00:00:02 Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your home for deer hunting news, stories and strategies, and now your host, Mark Kenyon. Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. I'm your host, Mark Kenyan. In this episode three and today the show, We've got Dan in Fault back with us, and today we're running through the what would you do? Gauntlet of hypothetical deer hunting scenarios. All right, welcome to the wire to Hunt podcast, brought to you by Onyx. Today we're back with our third installment of this what would so and so do? Format series of sorts. This new idea that I started a few weeks ago, as you've heard me discuss, in which I'm trying to find new ways to get inside the minds of some of the best deer hunters in the country. Right, We've been doing this for seven years. We've talked to hundreds of different deer hunters. There's hundreds of different deer hunting podcasts out there now, and a lot of it's the kind of same thing. So how can we get to that next level? That's what I'm wondering, and that's what this story, this situational type approach attempts to do. If you haven't listened to the last couple episodes of John Eberhardt or Steve Bartilla, here's the gist. Basically, I'm going to present our guest today as Dan in fault with a hypothetical scenario, and then I'm going to ask him to explain what he would do and why he would do it. Now. Dan is probably familiar to a lot of you. He's been on the show I think three different times, um and he's just well known across many other platforms. He's the founder of the Hunting Beast forum and YouTube channel uh Hunting Beast Gear. He's been all over the place. He's really popularized, popular rised much of the much of the strategy around hunting buck beds and how you can really form your whole hunting premise around that. Um. So, if you are into hunting beds, if you're wanting to better understand buck betting ears, if you're interested in hunting hill country or swamp country, all these things are things that Dan really specializes in. He's a tremendous resource. If you have not heard our first couple episodes with him, I would recommend listening to those first, because that's where we kind of cover off on his basic things, like that's where we get to understand how he thinks about hill country betting, what he thinks about swamp betting, what he thinks about how you can predict where these betting locations are, and how to properly scout and things like that. That's where you get the foundational stuff. I kind of assume that knowledge in this conversation, and so I start asking Dan kind of the next level questions. I put out that scenario and then I asked, you know, what would you do if I put you with this slight variation or that variation. So having the background will help you. UM. That said, you don't have to do that. You can listen. You're probably gonna still get a lot from today too. But go back and search for Dan Infault in the Wired Done archives. He was in one of the first couple episodes. UM, and then he came back on again the following year in two thousand fifteen, and then finally he was on I think two summers ago. I brought him on and Andy May and Joe L. Singer helped me ask a bunch of questions and that was really helpful too. So today we cover a lot of different ground. We dive into some different approaches Dan has to hunting, farm ground. We do talk about swamp and hill country bedding. We examined some different scenarios with how Dan handles hunting pressure and different situations where other people mess up his hunts or where he messes up his hunts. UM. I do ask him some of the same questions I asked John Steve, so it's interesting to compare their responses, um and and just in general, I think this one is is fascinating to end up being, um just as good as I was hoping it was going to be. I hope you enjoy it. I think we'll just get right into it. Let you enjoy this one. We're going to do at least one more of these what would you do podcasts with someone very different. My goal here is to have like two guys that were very public land focused and two guys that have a little bit more of a management uh set of experiences, so we can compare and contrast those two styles, and I think it's gonna be helpful so well that all the way, I just want to mention one more thing, and that is just you know, every once in a while I want to make sure to thank everybody in the front of the episode for listening. I always mentioned at the end, but maybe some of you shut it off before then. So I just want to say, Hey, I appreciate you guys. I appreciate you listening. I appreciate you picking up copies of my book That Wild Country. I appreciate you guys following wire done on social media and engaging and commenting and you know, sending me messages and feedback, all of that stuff. It is. It's amazing. I appreciate it. It makes this whole thing a community, and that's a special thing. And I think that those of you that listen and that are part of this Wired Hunt community, you guys and girls are just some of the coolest hunters out there as far as I'm concerned. And I'm just glad to be able to do this thing called life and hunting with you guys uh here at least once a week on the show. So thanks for all that. I will also thank you for bearing with the advertisements, right, we have got to do these ads in the podcast. I know that's annoying. Um, I bring this up, and I know I brought this up before. I bring it up because it's something that can be annoying to me too, all right. I know, listen to a show, I'm enjoying it and all of a sudden someone busts in with a life insurance ad. That's like, really, I feel that way too. I get it. It's just kind of what you gotta do to keep these things on the air these days. And so thank you. Thank you for your patience, thanks for smiling and laughing along when you hear me pitching you on some new thing. Um, it is what it is. I'm doing my best to keep this stuff interesting to give you lots and lots of value for free. And uh, thanks for coming along for the ride for the rest of it. So that is out of the way. I've talked for too long. I know you want to hear from Dan in Fault, So let's get right to it with our conversation with Dan in Fault, and we're gonna figure out what would Dan in Fault do. Alright, back with me on the line. We've got the one and only Dan in Fault. Dan, thank you for for hopping on the show. Agun, You're no problem. I was. We were just talking a second ago about you know, how times have changed a little bit for for you and what I've got going on over here. And gosh, I think the first time I had you on the podcast was one of the first maybe five or episodes of Wired Hunt ever, so that would have been back in two thousand fourteen, So that was seven years ago that we did our first podcast together. Um, which is kind of crazy how fast that whole time period is gone. But but since I didn't realize that, Yeah, aren't that crazy since that point? How many different podcast episodes do you think you've done? Because you've been on our show, I think five times, four or five times, but I know there've been eight billion different podcasts out there. How many interviews like this have you had to do? I know, I don't know. I uh, I usually say yes. Sstantly asked me, Um, you know if I have time, and I probably end up on at least one a week. Wow, that's amazing. That's that's just people probably people definitely don't realize what a what a commitment that is, like, what a time How generous you are with your time to do that. That's that's substantial. Thank you Dan for not only doing my podcast, but for doing everybody else's too, because I'm sure a lot of people are benefiting from that. Um that that is funny though, because it perfectly fits into my idea for today's show, because I've been thinking a lot lately about how you know, I've been doing this podcast for seven years, and since that, there's been all sorts of other podcasts that have started up, and everyone's chatting with everyone, and I've been trying to figure out new ways to kind of dig into that next level. How can we learn something new from people even if we've talked to them before. How do we kind of dig in even deeper? And the idea I had was to start focusing more on specific scenarios. So I've started to do a kind of a what would so and so do? Series that meaning basically, out get someone like you on. And we've had a handful of the people already. I'm gonna do a few more folks after you, in which our whole chat is going to be specific situations. So I'm gonna paint you a picture like it's this date, it's this time of month, and this is this scenario. What would you do? And so I'm gonna throw a bunch of hih patheticals, and then what I'm hoping you can do is is explain to me what you would do and why you would do that, what's your thought process, how would you do it? Um, and then we'll kind of dig in from there. It'll be kind of a starting point to talk about a whole bunch of different things. But um, but I think that I think that makes for an interesting and different kind of conversation and maybe a more interesting one for you too, after having done so many of these, does that does that sound interesting to you? Yeah? Absolutely? I mean the way questions are asked to make a breakup podcast obviously, and uh, being on a lot of them, meat, I noticed a lot of people just ask you the same questions over and over again, and it's pretty boring, you know. Um, You've always done a really good job of mixing things up. I'm always uh, I always have fun coming out with you because I never know what to expect. Good. Well, that's what I want. Try to keep you on your toes on this one too, So so good. I'm excited for it to Um. I've been trying to go back and watch some of the old videos and I've been reading some old threads I've been looking back at old things we've talked about and kind of just got a whole bunch of different ideas and situations percolating, as well as some situations that I've been in personally, or even some of my friends, some folks that are hunting Beast, very active hunting Beast members. We've kind of all put together a bunch of different situations that we're gonna throw you in and see what you do. So I'm I'm thinking we should just jump into it. If you're if you're ready to rock, I'm ready, all right, So we're gonna start kind of right now. It's as we're talking, it's August three. So let's say tonight, if you had time after we stopped, if we stopped talking, you decide that you're gonna go out driving around just kind of doing some general glassing. Maybe after dark you'll do a little bit shining. And you get out in your within the ballpark of some public land, but not right next to it. Maybe you're about a mile or so away from the nearest public end, and you glass at a truly world class buck uh, like a two inch deer, something that is not normal to see, and right away you see him, you see where he's at. He's in private, but there is public about aom mile away. In this scenario on August three, what do you do? Do you immediately seek permission on that private land or do you go and try to focus on could he possibly be in that public kind of what's your what's your next steps over the next couple of days. If you decided like, hey, I really want to try to get a chance of this, dear, well, I've been in that situation a few times and usually involves a little of everything you just said. I mean, you try to gain permission without without putting a spotlight of why you want to hunt there. Um because dear like that caused a lot of attention obviously, UM. But I'm also going to, um keep an eye on them, monitoring. So I'm gonna start looking for that deer. I'm I'm gonna shift my efforts to that area, shine around, glass around, and try to put together as he's going on any other farms, A is he going onto the public? Is here going in that direction? Um? In some cases, a deer like that's an impossible there to hunt. He never leaves the area that he you know, he's on and the reason he's that biggest because they don't allow hunting or something like that. But in a lot of cases there they will have enough of a travel room where they do go onto the public a little bit, or to go onto some some small property off of the side where you have a little bit at him. And then it's you know, then it's that cat and mollest thing where you gotta be careful of all when you go in after him. If he's staying out of property you really don't have access to, you know, just coming over right now, and then too much pressure is gonna put more there all the time. So a lot of that's watching from a distance. But really, my my main plan would be to keep an eye on that deer and and if I'm not finding I'm just keeping monitoring all the fields around They're working my way out until I find him again, and just keeping track of where I'm seeing him and you know where he's tending to go. And uh, in Wisconsin, here I can shine. So I would be shining him at all different hours of the night, trying to catch him in the morning, trying to get the middle of night, try to catch him in the evening without really putting too much pressure on him with the shining either because that makes him go back further, you know, um or stay hidden a little more, but just getting a glimpse here and there and keeping tabs um and really getting the pair going if you know, I know when it comes to shining right here at night, that you're doing that at night and draw Maybe maybe I take that back. I guess I'll just stick with my question, which is, how do you keep tabs on a deer like that without drawing attention to it? Because if you're trying to glass in the evenings, or even if you're driving by a night and stopping for a minute or so, inevitably there's that warrior. Someone's gonna see you. Someone's gonna wonder, why is there this blue pickup truck pulled off the side of the road. How do you try to minimize that, because, like you said, you don't want word to get out that the steers out there. Yeah, I mean there's different ways. I mean, most of the time, when I find a real big buck like that, it's not real close to traffic, you know, so you do get away with a little and I just make sure that I'm not shining, not glassing, not doing anything with someone drives by. I don't drive around on a truck with stickers all over and about about hunting. Um and uh. In a lot of cases, I use one of the cars that we have that no sts hunt. Doesn't look like a hunting vehicle, and I don't dress like a hunter. Um when I'm out looking at deer. Um. So you know, Um, sometimes in the past, UM, one real big deer I got was hanging right next to the public land parking lot. Um. I had a station wagon at the time. I mean it's been talked about a lot. I had I break for raccoon stickers out of them parking parking lot. And I believe I'm reading the paper when I monitor that buck whenever somebody come in here, I just picked the paper up and look at it. Um. But you know it does take being a little cover and and and careful. Yeah, that's that is the That's a fine line to try to walk between getting the intel and possibly all for doing it. Though. UM. Now let's say you well, you mentioned sometimes they've got this travel, They travel enough that maybe he would dip into the edge of that public What would you do to try to determine that. Would you just go and actually walk that piece of public that's closest and look for incredible sign there or look or put cameras there and just kind of hope that maybe that happens to be or is there anything else different you would do specifically to try to ascertain if he's on public at all. Well, if if it's public, I know, um, and near my home. A lot of times it is, Um, I'll know the better areas and stuff, and I might just throw some contet and anyways, no one he's in the area, you know, Um, No, we're mature books still want to go over there. Um. But in a lot of key since it is trying to catch him, see him crossing the road or going over there or something. Um. In some cases I'll drop a camera. Um. Usually if I'm dropping one at this time of the year, it's to sell camp because if you're going and check it in, you're you're blowing it. You know, you get one crack getting there and dropped the camera and don't go back. And then if he's coming across the main crossing coming out of that property or something, hopefully you can get a capture some sort of image of him and a time frame. Um, but it's you know, it's really trying to catch him going over there and knowing that he's over there. I'm so you're not wasting your time. But if he's that big, and I'm not, I'm not sure. I mean a lot of guys listening right now probably can't shine. There's only a few states where you can and glass, and a lot of times those big bucks don't come into open areas and daylight. So you gotta throw a camera at it, or you gotta throw a hunt at it and and just try. I mean, I would rather throw a hunt at a possibility that might be coming across the road over there, then to go hunt and known one forty you know, so why not? I mean, just throw some hunts at it, do you worst thing can happen if you don't get a deer. Yeah. So, I know some guys that have been in a situation like this, and they'll they'll spot a deer somewhere like this, and then they will look at a radius of like a mile about and and try to get ahold of every single landowner they possibly can within that mile and see if they can get permission. Do you will you ever ask that many people for permission? Or is it more so like you find the best property and you're willing to put in the time to try to get permission there? Um, I guess how how much are you willing to try to get access to private in that kind of situation? And how do you do that? Usually? I don't ask a lot of permission. Um. If I do, it's because I'm seeing a right on a property. Um. Most of my hunting is on public or it's on somebody properly where I'm invited. Um. I don't usually ask, but I do if I'm seeing one on it. But I don't do that whole ask all to me burds and all that stuff. Usually No, Okay, Okay, I have to know that the bucks going over there before I would even um put myself through that headache. I fail you there, I agree with you there. Um Okay, let's fast forward a little bit and maybe we just keep on playing this scenario. Um, it's opening day in Wisconsin. What septem yep? Okay, So it's the night before opening day, so September, on a typical September evening, and maybe this particular one with US world class deer somewhere. What are you doing on the night before opening day? And why and how are you doing it? Is it something I'm assuming it's some kind of scouting or something, or do you take the night off and prepare yourself for hunting season? Or what do you do the night before? Um? Usually, you know, if I was onto something really big and I was seen him on a regular basis, I probably go check common for sure, and I'd probably look around and see if anybody else is watching or anything like that, just kind of, you know, do a drive by. But really, usually the day before hunting season, I'm kissing my old ladies, I ask, because they're not gonna fear for four months. Too happy with smart smart man. Maybe Thursday, I'm scouting a little harder. That's smart. Okay. That might be the best advice we get all night here. Um okay, So let's I got one more kind of jumping off of that, because a buddy of mine had a question that I think relates to this. Let's let's keep with our hypothetical and let's say that now you actually do have permission on a property what this buck is living on? So the properties about two acres of private land you were invited to hunt it? My friend, it's a mixture of farm grounds, some thick brush and the small swamp with multiple quality betting locations scattered throughout, and there's this legit, world class deer out there. How would your hunting style once the season opened? How would your hunting style differ if you were the only one who had access to the farm versus if ten other guys also got invited. So ten other guys are hunting the two acres with you versus just you had access to it. How would you hunt it differently as the season progressed? How would your style change? You know, I don't think the pressure makes a huge difference to me. Actually, Um, if the deer actually lives there, I think the pressure helps me. Not the pressure pushes the deer off the property. I think it hurts me. But actual pressure in a spot where I'm hunting, if it's not kicking the deer out of there, I think helps me because I think it makes a deer follow the rules. Um, you see deer and unpressured areas where they they're bet a little easier, and you know, um, up on higher ground a little further out from where they normally do they get a little laxed and you walk in to hunt some bednary and kick them out fifty yards for you to the bed in area were normally it would be satellite bucks. So it actually it gets a little harder with no pressure sometimes. But my my actual style of hunting probably wouldn't change at all. I would still be very aggressive. I don't think any boo gets to be two years old. I mean by by uh, you know, running around in daylight all over the place, not unpressured or private, you know. Um, So for me, it's still a matter of inches getting in close. And I would say there's other ten people, um, if they're your average hunters, pretty much all of them are probably hunting set stands, and they're just probably worried about me hunting in their corner of the field or something where I'm just gonna skirt around them and go to the edges of those swamps and and really hit the point going out there and stuff that's spot the spots where a big buck should be betting. I'll be looking for sign coming out, setting up and hunting, and then the next day movement if I didn't see it, and I'm gonna hunt that property down until I see that buck. We'll get on. Now, would that be any different at all if the hunting pressure wasn't on you at all? But you did have this extreme pressure on the outside. So let's say all the neighboring properties have got a lot of pressure. But they're they're good hunters. We're gonna say they're not just your average ho hum, but they're actually they know what they're doing. They listen, they're maybe they're members of the Hunting Beast. Maybe they've listened to the wire Tump podcast. They know what to do. At least they know what to do. I'm not saying they do the right thing all the time, but at least they know what to do, and they're hunting the edges and they know about this buck too. In that case, would you do the exact same thing or would you be a little bit more conservative? Now, how would that switch it up at all? Well? I would you don't? I think I still hunt the same. Um. I think you gotta you gotta get in there when I hunt. I mean, everybody thinks it's so aggressive. They're going in, you know, close to these bed and areas is really super aggressive. I't remember I go in there once, I slide out and then I move and I'm someplace else. And I don't think I hunt those places overly aggressive. Um for the most part, And in my eyes, um, yeah, I think if you don't take a shot. I think a lot of guys are so worried about kicking the gear off of a property, but they never give him a chance to kill it. You know, they sit back too much. I really think that the aggressiveness is what gets me the action, and it's whether there's other hunters or not surrounding that property. Um. You know that dear me, pushing it off on another property could mean somebody else kills that. I've had that happened to me. But I've also gone and killed deer, and I think it's worth the risk because I think if you don't go in there and spoke a field deer or have a neighbor killed one on here or something, you're probably not hunting hard enough. Um, sitting back too much, you know, it's a catch twenty two. I've been on like really well managed ranches and and Seymour. You know, big bucks move around daylight pretty easy. But for the most part, most of the stuff that most of your average listeners have. If they don't get aggressive, they're never gonna be a chance. And they'll see you guys on TV that are on this big ranches sitting back on field edges and stuff. And it's not too often in the areas where I hunt you see a big buck on the field that I mean, it happens, but not too often. If you do, it's usually a younger buck that's got a bigger rack. The mature bucks just don't come out like that. You know, Um, you gotta get aggressive. You've gotta go in your after him. Most of the huge bucks that I've killed, i've killed within, you know, within a hundred fifty two hundred yards of the veinry most of the time close her and I'm shooting them at closing time. So I mean, if you're kicking too far back because you're afraid of kicking them on the neighbors, you're just not gonna see that deer. And I think you're putting you're still putting the pressure on. If you're back, you know, four yards, the buck's gonna get out there, smell that you're there, and obviously gonna come out even later, he's gonna come out smarter. It's the you know, um, it's like slapping him on the ass and saying, game on, I'm hunting you. I want the first time that he has an opportunity to smell me if he comes out of that bed, n he gets an arrow through him. So does that make right away? Yeah, so that kind of makes me wonder though, right. I think you've talked about sometimes like hunting your way in, you know, is you you'll you'll try and get close and then maybe you spot them or you learn something and you move in sixty or sixty yards closer or something like that. Is is there sometimes the time when you should actually just go all the way for the home run, go right to the edge because you know that you know, like you just said it, man, it matters what you have for intel. You know. Um, there's spots where I'm unsure of something. I try to find a situation where I can sit back where I don't think that deer is gonna get to where I am. It's not gonna smell where I was, The wind is gonna be right where I can watch an area, see what happens, and then moving for a kill if I need to, um and I've had, you know, and like, if I'm hunting a spot that you know, I'm really unsure of kinda but I got a planned area I'm hunting. I never walk that trail. I don't take that you know, path that cut path from point to point B. I always plan out a route and try to scout my way in and find fast sign. You find first sign coming out of something that looks like betting, and I'll set right up on it. And uh, I've done okay doing that. A lot of times. I don't make it to where I was planning on going. Um, but I'm still you know, hunting that aggressive making my way in there, you know, in that whole hunch your way in thing. What I mean by that is is don't walk through a bed and area to hunt a betterary you think might be a little bit better. You might want to hunt point eight before you walk walk past it and ruin it, you know what I mean. Yeah, that's part of that hunting your way in thing. Yeah, that makes sense. Kind of related to all this. I've heard you talking, uh, you know about people that maybe own a small farm and how there's this temptation. I think you could probably say this temptation that you want to hunt it as often as you can or whenever you have the chance to hunt it, you should hunt it because you've got all this money dumped into it, right you bought this farm, You've put it all this time and effort. You want to enjoy it, so you want to do it. But your your recommendation in this I think it was one of your videos I was watching, you said, hey, why don't you go throw some hunts at the public land and just hunt your private sparingly at the right times, with the right conditions, and then you'll actually get more out of that hunt than you would otherwise with fifteen hunts. Um and so you talked about, you know, scattering your hunts from public other properties, and I know that with your own personal hunting you bounced to a lot of different places as you just it is described. You'll you'll be aggressive, but it's a one time in maybe and then off to another place. Would you or I guess, let me say this, what would it look like for you though, if you happen to become one of these people I just described. Let's say someone let's say we've got a listener or know we've got a viewer of the Hunting Beast YouTube channel, and you've been so helpful to him that he decides he's gonna give you a sixty acre piece of ground as a thank you gift. He gives you sixty acres of prime ground. Dan. Now you are a private property owner and you also have all the public land you can hunt two. How would you personally mix that into your schedule? Would you say, well, I got that sixty acre piece now, um? Would you do things differently? Or would you still just hunting your own personal piece of property a couple of times a year and spend the rest of it everywhere else? How would you? How would you do that? How would you figure that? Well? I kind of have that scenario. I think the property seventy acres, not sixty, but I don't own it. A good friend owns it, and only me and him hunted. UM. But it's not primary acres either. I mean the whole surrounding area around is really heavy pressured, so it's it's harder hunting. But it is private and you know nobody's been in there. And how I hunt that different is that we have observation stands here and we watch UM open areas that are adjacent to betting from a distance, and we see something, we'll move in for the kill UM and me and him. You usually do it as a team. If we see something, we both go into the next day to kill it. But UM we try to hunt that um uh once a week, which I think is way too much. But but the guy who wants probably that the hunt was UM is a key answer survivor, and he doesn't. He doesn't have the energy anymore. He used to when he's younger, go out to the public with me and stuff. So that's all the apps. So so we hunted a little overhunting by hunting it once a week. UM. But those hunts are including sitting back on those observations stands watching UM. And that might sound you know, fruitless. You know, you put a food plot there and maybe get lucky and sometimes it wanders by, But we're really trying to get eyes on a on a big one. What's interesting about that is that seventy acres um as you'd imagine I've been hunting there for about I don't know years with him and uh as you'd imagine it's really open terrain, so all the prime spots have stands in him by now right. But yet every time we kill something big, which is very often, but when we do, it's from an aggressive move when we see something to move to it. Those big box I mean, if they've lived on that farm, they've gone past you when they're they're you know, one, two or three, and they've they've learned where the stands already smelled where you walk and stuff. And now now they're mature and they walk through there and avoid the stands. I mean, you go intro in wintertime and look at the tracks and what shall they just go through the woods and never go by a guy's tree stand. But what I do is I mix it up a lot, and I'm always, um looking at the public. I'm always looking at the adventures, trips and stuff, go and trying something new, and to me, um, I really love challenges, going to new places. And it really isn't about killing buck anymore. It's more about you know, testing yourself and testing what you can do and which you can accomplish. Um. And I think what a big thing a lot of people are missing if they're so worried about their their success and being somebody in the hunting industry, Because now it's all about who you are in the hunting industry. You know, it's no longer about your personal goals, it seems, which is sad. But if you get out of that, you can invest in yourself. Hunting on the public land along with your farm, makes you grow. You don't grow by hunting the same stuff. You know, you don't grow by going to the same tree stand in the back. I mean, I've I've listened to people tell me how great they are as you have to, I know, and you listen to them talk and they're telling you how they they got this farm that the hunt on, that the hunter acres that your dad owns, and they're so great because they killed all these books. Well, it's the same spot. What are you gonna do? And now you get off that flat land, your hunt hill land? What you canna do when you go find a swamp? You know, um testing yourself and putting yourself in new scenarios. When you when you learn how dear go through a swamp, you learn a few things about your farm too. You learn how they go through hills. You learn a few things about your farm too. And every time you try something new, you learn something new. Either that or you're blind. You know, there are people that go out there and they you know, they'll come back and they'll tell you they saw a big buck. You'll be like, oh, really, you know, where was it? Well? I was over there. Well we're on the transition, or I don't know, it's about hundred yards over there. What was the wind doing? Oh I don't know. You know where I'm I'm getting there going? What's the window? Why is that deer there? You know? What? Where is he coming from? Where's he going? Some people just see deer? You know. I think asking those questions all the time and really stretching yourself out and trying new things, trying new properties. Um, you know, if you if you kill your buck on your farm, why quit hunting? I mean, go to another state, try some new places, try some new spots. You know. Yeah, I couldn't agree with you more that Just simply putting yourself in new situations and and then trying to figure it out and asking why that is you could you could accomplish a whole lot if you just kept doing that. You don't need to listen to this podcast. You can learn a whole lot just by doing that. Um, that's good. Stuff. Um, something you mentioned there made me think of of another aspect of of what you do. That's that's pretty interesting to me. And I think that's your some of your decision making process. I'm always interested in trying to kind of look into that a little bit further. And and I guess I'll give you this example scenario and then maybe you can try to help talk through what your decision making processes to help me understand it. Let's say it's it's opening night in Michigan, October one, and you have to decide between your different possible places to hunt on opening day in Michigan. Um, I'm gonna lay it out for you and just say that there's there's a public land piece where you found a great bedding area on some high ground and swamp. There's another piece of public land in the same general area where you found some loan white oaks on the edge of a swamp that are dropped and that seems pretty good. And you know, maybe then maybe that's all you know about and the rest is up in the air, But maybe that part isn't as as important as just the larger question, which it's October one, the first day of the season, how would you determine what is the best option to hunting without prior information Where I say, you don't have trail cameras, this is not your home turf, this is a new area, but you have a little bit information. How would you go through thinking through Okay, all the different variables. There's there's wind, there's access, there's hunting pressure, there's the information about these two locations and anything else you might know about. I'm just kind of curious what kind of the what's going on in your mind is just sitting in the truck the night before or that morning and decided, Okay, I'm gonna go to Place A or Place B or something else. Can you talk me through that? I think if if I didn't know of any of the box in the area, and I was going out there and hunting, kind of in a scenario you're talking, I would probably look at a a property and I'd try to figure out based on the wind, where I think they would be betting and if acorns are dropping. I would probably in its early season open day, I'd probably be looking for something around oaks. I'd probably looking for isolated oaks. Um. You're a thick cover um, especially most of Michigan. I think i'd be looking for betting isolated by water in Michigan, um uh and fixed stuff, so that water isolated betting is not gonna have oak trees because oaks don't grow that low. They're gonna come up to the oak trees and eat, and they've been doing it, you know, prior to season before people are out there. I'm gonna walk those transition lines um between the oak trees and swamps, and I'm gonna look for sign coming out. I'm gonna try and look for a wind that kind blows in the buck's favor, the quartering into it, so that when I hit the trail, the wind ain't quite hitting that buck yet. And the reason I'm gonna do that is because the wind's blown from the swamp most of the time. To bed right on the edge of the swamp and look at the oak trees. When it's blown in, they bed in further and smell the approaching danger. That's been my experience with them. So because they like to look down wind and um, I'll follow that transition until I find the sign coming out. That sign might be really heavy brows on the acorns, for everything's torn up and it might be some um rubs, and it might be a combination of rubs and in Toro up acorns and leaves. UM, hopefully you got a combination of those. Sometimes the rubs are hard to see at that time time front of the year, but just see little marks in the trees, or maybe there'll be a scrape or two even though it's early, because they're marking, because multiple bucks are coming in, they're sort of kind of claiming the area. So I look for some sort of sign like that. And if I'm on a travel trip, UM, and you know, or I'm there for the weekend, I might scout a large area and walk right through signed that. I might walk through sign and say, who this might be a good spot, and walk right through and keep going and start out my scouting early, like ten in the morning, and then by two in the afternoon, pick which spot was the best, and go back and hunted, and then repeat the next day. UM. That way, you're getting onto the to the best sign that you found, you know, uh fastest. Now, in one of those scenarios, I think, I think I know what you would do. But you you find this, you go in there doing the scouting. You you come up on some dynamite sign and what you think is like the bedroom, you're right there at the bedroom or right in the edge of it, and you see the sign, Um, look dynamite. But you pass boot tracks relatively fresh, not saying that came in that morning, but relatively fresh boot tracks. So there has been somebody back here. But at the same time, you're thinking, man, but I'm in the bedroom. Do you cross that off the list completely because of that pressure or do you think that you could still maybe get away with a hunt um given the fact that you're you're right there, What what would your thoughts be there? I would probably keep going. I don't think I would stop if somebody's already hunted there. If I thought those tracks were from a day or two before. I think if anything um or shooting came out and ran across those tracks, it's it's altered its path. Yeah, Okay, that's that's what I figured. I want to I want to back out a little bit and switch the scenario, switch up our habitat a little bit um because I know in past podcast we've talked a lot about um Marsh country type stuff. I know we talked a lot about your hill country type stuff. Um, but I want to talk a little bit about kind of generic farmland. Yeah, it's it's something that I know is pretty easy for you when it comes to marsh or swamp or hill country to pick out where buck probably is betted. Right, there's certain terrain features in hill country where you think that's probably gonna be the best spot there should be bucks betting there. And then when it comes to swamps or marshes, there's certain terrain features those islands, those points where you can say, oh, there's a pretty good chance that could be bucks there. Um, it seems like it's a little bit harder to do that with farmland. I'm curious. So let's say we've were in Michigan again. We'll keep keep rolling with that. You're dropped off now, and we've got a random flat set of farm ground and I told you you're gonna hunt it today, but you've never seen it before. We don't have a marsh, we don't have big hills, we don't have a swamp. It's just kind of scattered timber and crops, some brushy stuff. And what I'm curious first about is could you pick out the betting areas of buck buck betting ears from a map, like, do you think you could do that with some kind of degree of confidence without those big obvious terrain features, And if so, could you walk me through what you would be looking for on that flat farmland and how you go about picking the spots. What I look for on a flat farmland is I do not expect bucks to be bedding in the middle of wood lucks, which is what everybody else seems to expect. I think bucks are more edge creatures, and you're gonna find your mature books on tree lines where you can see across fields. You're gonna see them in little patches off to the side. Um. Really, really often on farms, everybody that hunts and has the same access in parts in the same spot, walks on the same path back into the farm the same way. And I find the mature bucks often have a betting spot that overlooks watching that access. UM. And then you have to mix it up and how you come in. UM. When they do bed in square like wood lot rains, there's two ways they bed. One of them is that they bed on the outside edge whichever whichever edges down wind. They smell the woods behind them, and they watched the fields in front of them. Um. The other one is to get into the inside of that woods to an opening or a low spot where it's a little letter marshy, get on the edges of that um m hmm. But typically um, it's the tree lines sort of stuff off to the side where I find the biggest stuff. So that can be hard to hunt and it can be hard to predict. But another thing that's really really important with flat farmland is nothing is really perfectly flat, and I find that a little bit of elevation change makes a much difference and what you'd call flat farms, I find the best betting is usually at the lowest point in the highest point on the farm. Interesting, and if if then you had a spot like this, and we're predicting that there's gonna be some betting near those edges probably and these bucks are going to try to watch those openings. What if it's uh, what if it's one of those farms that is impossible to access without coming across that open field, like it's it's a big farm field near the road, and then the back half of the farm is the timber and you don't have access to the backset. So the only way you can access it is across the field. Um do you just get as far away from the sexual I don't know. How do you? How would you try to deal with that scenario where you know that, Hey, there's that scenario where I know that there's bucks watching, you know, get the wind to their back, watching the farmhouse and there's no other way in there because it's all open field on that side. And what I've done is try walking past them like may believe you don't know they're there, and it's circling around someplace else to hunt them, like doing a big j hooker on the farm to come through cover to get back to them. Um. Another thing is a lot of times when they bed watching the farm, they are watching the access route they bed there. If they're watching that route, they get the wind to their back. They have the wind to the back, they're smelling behind them, and they're watching with their eyes the trail. So when the wind changes, they can't bed like that. They're not going to bed facing the wind, you know, watching for you and smelling for you, because then something could come up from behind them and get them. It's all about safety. So they bet with the wind that they're back. So when you're access and they're watching you. So if those beds are close to one edge or something, you can just wait till the winds different, you know, to access. Like like when I said that they bet on the down one side of a wood lot. You seet time and time again. Guys will get camera pictures over and over and over these bucks in the field. They're like, every time I hunt there, they don't come out. Well, yeah, they're sitting on the edge watching you, and you wait for the window in your face, which is when they're betting on the edge watching the field. You know, go hunt there when they're betting on the other side of the wood lot, and then they're gonna come over there. You know. Yeah, that's uh, that's the catch twenty two. When you want to be safe about the wind right now, speaking of wind um, you know, historically from everything I remember us ever talking about in other things, you've typically put all your cards or most of them at least in playing the wind, not worrying too much about sink control and just saying, hey, yeah, you can't beat the bucks nose, see Mizel, just focused on the thing you can to some degree control, which is being in the right place in relation to wind. Uh. Um, I guess question number one this isn't the scenario is right? The question question number one is that still true to this date or is that evolved it all over the last five years or so? Um? And then question number two then would be you heading for a hunt, and let's say it's in one of these scenarios that we're talking about where it's farmland flat and you went in with a certain window actually you felt confident with. But then in the last hour hour and a half a day light or still let's say sneaping hunt, last hour, hour and a half a daylight, that wind dies down and all of a sudden, your sense doing wonky things. You put your milky out there and sometimes it's going to the north and sometimes it drops down, goes to the south and you're getting some weird stuff going on there. What would you do in that scenario? So question number one is is your thinking changed it all on side control? Question number two is that scenario? So the question number one, UM, I still believe there's no way you're fooling the DearS. No, I don't think you can do it. I think if they smell your ground something, you know, how long ago you're there, they smell your something to work exactly where you're at. Um. I do believe some dear ignore you, and I've had that. I've had a deer with my wind blowing right at him and I know I stink and they just don't care. No padam where they get the first whiffle you blow out of there? But my my attitude and that has never changed. Um okay, Well number two. Number two was that last hour, hour and a half a daylight, the wind dies down and all of a sudden, you're wind kind of starts swirling. Now it's not doing what you thought. So your whole game plan was based off of this certain wind direction. But now the wind dies and it's swirling. Do you do you stick it out for the last hour, hour and a half or do you bail completely? Here's how that works with me. I mean there was a time when I would bail out of there, and my might change. My thinking has changed. Um, probably like ten years ago or so, it started to change. And it's got to the point now where I feel like, once I'm in there and I've gotten my sent in there, I was there for a reason, I might as well as just stay. And I've had plenty of times when the winds blown right out of here and you kill them. Anyways, I would never set up in that scenario. But once you're there, what the heck, your scents already in there, you've already burned the area. You might as well sit there. And there's been plenty of times where that has paid off from me. Where you're are, it just goes over them or something, you know, um in a lot of cases for people, though, there's a reason for that stuff. And that doesn't happen to me as much as other people because I look at the terrain before I set up, and I try to set up not into trains that are gonna cause swirling or or you're gonna get thermal poles. There's a lot of guys that think that think a deer has a sixth sense, because right before dark, the wind's been in your face all day. That deer comes from, you know, up wind, and all of a sudden it's freezes, locks and turns around, runs off and you're like, oh my god, that that deer knew I was here somehow, and only it smelled you. And if you use the milk weed, you'll see that your thermals change, you know, at the com spots. But if you've got any kind of downward slope, if you're hunting a pillow of the deer, as soon as the sun goes down or before the sun goes up, every time it's calm, your scent is gonna pulled on that hill. It could be just like pouring water in that hill, and you might not even feel it. If it's just rolling hills or you know, you know, just slight elevation changes, you probably won't even feel it, but you'd see it if you use milk weed. Now, another scenario I've heard you talk about there being a thermal impact is when you're by water, but I don't think that's something we've covered in the podcast. Is that could you elaborate a little bit how how a water scenario could cause a thermal pull because I'm envisioning like a you're in a swamp, there's a lot of standing water. Maybe you're right in the edge of a little piece of high ground and it's water everywhere else. What would happen in that scenario or something like it? So it's got to be like stagnant shallow water that's you know a lot of times it's on black mud or whatever. When that water gets warm, like swamp water or like a real shallow pond, when it gets warm, because like bathtub water, the sun goes down, the water stays warm, but the air cools, so right above that pond or or that water source of that swamp, that air will just go straight up. And when it does that, it displaces the air above the water, so pulls wall air in from the sides, and that cooler air heats as it goes over the water and then rises and just pulls more in, so it changes the um the air current with that thermal pull. And you usually you know, that's another one where you have a hard time feeling it, but if you check it, you'll see it. You see your milk. We float over there, float float over the water, and then shoot straight up. So what I try to do is if I go hunt the point or something, is I try to set myself up right up against the water. Um sort of my scent pulls that way and up rather than being up from the like if being the center and the deer goes between you and the water, you sent pulls to the deer, you know, so I try to get right up against the water where I can predict for them where the thermal will be. It's interesting, this fits in perfectly with the question that a listener sent in a scenario. Um, but this rather than a stagnant water, this is moving water. And so we're talking a river. And so let's let's apply what you just described to a little bit more specific situation here. It's late October, let's say October, and you've located a piece of public land that's got this floodplain river bottom, and it's being used for kind of everything. It's being used for bedding and travel, and some food sources in there. Maybe I don't know, maybe there's an oak tree or something that's dropping. But then there's these ridges that lead up out of the river bottom up to private land crop fields up high. Could you describe how you would think about accessing and setting up in that kind of general scenario laid out till we'd given what you just mentioned, the possible impacts of thermals in that scenario, any other things you'd be thinking about in that hypothetical. Uh, I would think that should probably still get some thermal rise on the hill, even though they get the river at the base because the side of the hill is gonna heat up. UM. But rivers, I haven't seen a lot of thermal impact UM with them. With the moving water, I think it stays colder. UM. Colder water should expand and push outward. UM. But I just I haven't really seen much of an impact with it except for that if it's at a base of a hill to hill small you don't seem to get that thermal rise on the hill UM as much. But I still think it's there, just it's slighter, you know, UM coming in there. Again, it would be more based on how that dear is bedding in there where I think he's at and looking at what that wind is doing and where it's rising, where it's fallen, and which direction is actually blowing, and trying to figure out which direction the deer is going and get them in front of I mean, it sounds basic, but but that's basically how I look at it. Yeah, have you had much experience with river bottom bedding or creek bottom bedding if you're kind of seen how they're using that terrain in any kind of consistent way. Yeah, I mean big river bottoms that are all flat like floodplains are really hard. Um. Again, you're looking for like little island clumps of trees where's just a little higher elevation on that grassy crap you know. Um, you're looking for ox bows in the river. I mean oxbows have done really well on UM. What they'll do in an oxbow is they'll get in there in a monitor, that little opening, that little land bridge going in there, and then it comes in there they go through the river to the other side to get just game. Um, one of those in the ox bowls, Um, you really got to look for those edges, um, which in a lot of cases are going to be worders, little clumps of trees or something you know, out there, and they're not going to just bed out in the middle of open grass. I mean, you probably find beds out there, but it's not the consistent type of stuff that you can hunt. And one of the problems is that I've been in some river bottoms in western Wisconsin where you get in there and you really learn a buk and then you come back to the next year you gotta learn it over again because the flooding puts chamber all over you know, displaces that all over the place, and the betting changes because of it. So it is a hard not to hunt, but it's it's doable. And and again you have to look at the terrain and um look at how the land lays out, because they are edged creatures, and that's you think they're on those transition lines. They're not just you know, beted out in the middle of grass. Better there because there's an elevation or because of a clump of trees, because they have some sort of um vantage with wind in sight? How do you think that they use the wind when it comes to bedding in those oxbowt situations? So I think to correct if I'm wrong here, but you're kind of talking about those outside big bends of those s curves in rivers, and then they'll be where they come together. Are they setting up, you're saying, facing how creates almost a peninsula. Are they facing out from that peninsula or are they facing the water and smelling the bit of land behind him. I've seen him. I've seen him bed two ways, one with the wind blowing down the lamb channel into it, and one with the blowing out where they watched the os, they watched the land open or to smell it. But most of the time what I've seen is um where they're smelling it. They're looking out across the river and the winds blowing in and they're smelling it. That's been my best scenarios. UM, that's helpful. I've I've got a couple of public land river bottom spots I'm gonna be hunting this year, and I've been thinking through that and scouting that situation and being curious to see what will play out in real time. So that's that's interesting. Let's they were really they were really a key when I hunted in um southwestern Iowa, where it was all like, we'll open farmland lots of big bucks that there's hardly any terrain for him. Well we have to bed ale on those rivers, and those oxples were just loaded with good bucks. M And then how do you typically see him travel out of there? I don't know if this is I'm trying as I'm just spit ball on here, but I'm wondering would they usually be bedded on the opposite side. I guess it's probably wind dependent, but opposite side of the food, like if if there's a main I'm imagining kind of that scenario is laid out there where there's these crowd fields up high and then there's this river bottom down low, and I'm wondering what they usually bed across the river from their feeding destination. They then they come up in the afternoon, they leave their bed cross the river head up Um or would they be more? I guess it probably depends on how large the rivers to Um. But have you seen any tendencies there? Yeah, I've seen him go through the river to get the crops, and I've seen him go um the other way to Um and just walk to the land bridge out Um. The biggest book I ever shot I didn't recover, but that was on an oxbow in Iowa. It was a giant twelve pointer that book. I've seen him in the oxbow. I jumped him out of it the day before the next day, I went during the morning and set up before light went from to come back. It came back at gray light and he was gonna walk great in the oxbover to the land bridge get in there, and uh, I didn't make it. But but yeah, I've seen a lot of where they just walk the land bridge out, but they crossed the river too. And in a lot of cases, the um if the river is deep and fast, they only want to go through that if they have to escape, you know. But that's another thing is they won't go across a huge river. You know, there's gotta be a valid escape if you've got to be like a quick couple of bounds and they're out of there. Um. And another thing is if the river with nowadays how many people boat and canoe and kayak and stuff. If the river is getting used by boaters and stuff a lot, they won't bend those oxpos. So a river that's jammed up with crap that's smaller usually works better, you know, kind of a ditch river or something, you know. You know, let's let's let's jump to a totally different situation now. Um, let's let's say we are going to you know, I know no one time. I want to look at how you would go about zeroing in on a specific buck. Let's put you on oct and you get word from another hunter, maybe it's a neighbor, maybe it's another person to hunt the public that this buck that you spotted in the summer, or that you saw last year, this buck's back. Finally, you haven't been a seam all season, but someone else saw him and said, Hey, that buck's out there. I saw him. But you personally haven't had any sightings of him yet this year. You personally have no trail camera pictures of him this year. Um, and it's you know, it's well into the season. It's over a month into the Wisconsin season for you, and he hasn't been the spots you thought he would be, right because you you assumed he'd be back, so you would you scouted for beds and you found where you thought he'd be. You've hunted them now maybe once, maybe twice, I don't know. Um, he wasn't there, but now he's alive. What would you do with this new piece of intel starting on October to go about try to locate him? Would it be all right, I'm gonna go hund those betting areas now because he's back. Or would you go to Shining or all of a sudden bust out a bunch of trail cameras. What would you do to to zero in? Now? So I probably um go over and i'd I try to either see the book or see some sign of them, because there's a little bit of a mistrust with other people. You don't know if somebody's trying to throw you off, so you don't hunt their area by telling you something you want to you know that you want to hear. Um. You don't know if um uh, somebody's a little eight pointer to you is a giant to them. Um. If it's somebody that you trust and the intel is trustable, I'm gonna probably end up going straight over there and hunting. But if it's like the time and that there's a little bit of doubt, I want to see some sign. I want to see that the rub line is appeared, that there's some huge tracks over there, that there's there's something going on to tell me that that deer is indeed where this person saw it. And then once I know a deer is over there, I'm just gonna hunt that deer down. I'm gonna go from Bedon area to Beddon area to Bedon area and just punt that whole area down until I run grown across him and and to me that that hasn't been too hard of a scenario. If you know what there is in a certain section and he's not partially on private or something like that, if it's a big section of public and you know he's there. It's really not too hard to just start, you know, figuring out where he should be and just going from section to section section, you know, and if you can't find them, figure out what work didn't I go? Work didn't I check? And go through a stand at that, you know, and just keep moving. And that gets me on deer pretty fast. Can you I know this is kind of tricky to try to pull or sorry to pull together imagine imaginary situation here, but maybe there's even a specific example. But could you just describe in detail what that first hunt in would be like. We've talked about it in generalities many times in the past, but I mean specifically, you know, tell me about what you found on the map and what you found previously, and when you sneak in there, um, you're gonna walk, you know, tippy toes in the last hundred yards and then you set up with an x number of yards where you know that bed isn't it. Just walked me through the whole nitty gritty of that first hunt, and just for people that haven't heard in the past, how you would do this, I'd like to just get really detailed on one example, of it Um to kind of color this just a little bit more for people and maybe get into more detail than we have in the past for for folks to have heard that. Okay, so what's the train We're going to say that this is this is one of those marshy situations. I've gotta I've gotta here you go. Here's an exact scenario. You do know of a spot this buck has been bedded. It is marshy stuff. But there is a piece of high ground in this marsh about thirty by thirty yards wide. There's a couple of cotton woods on it, let's say, a couple of little brushy I don't know, uh, red ocean dog wood type shrubs or something. Maybe a telephone poultry on there too. And then the rest of it surrounded by cattails and water and and I'm gonna give you one more detail. There is a one access road and it's actually relatively close where you can get to UM, but it's to the what direction would this be This spot would be to the west of the access road. That too much information. That's a very specific scenario. I'm I'm waving in some example data from a from other question into this one, so we'll get double duty here. Okay. So I'm gonna make sure the wind's right first of all. I'm not going into on um something I don't like. So if I got the wind right, I'm gonna go into and I'm gonna take that access road as far as I can, and then i'm gonna bust off of it. I'm gonna trying not to walk up the deer trails. I'm gonna try and trying here on an angle and slide and real slow for the as t yards or so I'm gonna go in the needles. I'm gonna go out if I think it's a kill day, and I'm going into the spot that I want to keep kind of covert. I'm going midday. I don't want to walk past the hunter um, so I want to get If a hunter goes out there, I don't want him to have no idea where I'm at. So I'm gonna go in there and i'm gonna get as close as I can, probably to a tree have already picked out. If I know the bed in areas as well as you described it, I probably do, So I have a tree in mind already, or at least a specific area because I don't always end up in the same tree based on the wind or or the exact wind or whatever or sign. I'm gonna go into slide in her and I'm gonna really slowly put my stand down, take the uh, take it apart, start putting the sticks on real slow, quiet, and I'm gonna come up that tree facing the bed in area because I'm probably going to be, if it's marshy situation, approximately seventy or eight yards in that bed, and i want the tree between me and the bedding. And I'm gonna go up that tree facing the bed, looking at the bed and one stick at a time, and keep an eye over there for movement for if I'm getting too high or whatever. And then i get to the height where I want to be uh, and I'm not gonna saw anything because I don't want to cause a commotion or noise. And you know, so I'm gonna get to a point where I'm high enough where I'm not gonna get spotted. But I'm not so high and got a shot. I'm gonna try and put the stand right. We're in a position where I have natural shooting lines, and I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna put the last stick up. I'm gonna have a stand in my back. I'm gonna put the stick up, climbant that real slow, you know, no fast quick movements, and when I get up there, I'm gonna take the stand up my back and I'm gonna slide around to the front of the tree facing the deer, facing directly at him, and I want to put the stand on that way, and then I'm gonna slide up up that that last stick as far as I can get and just slide around into that stand and from there I'm waiting for that buck to come in. You. You are one of the people who is definitely most popularized this kind of hunting where you'll slip in there close to a bedding area, hang us, hang sticks in the stand right there, and hunt it. Um. A lot more people are hunting that way now than they were a decade ago. What what's the biggest mistake you are hearing about or that you know that must be happening from these these newer guys and girls trying to do it the way you do it. Um, I gotta believe you're hearing from a lot of these people, and there must be some of those like head shaking moments for you where they can keep busy. They're not doing it right. Is there anything that sticks out when you when you think about that. I think the biggest thing is um when people here to details on how dear bed and there's a there's a shadow of doubt if you haven't seen it, and going out and walked out and looked at these beds in the scenarios that have described them, you're probably saying, this guy's nuts. I mean, you know, I haven't seen that or whatever. Then they go out there and they walk out there and they run into it and they find some good bed there and it's just load over rubs and it's exactly where they thought it would be based on what I told him. Where you look and Victor all our eggs at that basket, and they think this is the greatest spot in the world. And I see this over and over and over again, where guys just think because they found one spot that looks great, I mean just to worn out beds and you know, big robs coming in and out and they're like, I'm gonna kill this deer. And once they're not taken into considerations two things. Number One, there's a specific timing too, when it's that bed is getting used. You know, it might be the end of October, it might be wrong, Rod, it might be when a certain crop is in. Then if you get that down, uh, then you got to remember that I'm hunting a scenario like that just about every day and on the whole season, you know, get five cracks, you know what I mean? Eighty times a year different, right, every day I had a different spot like that, and they're thinking that that one spot is there kill spots, you know? And Uh. The other thing is is when they find one or two spots like that, they can't bring themselves to go walk on a transition set up on a on a road becoming out of a swamp or something. They want to go back to that spot and then they burn it out and then the spot I'm good anymore. Yeah, you mentioned that an important part there is understanding when that beds getting used. How like, what are the things that you're looking for to make that determination? How do you figure that out? You really got to be a detective when you look at that in areas like when I look at him in the spring, I'm thinking a lot of things into consideration. I'm looking at how old beds are, like if you're looking at them after the snow hold, the feces are that are underground, Um, You're you're looking at them to cover. Um. Sometimes the beds are hard to see um, and they look like they're older, maybe from early season. Maybe it's right up against on oak flat. Um. Maybe the beds look like they're really fresh when you find them. Maybe they're right at the end of the season. Um. Some Beton areas get used all year. Some Betton areas are right up against doll beddings and you start figuring or during the rut. And another thing is that the betton as are just torn up with rubs. You can figure towards the end of October early November. Um. Before. What I've seen from hunting these Beton areas, I've seen this more and more and more as I get older and do more of this, is that there's some really specific timing. You go back and you look at there's there's Betan areas that I've hunted for years and years and years, and you look at the bucks I've shot there and I've hunted them, you know, you know, like throw three sits at them. You hunt them early season and hunt them in November, and you hunting weight season. And it seems to be like when you look back a the past, the time and when you killed the deer was you know, pretty much the same days. You know, there's a certain time per land you're inner. And you know, even my my primary bed and areas where I have killed deer at all different times of the season, there's specific times when we're the best for giants um. And you know, and I've got some bet in areas that look great. Uh, some of these bedon areas have like that I would call like nurseries that holds like a lot of two year old bucks um. And those two year olds will rip up a bed in area that put rubs all over the place, and I'll have rubble lots going in and out, and they'll fool people that kills all the sign You know, guys want to hunt there where. You know, I look at a big area, like a big marsh hunt, and if I've hunted there for a few years, I start to realize that when I kill a monster there, it's in one of five or six bet in areas. Even though I know of a hundred fifty bet areas out there. You know those are really big old box get to choose the best spots, and some of that takes a little time. I mean, this isn't something you're gonna learn overnight. It's something that you have to work at and be willing to invest time. And two, I mean everybody seems to want that quick fix and that instant success. You know, doesn't It doesn't usually come that easy, right. Um, So this this betting area situation, let's dig in here a little bit further with a couple different outcomes. Maybe let's say that you've we've snuck into one of these betting ears you described, You've hung the stand the way you've described. Just as you swing your tree stand to the other side of the tree to get set up, you hear a dear blow. You look up and there's a big rack running away in a white tail flagon. What are you do in that scenario? Do you bail? Do you you spook the buck? The hunts done onto new place? Or would you think maybe I could reposition and he'll come back in. What would you do if I think you saw me in that trip, I probably will just move. Um, something they'll come back in, but usually not if they see you know, it's a whole different bet in area. If it's the target book, I might try to figure out where he went and move there, you know, and circle around someplace to get to where I think he's going. Um, But if you don't, if I don't know, maybe I'll just go to a different bet in area or something. But I think if you saw me, it's over. Um. You know, if I kick a gear up and I'm walking in or to set up, I don't think you've seen me. The winds in my favor, but it just didn't like something of the sounds I made, or something any any soft bumps rather than hard and kind of trots out of there. Well, then I'm gonna probably think about he might come back, and I might look at how is he going to come back? And I've set up on that in the past, and um, I've had limited success. And most of the time if I'm busted, it's because the dear circles and downwind and I'm not far enough downwind. So UM, I can think of a few different instances right off the top of my head where I had jumped the buck out of a bed and had set up anyways, and had that buck come back that same day, um and circle way around down wind and bust me. And UM, now I kind of look at it as like, if I jumped that buck and I think he's gonna come back, I'm gonna look down wind and think, Okay, what what is he gonna do when he comes back? Because you are gonna follow a transition or something, And so I want to get on that downwind transition and get him circling around to come back in. But if he saw me or smelled me not moving, here's another mover don't move A scenario. If we're just continuing on here. Let's say you get up in that tree. Fine, you haven't spooked anything, but you see another hunter. Maybe another hunter walks by a couple hundred yards away or something, um, hundred hundred fifty yards close enough that you're like, oh, ship, but not so close that he necessarily blew everything out that might be around you. Um, are you gonna wait it out? Do you just get out of there? What's your stance or how what's that distance? Source? Situation have to be where you would stay or go and make that decision if you didn't tenetrate the betting, if he didn't get his win into the bedding or whatever, or if he just kept walking past and everyone in there. I just say, I just sit there and hunted. And I've had people walk by and had there come up and get up and come past me afterwards. I'm and that's happened quite a few times. And I've even kicked satellite deer that aren't your target here and have them run right through the bedding area, and you think your your hunt's over. In a little while later the buck gets upright with those deer ran comes in you know. Um. But I've also had that buck get up and PRONTI there. You know. I can remember hunt gun hunting, um, where I want to set up in a bed in area, and I got in there. There's people a little too close for my comfort, but I was already in there. It was late, so I sat there, and right at closing time, a two and a half year old buck got up like thirty yards for me out of the thick dogwood and one step at the time, real if I wanted to shoot him, koto, But it was actually probably right at closing time, the snuck out of there. And uh, you know, you'd never dreamed that buck was sitting there with people around, you know, But but they'll do that. What's what's too close? Like you mentioned, there's people too close to comfort, too close for comfort for you? What's at range? Where I mean a public land. Sometimes the other guys out there and I've I've hunted and there's somebody within sight. Maybe it's way far away, but you can see a little patch of orange or something. How do you think about that? Are you out of there if you can see someone at all, or if you know they're within a couple hundred yards or what's that range of comfort for you? You know, more it's a matter of what what they're getting into, not really where they're at. You don't have a person pretty close to you, and it doesn't bother me at all. Um, I don't like them knowing where I'm at, But that's a different story. But to me, I mean, if they're infringing on your beding area, if they're infringing on your box, that's where they're kind of blowing your hunt. Um. But like you said, when a person walks by, there's two kinds of walks by. They walk the trail, at every hundred it walks through their walks where do you expects them? Or they wander off into the water real close to the bedding and through there. I mean you can walk right past it here if you're on a trail, or or expects you, but you should start getting off of it. They get real nervous if you go where you don't belong. So if if a hunter is just out there kind of wandering around, like trying to kick up ducks or something duck hunting and walks into the water a little bit and stuff around the beding area, there's no way I'm staying around. Or if the guy's hunting and fringing at um or say he's a hundred yards away and his wind is blown right into my beding area and he's gonna stay a little dark, that would probably talk me into getting down and moving. Yeah, those are frustrating moments, that's for sure. Yeah, it happens to everybody eventually. Yes, yes it does. Let's let's look at to a instead of circumstances that I think a lot of people do with, and I'm what I'm most interested in is is how you would approach this situation at different points in the year. The situation in general, let's say is you've gone in and you're hunting a location that you've you've previously picked out into something. It's a betting area that you snuck in instead of stand on um, or it's it's a spot that you came to specifically to hunt this spot, and then you spot a mature buck move out of range where you didn't expect him. Maybe let's say he's eighty yards away or a hundred yards of way, so you've seen him do something outside of what you expected. What would you do the next day? In if this sighting was in early season, so let's say October one, versus if it was in the middle of the rut, we'll say November eight, versus if it was late season, we'll say end of December. Would you do the exact same thing every one of those days? Would you think about stay or go decision differently depending um what's your take on that. If the deer was doing the same thing in each one of those scenarios, like not chasing a door or something, I think I would do the exact same thing in each scenario. I would I would get down. The next day, I'd move over and hunt with that book was I think your odds are probably a little higher in the late season scenario. They're really patternable at that time, and then their second most patternable in the early season um, and then they're in the ruts, still patternable, but it sure won't lasts long. Yeah, that's that's my biggest curiosity was the right situation, because it's it's possible that what they're doing is totally random at that time of the year, but at the same time, sometimes it's not um alright for you as it all just based off of their behavior. Is are they with a dough do they look at their cruising or they wandering or you know what? You know, even if it's within the doll, I gotta wonder if the doll is going to do the same thing. I really like Hunton patterns um and and you know a lot of the times you're wrong, maybe maybe three out of four times that deer doesn't show up again the next day in the same spot. But you know, I like the odds of want of four. These aren't bad. Now, is that only if you've got the exact same or similar wind, or would you do it even if the wind changes? Well, that's a good question. I mean, he might not even be bed near or on that scenario if the wind changes. But I certainly am going to change if the wind changes for the bad, But I might give it a shot if it If it's not the same A lot of times um, and especially in certain terrains, UH, they'll have other bed and areas real close to where they were betted and still come out using the same trail, still stage the same areas, UH, and do the same things. So there's a very good chance that he'll still walk down that trail the next day if the wind's wrong. Um. However, that's another one where I think the odds are even lowered during rout because in rout, a lot of times you're betting the trail went based on the wind a lot more than the art o the times of the year. HM. Let's look at this slightly different version of this, which is something that a lot of people deal to where it's trail camera based intel. So rather than you're seeing a deer somewhere and you want to move there, let's now say instead you've got a daylight trail camera picture of a buck doing something, and he's doing it yesterday and either you've got a cell phone picture or you checked it this morning or something. You know, Hey, he moved in daylight here yesterday, but today I've got different conditions. Let's say he did two days in a row, or two out of two out of three days he moved in daylight in this spot with a westerly wind of some kind. Today you find out about it. But you've got easterly winds or some variation. Do you think the winds different. I'm not going in or do you have to try? Because hey, he was in the area and he was daylight. I gotta try. What are your thoughts there? Usually I'm waiting for that that wind to repeat. Um. However, um, I guess said, ah, that could be that could change it. Like say, stay at the morning picture and he's he's under in daylight in the morning, I'm gonna say, Okay, well he's better really close, right, So then I might try and slip in there. Um. But I think if I have a pattern to wind, I'm gonna I'm gonna wait for that wind to be the same. I'm not gonna go in there and disrupt a good thing. If the wind's wrong, I'm gonna try and wait for the same pattern. Um, I really don't want to wait too long because you see, and you know this as well as I do, those patterns in those betters. They might be there four or five days and then they're gone for two weeks, you know. I had a scenario like that last year. I mean, I had a cell camo and it was on a little tiny island on a place about, you know, for five minutes from my house, and I put the cell camera there and then I travel over and hunt. When you know the bucks are there, there's this real big twelve point on one to get, but there's other bucks I didn't even know about. And it turned out like sixteen different pope and young bucks were within in the swamp or going past that camera. And that camera get real active at times, and it was so hard to pattern those deer because you'd pattern him and then you go in there and they're bedded so close you'd kick him out. But it was the only place you could hunt. Everything was up to your waist and water, you know, until you're on that island and the islands a quarter eight here. Um. One time I had that twelve point on there in daylight in the morning in front of that camera, walked past with a doll right around Halloween. Uh So I thought, well, he's got to be bedding right there. And I'm speak of the wind. It is perfect. It was a rare east wind, and it gave me a chance to get right in there. And I'm saying I could just slip out of the water right up a tree. I said, on the tree that thing was bed at ten yards from the camera. But you can't see them because the camera's not aiming at him. Sometimes those cameras frustrate you more than they help you. Yeah, sure, man. So did you ever figure out a way to try to hunt in there without blowing them out? Or was that every year? I've been hunting that deer for four years. Um. This last year, I really spent some time in our winter swimming around, and uh, I really got into the area, found a couple of new uh ways to get at them. Um going from a canal without with a kayak, I'm gonna I found a spot where or some just a couple of trees off to the side where there's a killer bedder I didn't even know about. Um, And uh it was a tangle I got earned the middle of the summer and opened it up, and and I had to cut a trail to get to it, um in July because it's so thick with cat tells you could not get to it quietly. So I have some other asset ways to it in r U try. I don't know how much longer this here is going to be alive. He's pretty old, um, but I believe he's still alive. I I got a glimpse of a giant there shining two weeks ago coming out of that stuff that I think with him, But I'm not absolutely positive he speaking of shining. This is something that, um, that I've been thinking about a little bit more. And I know what you we've talked about a little bit in the past. But are there any things, um, for people that want to add that as something they can do, which in some states, as you mentioned, you cannot do. In some states you can do, but there are certain windows of time when you're allowed to versus not, So make sure you check your regulations, um, But can you just elaborate a little bit on some specific times you should do that or ways you should do it in in such a fashion that actually helps you. So basically we're talking about shining a spotlight and fields, but can you dive into that a little bit more deeply and how you can make that most useful from a hunting perspective. Yeah, I try to. I try not to waste my time shining areas where I can't hunt. To me, it's not about to sightseeing or you know, and then if it's private lands and as you kiss people off, So I try to stick to the to the public or to land adjacent to the public where I hunt, and or the farm that I have permission on, and I just try to catch the deer. I think a lot of times, you know, here up until like I think it's uh September tenth or fifteenth or something like that, you can you shine all night and then and then there's a limit at ten o'clock. When you shine all night, I mean, wait until about ten or eleven o'clock at night or even later is sometimes a good thing because they're pretty shy about getting to the roadsides until later. And often if you go too early, as you see, is green eyes a half mile back? You know, Um, catching by the roads is better. I feel a lot of my biggest stuff, you find a lot of my biggest stuf fearing like three or four in the morning, UM, usually on my way to work. UM. So once I find something, I narrowed down. So I'll go look at public properties all over the place that I know about, and I'll start narrowing my focus. First it will be a really wide neck. And then when I locate some good stuff, I'll start, you know, really start looking around the area where that good stuff is and narrowing my focus and then trying to figure out what fields they're going into, or that the particular buck is going into, how wide his pattern is, and I just try to Once I've got that kind of down, I try to keep a rough eye on him, you know where I'm not harassing him, but I just keep caps so if his pattern starts changing before season, that I'm onto it and I know where he's moving to or what's going on with him, and then you can pin that setting down to, well, if he's feeding out in this field at three in the morning, there's a decent chance that he's betted in this place. Three quarters of a mile away in this place is the other direction that that's kind of how you start picking where he's mostly spending time. So you might be seeing him in a field at like three in the morning, and a couple of nights in a row you're seeing three in the morning. Then you know, Um, the next night you go out at ten pm and he's two fields over. The next day you go out, you know, just before daylight, at like five in the morning, you catch him on the other side of field over. I think the direction of travel, you know, so the different time frames and stuff helped too. Yeah, that's a good point, because that's that's the probably the biggest thing is is you can you need point A and point B is great, but if you don't know direction to travel and when he's traveling that direction, you don't have that connecting part of the puzzle. Yeah. Now, this is a situation that maybe shining would be the answer to to some degree. Um, maybe not, But what about this totally different set of circumstances. This maybe is more of a mental thing than anything. Your season open September. Right, Let's say we get all the way to November. It's been November, you've hunted in early season, you've hunted through October. You put in a bunch of long days during the first part of the rut, and you've yet to get eyes on the mature buck, nothing that you want to shoot yet. You've seen young ones, you've seen lots of doughs, but you've had other hunters coming and muck your stuff up. Just stuff's been going wrong. It's been a bad year. How do you mentally handle that? I don't know if you had maybe you've had a year like that at some point in your experience and you can talk to me about how you handled that situation. And then secondly, from a tactical standpoint, at this point, you've been hunting weeks and weeks and weeks and nothing. Do you think that it's a keep on, keeping on kind of situation? Like, Hey, if you just keep doing the right things long enough, it'll finally come together. Or is it? No? I need to call them major audible and really change things up. So, I mean, everybody has hard times in their hunting. Um, I think they affect me a lot less. Now. I think if you grow with confidence you know what I mean, as as you grow as a hunter, and I know my tactics work. I know what I'm doing works, So a streak of bad luck doesn't really bother me as much as it probably bothers other people, And uh I can kind of laugh at those mistakes more than other people, I think. But I just keep going. And uh, I really don't worry about yesterday. I worry about tomorrow. I think, to me, the only thing that really matters is what's going on tomorrow. You can't change the past. So I've got a different attitude than most people too. Um Usually if I go if I'm hunting a certain bucket, I'm hunting an area down and there's you know, ten spot. He could be about nine spots, and I'm smiling. I feel like my my aunts are going up. I've eliminated a lot of spots, you know. And if I go through all ten, then I'm thinking of all case hiding some spot that I'm not expecting. I'm gonna go search a little harder, you know. But I do feel like I'm getting closer. Even if I'm not seeing something. If I know he's there, I'm gonna home down and find them. And if I'm not onto something that or anything, I'll just go off on a mission and find something, you know, if it means us skipping a day of hunting and putting a hard disk out and I'll go find something, you know, and you get to that November time frame, you can tell if a buck has been in an area it's ripped up, you know. And I'll just go and check public lands and maybe the spots I haven't been to and just start going on admission to get out them. You know. Yeah, yeah, So is that a situation that's ever? Like you said, it's it's almost invigorating maybe because you know you've you've you've crossed all these different things off the map and you can finally say you're narrating down when you get into a deal like that. Do you are you at the point yet where that's like a fun challenge like ship, I'm gonna figure it out no matter what. Yeah, you know, UM, I do get that way. I get it. I get kind of like a cocky attitude where it's like, oh, you think you got me out smarted. You know I'm gonna get you. You know. Um, I do get that way. And sometimes you fail anyways, but it really doesn't feel like you fail, I mean to me, or is something, um there's like an inner drive with me, like a like we're I love to chase more than to kill and and uh, as long as I'm on something, I'm on a buck and I'm I'm out there trying, I'm happy. You know. It's almost like, uh, anti climatic when you wouldn't shoot your thing, or you get one early season and you're like, well now what you know, it's like I can't be out of state for the whole next three months. But yeah, it isn't the same it was when I was younger. I think a young guy goes out there, he's got something to prove. He doesn't have a lot of bucks under his belt, and he wants to show everybody that he's he's a good hunter and he's adequate at what he does, um, and that he's capable of doing it, and that he's not just all talk. So he's going out there really trying to kill something. When you see those young guys where you know they'll miss a shot or something'll swear it themselves to throw the boat down on the piste, you know, or a guy that has done this for a while and just laugh at it and go, you won this time, you know, um. And so it's a different ballgame when you get to when you're becoming an accomplished hunter. I think you're stages you go through in life, and I guess some people probably don't get all the way into stages, but you know, some people do. You mentioned the specific example of missing a buck. What do you do now when you miss a buck? What's how do you handle that? Mentally? How do you and there was there anything you do in the days afterwards to get your mind right again, or to get your shooting right or anything. I know you had a season I don't know if it was last year, a couple of years ago where he had a little bit of that streak like that. How do you mentally and tactically handle that? Yeah, I had a pretty bad streak last year. Um. I think I I blew five opportunities in a row. Um, and that's a really nice box. Uh, one of them at sixteen points at least that I could count from the tree. And uh, you just you know, it was frustrating more more than I'd like to admit. I'd like to tell you that. Uh, you know, I laughed it all off, but you know I laughed probably the first two off everyone's glass. But then you're starting to realize there's something off in your game, you know. Um, I just there's something that wasn't right with between me and my bowl. Um. I know I had an issue with my um my peep. I think my vision is starting to get bad as I get older, and uh to topple that. I had some string twist problems and I kept twisting it, um, and I wasn't going to change it right in the middle of the season, and it got pretty frustrating. Um. But what I did was I went back home and I worked at it. I practice, you know, I try to make sure everything's on, you know, and and UH just go out there and get back on the saddle and do it again, you know. And I do think that or some people just get really frustrated. I do get in the mode where you kind of get like, this ain't gonna happen to me, and I'm going to prove I can't do this. And I and I hunt harder, you know, I scout harder. I pushed harder. And even though I had all those failures last year, man, I sure got him to deer. You know how I was on I'm like crazy. Yeah. What about the opposite situation from the one we're kind of talking about where you have a bad run of luck and you either miss some bucks or just can't get them on them all season without the opposite you. You just kind of mentioned it in passing a second ago, where you fill your tag early early, you kill on opening day, maybe you kill your buck September and it's a one buck state and yeah, maybe you can do an out of state trip, but most people can't go out of state for two months or three months or whatever. How would you recommend or I guess you, what would you do to make the most of your time over the coming weeks and months after you've filled that tag and you've taken your out of state trip? Um, what specifically could you do in a season like that? Well, Um, for me, I can't just I'm a different breed and I can't. I just can't go out and just hunt those But you just say an enemy. I love shooting them when they come buy Walmoutton or whatever. But I just can't bring myself to go out get doe hunter. So what I like to do is, um, I do the out of state trips, and then when I'm not doing out of state trips, I'm either scouting or I'm taking from I love to put guys that I know on on Boxer or guys that I know are having a hard time. I just randomly say I want to go hunt, and then I take about and put him some wors and helped get a deer and I feel really good about that. Um. But the scouting is really key, um, because there's not too often that you have time where you can go scout during season and look at those beds while they're being used and not have to worry. You know, So go in and scout those beding areas right during season and look at what's going on. UM, I can really teach you a lot more than looking at them two months later after season. You know, yes, so is is the best thing due to literally boots on ground, hit all your good stuff in season to see exactly what's happening. Um? Or do you have to worry? Does does observation factor at all into the type of scouting you want to do in season two? Because I'm I mean there's value in watching too. UM. Do you try to balance that at all? Or what are your thoughts there? Not sure but you know you know, UM, not as much. But I do glass a little bit um after my tags are filled. But I really like to just get in and look at the bed nears um too, and see what's being used and what's not at at specific time frames. You know, kick a nice tear out of something and look at it where you really wouldn't want to do that in season otherwise. I hope that I have a ear like that. Someday I had one. Yet when I've got a whole bunch of season left where I don't have a dag, just out a bunch of somehow, always find myself still chasing my tail around. But one of the years I hope to put that into practice. Um. But speaking of the end of things, um to final questions before I let you get back to your evening, Dan, two scenarios of sorts. Um, here's here's the last one. And we we talked about this a little bit. That being the fact that right there's more people that hunt like you do now than probably ever before, because of the media you put out, because of podcast like this one, because of all these other things where people are talking about how to hunt in a mobile fashion, how to key in on betting areas, how to be aggressive. Um, it's a different world now than it was in two thousand five. So what if I were to tell you and you've kind of had a situation like this, if you look at the public land challenges, where there's a bunch of guys that kind of hunt like you. But let's say that we're hunting one piece of public land. Let's say it's pretty big, but there's a bunch of guys that hunt like you. There's a bunch of really good beast mode deer hunters, like a lot more of us are dealing with. Now we're all dealing with more effective hunters. What are you doing now differently in that scenario than you had to do ten or fifteen years ago, because everyone's doing it like this. Welcome to my life, especially around my Alice. I mean, you gotta remember around where I live, um is all Marsh Train and those original Marsh Hunting DVDs, especially at Blood Brothers one. I probably sold those videos around here. Um, it used to be all of all the islands out here and stuff, we're all pretty much mine. Um. And now there's trails going out to there's guys hunting on him every weekend and stuff. And what happens is the deer change and you have to adapt with them. Um, So gear are still here. It's just a pressure puss of a different spots. So you've got to find the spots that are a little more hidden, a little more overlooked, a little more off to the side. Um, and you've gotta work a little harder. The good part is is usually, um, the pressure from those guys puts those deer in pretty specific spots. I mean, there's very little spots that aren't getting hit anymore. Um, and that's where they're at, you know. Um. And and another good thing is is it used to be on public land, every guy you ran into shot any deer they saw because you're you're you're, you're so called good hunters were all hunting private land. Which there's people now that have private land that really would rather hunt on public which, um, kind of surprising that people are tending that wrong. But I'm running into a lot better hunters on public than I used to, a lot more knowledgeable guys, guys doing it the right way, and uh um, some pretty cool hunters. Um, but they are infiltrating all the spots used to hunt. So I just I have to help my game and figure out that you're a little better. Can you describe an example of what that um less obvious spot might be. Like, let's say, like the obvious stuff is what we learned about in that first DVD, which is your your islands in a marsh or a point extending out into a marsh. Like everyone knows that now, so that's obvious to most guys or girls. What what would be the dan infalt pro move? And now maybe you don't want to give us away, Maybe maybe you need to hold this one back then, But what's like that off the beaten path adjustment? Now that's where you have to adjust to. Well. Um, there's still betting on the points, the islands, things like that, but they're betting on ones that aren't as obvious. You can't seem as well on a on a map. Um, Sometimes you gotta get your eyes on to really see what's going on. UM. Spots you find, um that you really can't see unless you walk them. So you go through there in winter, I've still not seeing many guys doing the winter scouting. Um. For how many guys I've seen out there on the island and stuff, it's it's pretty impressive, But I go out there and in winter spring I'm not seeing people. So people still aren't adapting in that manner very well. But they are hunting the obvious stuff that they didn't used to hunt. So putting some boots on the ground and really scouring those those transitions, I found a lot of really really good stuff that's like thick transitions with mixed um dogwood and tamaracks, stuff that slowly mix us into cattails and stuff. And there's a point but it's really hard to see when you get in there and you find this little hole that's perfect for a deer, but you really couldn't see it unless you walked inner and looked. But you know, and some of those spots, believe paid off a lot more nice I can. I can envision a spot just like that on a place I hunt that I've kind of discovered something similar. So it's interesting you say that. Um, okay, here's my last one. Dan, You've been a good sport. Thank you for for tackling all these these various ideas that I'm sending your way. But here's the last one. Um, I'm an asshole, and I am going to take away your hunting rights for all of the next ten years. Dan. You can't hunt at all for ten years unless unless this coming season. You're able to kill a four and a half year old er older buck, but I'm not gonna give you one day to do it. You've got one day to save the next ten years of your hunting life. What day are you going to choose for that very high stakes hunt? And then, with as much detail as you can possibly describe, describe the ideal spot you are going to hunt on that specific day to kill this buff that's gonna save your next ten years. Um, probably December one? Wow? And uh, probably I'm gonna hunt at a food source that I've been glassing. Interesting, I would have not have expected that late season. So okay, give me a little more detail on this. So you've been glassing of food source. It's super late season. Um, how are you setting up on this food source on December thirty one? You've been glassing so Um. What I found is the most patternable time to kill him mature bulk in daylight is right at the end of our season up here. If you're talking Wisconsin, I think it changes if you get to the south because of the warmer weather, but usually that coincid sides with us getting really cold, and usually right about the last week of the season here, it just really gets on fire and there's nobody else out there. Um, but it is um feast your famine. So you're either in the deer or not. But um, if you drive around, you you scout a lot, you go check a lot of spots. You'll find a spot or um a lot of deer kyrie and there'll be some big bucks in there. And it takes watching them from a distance to kind of pinpoint and then make a move. And uh Um. I haven't killed a ton of bucks doing that, mainly because I'm usually tagged out at that time of the year. But I put some of my friends on some really good ones and I have taken a few at that time frame and had a lot of fun. Triumph. Um. There are some downfalls, Like I can remember a couple of years back when I was onto a group of deer that were feeding in some dogwoods and they'd show up every night, and I was using a human access trail to get back here, and I climb up a tree dlo that access and people would walk that trail during the day and once or twice a week and deer were used to human scent on him and I would get in there and these boxes start coming out and there was there's at least three deer in the one sixties and uh one big ten point. I really wanted to shoot. And I finally got that deer rennerneath me, and he came walking right under the base in my tree and got out to about ten or eleven yards and turned quartern away and turned his head face and the other way as it drew, and like I got him. And right when I came to full draw, I heard a snort beside me and an eight pointer had spotted me in the tree, and as I squeezed the trigger, the tent pointer to run him. Luckily I completely missed them because because dropping the string. But that's the downfall is you have a lot of deer on you have a lot of eyes on you, there's no cover in the trees. Yeah, but it is probably the best time to shoot immature book is at the end of the season, and you can drive around during a car in any perk and lunter and and sole in the woods, especially if you gets done to like ten degrees. But man of the deer out, well, that is has a good answer. It is not what I was expecting. So I like a little surprise here at the end. Dan, it's good stuff. UM, I appreciate it. I appreciate you playing along with this idea. And I learned some new things here today about you, which which is cool. UM for people listening that want to get more from you, who want to see your videos or read your forum or FOLLO along with anything you've got going on or any of your different products and things like that. What do you want people to know about? Where should they go? I got a great YouTube page that's got some really good videos of the hunts that I do. Um. You can follow me on Facebook, UM, I tell some cool stories, or you can communicate with you. There have a website called uh dock the Hunting Beast dot com that's a foreign base. UM and uh I sell climbing sticks and I'm gonna have a lot of stock at the end of next month, the sticks that everybody's looking for. And what's the website to find the sticks Hunting Beast gear dot com. Perfect? All right, Dan, you passed the what would you do challenge with line colors? That's fun fun. Yeah, I'm glad you enjoyed. I enjoyed it too. So if we enjoyed it. That's all that matters, right, all right, Dan, Well, thank you and best of luck. I hope that you don't have one of those seasons where it's mid November and you're still trying favre out what to do? You know? Then ideal situation, you pounded all year and you shoot, you shoot your book on December thirty one and the last day. There is nothing sweeter than that. You're right, that is the uh, the slow build, that's the slow build. All right, Dan, this has been great, Thanks again, Okay, thank you, and that's gonna do it. I hope you guys enjoyed that one. Make sure check out all the rest of Dan's content across The Hunting Beast and elsewhere. And as I mentioned at the top, listen to the other episodes that we have a Dan in Fault. They're really good. They cover different ground in what we covered today and uh And honestly, even if you already listened to it, it might be worth re listening to. With this new information in your head, I think stuff will start to make more sense. So check it out. Search for Dan and fault. Um, he's he's been on a bunch. They're all great. So with that said, thanks for listening, good luck with your summer scouting, or if it's during the hunting season when you're listening to this, good luck with your hunting and until next time, stay wired to hunt.