of things? Um, when it comes to the late season and just keeping after it. Well, it's it's okay to be comfortable when you're deer hunting. Um. You know, there's some really good clothing out there made that that helps keep you warm. But even with the very best stuff on, Uh, sitting in a little bit lock on stam when it's in the teens is tough. Um, you know it's sometimes it's necessary, but um, you know there's nothing wrong with being in the ground blind with a buddy heater or being in a box blind with a buddy heater and keeping warm. Um. You know, when I'm hunting during the rud or any time that I need to, you know, to put time in the stand that I that I know I may be sitting there a while, I always bring a Thermost of coffee. Um, maybe it's spooked a deer before, but I can't really think of an instance where I'm like, yep, that dear spook because I was drinking coffee. Um, you know, I mean, so I bring a term, it's a coffee. It helps pack the past the time. I bring plenty of next and I and I read like crazy on the stand. Um, I'm I'm not a fan of playing on my phone a whole lot when I'm in the tree. I mean, I do same as everybody else. I'm checking emails on Facebook all that crap. But um, you know it's a phone. Batteries die quickly, uh this time of year. So so there's that part of it. And uh, you know you start scrolling through in the video plays or whatever, like he can really get you distracted. But um, there's something about a paperback book. And I picked my books carefully. You know, I definitely want to get something that I want to read, but I've got to get a book that I need to be sure that I can quickly slide it into a jacket pocket or a kip pocket or something like that. At And like Michelle and I are really we both read a ton in the stand. Um, but we're really careful about which books we pick. We don't pick hard back books because you know, if you happen to drop one out of the tree, it's gonna make a lot of noise. But like small paperback books that you can slip into a pocket quickly, um, you know, and you can sit there, you can read a little bit, you can cast your eyes up, you know, twice a page and just kind of check around. And it actually keeps you pretty still to have a book on your lap and just turning the pages with your thumb in a way that you know, even messing with a phone, you're moving around a little bit and there's a few more distractions involved. So um, you know, you still need to pay attention obviously, but it's uh, it's okay to have some things to occupy yourself on the stand. You know. It's not like you're on sentry duty or something. So I've always I've always felt the same way. I'd rather have something like that that, especially for me, like during all day sets in November, that kind of thing, a book or reading something on my phone or whatever might be. I'd rather do that and stay out in the woods all day because of that little bit of help versus coming in for four hours or two hours or whatever and completely missed that window of time out there. So if you need a little something to help you, go for it. As far as I'm concerned, yep, absolutely So I think the perfect way then to end this would be to get a couple Will Brantly book recommendations. Then, um, if you're if you're out there reading so much, do you have any suggestions for us, well, you know, for something just kind of kind of mindless to the past the time and be entertained. I mean, I I enjoyed John Grisham and that sort of thing, like if you, uh, I'm sort of a Southern literature guy though I'm I'm a Harry Cruise nut um, and uh he was probably not an author a ton of people that have heard about him. It's pretty uh it's pretty kind of dark gothic, you know, Southern humor. Um. But if you're into that sort of thing, he's pretty good. And a lot of his books are really small pay for backs, and uh, most of them are you know, you gotta shop around on Amazon to find them, and some of them are kind of expensive that um, you know, I really enjoy his stuff. Uh you know, uh yeah, I mean just as as long as it's a good story and again fits that criteria of sliding in a in a pocket quickly. Um, I'll I'll read it in the stand or are on the blind. It might be you know, an old a little more western, or you know, whatever I can find sitting on the bookshelf at Walmart. It you know, I don't. I'm not not too choosy when it comes to the passing that time, because again, I don't want to be so engrossed in something that I miss a deer coming by. So that's that's the that's the trick right there, is not picking too good of a book because I did that and missed a shot at the buck I was after last year. Son't want to be sitting there with a copy of War and Peace in your life, you know, So it's uh, it's gotta be something manageable. Yeah, it's always it's a fine in line, whether it be choosing when to hunt or choosing the book to read while you hunt. It's always walking the line. So a lot of decisions to be made. Yes, yes, important stuff. Well, Well, this is this is fun. I appreciate taking the time to chat. And for folks that want to keep up on your on your writing and the different adventures and stories you've got that you're sharing in the world, where can they pick those up or find them online? Field and Streaming Outdoor Life magazines and uh, you know both of our websites, Field and Streaming outdoor Life dot com and our our social media pages on our Facebook pages and Instagram feeds, so perfect. Well, well, thank you so much. This is uh, this is a good time. I think we covered some stuff that will definitely help people here at the here at the conclusion of what's what's been an exciting season for a lot of people. Yeah. Man, well there's uh, like I say, a little time left. So anybody who's who's still out there, just wish someth us to love him. He's safe. Absolutely, good luck trapping too. Well, all right, man, I appreciate it. Good talking to you. And that's a wrap, folks, Thank you all for listening. I'm gonna mention one more time going out and check out that film from my Michigan hunt for the Buck known as Frank. I'm probably biased, but I feel like it turned out pretty cool. I'd love for you to check a look and let me know what to think. So all that said, thank you, good luck out hunting. If you're still out there, and stay wired to hunt

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