00:00:02 Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your home for deer hunting news, stories and strategies, and now your host, Mark Kenyon. Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. I'm your host, Mark Kenyan, and this is episode three, and today in the show, I'm joined by outdoor writer, TV host, and white tail expert Greg Miller to discuss his aggressive approach to hunting deer across the country. All Right, welcome to the Wired Hunt podcast, brought to you by Onyx. Today on the show, I'm joined by Greg Miller, and Greg's a guy wanted to chat to for quite a while now, so I'm excited this episode is happening. Gregg is the author of multiple books tuttles, including Aggressive white Tail Hunting, uh Bow Hunting, Forests in Deep Woods, and rub Line Secrets, and he's written for many of the top hunting magazines, hosted several deer hunting TV shows, and in short, he's just done a tremendous amount in the world of white tails and has been at it at a very high level for a long time. He just brings a tremendous amount of wisdom to the table, so having him the show is a real pleasure. And in this conversation, I wanted to drill down into a variety of topics, such as what his form of aggressive white tail hunting looks like, how times and tactics have changed since he first got into this whole white tail thing, what his unique perspectives are on utilizing rub lines, which he really focuses a lot, on um, why he used deer decoys so much, which is pretty interesting, and and a lot more so. That's what we've got in store for you here shortly. It's good stuff. I enjoyed it. I hope you do too. But before we get to that, I did want to touch on a couple of quick other things. First off, I just want to give a big high five, uh, shake of the hand, pat on the back to all of you who have been out there picking up trash on your shed hunting trips. I've been seeing tons of pictures with the times in Trash hashtag over on Instagram, and I'm just, I'm just I'm damn proud of how many of you are getting out there and doing this stuff, cleaning up the woods. You're setting a great example, and you're inspiring me and and I'm sure a whole lot of others too, So kudos to everyone who's out there participating in Times in Trash, keep at it. I think it's pretty darn cool. Uh. Speaking of thanks, one other thing I wanted to point out and just make up make a point of doing, is I wanted to thank all of you who have purchased a copy of my recently published book, That Wild Country. Um. As you've probably heard in some of the past episodes of the podcast, this was the most daunting project I've ever taken on, but the one that I'm pretty darn sure is the one I'm most proud of and putting that thing out into the world. Writing this book for years behind the scenes and then putting it out to you all. Honestly, it was a little scary. There were so many questions around you. Is it any good? Will people enjoy it? Will people buy it? And since the initial launch you know these, the answer has been resounding yes. So many of you have shown your support by buying the book or getting copies for friends and family, or listening to the audiobook, or posting pictures on social media, posting your views on Amazon. It's it's it's it's all just been amazing and so appreciate. It, and I can't thank you all enough. Um. If you haven't yet picked up a copy yet, no worries either. You do have plenty of time still. You can grab paperback or hardcover copies over Amazon or wherever you like teach your books. UM. The audiobook is over on Audible. You can listen to it on your phone or your computer, your iPad, whatever. Um. And if you're in Michigan or anywhere in the Upper Midwest, I am doing another book signing coming up here pretty spoon uh in Lansing, Michigan on April sixteen at Schuler Books. I'll be doing another event, so stay tuned for more details on that. UM. And I guess for those if there are some people out there are still on the fence, or if you're just hearing about the book for the first I'm I do have a couple of quick reviews from Amazon. I thought i'd share just to give you a little perspective from some readers. Uh So here on gonna quote two of these reviews. Let me see here alright. Quote. I am not a person that reads books often, if ever, but I love this book. Mark Kenyon does an amazing job painting the picture of his travels and of explaining how and why our public lands came to be a great piece of writing. End quote. And here's one other one that I liked, um quote. This book is a great collection of stories and history about our nation's public lands, many of which I've never seen firsthand. But I'll be damned if he hasn't inspired me to get off my ass and make an effort to both explore what I haven't and to take action to protect what we have. This is a great read that instills hope for bipartisan railing of defense for the beautiful lands we have highly recommend end quote. So that's pretty cool to hear. If if this book can inspire folks to get out there and see these places and to try to stand up for him, that is my dream come true. So love love seeing that, And thank you to those who love those reviews. Thanks to everybody else who's written a review. Uh, it's pretty incredible buying the book, spreading the good word. It's it's so appreciated. So I just want to make a point to bring that up. With all that wrapped up, now, let's shift from talking about reading over to listening, and in particular, let's listen to Greg Miller discuss aggressive white tail hunting and a whole bunch more. All right with me? Now on the line is Greg Miller. Welcome to the show. Greg. It's uh, it's it's exciting to be able to have this chat. I have followed your articles and you on on your various television appearances for a whole lot of years now. You've been a huge influence on a lot of today's deer hunters, and so I want to first and foremost thank you for for sharing everything you've been learning over the years. And and secondly, for anyone who's listening who has lived under a log and is not aware of the things you've been doing for decades? Now, can you give us just a real quick cliff notes Craig Miller one on one. I h I started writing for North American white Tail magazine years ago. Um, I guess it was probably six that they purchased my very first article, and I was working construction at the time, doing concrete work. I was a concrete finisher. And then yeah, I started writing for them, and then a few other magazines took interest in my work and saw what I was doing. So long story short, within six years, I don't come up up the construction work and uh and went to a work full time as a freelanceoor writer, and I was doing seminars. Eventually transition and started doing videos for like Hunter Specialties, Prime Time Bucks, Real Trees, Monster Bucks. And then when the television craze kind of took off in nearly two thousand's, uh, myself scan Pots and pat Reeve started More American white tail television. UM did that for four years and then started my own show. Uh. First one was in Pursu and then we transitioned into the Hunt. And now I find myself at a point where I've read a lot of miles, I've hunted a lot of states. I think two for deer. I've killed deer in seventeen different states. I founded three Canadian provinces, killed Big Books and two provinces. So I got a little tired, so I pulled in my horns a little bit, started doing some magazine work again. And now am I'm going to make guest appearances on North American white tail television, you know, three or four or five times a year. It's nice to be able to just have a little bit more of a slower pace. I gotta believe wear Zenia after so many years going NonStop doing a thousand things. Um, something that you also did along the way, with all the TV and the articles and everything, as he wrote some books. And in one of your books, Till Aggressive White Tail Hunting, the opening line was I'm pretty I'm pretty sure this is the quote you said that there are no absolutes or guarantees in the sport of deer hunting. And I thought it was interesting to open a book in that way, right out the gate saying, hey, nothing is for sure, nothing's guaranteed, there's no black and white here. Um. That struck me. Why did you choose to open your book that way? Why is that an important thing to you? I think it's it's and I don't think I know. It's because of a lot of past experiences with with mature deer in a lot of different places. And and you can you can assume, and you can believe that you have absolutely got a big deer figured out, and about the time you do, he'll break your heart. Um, we've all been down that road. And the other the other reason I did that is because I wrote those books at a time when when people were really. They still some people still are very us in short cuts guarantees. Um. You know, something that they can use or they they can employ into their hunting efforts that they figure is just going to guarantee success and it's just not going to happen. I mean, there's successes and guaranteed and anything that I really know of, but um, deer hunting, it's a it's a sure way to um, you know, become frustrated, is to expect to be successful. I mean we all do, but I mean you've got to keep that part of realism in the back of your mind all the time that just because you think you're doing everything right doesn't guarantee you're going to be successful. And the books, you know, it was kind of partly the books to us. Reading these books doesn't guarantee success. Didn't, didn't, won't guarantee success. Um. So it's just a primer, you know, it's it's it's a perimeter for for maybe helping you. I always tell people, if I write a uh fifteen or eighteen chapter book and you learn one thing in there, out of all those fifty thousand words that I wrote for that book, if you learned one thing, then I've done my job. It definitely seems like it's still the case today that a lot of people and I'm guilty of this in a lot of cases too, So I'm calling myself out here too. It's really easy to to read a lot of stuff, to to get a lot of information these days, especially, Um, there's so much information out there, whether it's a podcast or YouTube videos or TV show or magazine or book, there's more information than ever before. It's so easy to take all this information in, but I think it's a lot harder to actually take something from that and put it into action. Um, how have you gone about actually learning something, whether it be from a resource you're reading or watching, or from your own experience, and then actually taking that learning and put into action? Like, can you think of any like ways that you actually take action on or learn from these things? Because it's I think it's one of those things you just assume happens, but it's easier said than done. Well, the first thing is I learned long ago and because I wasn't a good deer hunter. I wanted to be, but I wasn't. I was getting busted. I wasn't seeing the type of deer that I thought I should be seeing uh, with the way I was hunting an individual deer, I thought, this deer, I've got him peg And I really I had kind of developed a little bit of an ego as to, man, I know it all now. And the one thing I would really reinforce with with people, regardless of how experience they are is deer hunters is never assume you know it all. And um but beyond that, then I started digging into when I wasn't successful. I became obsessed with trying to figure out why I wasn't and that was a huge, huge key in my achieving a more consistent success rate. Was Okay, this dear dumped me, he fooled me, he outsmarted me. But how what did I do wrong? Or what did that you do right? That kept me from putting him on the wall. And I think that was a huge thing for me and probably well I'd say going into the early nineteen nineties and a long time ago that, um, I just knew I had to expand my my learning curve even more. I had to I had to acquire even more knowledge, you know. And that was kind of tough for me to accept because I really did think I knew at all, and I knew a lot, and I it's never ending, you know that market, It's a never ending quest to become a better hunter. And you've got to have that attitude that you can always be better. Yeah, And that's I think wise so many of us love it so much is because it's never you've never reached the finish line. There's always more to figure out. Well, amen, Amen, I mean I love challenges. I was you know, I'm that type of person that, um, I don't. I don't get upset as much as I I lick my chops and go, okay, you got me this time. Now I'm going to figure out how you did it, and we'll see what happens next time. You know, not lit your wounds, not feel sorry for yourself, but keep your confidence level up and just remember there's there's always the next time for you. But when a deer screws up, there isn't another next time for him. You gotta make all the right choices. You You you talked about how so many of us get to a point where we think we've got to figure it out, and oftentimes deer hunting can be very humbling when we're reminded frequently they don't have a figured out. But I'm curious. You know, you've been doing this so long, and you've been an authority for so long. UM, you've put a lot out there. You've told a lot of people, Hey, this is a way to do it, or here's what I think about this or that. Um, over all those years, now when you look back, are there anything? Are there anything that stand out as something that you've changed your mind on? Like, Hey, you know what twenty years ago, I said it was this way, but I guess what I realized I was wrong. I think it might be now this way. Anything like that, Well you know along those lines, Um, I will tell you that, and I'm sure you'll agree with me on this. Um, if you've hunted in length of time at all, if you've got fifteen twenty years under your belt and actually got a lot more than that in the hunting world, UM, you know that. You know we've really evolved as hunters. But but look what this, what's happened with with white tails, with mature white tailed box how they've evolved. So you know, things change with us, with our equipment, with technology, with everything, and we've accelerated our abilities to the point that you know, ten fifteen years ago, I was really really in fear of becoming a um calculated and so not. I don't want to say automatic, but it was gonna becomes um substantially easier. And look what happened with the deer. The sharper we got, the more educated we got, the more technology we've we've involved into the sport, the keene of the deer have become. I think that's much my honest opinion. So I think they are a prey animal, were predators. Prey animals have been here forever. They've never all been wiped out. So I think there's always that part of it that gear will have something over on us. And I can't tell you what it might be, you know, the next thing that gear used to evade hunters, or how they're doing things, But it's what keeps us all out there after them, because you know, people like us love a challenge, and deer hunting is still a challenge, regardless of how sophisticated has become. Does it does it ever frustrate you how sophistated has become or do you do you do you like it? Or do you ever feel nostalgic for the way it used to be. Well, I'm gonna sound like a drumpy old guy here, but of course I'm a little you know, I'm I'm a little concerned with with a lot of what's happened because I honestly believe, and people can challenge me on this, but um, I still love killing big gear mature white tails. I love figuring them out. But when we had to work five or six or eight or ten times harder at doing that than we do now, then you know, you have to remember a lot of my formative years when I became you know, when I acquired a name and uh was established my credentials. There were no scouting cameras. There were you know, we had total maps and aerial crop photos that we used. That was it. Otherwise it was bootleadder and a lot of hours. So yeah, I would readily admit I would I like to see it back the way it was in some degrees. But Mark, I'm telling you, I'm kind of ate up with the scouting cameras, and I like the Onyx maps, and I like certain things. I like my I like my luxuries too, So I'm not I'm not going to be that grumpy old guy. I guess there's a middle ground, right sort of grumpy. UM. I wonder though, do you think do you ever think that you might have um a special advantage over some of the newer, younger hunters for someone in your case who has that pre scouting camera, pre on x pre technology background, but you also know how and can use those new technologies um or maybe another way to take this question would be, do you feel like those who came later, those who are so dependent now on trail cameras and our online maps and our cell phone cameras and all that stuff, are we overly dependent on that stuff and missing the boat on some of those foundational things that you learned early on. Yeah, I's back to the grumpy guy again. Yeah, I do, I really do. I agree with you. I think that they're There was a certain aspect of coming together with my hunting partners and walking all day and I mean all day from daylight to dark, with a with a total map folded up in your pocket and to stop and a compass in your pocket and no cell phones and starting cameras. But where I've really seen those skills that I acquired a long time ago and honed. Where I really have seen that skill set shine is when I started doing a lot of about the state hunts where I might be at a spot for five to six days and then it was time to move on to the next spot or come home and then go out again, where you had five or six days on. A lot of these were do it yourself hunts where we got some property hunt we were showing the boundaries, and then it was you guys are on your own. You know, five or six days. You can have cameras, you can, you can have the technology, but you better have You better be on those deer right out of the gate. You don't have two or three days to wait to see what shows up on the cameras. You know what I mean. It's five to six days, find a big deer and kill them. And I really excelled at that, and um, you know, it was all documented on film and for the most part it was a lot of self scouting and uh so those old skills came back to uh to bless me um from years ago when I really became a road warrior, you know, during my the high ages of my filming career. Correct me if I'm wrong here, but I'm guessing that a lot of those early experiences helped you kind of form this style of hunting that i've that I've seen you referred to as as aggressive white tail hunting. You wrote this book titled Aggressive white Tail Hunting, UM, and I've talked a lot about these different tactics that kind of fall underneath that UM type of white tail hunting that you seem to have mastered. Can you can you define that for me what you mean by aggressive white tail hunting and why that this style is so important to you and maybe it's not anymore. I don't know. That was a long time ago that book came out, but UM, what are your thoughts on that? No, that was that was a good connect here, because, um, what that book was about is kind of what I'm talking about now. Is the stuff that I that I reflected back on that would serve me well on my out of state hunts now this day and age. There's a lot of this stuff I talked about in Aggressive white Tail Hunting. Where back then, as I said, I was a full time well we were seasonal here, so we get six months maybe seven months of construction work and we're laid off for four or five months out of the year. And that's back when nobody was doing scouting, nobody was doing the season scouting. And we started doing that in the middle late eighties and walking from like I said, all day walks, learning our hunting areas where we should be the next year. Um. But a lot of that stuff that we learned back then is exactly why I've been able to rack up such an impressive success rate on autist eight hunts with a very limited amount of time mark. So, yeah, there's some throwback stuff from from that book, especially that I feel strongly is is still applicable today for people. So so if someone then was saying, how do I become an aggressive white tail hunter? Now, um, would you would you be able to outline a few key things, like, all right, if you focus on A, B and C on which we can go really deep into it want but if you learn to focus on these three things or something like that, would there be some way you could outline what this hunting style is for someone? Well, the main thing I think that and back then I was I was hunting the big woods of northern Wisconsin, hundreds of thousands of acres of public land, and but it was it was huge blocks of cover. So we walked a lot, and the only way to learn that country was to walk up. There weren't ava trails, there weren't even a TVs. There aren't four wheelers back then. It was just it was legwork and um but being aggressive. The one thing that I've learned about about white tailed deer, especially what I learned up in that big country in northern Wisconsin and Minnesota, was there are hundreds of thousands of acres out there that are available to the deer, but mature white tails, especially if they're undisturbed, they use relatively small chunks of cover. You know, they don't they don't use all of what's out there. They have their home ranges and they're they're pretty much homebody. It was the biggest thing was we figured out that, you know, it was a matter and this applies everywhere. It's a matter just as much a matter of a limiting eliminating bad country as it is finding good country. You know, it's that can be reinforced enough so that the stuff you learned in the offseason when you're doing this aggressive scouting, and the good thing at that time of year, if you can walk everywhere, anywhere, and you have to worry about Man, I'm screwing this up from my future hunts. Do you have months to forget about being bumped or you know? But in the meantime you've learned a lot. And that's the one thing in talking with deer hunters, you know, I'm still doing some seminars that some of these bigger deer shows and has kind of gone away. Is especially in cases where there's more real estate than just one square mile farming tracks or whatever. Is people depending a little too much on technology i e. The cameras or you know, those sorts of things and really getting out there and how well do you really really know your hunting area and be honest with yourself, do you know every square inch? And postseason scouting, in my opinion, late where early winter scouting is time to do all that when the deer seasons are closed, the deer back in their core areas doing what they're gonna do um later on. So so we're right about in that time frame right now as we're talking late February early March when this comes out. How does someone do that? Because we talked about scouting a lot and there's certainly like a scouting one on one where someone probably thinks, Okay, I'm just gonna walk out there and walk around and walk the edge of the fields and then look for some bigger rubs and they're gonna call it good. How do you take the next not just the next step, but the three more steps to to scout like a pro? How do you scout like Greg Miller? What's what's going on in your mind when you're out there? What are you specifically doing that's different than your average smock on the street. Well, this is going to sounds like kind of a shameless plug. But the books not in printing more, but just leads right into my third book. You talked about aggressive and proving white tail tactics. But I've got a third book, rub Line Secrets, which actually was my best selling book of all and um that book was written from from added that I collected information, I collected evidence I collected during the offsea where they are making these rubs. Now everybody knows what a rub line is, you know, bucks rub along the routes say most prefer to use when traveling between betting and feeding areas period. They always have preferred routes those routes with most rubs on them are usually the ones they use most often. You can figure out at that time of year because you go out in the spring, you start walking, like you said, now until you know it starts to green up. You can walk every square inch. The other thing is people seem to assume they know where the big deer that they're hunting are betting. And I did that for years, and I found out it was a lot more to my advantage, way way more to my advantage to figure out pretty much exactly where they were betting. And even in the off season, when you're walking and you're looking at your hunting areas and you're going light, really can't see a big buck betting here or here. When you find those spots and you go, this looks like it's about a big bucket lay as probably isn't. You might even bump the deer out of there that time of year, but it's not going to harm anything. It's so far ahead of the season. But I'll tell you a quick story, Mark, I was asked to do an article for bow Hunter magazine recently. In fact, it just came out, and it was about spring scouting, and I talked about attract the land I had here that I had least, and I had it for three years, and you know me, I mean I assumed I knew every square inch of that property after that three years. And not only that, but I knew exactly what the deer were doing, where they were betting, where they were traveling, where they were feeding. And I was in there the third year turkey hunting in the spring and I found a big rub And as I walk up on this big rub, I see another one in the woods. And long story short, I end up following this rub line from the bottom of this steep wooded bluff all the way up to the top, and up on top is a flat shelf. And I can tell you right now, as soon as I get up there, I went, this is a betting area. And we had a couple of really good bucks on the property at that time. There were a few boat downs around the edge of this. In the middle it was it was sign up open, and there were deer beds and deer crap all over and there, and I thought, they're betting in here, and now there's got to be where a couple of these big bucks are betten in law you know, you know, fast forward to September that year and I killed a hundred point that did exactly what I figured you would do when I figured that out in the spring, and my son and I have Jake was filmed, and when we went back in there and the second day of archery season in September, I killed him like second hunt of the year from what I learned that spring. That's amazing when it works out that way. Yeah, And it doesn't always work out that way. It's that's the other thing. I mean, people look at my my successes and and they think, wow, this is unbelievable. They have no idea. Well some people do about the failures. And you know, you and I could talk about that probably all day about there's gonna be more heartaches than there are pleasurable moments. That's just the nature of the beast. That's the first thing that people, you know, especially when they elevate their standards, they have to they have to accept that you just ratcheted up a notch where you're going to go after four or five and six year old deer, hang on, because it's going to be a heck of the ride. That is the truth. That's the truth. So we're gonna be a lot more downtimes than up times. Nature. You got to learn to love that, that process, that climb. If you don't enjoy that, then you're in trouble. Yeah, there's something to be said about getting frustrated, though I mean that in a positive way because it just if you're like me, like you, I'm assuming that just makes you get your teeth and go, that's not going to happen again, give me more, figure it out. Yes, yea. So let's talk a little with those rub lines, um, because it's funny. I feel like the the idea of using rubs and really focusing on them has come in and out of style within the hunting community over the last two decades. There's been periods where it's been raved about, and then people go back the other way and say, I forget them focused on something else, and then they come back in and then they kind of come in and out. Um, right now, I if I foure to put my finger on the pulse of the hunting community, there's a whole lot more interest and trendiness around betting areas than focusing on transitions and rub lines and stuff. So let's let's zero in on the rub line thing, because maybe that's an area that we're not getting enough attention on for a lot of newer hunters. Um, when we're out there spring scouting and we come across a big rub, how do you is this is the simple next step? Simply find the next one and walk to that, and find the next one and walk to that. Or what goes through your mind when you're starting, when you're scouting and you're searching for rub lines? Um, what happens? And what are you looking for? And how do you go about effective least scouting rub lines in a way that you could eventually use as a hunter. Yeah, that's exactly what you're doing. Is is this a random rub? Um? Is this a rub that was maybe made during the rut? This buck was here one time, ground the crap out of this tree, marked it up and never came back. Or is it is it part of an actual line? And that's really what you need to determine as um. You know, usually a rub that's on a rub line will also be alongside of pretty good trail and um, and you know how bucks can be doing, especially mature bucks, they're cross trailing, they're they're running while sometimes sometimes they're on trails, sometimes they're just meandering through the woods, but during non rough times, for the most part, they stick to using trails. And you know, there's such a big part of the archery season in almost every state in the country that takes place during non rough times, which means we're hunting. Here in Wisconsin, we're hunting September, October, and and then just umber again post rut. Three months out of four months, we're hunting deer that are not running. And I don't know about you, but I'm not going to pin my hopes just on a you know, ten to fourteen day window, twenty one day window in November. I want to be on the big deer right away. But the scouting thing, yeah, it's it's walking to see if this is a random rub, if it's part of the line. Every buck rubs difference. Some of them are rubbed crazy, other ones rubbed once in a while. You know, those were tough ones to figure out back in the old days. And getting back to something you said Mark about the rub thing kind of comes and goes and the importance of it. And I think that's in great part due to scouting cameras because now they can just find the rub and put up a camera and maybe a scrape and they don't really have people don't have to do much investigating, and that camera will probably tell them if that's a spot they need to hunt or if not. So they don't really think that the rubbed really the rub. One rub they put the camera over, but they don't really know their significance of rub line. So I think it's kind of gone going out of style, out of fashion simply because people don't consider it to be that important because of what they can learn with their scouting cameras. And that's it's actually true. It really is. Do you feel like you're miss out or anything? Though? Um? Is there is there some added benefit to taking it that next step? Oh? Absolutely? You know. It goes back to what I was talking about earlier about you know, the use of scouting cameras especially is kind of um made hunters a little less aggressive, a little less active. UM. Just talking to the editor of North American White Tail about this a few days ago about um, you know, and if if four cameras don't show you what you want to see, then put all four more. And we talked about how harmful that's become two hunters. Chances when especially early season one gear on top of their game, or during the October low when big bucks are really you know, reclusive and and and shy and and and suspicious. The more times you're going and out, whether you're just scouting, checking cameras or whatever you're doing, the more harm you're doing, because the human sense is human sense. But so that's why I think it's it's kind of in their best interests. And you can do this during the off season at least figure out some of the preferred routes that bucks for using the year before, because they'll use them again, and then the next generation of bucks will use them and so on. And it's we've proven that a lot of people have. You know, you get a good spot of good spots, a good spot, you'll kill big deer out of it, maybe fairly consistently, because it's just the nature of big deer to want to gravitate to the same spots that the deer before them did. It's just there there for a reason. Yes, So what about this alderdage that big rubs mean big buck? Have you found that to be true or false? Very true? For the most part if they're not if they're not big in the Antler department, because I killed I've killed a bunch of big woods deer that because of the lack of agriculture, but because of the lack of very much nutrition. These are deer that were two hundred pounds field dressed plus up to two hundred and twenty some pounds, you know, our four and five year old deer. And they were one thirty maybe one. You know, they were just so so in the antler department. But those deer about them big trees, and they didn't have not all of that giant raction. I killed some. I got a two typical I killed hearing of stonsrom during late season years ago. That that deer when he'd show up on our farm and he wasn't there very often, he'd come and go um. He'd rum on trees almost as big as you know, I mean talking almost as big as he's my lower leg, my calf, I mean up into my fire, giant pople trees he'd rub on when where he came on that he was just wearing. He grew up on those trees, you're dear. We also with the advent of scouting cameras. Now we've been able to document that little bucks will rub on big trees, big bucks will rub on little trees. But for the most part, if you find those big, gagger sized rubs we all like to find, it's a it's a pretty safe bet that that's a really good dear. As you were as you're talking about those big rubs that you're finding the big woods, it just brought a question to mind for me, which is, do you find there's certain habitat types where rub lines are more important. I'm wondering if, for example, in pretty open country like Kansas, maybe there's not a whole lot of cover, so your travel corridors are pretty obvious they have they're going to most likely want to follow these little fence rows and things like that. While in a big wood situation where it's all this homogeneous, big open timber, it's I've hunted a lot of that stuff too up in northern Michigan, and a lot of times I'm just at a loss for trying to fare out how these deer are traveling through an area. But is it in a snare like that where rub lines are especially important, you you hunted if you hunt it up there you hunted country that was fairly similar to what I used to hunt in northern Wisconsin. And yeah, there were some there were some aspects of dear behavior or travel patterns that we had on. Um. They love walking swamp edges where they're they're on the there on the dry ground, there on the high ground, but they're like one or two jumped away from those those six thick camarat willow swamps um because big dear like that sense of security. If they were threatened, they got to one or two bounds and they're in the thick stuff. Those were hot spots. We also found that just riffed bottoms um sometimes along the sides of the hills. Very seldom did those gear big gear especially did we find where they were walking right down on the top of the ridge. If they were, it was probably a nocturnal travel route. They just seem to want to be where they could be closer to thick cover. And um, you know, the older the deer get, the more the more secure they want to feel. So there are some things to look for. We find, you know, two or three year old slashes, you know, where they come in and they log off an area and just clear cut it and then it comes back in that thick regrowth after about the fourth or fifth year. Words. You know, it's like the hair and a dog, it's so thick. But deer would walk the edges of those things too. They want to be on a little more open side where they can see and use their eyes for travel. But there are only one bound away from being able to jump back into that slash. And there was a lot of logging going on up there well towards the end of my big woods hunting career, but we learned to use it to our advantage because the deer would be in there to feed, and then it would eventually get to a point where we're also service cover and food. And they were hunting hotspots those slashes when they were about four or five years old. And would you hunt those kinds of spots right inside of them, or would you hunt the downward edge during the rut and try to catch bucks curves in that edge? Or what was what was the right way typically to hunt in well, you know, back then we were tree stand hunters. Occasionally would build a ground blind, but there were no pop up blind so we were doing just exactly what we said we'd we'd hunt those those edges a lot, whether it was a swamp edge or a slash edge. And uh, I think guys the time drew near do fairly aggressive amount of calling, you know, out into the slash or swamp to try and get them just get out in the you know, in the area where we could get a shot at it. I'm talking mostly bow hunting now. But we didn't employ some of that stuff for gun season two because we can have gun gun again in our tree tag here in Wisconsin. UM, so we're blessed that way we can we can shoot two bucks a year here. Um. Back on the back on the rub thing, you you talked about how how these days a lot of people will see a rub or scrape and just throw a trail camera, um and never kind of take it to that next step. Do you now have do you have a way that you that you use trail cameras in conjunction with rub lines, like, is there is there a best way to do both? Um? I'm curious just because I personally use a lot of trail cameras on scrapes, but I do not often factor rub lines into where I'm setting my trail cameras. Maybe that's a missed opportunity. Um, do you have any thoughts on on using that unless you have a clear I mean putting them over scrapes is Listen, those are like the communications centers for all the bucks within a given core area, not just the buck. You know that, I mean you might get You're gonna get pictures of numerous bucks work in the same scrape. It's just the way it is. But then you have to figure out now and you don't get a picture of a book like you'd like to get, So you have to start wondering, especially if you know there's a big deer lyyrit Is this not a thought he's comfortable visiting? Is there a reason he's not coming to this scrape? But other than you know, than a big track on a scrape, that's pretty much guesswork. But when you when you're just scouting and take the cameras out of the equation and you're just looking at sign, I would rather trust unless there's a track in a scrape that you take one look at it and go, this is a giant deer. This is a giant deer. I would rather trust to you know, scouting and sign interpretation to big rubs than scrapes. That's not to say I don't hunt over scrapes. I'm like you, I I do both, but um, the rub thing gets it's curious to note that. Um, you know, I still do it a lot. I put him I kind of trash scouting cameras, but I'm very dependent on him to be honest, like like we all are. And I'll put him up and I'll put up you know. I think one time here I might have six to eight to ten out um. And what I'm trying to figure out is what the deer are doing at certain times. You know, rubs are definitive there their value, bits of sign but you have to figure out that, Like you said, is this part of the line or is this just a random rubs? It depends on the time of year. But um, I think I'd rather based most of my hunting efforts around rubs, big rubs than than than scrapes. Scrapes are a good indicator of buck presence, um, don't get me wrong. And that's a good place for people to start trying to get a census of what's going on in their hunting areas. Usually you'll start finding scrapes before you start finding quantities of rubs. I think you'll agree with that, especially the more bucks there are with within a given core area and more the more competitive they are, the more competition there is, there's going to be more bucks signed, even in September, even especially in October. Now you talked about how how scrapes are communication hubs. What about signpost rubs? I've seen you write about signpost rubs. How do those differ from just a regular random rub in? And when you find one of these signpost rubs, you know, what does that? How does that mean something different to you? Or how do you act differently after finding that? Well, you know, if you watch a big buck make a scrape, and I've had the opportunity to, you know, to do that many times. The first thing they do usually when they walk up to especially a rub that's already opened, as they'll smell it and then they'll usually lick it. So now they've smelled it to see who's done there, they market with their saliva. Then they start rubbing it. And if you watch them as they're rubbing, they'll spend almost as much time rubbing their forehead. Their pseudoefers land on their in their forehead, um, not the sudo reefers land. Yeah. Um. Anyway, they'll spend almost as much time on the rub as they do their antlers, because that's the clear indication of who they are. That's how they mark these things, you know, so that when they walk away after it, on it. And people will tell you years and years ago when we first started we started doing the rub line thing, we'd always find hair and these rubs in the bark and bettered in the bark, and we were like, I wonder what that's about. Well, eventually I got to know Lordy Woodington from North American White Tale and James Croll, of course Games is a very good friend of mine, and they explained to me the whole process of that and why there was there was hair. It was from the deer's forehead, just from their head. But they grind that bland into the bark to scent market. So there's a lot more goes on with rubs than I think even now with everything that's out there, all the information that people understand, that's only one aspect of everything we're talking about. Two. There's a lot more to this than just rubs and rub lines. It's it's definitely fascinating though, because it's one of those most visual things. You know, when you go into the woods. There are a few things that can get your adrenaline pumping more than coming across a big fresh rub actually seeing a deer, other than seeing a deer. That big fresh rub is about as visual, visually stimulating as you can get out there. And that's exactly what got me so interested in him. You know, years and years a lot of the very first article I wrote for North American White Tail, and I wrote it and it appeared in seven issue was on rubs, using rubs and rub lines for killing proof your deer, And up to that point, I don't recall ever seeing a strategy article that relied entirely on using rubs and rub lines as a way to ambush Big Bucks. I'm not just I'm just bringing that up because there was a lot of stuff that was misunderstood about him. I think prior to that that we had done personal research about and had had the results to back it up. Um, And so that's why I just goga. I've still gotga about rubs. And there's there's nothing, like you said, walk like walking through the woods and come up ahead and seeing a big tree, just all scarfed up, that big orange slash. Yeah, you can't wait to get there. You almost find yourself running towards it. What about this? You know? These days, I don't know, the last maybe ten years or so, it's become quite popular to use and to create mock scrapes. UM. A few people I've I've seen a few folks here and there make mock rubs. Have you ever done that, looked into that? Consider that as something that could be a useful tool, absolutely, because they relate to them almost as much visually they see those things too. You know, do you have excellent vision other than maybe not seeing you know, color scheme that we see. But they have very keen eyes, and bucks are incositive if they're if they're not pressured, if they're just being themselves, and if I'm not mistaken, there's some isn't there some scent companies that are making the forehead land? I think I think so. Yeah, so it's feasible. I mean, I think it's I think it's I mean, I love my personally loved um making mock scrapes and doing that, and I've made mock rubs and they're just something pretty cool about doing something yourself and you say, this is where I want to do big deer to appear. I want a big deer. Just doing something like that and having a big deer respond to it. I think it's cool. It's kind of like Colling Kyle's, you know, where you can fool them to the point where you can kill him. Yeah, it's Colin and turkeys grunting and the buck pugle in elk. Any way that you can proactively fool an animal into falling your trap is is pretty satisfying. Yeah. Yeah, so I do it every year. I I I've always beenked around with it with the mock scrapes, and yeah, I just get response. You know. It's just a matter of what what animals are responding. And I've had some that, you know, I've got scouting camera pictures. There's some incredible bucks that I never ended up killing. But it's so cool to look at those pictures and go, I made that scrape and look what I got here. You know, So, what's the scenario when you would do the mock rub what like would you would it be similar to why you make a mock scrape. You want to buck to maybe stop there for an extra second so you can get a shot, or to stop in front of trail camera. Is that that kind of utility or do you use them in a different way. The thing with the mocks mocks scrapes is then after he works it, after a buck finds your scrape, then he works it, and then you rework it again and add a little more scent, and then he comes back and you know he's figured out I'm going to keep coming back here because I want to meet this guy that's monkey in my scrape. And same with rubs. I think you create them. It's partly to try and get a deer to start rubbing on it too. But the next time he comes through that area, I can almost assure you he's going to visit that rub again. They just have to. That's the nature of the beast with them. They they're so big on you know, sent based communications and visual communication communications with like the rubs, and trying to find out who else is in the area. Um, there's probably a lot more of that goes on the natural confrontations where they're just constantly smelling and finding out who's going where and who's doing what. So UM, I've never actually shot one off the mox scrape, but I'm sure had him respond to them. Do you think that this is the kind of the kind of idea that might help in let me let me say it's different way. I've got a scenario, and I think a lot of people probably have a scenario somewhat like this where they hunt a small property and for one reason or another, the deer are typically on the neighbors and they only come over into their side. You know, let's say one out of six times, and you can't improve the habitat because you don't own it, so you can't plant food plots, you can't make some big change to the habitat, so you're stuck trying to just hope that that buck is going to come across your way. Would this be one of those things you could do to proactively try to get him to come to your side a little bit more by getting kind of aggressive with creating mock scrapes and mock rubs on your side. And of course you've got to be careful to not overpressure it by doing that. But let's say you can do it in a smart way and create this false sense of competition that then encourages this dear to come check out your neck of the woods more often? Is that? Is that a reasonable way to use this? Yeah? And it's and you've probably done it, and I've done it, and I've had you know, so so successful it it's excuse me, it's it's um. It's sometimes can be really hard to lure a deer off adjoining property or off property you don't have permission on onto your property. You know. It kind of goes back to what I was saying earlier in the podcast about do you know where they want to be? They they're living because they really feel comfortable there. Um. But I would say along those same lines, though, if you can get him to come over and investigate just one time, I have a I have a very strong feeling that he's going to come over to investigate again, whereas he may not have done it had you not had that mock scrape there or that mock rub, you know what I mean. It's it doesn't hurt anything As far as the effectiveness of it, I haven't had great You know, deer are where they are because they want to be there, and other than rut, good luck trying to get him to leave that safe environment where they feel safe and you know, jump defense and come over onto your environment. But it doesn't hurt the same focus doesn't hurt anything. To do it, I want to I want to rewind. Um, I want to go back to something we started talking about earlier, kind of pivot off of the rubs and back to this idea of the aggressive white tail hunting, because I think that this, this idea we just talked about might be considered something aggressive because your proactively doing something to try to, you know, change the future behavior of a dear. Um, you wrote this book Aggressive Whitetail Hunting, and that was I don't know, twenty years ago something like that. Um, it's more than that. Okay, So do you think that since that point, as technology has changed, as you've changed, as you've hunted more and more and seen more and more situations, have you become more aggressive or more conservative as a hunter? What's your trajectory been. That's a real good question. It depends on the situation, you know, as I was talking about earlier. If I'm out of state and I've only got five or six or maybe even seven days to get something done, I'm gonna be the same old aggressive Greg Miller. But I'm gonna do it. It's safely aggressive or are you know, it's you've only got so much time. You can't be doing stupid things like walking for any place you think a big deer might be bettered. But you've always got to be out there doing something, you know. We've got two places we hunt early season, western South Dakota and northwest North Dakota, and we do those hunts back to back. Then we do our own thing beginning to end. We got six days in South Dakota and we've got seven days in North Dakota. And there's not much time where we're sitting around, you know, shooting a breeze. We're out and about doing something. Um. If it's just walking and exploring, um, and while we're hunting glassing, you know, because the country leads itself well to do that. But we're always doing something. We'll take a short break for lunch maybe in the middle of the day, you know, but mornings and evenings and afternoons we're doing something. Um. If it's moving cameras, checking cameras, it's uh uh scouting. You know what still is there's a lot of lands seven dollars acre ranch we hunting in North Dakota. We've hunted quite some time. I'm I've still never been on every bit of it, so there's always something to do. So yeah, I mean around here, if I'm hunting here, um, I may not be quite as aggressive, but that's because I've got these dear kind of figured out mark, you know what I mean. I know where I should be and when I should be there, and I know where I shouldn't go. And you know that might change during the season when deer start doing different things though too, But I've got that all figured out. But when I when I'm a road warrior, I'm going to be a lot more aggressive than than I than I am here quite honestly. Yeah, I feel like that is one of the important steps as a deer hunter you have to take. When you eventually get to a point and it's you never get there completely. I think it's a it's a hill you're constantly walking up, um. But but trying to be at a place where you know the right times to be aggressive and the right times to not be um. It seems like that's a really a fine line you have to walk as a deer hunter, because when it's time to strike or when it's time to get aggressive. If you if you don't, you miss your opportunities. If you do at the wrong times, you blow it out, you screw it up. Um. It's a real tricky balance you have to walk for for someone who's relatively new, who doesn't have years and years of the mistakes and the lessons learned. Are there any kind of guidelines you can give us as to Hey, this kind of situation is go for it, This is go time, versus this is hang back and be a little more careful. Um. I know that's pretty broad, but are there a few examples you can provide, folks that might help illustrate that. Yeah, it is. It is a broad stroke. It's it's um during the early season night and and you know, like the October long and books they just go underground. But boy, they have they're sharp, they're not being distracted by hot doors or they're not rubbing much, they're not scraping much. I'd say better here on the safe side for the season. You know, because of the the foliage and everything in the woods are so much stickered. That's a tough one to call too, because you really but you might get away with more. You might be able to jump at that time of year where you'll hear him or you jumped him, you busted him, but he's not gonna leave the area. That's one thing good about early season. They're just such homers. Then it would take quite a bit, I think, to really push your out. But I think during the the late pre rut, in the rut, I think people should just be if your gut tells you to do something. I really trust my gun, and I think most good hunters, most people that spend quite a bit of time in the woods are more than average amount of time in the woods, have got that sixth cents where they know when they should be out there, They know when they should walk certain places, and they know when they should back out and just maybe leave things alone. I think it really does come down to that, if you feel like you're maybe pressuring an area too much, I will almost certainly guarantee you that you're pressuring that area too much if it becomes a suspicion in your mind right because we're probably always a little bit biased in our favor too, So if you get to the point where you're starting to think maybe you're doing it, you probably were over pressuring it a week a week earlier because you want to give yourself a break. That's very well put. That's that's very well could be the case. And I've written that almost word for word. If you feel like you're pressuring an area too much, you have been more than likely have been. Yeah, so so are you. I'm not sure if you are aware of this UM kind of trendy type of hunting or not right now, but there's a there's a growing collection of hunters who are really into getting very aggressive with their hunting in October, in particular around the October lull, by finding buck beds and buck betting areas and getting in really tight to them with pretty mobile hunting tactics. UM. So kind of doing the reverse of what you were talking about. There you are? You? Are you? What are your thoughts on that? UM? It's it's something that's pretty high risk, high reward. And I don't know if that's something you've considered or tried or done it and screwed up enough that now you don't do it? Um? Any thoughts on on that tactic? That idea? I H it's one of those been there, done that I actually have and I in a way, I feel kind of not bad about it, but it was. It was at a time when I was writing, just be careful, don't do this, don't do that. I had a big deer that I just like I could kill an early season, and I was so confident that I knew exactly where he was betting. This was in. This was in northern Wisconsin and the willerness, and I got in so tight on that beer that I actually heard him stand up and shake, you know when they stand up and they shake themselves, And I thought, what was that noise? And like three or four seconds later, I saw some movement and he's just standing that he was in some thick stuff. But I made out an eye and then an antler that actually heard that deer because he shook again then, and I like, that's what I heard. That's how close I I didn't kill him, but um only because he took the wrong runway, if you know what I mean. It was the right runway for him, the wrong runway for me. But so I think it's one thing about doing that that time of year. It's you know, some people might think it's a little controversial that you should never try and get in close to those deer tight on him, like like we were talking about. But other than doing that, I I don't know how you kill him, and it's probably worth it. And I that time of year, if you bust them out, I don't think they're going to leave the county, you know, I don't think they're gonna They're probably gonna run a little ways because it is so thick. You've got that going for you, and then just probably forget about it as long as you back out and get them time to forget about it, don't go right back in there. So so you're saying that it is something that if you're willing to swing for the fences that you think it's it's not a bad idea, if you're willing to take that risk. I don't, but I would, I would on the right on the heels of that, I would. I would say that people should have a real thorough understanding of their hunting area exactly how it lays um um the you know, people that are very familiar with their hunting areas probably stand a better chance because they know what their deer are doing at just about every time you know, during the year um, summer, spring, fall, winter. Those people have more of an advantage because I think pretty much, you know, they've hunted the same tract of property for however long, Um, they would stand a better chance of of killing a deer in that situation than people that are just kind of doing it by guesswork. And quite honestly, Mark, I think you'll agree, there's a lot more people that are are that knowledgeable about their hunting areas now in the West twenty or twenty five years ago. You know, it's become an obsession with him. It's a good obsession. Yeah, certainly are a lot of worse things. I like to tell my wife very very much. So yeah, yeah, Um, really a really random little aside here, but it is related to hunting in October. Um. I read somewhere once. This might have been in a recent article that you have really keyed in on freshly fallen maple leaves? Can you talk about that? Is that something that we should be paying more attention to? Is is something to hunt around for small parts of the year. Well, I'm telling you it's it's I wrote that piece years ago. I think I rewrote it. Yeah, I rewrote I didn't rewrite it. I used that analogy against um for an article for North American white Tail this last year, and we have a lot of the area I used to hunt in northern the stocks and even around here in the farm all. We have a fair number of maple trees at a lot of maple actually, But it's one of those things when they're falling, you better be out there hunting and maples lose their leaves rather quickly, and the sugar content in those leaves is what drives with you. I talked to James Crawl about and he said they're high and sugar, so it's an energy source for him. You know, it's it's a delectrical food, but it's not a main food, as I wrote in that article. It's it's one of those what they call them ice cream foods, I guess they call it. But they where they're gonna eat them. Every time they passed through that area, they're going to go right to those trees that are dropping their leaves and they're gonna they're gonna garbage up on them. Do you think they'll go out of their way to hit it? Like, Oh, for sure, for sure. I've seen dear suddenly appearing for years when this was going on, and we find this hot sign in these certain areas. They say they as well. We didn't know at the time that hot sign was three or four days old and it was already over. They had been doing this probably for a week. By time we found it, it was over. But we hung stands. Not only didn't we see any big bucks, didn't see deer. They just come in there for tell those once they hit the ground, those leaves that lay there for a while lose the sugar content and then they're not delectable anymore. But boy, when they're as they're falling, literally as they're falling, I strongly urge people to check that out. If you've got known areas of maple stands in the in the woods you hunt. It's it's one thing that, like you said, you've never really heard it before, but it's it's a fact. Yeah. I like that idea of it seems whenever you can find a food source that is that's limited, that's there for a very short time period, you get this disproportionately high rate of deer use because they know it's there for just a little bit of time. It's it's like when the ice cream truck shows up, you know it's going to be there for thirty seconds, So every damn kid comes running in because they know that's the only chance to get it. That's a good analogy. I mean, it's it's kind of the same thing, you know. It's it's a timing factor. Tell me, those kids don't know when that ice cream truck is coming, and they know they got it time, just like the deer there in their element. They know exactly when those maple leaves are gonna fall. You know exactly when the eightcorns are gonna start dropping. So it's just the timing thing. And that's that's one of those things too that I learned on my own pretty much a long time ago about the maple leaves, and it was it was a bit accidental, but you know, I never forgot it. Yeah, yeah, those things. I think that's another thing that seems to separate your average deer hunter or hunter of any kind, but in this case deer hunter. Um separate them from from someone who's able to really really be successful is noticing those things. The fact that you noticed that you keep you asked yourself, why did something happen or why did I see these deer? What were they doing here that you noticed? That was what they're feeding on, and then you stored that away in your mind for the future. I don't think that's as common across a lot of people. I know that I've had almost proactively forced myself to be more pro I have to like remind myself all the time to pay attention to everything and then ask questions about everything, and then think back on it again to make sure I'm learning from that and taking action on it. Um. That seems to be like the process, at least that I figured out. That seems to be the process of getting better is really observing, thinking, and then acting. Um. Are there are there any other examples from your years of hunting that you can think of where you have like an aha moment in the woods where you have when of these observations or watch something happen and we're always like, oh wow, that that's why this happens, or oh wow, I need to change what I'm doing now because of this. Have there been any other kind of epiphanies like that for you over the years, Well, I mean there's been there's been stuff like that. To be specific about you know, it came from a lot of years and just finally paying attention to dear and when those and funds and small bucks will come by, not going, God, damn, where's the big gear. I'd watch spose deer. I wanted to know everything they were eating, why they were there, where they were going, how they were acting, which trails they were using, even though they weren't target animals. But back to the maple leaves real quick. I remember my brother Mike, my older Mike, when I hit on that pattern and killed a couple pretty good bucks doing it, He said, how do you ever figure that out? And it goes right to what I just said. I said, well, every time I'd see those deer come through there for the last few years, at the same time every year, they were always there, and then those maple leaves, And then I told him about you know, finding maple trees after that and setting up on him. And it was already too because there was a lot of bucks signing, a lot of deer signing around him, and it was already too late. They weren't eating him anymore. So I said, I figured out the best time to be there hunting those deer was when the leaves were dropping. Um, I'm sure there have been some instances where I've seen deer do something or you know, it's always been my goal once I once I decided that this is what I want to do. I want to be a very successful big buck hunter. Back in the day and age when it wasn't cool, you know, the North American Whitehall think was in its infancy, the magazine and so let's start drawing a little more attention to the sport. But um, there were things I learned along the way. Mushrooms I killed. I killed a really good buck in northern Wisconsin one year that you know, there's a certain ridge that I hunt. There's a lot of down logs, and the deer when they're eating the mushrooms off those locks. But the University of Wisconsin to put all this in perspective about different foods, and certainly not all these foods are preferred. But the University of Wisconsin did a study years ago on white tailed deer in our home state here, and they documented deer eating like close to three or three d and thirty different items while they were observing. Now, so now you put that in perspective of what we think we know about what deer like to eat. Yeah, corn, soybeans, you know, alf elfa, acorns, brows. We're still a long ways from three, you know. So there's some of those foods they may just pick and you know, at and they eat it, but they documented it. But it does put it in perspective that it goes far beyond what we consider to be the normal foods are primary foods for white tails, I think, and and so much of that is seasonal, like the maple. There's there's are other things that you know, like certain brows, certain leaves, But if you watch a deer walk through the woods, they're always nibbling on something, and I just pay attention to what they're nibbling on. Usually, Yeah, you know, what they're eating is so important in the early season and a lot during October, and a lot in the late season in December. But if there's any time in a year maybe where it's not quite as important, it's probably that pre rut and rut time period. Um. And tell me if you think differently, but I think on average is a little less important least at that time of year. Um. Kind of falling back on that theme of your aggressive mantra or your aggressive approach to hunting, once we get to that time period, we're past the October law, we're into the pre rut. In the rut, that's when most people get aggressive. Um yeah, what does getting aggressive at that time look like for you? Well, what what are the bucks doing that time of year? They're kind of nosing around? What are the doors doing? Food? Yeah, it's it's yeah, there are some places that you know, you get these cruising bucks, you get you can have areas that during the rut, when the bucks are cruising, their certain areas they use year after year, generation after generation that are just absolute cruising spots. But food still plays a very important role in the rut, but only because then you're you're actually hunting mannerists here, which I hate. I think we all do, because you know, we get picked off way more by dolls and funds and small bucks than we do mature bucks. Let's be honest, and oh my gosh, you know, and more big bucks have been saved by dos than we care to talk about or even think about it. I can think of dozens that have you know, survived just on my behalf because of a nosy or suspicious doll. But it's still a food thing. It's just that the bucks are I think the mature bucks are changing the way they're relating to their surroundings, you know, to get to where the doors are. And during the rut especially, you know, they'll just they'll come into a feeding area and maybe they'll just circle to the downland side. They're not interested in meeting. They'll just circle to the downland side, snout then deer that are there, and go, nothing interesting here, I'm gonna move on. And we've all see that, you know, when they're cruising, walk walk, walk, stops the the ground, sniff the air, walk, walk walk over and over again. They're just cruising. They're not interested needing. They're just interested in one thing and they know where to go to find that thing. The pretty standard approach if I had oversimplify what the you know, hundreds of different deer hunters I've talked to say, if I could just boil it down to the simplest of things, you would say, maybe on average, most guys or girls during the rut are hunting either downwind of betting years or food sources or some kind of pinch point during the rut, and you kind of lump of all hunting tactics at that time of year into one of those buckets. Do you do anything different than that? Is there anything outside of that that you think about or or add to the recipe during the rut when you're getting aggressive with it? Um. One thing we haven't discussed as I I huddle over a decloy a lot. I feelt some of my best deer over decloys, and you know, I, if there's a way to put a decoy in the mix, I'm going to do it. But you know it's you. It ain't broke, don't fix it. The two the two strategies you mentioned mark there, they're just so proven and there's and they're so effective. And you know, I also show in some calling, you know if there's a time when rattling and grunning can be employed, And yeah, you can do it too much, but it's also going to provide you with chances. Eventually, it's going to provide you with chances or a chance you wouldn't have had you not used it. Same with the decoy. UM. You know, I pulled hot hot bucks away from hot doors or a decoy no way, shape or form would come over and committed suicide had I not had that phony deer out there walked right away from I didn't come far, but they were out of bowl range initially, and they came over to challenge this guy that didn't want seem to want to acknowledge him. You know, the decoys just standing there, and it seems to really irritate those bucks that it's not responding in any way. It's not doing the head bob, it's not turning its head. It's the less it moves it more. It seems to make them mad. So um, but yeah, random calling during the rut, in the in the uh, pinge points and do fan areas any place that analysts you are using you know, feeding areas, uh. The edges of betting areas all good. Those are the go tools. I think they have been for a long time. I think they will continue to be. I guess a lot of it comes down to executing on that though, because most people know what you're supposed to do at that time of the year. Probably the harder thing is is getting small details right, so knowing exactly where to the right spot on the downward edges to set up and then pulling it off, spending the time getting up on time being out there, not creaking the tree stand at the last moment. Those little things probably are what separate the way from the chef. Yeah, you know, there's we talked strategy, and we talked you know, game plan and all that. But there's something to be said for exposure just being out there, especially that time of year when the bucks are doing it. Um. You know the old saying you can't kill them if you aren't out there, and that's so true, and yet people just well some it's gotten better. People know they need to be out there now, but um, it's just so true. You know, I can't stress enough that we get that that little window. Fortunately I get kind of a broader window because I'll probably do in two or three different states and maybe a Canadian province during the month in November, and you know, the ruts going strong the very last days in November, like South Dakota. This past year, I killed a good buck over the decoy and I think it's November and that deer was the rut was just going crazy. And the week before I killed a giant uh deer in Saskatchewan and the rut was just starting. It was really going up there. So you know, I get that luxury of hunting different geographic locations, um, and getting a whole almost a full month of rut hunting. Um. But there's nothing like exposure during that month. I'm going to be in a tree somewhere, We're gonna ground blind somewhere. That's the whole key to this kind of along those lines, that's usually one of the things that's easier said than done. Though for a lot of people, especially if they're just getting into it, they hear, oh, yeah, I should take my vacation during that time period and i sit out there all day every day, and I'm gonna, you know, put in twelve straight days or fourteen straight days, or maybe it's five straight days, whatever it is. Um. People quickly will find out that's that's not as easy and not even as fun sometimes as we imagine it's going to be. When we're sitting here in February dreaming about the run, um, can you can you just talk a little bit about maybe some of the things you've learned over the years about the mental side of hunting at that time of year. It's geographic location as far as as being out there, trying to be out there as many days as humanly possible during the month in November for me, maybe even I mean October can be good too. I killed some some of my better dear that last week of October as well. Um, but then it's pretty right near rub lines and they're very predictable as far as where they're going to walk, not when, but where. Um. But uh, the thing is, you know, taking the vacation and for the average working person which I was for a lot of years with my construction job, you don't get the home of to run and gun. So that this is a very interesting and I'm glad you brought this up because the timing of the rut and maybe you'll agree, maybe you'll disagree, But I think it's it's so up in the air anymore. It just seems like we don't, at least here in Wisconsin and a few other places I hunt. You never know when that peak week is going to be anymore. Um. It used to be seems to me anyway, that it used to be later here in Wisconsin. Now it seems like it's earlier. That's just me. Uh. South Dakota, I killed that deer last year with bone arrow that that's later than more. All out there, I think I could be wrong. I've on it all there for twelve fourteen years. But it's just tough. You can look at moon phase and I don't know all of this has a plays. The factor of weather is a huge factor. Um, if if we get that warm weather in November that you know we do get occasionally get suppressed as a rout without a doubt, I think you'll agree with me when that happens. Oh no, and it you know, it's it's just pretty much all nocturnal then or maybe not even you know, going to happen until later. But I don't think there's a I think it's it's different by geographic location. But I also think there's the moon phases, the weather, um, the buck, the door ratio, and you know, there's so many factors beyond what some people would point to and go, well, here's why the here's why the rut was no good this year, here's why the you know just didn't happen here. Well, it happens every year, yea. Um, But I can't. I can't honestly and truthfully sit here and say, well, this is the reason that this happens, and even after all these years, I think it's a it's a combination of factors that if they all if one or two of them happen at the same time. With three, it's going to affect the rut period regardless of geographic location. Is there is there anything? And this kind of goes back to something I mentioned a second ago as far as weathering, that's getting through that period of the hunting season with your wits about you. Is there anything you've learned? Just just for me, I always think of as a grind, Like the rut is a grind. It's it's gonna be tough to get up in the morning. Some days, it's gonna be tough to sit in the stand through the storm and make it all the way until dark. There's gonna be days I'm like, dang it, I just want to sleep in today. Um, And you know, I try to push through it. I've I've though I've been kind of evolving a little bit and I don't I don't know where you're at on this, But for a lot of years I thought you should hunt every single day that you can, the entire day that you can during the run, every single moment. You gotta just push through the exhaustion, push through everything else. I've just sort of started to rethink that a little bit especially now with young kids and stuff. Um, maybe it makes sense to sleep in, maybe choose a day and say, you know what, I'm gonna sleep in today and go out to hunt at noon instead, because that half day rest and extra town in my family will make me that much more focused and that much more effective of a hunter the next six days because that I gave myself that and that's gonna make me better because of it. Have you do you have any thoughts on that? Have you gone through those same ups and downs and questions as you've as you've hunted the Run over the years. Absolutely, I mean it's it's it's even more you know you've gotten older. It's it's it's become even are difficult to do that grind, and it is a grind, um, you know now that I've slowed down on the production and and just it's just picking and choosing some room with it hunts to do. And of course, you know a couple of those are going to be really good early season hunts that have been reliable for us in the past. But I'm still basing the majority of my hunting activity around the Run. You know, it's the time of year we all wait for, we can't you know that three letter word does more to stimulate guys than the other three letter words, I think, But um, it only comes once a year, and it's like, I gotta be out here. But what you said about just taking a day and collect your thoughts and get your wits about you, that I think that's extremely extremely good advice. I there's you know, when I was really running and gunning and doing this there, it was a real it was real risk of the burnout factor. And so I mean, if you're not on top of your game, if you're not as sharp as you should be when you're out there, then why be out there? Take a day or two, even sleep in one morning. Just just don't set the alarm clock or set your phone to buzz at a certain time in the morning, you know, and sleep in one day. The problem with that is as soon as you wake up, you're gonna feel guilty. But I think it's I've done it on out of state hunts where you know we're under the gun, and this is this is a pretty important deal. There's a lot of pressure. We got to try and get thirteen original episodes in the can each season, and you just have to take a day off, you just do. But whether it's during a rut or not, it's it does catch up to a person, and especially you know, it's a little bit unique in a situation like yours where it's for the show or or even for myself when I feel like that's part of my my job as well, but when you're just doing this for fun because that's how you want to use your vacation time. I still think there is a certain amount of pressure on a lot of people these days because so many of us take hunting so seriously, we're so passionate about it, and and it maybe it's even getting a little competitive, people kind of comparing apples to apples with what did you shoot? What do you shoot? Your buddy got this, dear. I think there's probably a lot of people that feel this pressure during the rut, like it's got to happen. This is when it's supposed to happen. I waited all year for this to happen. And as soon as you at least this is my two cents. As soon as you start feeling that way, and it goes from being a thing you're really excited about and looking forward to every morning, and that you're thinking, Gali, I'm the luckiest guy in the world because I get to do this today. If you don't feel like that anymore, you probably should take a day off because if this is how you're spending your vacation time, this is supposed to be fun. It shouldn't feel like a crappy job you're going to in the morning. Um. I think those at risk sometimes if if you take it too seriously. So that's that's something I've been thinking about. Two. Yeah, and that's that's very well put markets If it's if it's just become a grind and it's you're you're really not having fun. But it's also you get to that state with your on the mental side of it because you're tired and you're burned out, and you can recover. I mean, just taken one day off has worked wonders for me. You said it helps you. It's just one day. It's just one day, um, and then you'll be ready to get after it again. It doesn't take much. But it's a little bit longer than that now for me, but not much. It's still great. I think it's just so cool that I've done it. As long as I've done it, and it gets to be that time of year and you know, taking a day off as hard, that's great that it still gets you excited and amp to be out there. I'm glad to know that that's still just as powerful of the thing for you as as it was thirty years ago. So that's pretty cool to know that it's not going to get old. No, no, you know, And I've I've I've been blessed. I've done it more, more years and more places, with more more situations, different situations, and most people ever will And like I said, I'm I'm blessed to have been able to do that. But it's also when you do it to that degree, the burnout factor becomes way more um of a possibility. And then then just say, you know, the average deer hunter, and by average, I don't mean to to mean anybody. It's just the guy that hunts, you know, the same tracted land um day after day. And that's the other thing is if you're hunting the same tract of land, maybe you need to take a little time off, because if you're putting that much pressure on the deer herd as a whole, maybe you should just stay out there for a day and let them regroup too. It's not just us, it's the deer that we're putting the pressure on. Good point. I want to I want to pick your brand in one more specific tactical thing, and then we should we should probably wrap this up because I've kept you here a long time. Um. But you mentioned de coin, and that is something I actually reached out to Pat Durkin before this and just mentioned that we were going to chat and ask him if there's anything that he thought that I should ask you about, because he's I know, you guys have known each other and work together for a good number of years. And and he brought up two things, and one of them was decoin, the fact that you are a little bit unique and how often you use it and how effectively you've used it. Um. And I've actually saw in one episode of a show of yours, and maybe you've done this other times, but I thought I saw this and thought it was pretty interesting. You were actually set up with two decoys. We were in a fence row and you had to feel on your left and feel in your right, and you had a buck decoy in the left side field you had a buck decoy in the right side field. UM. I thought that was pretty unique and it made sense in the situation. I really like to hear a little bit more about that kind of to situation and other situations where you use decoys and how you do that well, that situation, that's interesting. You should bring that up because when I when I signed the deal with North American White Tail to do X number of hunts each year. UM the executive producer uh and the guy that's that's running the show got the name of Laden Forest, asked me if I they wanted to flash back to two of my earlier hunts, two of my favorite hunts all time from the days when I was with North American Whitetail Television. And that's one of the hunts I picked. And that that situation Mike Clerkin was filmed in me and Mike's made his way around the industry now and become a name for himself. But we were we were on this rut hunt in Illinois and it was happening and we just couldn't get anything close to us, and we found this set up that was there was a winter wheat field on both sides of this um brushy fence line and there was a one lone white ochre red oak that was perfect for our tree stands, and so we got her stands up and Mike says, so, we're you gonna put the decoy And I'm like, well, if I put it on that side and what comes on this side, he'll never see it. And I said, if I put it on that side, then the same thing will happen if he comes on this side. And Mike said, I said, you don't happen to have a decoy in your truck to me, and he said I do. I said, that's problem solved. I said, We're going to something I've never done before, just in case that um because they were just pounding this winter wheat both sides of this brush line and I killed That's the six by six. I'm sitting in my living room right now. I got him double pedestal mount uh because I killed a giant deer with a muzzleloader that same year in Illinois and I got him on both on one pedestal. But yeah, I'm sitting here looking at it was a six by six typical. It was probably I don't know, ten ten thirty in the morning. He just come cruising and and he uh, all by himself and kind of on the lope, and I got his attention with rattling antlers, and I blew on my grunt call and came over. He came right into the decoy. But had had we not had the one out on that side of the brush line, he wouldn't have seen it. He wouldn't he had me any reason to, you know, come up there, bias. But so, how are you specifically setting that decoy up? What's the angle, what's the distance? How are you thinking about the wind when you set in position? I'm curious without the details there. Well, the wind I want, obviously, I want to win blown from the decoy to me as much as possible. Quartering wind could be okay. But one thing I've noticed, and I don't know at all, but I've been decoying longer than just about anybody I know, and um that bucks typically will circle to the head end of a buff decoy. They want to be looking that thing right in the face. So what I do is I put it out about yards, racing either directly ad or slightly quartering towards my tree stand, so that when the buck circles around to the head end, it puts him between me and the decoy, which means he's fifteen to twenty yards chip shot. And then you'll stop. The first thing you'll do is stop and turn his head and look at the decoy, which gives me my opportunity to draw my bone smoking. It's it's pretty simple, really, but you've got to remember that a doll decoy typically they'll circle to the tail end because they want to sniff, you know. Um. So I not really use a doll decoy much at all, um, But uh, I will tell you this too. I I queried North American White Toie Magazine for an article I'm writing for an early issue this year, and it's about early season hunting, of course. And I've killed two velvet bucks and another mature buck over a decoy in September. And one of the bucks, I'm looking at him here in my living room in another mount. He's a hundred and seventy in deer that without a decoy. It was September seven. I think I killed him. These deer were coming out to an eight acre alfalfa field and there were a dozen shooter bucks in the bunch, but they were all over that field and we watched a couple of evenings prior to the season, and it's like, how do we go bucks? We put a couple of round bales out there, had the rancher put a couple of round bales out and put a ground line in between them. We had deer all around us. Nothing came within range. So the next night I put up a buck decoy and this buck and four other bucks came out of a river bottom quarter mile away, came all the way across the prairie and some of the best forties we've ever laid down, and he came right to the decoy and I killed him. I mean, he's got seventeen scorable points, basic six by six main frame, just a brood of the deer. But the night before we saw him and he was challenging every buck that came into that field. This big deer would challenge. So the next night I had the decoy with us. So what's the scenario? And I think, I'm I'm picking up on what the scenarios, but but lay it out clearly. The scenario in which you would pull out a decoy in the early season. Um kind of Well, for one thing, that first evening we sat there marked we I noticed that they were not just that biggest buck. There was another big buck, and there were a couple other bucks that were big but built different. There was a lot of pecking order stuff. We sat there for two hours and watched because it's Montana and the deer out early. And I told Matt, my cameraman, I said, we come back here tomorrow evening. That decoy is gonna be up in this field. I said, they're getting this is there's a lot of stuff going on here. Um. The very first deer I killed for North American White Tailed Television back in two thousand three, it was a big velvet ten point Wyoming buck, and that deer came to a decoy I placed out And I'll tell you this story. I remember when we got to where we were going to be hunting in Wyoming, pat Reeve and Stan Pod, my co host, were already there. I started unloading my truck and I pulled that decoy out of the back of my truck. You you should have heard those guys laughing and giving the crash of having that. Miller brought a decoy. Miller bought a decoy along. I'm like, okay, ended up killing a big velvet ten point that in no way, shape or form would have walk within bull range of our tree had that decoy not been there, because he's just checking out the new guy. And the same with the box the big buck. Then you know when I killed him the second evening with the decoy, I don't know what he was going to do, but he was coming over to check out this new guy that he hadn't seen before. That's my opinion. I mean they look at a buck and go, who's that. I don't know him. It's a curiosity thing that time year, during the rut. They want to they want to simp it. Yeah. One of the things that I've noticed, and from listening and reading and talking to other people who've had even more experience of decoys than me, something you often hear about is the risk factor with decoys and that being sometimes does get really spooky about them. And so I've heard some people talk about and I've tried to keep this in mind when I decoy, about employing a decoy in an area where you're not gonna have tons and tons of doughs, Like the best case scenario seems to be an area that maybe as a lower deer density, so you're not gonna have sixty doughs out in the field and then have your decoy and have every group of doughs come by and spook and blow. Um. Is that something you've seen as well? Or do you not worry about does and you you're putting that decoy up regardless. Well, I will tell you this, this Montana hunt I related to you with this hundred and seventy inch deer. There were sixty seventy deer in that field before those. I mean, there were so many doughs. One thing I've noticed about decoy consistently and does is dose don't like other doughs. I never use my decoy as a doll, and I've seen that be consistent regardless of the time of the season. If it's early season pre rut rut does don't like other doughs and they're suspicious of them. I don't know what it is, but I've used the decoys. I can't tell you the last time that I had a set up room because a deer turned inside out because of my decoy. I really can't mark. I you know, I hear these things. But I know people think they got stuf figured out, and maybe they want to use it as a doll. But I strongly encourage people that if they're going to use a decoy, strongly consider using it as a buck. It seems they be a lot lower impact on the behavior of the deer than than a dough decoy. And I don't know what that's about, but I do know that those mature dolls don't like other mature dolls, and that's what that thing looks like. And it's not doing anything. It's not moving, it's not acknowledging them, and then they get suspicious, and then they get angry, and then they get suspicious again. So that's just been my experience. But I've been decoying, like I said, since oh gosh, you're early nineties, a long time. It's something I want to try, or I've always been afraid to do it. I've been pretty conservative when it comes to decoys, Um, but I have. I have once decoyed one and had a really cool hunt and killed one and have wanted to try it more and more. Um do you do you do anything unique to the decoy? I know some people put scent on them. Some people will put a little white handkerchief for something on the tail. So there's a little flick in the wind. Um. Some people take one antler off. I've done that. Sometimes do one antler buck. Anything that you do with your decoy that's unique or just standards, throw out throw out a small buck to your regular buck decoy and let her go. Yeah, I use the carry light. And um, there's there's some you know, because I I used to work with those people, and you know, I've got three or four of them. But there are some other really good decoys out there. But I runned as the buck. The other thing is people tell me something's got to be moving on that thing, and I tell them, well, you know how many years experienced, twenty years experience. We're using decoys. It tells me of that the less it moves, the more it seems to irritate him, especially a buck, that whatever he does, this thing won't even acknowledge him. And finally it's like, I'm coming over there to thump you. You won't even acknowledge my existence. I'm coming over there to check you out. Now about the putting something on the tail? You know, deer grow up as babies. They grow up following mama watching her tail. How many flicks mean danger? How many flicks mean everything's cool. I don't know. You don't know, so putting something that moves in the wind on their on their butt, as you know, I've heard of people. You know, one guy told me he had a big buck coming in. This has been years ago, and he had he had a white hanky or some tissue or something that taped on this decoy's butt, and the first time it moved in the wind, the buck kind of looked at it and then continued to come in. And then it started to really blow and flick. That buck looked at it, turn and trotted off. So I don't know how many flicks mean everything's cool. Um, there's something wrong. So I'm not gonna have anything on that decoy that I can't control that might mean this or it might mean that. And that's just my opinion. I you know, I've been doing this long time, like I said, with the decoys, but um, they grew up watching walking behind Mama, watching her tail. Those those flicks means something, but we don't know what that is. Yeah, it's a good point. It's a good point. Well, uh, Greg, this is this has been a lot of fun. I've I've been talking your ear off here now, so I want to let you get to the rest of your day. UM, I guess I would. I would ask you one last thing or one and a half last things. Um. Number one, is there anywhere you could direct people if they want to learn more from you or pick up your books or anything that can you tell folks where to find more Greg Miller resources? And then number two, are there any other resources out there that you would wreck amendo folks, whether it be a book, a show, a person, I don't know. I always I'm interested in other folks recommendations for where you would turn to to learn more or to to get more of this kind of stuff. Well, unfortunately all my books are out of print. But on a positive note, my son Jake is who is you know my business partner was and still there is actually you know, we're just going in a different different direction with our production company. But we're we're probably in the process of not probably, we're in the process of getting my third book, rub Line Secrets, which was my best seller of all We're gonna have that redone in hardcover, So I don't know the timeline on that. UM. I'll be doing seminars at the Ohio Deer and Turkey expou the third weekend in March and at the Wisconsin Deer and Turkey Expo in Madison. I think it's the first or second weekend in April. People could hook up with me there and I can give them more details. Um, but as far as anything interesting, you know, I would say that I'm really happy to be you know, as as far as you know going forward, I'm really I'm really happy and uh that I'm back with North American White Tailed Television because you know, as far as the visual medium, that's kind of where I got not kind of that's where I got my start, you know, and then blossomed into my own television show and all that. So I'm glad to be back with him. And Gordon Whittington, like I said, bought my very first magazine article way back in and he's the editor of North American White Tail to this day. So it's great to be back working with those guys. Yeah, that's great. They they're one of the first magazines I was able to publish an aricle and too, so I have some some strong positive associations with what they've been doing as well. So good stuff. Yeah, you know, and they're they're a good group to work with her. You know. It's I know the print medium was kind of had some hard times lately, but it's good to know that, you know that they're still buy in the North American White Tail magazines and reading him because that's I mean, there's a lot of online stuff, but it's it's great, you know, because I got ink in my veins. I've been a journalist for a long time and it's that that that thing doesn't go away. Yeah, I still love having the physical copy as well. I got a stack of him sitting right next to me. I can put my hands on him right now, right next to me, So it's still nice to be open the page. So I'm sitting here at my my favorite spot on the coach, and I got a whole stack up on my own table here. The coolest thing for me right now, Greg is I've got a two year old son, and every morning now he gets up in the morning and when he's laying there in bed, he just starts saying Mama, dada, Mama, dada, And then eventually I'll get up and go grab him. And the first thing I want to do is he will run to the couch and he will grab a magazine in off of the coffee table next to the couch, and it's always a deer hunting magazine, so it's usually North American White tailor Peterson's Bow Hunting or something like that Bow Hunter magazine, and he'll grab it and he'll make me flip through the pages with him, and he points at everything and sometimes I'll say, oh, let's say big buck, or he'll grunt when he sees a picture. And that's that's how my days start right now. And uh, that's about as cool as it gets. And it wouldn't happen if we didn't have real deer hunting magazine still, so they're pretty special cool. It is the coolest. Yes, well, Greg, I just want to thank you again and um please please stay in touch and if if we ever can convince you to come back, I'd love to chat with you more. Yeah, that's not a problem I got. I got way more time to do stuff like this now than I did when I was running and gunning thirteen different states in four weeks, so yeah, I hear you. Well, thank you again, Greg, and best of luck with your offseason scouting and coming up into the season. And that is a rap. Big thank you to everyone out there for tuning in. Hope you enjoyed this one. Stay tuned for much more to come with the podcast. Stay tuned with the back forty season two show coming back at you later this year, and make sure you found Wired Hunt over on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter for all of my live updates throughout the week, throughout my life. All the interesting things I'm doing that maybe I don't get to share here in the podcast, they're covered there, so check it out. Good luck outside and you're scouting efforts, your trash cleanup efforts, you're shed hunting, whatever it is you're up to right now, enjoy it. Thanks for being a part of this community, and until next time, stay Wired to Hunt.

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