00:00:02 Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your home for deer hunting news, stories and strategies, and now your host, Mark Kenyon. Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. I'm your host, Mark Kenyan, and this is episode number three and today the show, I'm joined by Tony Peterson to answer listener questions on topics ranging from killing those to finding late season bucks in warm weather, to whether or not helium balloons can lead you to big bucks. All right, welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, brought to you by Onyx. Today we're doing some much needed listener Q and A. I get tons of emails and Facebook and Instagram messages UM from from you guys, which I love getting with specific hunting related questions, and I hate myself for this fact, but I'm not able to respond to all of them. And I'm sorry that I can't do that, um. But that's why I try to make sure we get some of these episodes in, because I want to answer as many of those as we possibly can and help you folks out. And to do that, I've got my buddy and a leading meat either contributor and one of the very best deer hunters I know, and that person is Tony Peterson. So, Tony, thanks for being on here to help me answer some questions. Well, thanks for having me buddy. You uh, you said that we were talking a little earlier day and you said that your experience on the back forty forced you to take a full month off of hunting. Is that true? Have you? Have you been doing any white tail hunting since we talked last time in early November? That that was partially a joke about Michigan hunting and partially more of my response from getting after it for a couple of months in a row and just coming home after that drive and going, I don't want to I don't want to see the view from a tree stand for a while. So I did. I took some time off and hunted some peasants and hung out with my little girls, and lately I got the itch bad. You know how it is when the when the season is about to end, and you start going, man, it's gonna be nine months before I can do this again. So I've actually been hunting really hard lately, just to try to kill an antler list deer here close to my house. And it's it's been a lot of fun and very humbling yeah, I hear you're there. That's that's exactly how I felt. After after all that back forty stuff finished up, I went and I did, as you know, I killed the buck I was after on my other Michigan spots, and then after that I took my big breaks. I think I took two weeks off. But now I'm right back in the same boat as you, trying to kill trying to kill some does. And that's that's It's a lot of fun. I love this part of the season when I'm not worried about filling a buck tag and instead I can just get out there and hunt for analyst deer and and like you said, that can be a challenge sometimes, but it's also slightly less stressful or something something about it is just a little bit more um. It feels like I'm just going out there to have a good time hunting, and not as much as Okay, I gotta do this, I gotta do this. This has got to go right, and I can't. I can't make this mistake. And if it goes all just right and then it's then it'll go the way I want. So maybe that's just because of my manic personality, but something about this is nice, That's what I'm trying to say. Oh it is man. You take away that pressure of the of the buck tag situation, and you you find yourself just hunting to hunt, and it's just a different experience out there, and they're they're both fun. But this time of year, when you kind of got the burnout factor going real high and you're just trying to you know, ring as much as you can out of the season before it's gone, it is just nice to go sit and if if you get a good shot, try to take it. And if not, who cares? Yeah? Exactly, exactly, Um. And you know this is this perfectly segues into a bunch of questions that I got. Um. I got a bunch of different listener questions, and a lot of them actually revolved around this very topic, which was, you know, nobody ever talks about trying to kill a dough No one ever talks about the tactics for filling an antlerst tag. It's always how do you kill mature buck? How do you kill a big buck? How do you kill you know, such and such a buck? In early September, how do you kill a running buck with a grunt called blah blah blah blah blah. There are not many articles or podcast dedicated to, Hey, how do you kill a dough in December or January or something like that. Um, I haven't read that one, Tony. I don't know about you, but um, i'll we will summarize a bunch of people's questions, which is, hey, talk us through some of the things you're thinking about right now when you're trying to fill an analyst tag. Um, well, let's let's just answer that generic question raf the bat and check off on about thirty of the submissions I've gotten. What are what are your some of your thoughts there? Um, you know, I think that I think a lot of those questions probably come from people who don't have maybe a tradition, an old destination food source to set up on, because it's not if you're talking typical white tail strategy right now, it's not there's no secrets. I mean, it's go set up on the calories and wait them out. But a lot of people don't have that option, and you know, That's what I'm dealing with right now, and so I'm I'm trying to uh, I'm trying to kill them, pass them through and staging, and it's been it's been really interesting because I'm having as good a hunts in the evening as i am in the morning because I'm not on a food source. And so it's really been about, uh, you know, what do you have to work with? And if you don't have that awesome pickcorn field or that food plot, you got to figure out what they're doing. And you might have a situation where you have dear betting on a little property. Might you might have the right betting cover, but you don't have the right food, And so a morning hunt might be a better deal if you can get in. And it's it's kind of about starting over right now, and you know, scouting in the moment and figuring out where they're going to go. And if you see if you see something happening, they're pretty patternable right now, you can move in on them. So there's it's it's a fun time to hunt. Plus you just don't have nearly as much competition out there. Yeah. Now on the flip side, though, you don't have as much competition right now because there was a ship ton of competition two weeks ago or a month ago. So these deer have been heavily pressured just about anywhere you've been. You could be in even an aisle or somewhere at least for any part of the season. This is the most pressure they've been relative to the norm. So they are edgy, they are on pins and needles. They're gonna be more sensitive to mistakes probably than they were three months ago. Um. Do you find yourself being more conservative at this time of the year because of that? Or do you have to get more aggressive because of the flip side that you have to get aggressive to get to some of these spots. Um. I find myself kind of walking an interesting line with us, because sometimes you can just get away with what you said, which is just hunt by where the calories are and wait them out and does will show up And if you have that, it works. Um. But then sometimes, like in the situation I'm in right now, some of my my main Michigan spot that I spent a lot of time on, Um, all the food has been plowed under. I've never had this situation on this set of properties, but all the food's gone, just a bunch of dirt fields, and so I have zero late season food now compared to every other year when there's always good stuff. So now I'm in that situation you just described where I've got betting, I've got transition stuff, I have no food. So I went last night and hunted a little spot yet last night. Yeah, last night, I hunted a little tiny food source that I do kind of have, but it's kind of eaten down to a pulp. And I thought, there's a chance that you might get one dough family group that will hit this on their way to the other places, and and I did have that happen, but they were at a bow range. But what I'm finding is that if I want to kill one of these doughes, now I have to actually get aggressive, almost as aggressive as I might hunt, you know, on November eight in a certain way. But I'm thinking about this unique thing that we don't very often, which is a lot of times I think about how aggressive or how much pressure I can put on a buck and like what they will, what they'll be okay with, what I can get away with. But very rarely do you think about, okay, how many mistakes can I risk making to kill a dough and what will a Doe family group tolerate? You know what I mean? What I'm getting out here, so I'm actually I'm gonna be okay with doing something knowing that, yeah, I might go in there and these deer might figure me out, but I might be able to get away with it a few more times in general than I could if I was trying to kill just one five and a half year old buck. Um. And so that's a different mindset to have at this time of year when you're thinking about that. Um, I don't know, is that is that something you're doing to big time man? I? You know, if you want to become a better hunter, hunting does right now in a place that did get pounded during the gun season is a great way to do it, because, like you said, it's a weird time because they're pretty visible when they're moving or if you have that place they're feeding, you can see them. But when they get bow range close, they just don't tolerate anything. And that's what I've been dealing with. I've had I think I've probably sat five times in the last week between mornings and evenings, and I've had deer with thin shooting range every time, and i haven't gotten to full drop without blowing everything out. I'm just and I'm telling you like I'm getting busted by fons. It's just it's almost comical, and it's really focused. It It's forced me to focus on how do I get in there? How early do I have to go in there? What route do I take to go in because the place I'm hunting, I have a couple different ways to get in there, and the amount of deer I see varies a lot by how where I park and you know how long it takes me to walk in there. And it's sort of this weird master class that I'm I'm getting on hunting all deer. And I'm telling you, I've got this this group of three dough funds in there, and they all looked a issues and I've had those year around me so many times, and they are like, they are so good at surviving right now, it's crazy. Let alone. Let alone when the does and funds come in and I try to I try to shoot one of the older does, or there's a few loaners in there. Everybody is on their A game this time of year, and so it really it just it just forces you to think about every move you make and if the wind is you know, not perfect, or if it's a little crunchy going in, or you wait till they're a little too close and you start to draw. It's it's rough. I mean, it's really humbling. Yeah. So so one of some things that are unique to hunting dose this time of year that would be different than the things that we would tell people, you know, to do when you're chasing the mature buck during the rut. I mean, I'm thinking like, for example, if I was thinking of how I might set up for an evening hunt, and that was chasing a buck during the rut, I might be thinking about, you know, being downwind of a parallel trail that a luck might be running down to scent check the food source, or lots of times, there might be this big cow path that leads into a food source that I wouldn't hunt because that's where all the other deer are gonna come on. But the buck might be on this much less noticeable path that's thirty yards down there. Like little things like that, I'm not I might be paying attention to sign rubs and scrapes and stuff when I'm trying to kill a buck. When I'm trying to kill the dough it's actually the obvious sign, the obvious thing. That is the right way to do. I'd rather hunt the obvious trail and be very safe from a wind perspective than try to do some kind of cutting the corner wind to try to hunt a food source and make the deer think that they've got the wind in their favor. Um. I'm not worried about that, at least for me. I'm not worried about that kind of thing. I'm not worried about it trying to set up so that a bunch of doughs have the wind in their favorite to come to a food source. I am going to try to be in between wherever they're going or where they're coming from, which is whatever they're betting in right now, to that best food possible, And if I can't hunt really close to it, I simply want to be safely downwind so that you don't have the chance of one of those does picking you off as you described, um, and then hunt the obvious thing, like if there's a bunch of tracks telling me that a bunch of deer coming through here. The nice thing about when you're trying to kill does is that I don't care what those tracks are. I don't care if one of them is four inches wide and splayed. Um. If there's some tracks, there's probably a deer that I shoot in that group, and um, and so you you don't need to overthink it in certain ways, but you still have to execute well on the simple plan, if that makes sense. Um. So, like you said, you gotta be able to go through that whole getting drawn back process. You've got to make sure that you're paying attention early on in the hunt. When the does show up before you were in expecting them and you don't, you don't have them pick you off. When you're in that tree that's wide open right now, you don't have as much cover. Your things are louder. Seems like every sound echoes more this time of year. These deer are on edge already, so any little thing will set them off. UM. So it's a different tension to detail. UM. But it's slightly more forgiving in some aspects. I guess I think it's I think it's more forgiving and that you have more options. I mean, you have more targets right if you're if you're open to any antler list, dear, you've got way more options than if you're if you're, you know, limiting yourself to a five and a half year old buck. And I honestly think we don't give you know, we we talked about bucks all the time, is how cag they are, and you know what a buck has to go through to be five and a half years old. We don't think about the age of does or the job they have, and I honestly think that does a lot of times are way better at picking you off than bucks. When you see when you see bucks moved through the woods, even on public land, a lot of times they're so confident that they're not you know, they don't seem to be on their a game as much as sometimes you see those doughes coming through with fawns and they don't miss a thing. And so it's not, you know, it's not so cut and dry that this kind of deer is is really good at it. In this kind of deer is, you can be dismissive of it, and this this time of year, you can't. You can't write any of those deer off. They all have the potential to teach you a lesson about what you did wrong. And that's that's what's so fun about it. And you know, the thing that levels it off is that is the quantity thing. You usually have just a way bigger hit list. Now, if if anybody who walks in that doesn't have antlers on its head is on the menu, then you've got some options, but they're not easy, and that's what's awesome about it. Yeah, okay, So what about this scenario. Let's say you are set up and you have some does come through, but that big old mama dobe you know, picks you off and she either sees you move in or hears you draw back or something and boogers out of there. Um, when it comes to does, you're just trying to kill some does. Now, would you can't if you found a spotlight that that works and that there's does coming through like that, would just sit out there again? Would you go back the next day? Would you expect some level of forgiveness or are you thinking, man, she blew me out, I'm going to have to do something different to mark She's gonna come right back and look in this tree and see me and then out of here she goes. Or on the flip side, you know, well that one deer picked me off, but there could be another tendo as it could come through here still because I'm on the right food or I'm on the corridor that leads to the right food, and you know, I don't care about that one, because there's gonna be seven more I care. I I just had a really a really good example of this happened to me. Um. I had a dope come in the very first night I hunted since I got back from the back forty and she she fed in, had a couple of funds behind her, got to twenty yards broadside. I was like, this is over, and as soon as I started drawing, she was gone. And she never looked up. She just heard it and she bolted. And so it was kind of like a weird bust because she just she knew something wasn't right within her guard, but she didn't know what happened. And I hunted there I think two days after that, and that who came back in and she pegged me so hard up there. It was just like she remembered, like the last time I got here something that I just wasn't comfortable with. And so they it kind of depends, you know, if if you have enough deer coming in where you can you can you know, let a couple of them go, or if they if they bust you and snort away, it's not that big of a deal. Then you can keep kind of volume hunting a spot. But if you get one of those doughs like that and she happens to be the one, the first one who moves in the evening or the first one back, she can make your life really really tough if she blows up every time she gets in the area, or if she's going to look up into that tree to the point where I'm actually thinking about hunting this dough specifically from the ground and carving a little spot in a cedar tree just to see if I can trigger, and she come in and think that maybe that tree is empty, so I'm not there. I don't know, but it's it's interesting to see when you get out there and you have those experiences, what some of them tolerate and what some of them seemed learn from. You know. I think one thing that's a little bit different between buck and doe here is that if I had that kind of situation with a mature buck, I you know, if they pegged me there, I would be much less expectant of them to return to that exact place the next day or two days after that. I'd expect that they're probably gonna avoid it by a wider margin for some amount of time. But with a Doe or Doe family group, I feel like there's a pretty decent chance they'll come back the next day. There's a pretty good chance they'll be back if I'm in the right spot, you know, if I'm on that right food source, or if I'm on the trail that leads to the food source or out of their betting area. Um, but I do believe that that Mama Doe is gonna be looking right at that tree. She's gonna she's gonna come that general direction, and she will be looking to see if you're there again. And I think that if you, I think you can get away with going back to the same general area, but you better be in a different tree. I can't tell you how many times I've had this kind of thing where I get pegged and the next day I'll hunt a different tree but in the same general spot, and you can watch her coming from a mile away, and she's just pegged on that tree, looking at it, looking at it, expecting to see someone there doing the head Bob already. But if you're not there, and if you're somewhere that is enough out of the way that she doesn't pick you up again, they'll eventually let her. She'll eventually let her guard down and come in once she's confirmed that the danger isn't there tonight. Um So, what I've found his work pretty well for me is that if I do find myself in that situation, I'll reposition within that zone and um, you can get away with it the next day or two days later or something. Um when you you just might not have that same opportunity if it was a buck here after. So I think you've got a little bit more wiggle room there when you're when you're doing this, And then again it comes back to the target environment too. If not that doll, then it's the other group that comes through. Um. So, so that's what I'm doing right now, is I'm I'm bouncing around these transition areas to the food the foods on places I can't hunt, but I can still hunt the transition corridors, and um I'm camping in the best places that I can hunt on those transitions until I get pegged or make a mistake or kill one, and then I'm making a small adjustment, um, and I'm trying to fill as many dough TEGs as I can because I think a really important point about dough hunting is that this is the absolute best thing you can do to help yourself come next year when you do have a buck tag. I think it's a really important point to make that there's and we talked about this in the podcast we did earlier this year, Tony, Right. I mean, the moment of truth. Dealing with that moment of truth is is a tough thing, no matter how experienced you are. But the only way to get better at it is to have gone through a bunch. And the more times you go through that moment truth, the better you can handle it. And if all you ever do is kill you know, or try to kill one mature buck every year, or whatever it is for you, But if you limit yourself to that kind of thing, you're just not going to get that experience that a whole lot. If instead you can go and fill five dough tags in December or throughout the year or whatever it might be, whatever that number is for you, UM, it does nothing but help you. It absolutely makes you a better more UM. You know, more effective once you have to go through those moments again. And and it's it's it's a high pressure, intense situation, whether it's a dough or a big buck um, but simply having more targets to work with when you're dough hunting gives you that opportunity to push through it. At least that's what I phone. I totally agree. I think I think it's a it's just an awesome way to get better and and and learn from the things that you shouldn't do or you know, maybe get some positive reinforcement if you get it right. And it's just there's a lot to it. It's it's a lot of fun, and it's it's worth the effort. Yeah, it is a lot of fun. That's the other thing is it's just it's just fun. It's just fun and you fill the freezer and you get great food, and it's it's great practice. I love my late season dough hunts and you've got a bunch of deer to butcher and you get to do it and it's kind of like a fun thing with a family. For for me at least I get my wife involved and now my boys, and uh, it's just a good way to wrap up the season. If it's ties a really nice boat, you top off the freezer to the max wherever you need it. Maybe you share a deer with a family member or something. Um, and I just love that is the way to end my season. It just it leaves me with a good taste in my mouth, both um figuratively and literally, I guess. And then sets you up well for the new year. So your wife will actually help you butcher and process of deer. Yeah, yeah, that's that's awesome. I love it. But she she she participates, and you're just happy that she did it. Yeah, well, that's that's better than what I have going on. My wife has offered a few times and I had her just be kind of the rapper and the you know, the label writer, right like, okay, this one's backstraps from this date and this deer, and I don't know what she was doing. My my wife's a smart lady. She has a doctorate, like she's she's no dummy. But when we started opening up those packages throughout the year, when we would eat him, it was like mystery meat. It was like she had no connection between what she wrote and what was actually in the package. I was like, what do you what are you doing? Like? How distracted were you? And so she's she's she's not much. She doesn't help very much of that process that mostly falls on me these days. Yeah, that's uh, that's important. You don't want to be surprised when you open up the package and you're thinking you're cooking up backstrap for the family. Instead you got a pound of burger. Y Ah. Yeah, that's uh. That's my next ten to twelve days, I think is hopefully doing a bunch of that. So, um, let's let's keep rolling through some of these. Um here's an interesting one. And I've read a few people like post theories about this. I've never given it much thought, but Jonathan asks do helium balloons have any connection to buck betting? He'll continue, I'll read the rest of you kind of a long thing here, but he says, do helium balloons play any have any connection to buck betting? This has been posted more and more on social media about thermal's bringing balloons down and where those balloons land are an indication of good buck betting areas. People have both laughed at this theory, but others have picture posted pictures of buck shot in these areas too. I was a skeptic about it until my son and I were out on the last day gun season in Wisconsin. We set up on the ground between some dead falls, and it wasn't until we got set up that we saw a helium balloon laying on the forest floor. I didn't pay much attention to it, but other than we're found landed, but I was just sitting there. Then I started seeing all these fresh rubs and sign and we sat for a couple more hours and this I had to pack it out. But as we were walking out, we jumped a buck about seventy yards away from this location, bedded right in that area. I'm still skeptic, but I'm curious if this is coincidence or if there's something to the balloon and thermal buck betting theory. Um. So, I've read in some other places on forums and stuff about the same thing, so I'll kind of generalize it a little more. The basic theory here is that there are certain like there's balloons all over the place. People put these balloons up in the air for birthday parts or whatever, and unfortunately end up as litter spread across the woods. I'm sure people have seen that out there. And where are these balloons get taken to though? Is supposedly, you know, an indication of where the natural wind and thermals and wind tunnels and stuff eventually direct anything that might be floating in the air. And so some people have said, Man, if you see a balloon land somewhere, it is you know, or or a number of balloons laying so where it might be indicative of one of these kind of spots like a bathtub where a lot of air currents kind of funneled down into and dear light to keen on that kind of thing. Have you ever heard of that? Do you think there's any possibility of truth to it or do you think it's someone online trying to sound smarter than they really are. Well, I think that that's what. I love that he asked that question, and that he's entertaining that, Um I had never heard that theory. I have, I actually remember but wait, wait, wait wa Way back when I was an associate editor at Peterson's Bow Hunting, somebody wrote an article and referenced, you know, seeing uh helium balloon waving around in the woods, and I remember the other editors like bringing that up, like, have you ever seen this? And I've actually seen that a few times out there, where they come down and they get caught. I've never in my life connected those random balloon encounters to any kind of deer hunting strategy. I think that that's a I think that's maybe really grasping a straws there. I think if you found, if you really paid attention to the location of every balloon you found in your life in the woods, you know, any kind of remains of a balloon, you would find maybe a little more randomness to it than them getting sucked down into places where the thermals are awesome and they provide a good betting advantage for deer. But I could be wrong on there. I've never I've never entertained the balloon pattern as a possibility for finding deer. Yeah, I'm right there with you. I've I've never paid enough attention to it to lend any kind of true anecdotal observation at least to it. But my gut tells me that while maybe this does pan out that way, there's gotta be a whole lot of other random circumstances where they end up elsewhere. And it's just too too, too small a sample size of draw any kind of strong conclusions from. There's enough other things you can ken on to try to figure out where box bed or we're dear bed that are much more surefire. So let's start there. I like that. Yeah, um, but fun to think about. And I'll tell you what. Next time I see one of those balloons out there, I'm gonna sit and think, well, here, here's what scares me. We have to be we have an environmental responsibility with the answer to this question, because I don't want people going out there letting balloons go. That's a strategy to scout. Please don't do that. Do not do that. And if you see these balloons, pick him up, put him in your backpack and put him, you know, bring him back home, take him out of the woods. Uh. If for no other reason, then then so that some other hunter doesn't come along and think that's a good betting here, Well, yeah, here's another strategy. Now there's gonna be somebody out in public land time balloons to random places that he doesn't want. He like that. He wants the concentration of pressure to go to so you can hide the hide the better spots for himself. Oh gosh, that's some funny stuff right there. I've got a friend who does something similar the oposite a way where he'll I'm not condoning this, I'm not saying you should do this, um, but he will set up dummy tree stands in places where he, you know, if he's trying to if he's got a little secret spot that he doesn't want people to start hunting, he'll put like three tree stands in a half circle around it between the access point and where he wants to go hunt, just to make other hunters that are passing through like, oh gosh, this one is getting hit super hard, and then they go somewhere else. Uh So people are getting people are getting very creative with their public land hunting. Tony. I I do not condone or endorse that. I simply state it as a as something you got to contend with. Yeah, that's uh, I don't I don't want people doing that either. So so here's a different ethical question if we're examining the ethics of of something like that. Josh asks I have permission to hunt a three acre property, but he knows that one of the neighbors is an anti hunter and would not let him recover a deer if it expired on their land. Is it ethical to hunt this three acres knowing that there's a neighbor that would not let him recover it or cross if that deer ran that direction after shooting it? Man, I I personally wouldn't hunt it because of that. That's just bad juju. But I suppose it could probably be set up in a way where you were as far away from that property as possible, and if you were really really careful about the shot selection, you could probably be okay. But that's a that's a rough one. I think. I think at the very least I'd be looking for a plan B there. Yeah, that's a doozy. I think it would depend, like you said, on some of the specifics, like if it's a long, narrow property and the neighboring property only borders on one side of the narrow part of the rectangle that kind of thing, and you're hunting of the direction with good spots all around you, than maybe. But if it's just a tiny little three acre quarter and you can't get away from that neighbor, I just there's nothing worse than having that situation where you shoot a deer that you know it's gonna die, and then you have a go or there and you can't do anything about it. I I've always been terrified of that. I've never had to happen, but I've always, you know, worried what if I shoot one and it goes to a neighbor and they don't give me that permission. Um. So I've always tried to avoid any kind of uncertainty like that by either talking to the neighbors ahead of time if you can, or just steering clear of edges, you know, to avoid that possibility as much as possible. Um, this is one I would, like you said, I would, I would much rather pursue a plan B if you can then be in a tough situation. But I know people do it, especial people hunt, like in urban areas. Um, That's that's the reality of some situations. Yeah, I mean you'd really you know, it's so situational, like you at how far away can you get? And I mean that would be that would be the kind of situation where I'd be looking for like a perfect fifteen yard broadside where I thought I wasn't going to hit the off side shoulder or anything like that and get to get the best, least panicky reaction out of the deer as possible, you know, I mean you just you see little differences if you slip it right through the ribs on both sides and they don't really know what's going on, a lot of times they don't, they don't go very far. But if you catch that off side shoulder and they panic, I mean, it's it's really granular stuff there, but there's there's a lot of responsibility with a setup like that. It's just it's that's a tough one. Yeah, yeah, it is. I just go back to I think if I were I would waffle on this myself and I'd be like wow this or well that maybe maybe, But I think the thing that would tip me over the edge would be examine the best case scenario and examine the worst case scenario. And so the best case scenario is a kill a deer and I bringing home and I've got a great meal. Um. But I could also maybe get that same best case scenario one and hunted a piece of public land or whatever. But the worst case scenario is so worst case is so horrible in my in my view, I just I don't. I couldn't stomach that, um, so I would probably probably avoid it. Yeah, that would be I think it would be a very hard situation to enjoy to hunt that. Yeah, all right, Moving on, Brian asks, how do you plan for wind when a stand is in an area where deer can come from any direction? Just play the odds, buddy, I mean, that's a what he's talking about. There is so common in in so many different situations that you just have to go where where are they most likely to come from? And how does that work for me? And it's this is the kind of thing I learned. You know, I grew up hunting the bluffs in southeastern Minnesota, where you a lot of ridges, and you know, you could play the wind pretty well. And when I relocated to where I live now, it was a lot flatter and there was just that situation where the travel wasn't really dictated by terrain as much, and I just learned to live with it and go, Okay, well, they don't seem to come from this direction as much, so when the wind's going that way, that's my best option. But it's just, uh, it's it's tough because you will probably screw up I mean, you're gonna you're gonna blow some deer out, But what are you gonna do? I mean, at the same time, you're really lucky to be in a place where the deer can come from any direction and you've got a chance to hunt. You know, yeah, yeah, you always have to give something up. Every time I go said, I always know that you've got to give something. There's always, no matter what, you're always going to be giving something. So you need to make that judgment call. And you know, look at the probabilities of each and and something that can sometimes be helpful, um is rather than just saying, well, I think it's most likely they'll come from this direction, and at least likely they're But then you're sitting there thinking and spit balling, like where is the safe spout, where's a danger spot? If you were to look at the if you were to stand in a tree and then look at the compass directions north southeast west, and if you're sitting there trying to think this all through, assigned an actual probability like a number to each side to just kind of help you think stuff through. And and and this is just like some little trick I've read about that helps people with some decision making, not not not hunting, but can be applied to hunting. Is when you apply a number to your different options, it just makes it easier for you to make decisions. So if you say, okay, well, I think that there's a fifty percent chance that that's the spot of buck could come from. I think that this direction it's it's like a ten percent place, and this one over here is probably more like than you gotta think about for a second about this and think about this, well, given I know that, and that's maybe like a it's there, and then this is it's about I know there's gonna be there's always there to come from that way. And just forcing yourself to think through each direction and give it a number, that little exercise can help. So that's something to think about as you're trying to make decisions around your trees. UM, just a little mind exercise with that. UM. I will say one other thing, which is that sometimes that's just a spot you can't hunt sometimes or sometimes or some parts of the year. UM, you just might need to say, okay, you know what if there's a tree like that, even if it seems to be in an awesome place. If I know I'm gonna get winded and there's gonna be a dobe blowing here, that's going to ruin the whole hunt. Um you know, let's say it's like October or something like that, October one, and you know that you're basing the whole success of your hunt is going to be based on whether or not that buck will get up and walk past you heading to the food source. But if there's so many does in the area, and if you know that there's no way to get away with out a dobe blowing, and you also know that if a dobe blows, that big buck just is not going to come through in daylight because he's two d yards away and he's if he hears a doe blow and he's just not going to come through, Well, then that's just not the spot to get it done. And you either need to find some other spot where you can have a little more more in your favor, or maybe you just have to wait and wait till it's it's a different type of behavior that you're operating on. Um. So, so sometimes there's a tough decisions you gotta make. Like there's some spots that I hunt where I would love to get in and hunt a tree. Like there's a tree I know that that if there's a good buck in this general area, he's gonna pass by that tree more than almost any other tree I can think of, Like I've just seen, if there's a big buck in here, they always come through this little area. But it's right in the middle of everything. And if you were to go in there, there's gonna be deer winning you all the time. And so I've I like this year, I had one opportunity. I decided that one day I was going to try to hunt that spot, and I wait until all the conditions would be as best as I thought they could possibly be, and I thought it was worth it, like swinging for the fences that one time. And I did it, and and that buck did come through, but before stooding light. Um. If I were to go in there and hunt that tree over and over again, um, because it's the best tree, it would not be the best tree for long. So you gotta know when to when to go for it. And you've got to know when it's it's not worth the risk. Even though it might be a dynamite spot, it's only a dynamite spot with you can get away with it. Yeah. Well, and I would add to that too, is you know if you if you go in and you know you're giving up something like you said, pay attention to what happens and and how could you tweak it a little bit? Like I I had an experienced earlier this year in Minnesota where I had I had hung a stand over this pond and it was pretty good, but there were a lot of winds I couldn't I couldn't hunt it on and I ended up building a little natural ground blind probably about fifty yards away. That opened up everything for me. And it wasn't nearly as I couldn't see hardly anything. It wasn't nearly as comfortable, but that spot became so much more hontable by me just going, well, I can't hunt it the way I really want to, Like I wanted to sit there in that tree and see them coming and have that nice shot angle and everything. But it was just a matter of a little tweak and kind of going Okay, well, I gotta take a step back and figure out if I can make this work another way. And it worked really well. And so sometimes you have that option to where you want to force something because it's how you want to hunt or where you want to hunt. But there might be a little tweak somewhere, some little concession you can make that opens up more possibilities. It's a very good point. Hard to do, hard to sometimes avoid the temptation. I certainly found myself there big time, all right. T J says, uh quote, you often give hypothetical scenarios in your podcast to the people you interview. So here's one for you. I'm going to be employed for the entirety of deer season next year. So if you couldn't hunt next deer season and you didn't have access to a bow of practice, what would you do during that time period to still make yourself a better hunter for the season after Who Yeah, that's a good one, you know. I would say consuming content is the obvious one. You know, there's still there's still ways to learn vicariously through other people. But I think I think this is and I don't know what what this guy has access to as far as uh, just daily life routine type of stuff, but I think that I think that becoming a better white tail hunter is just about embracing the challenge, and that's just all of life, right, like learning how to play guitar has nothing to do with learning how to kill six and a half year old bucks. But at the same time, giving yourself that motivation and going Okay, I'm gonna I'm gonna tackle this challenge because I can't do this other challenge. I think that lifts you up. And so it's it's maybe like a weird woo woo answer to this, but anything you can do that just keeps challenging yourself and giving you these little winds through through the struggle is huge. And that's just so so inherent to white tail hunting. I think, yeah, yeah, So what are you suggesting though, Are you suggesting finding some other way he can push himself while he's out there, or that inherently what he's doing is going to be something he's going to grow as a person, which will then lead to better deer hunting. All of the above. I mean, I don't I don't know if the dude can bring a guitar over there and keep him in the keep it in the barracks, or if it's just a matter of just reading as much as possible, or you know, stand super physically fit. You know, I don't know, there's not enough details there. It's uh, you know, it's it's kind of all up to his situation, what he's what he's going to have available to him. But anything like that that you can do to just keep the mind going beyond the day lead job. But what he's gonna do, which is super important, is just just to keep it going in the right direction and keep keep the mindset up of learning and challenges and and moving towards you know, new accomplishments. Yeah, yeah, and I like that. I think that's great idea. I would my other two ideas would be what you first mentioned, which is can learn as much as you possibly can. You know, I had a situation like this about a little over a decade ago when I took a new job where I had to live in California during hunting season, so I couldn't hunt, and I was just like working all day on the regular day job. And then I came home and I didn't socialize. I didn't go out and do stuff with people. I didn't do anything except for work on wired hunt and like study every single piece of white tail hunting content I could in the world. I mean, I read and watched and just like went in crazy over drive learning mode um and and I do think it helped me a lot. UM. I would say the thing that I wish I would have done then, and what I would suggest to t J is take your scouting to like level two thousand UM. So that's one thing that you can very tangibly set yourself up for the next year season by you know, either studying the property that you have permission on or find find fifty dynamite public land hunting spots. If you've got time to do it. Go and look at every dream state you ever consider hunting, or whatever the state is that you live in, and find every little nook and cranny it looks like there might be some potential and then zero in on not just like, Okay, this looks a good parcel. This is a good parcel, but go and hand pick like six spots that look really good on the map for you to go scout when you get back home and find another piece of property and pick the best six spots there or whatever, and you can muster up as far as time. I mean, if you can't be in the tree, you might as well be picking trees to hunt next year and picking spots just to scout next year and and no them like the back of your hand. So when you get out there, you know, Okay, this is where that saddle is gonna be. I really want to check that out. Here's where that creek crossing is, or at least what I think the creek crossing. Let's go and double check it. Let's see if there's big tracks, Let's see if there's rubs down here in this bottom, and and have that stuff lined up so when you get back home you can you've got a list of all the places you want to check out. And you're not wasting time on just randomly exploring things. You're scouting with a purpose, or if you're arriving to hunt, you're starting that hunt with a really really solid game plan. Um. I think that's one super tangible thing that could help anyone. Oh man, I agree. I think that's a great point. Is and and it's fun. I mean, you learned what the you know, the most successful deer hunters out there learned to love East scouting. And yeah, it's not it's not a total replacement for the real thing, you know. I mean, he's gonna be missing out on some stuff, but it's a it's at least in the neighborhood, and it's you know, it's fun to plan hunts. It's fun to find those spots and and and put in the work when you can't be out there, So that that's a great point. Yeah. Um, here's a couple of quick just equipment questions that we can knock out real fast. Someone asked about phone adapters for spotting scopes. Um, Tony, do you use anything like that. I use the phone scope Lollipop adapter, which is a universal adapter, so you can fit it to any size phone and put that against your spotting scope and then uh, you know, film through it or view through it. And for like long distance scouting with a scope, you know, whether that be early season from a bluff, you know, like we do sometimes on September hunts, or even in the Midwest. I've got some hilltops that can sit on and see down into fields and that helped me scout a lot. Um. It's so much easier and more comfortable to view through a phone than with your face right up to the little spotting scope eyepiece. Um. So I highly recommend it for anyone who does that kind of thing. So I use the phone scope lollipop. What about you, Tony? I I second that as well, and it you know, one one super good benefit of that too is if you take little kids out scouting, it's so much easier for them, you know, you you can make it so much more fun and it's so much simpler to get them to see what you're looking at and you're you're dialed into it's and yeah, it's just it makes the whole experience better. Sure, highly recommended, definitely. All right, Lane asks about a place that you and I got to know well, Tony, question about the wall tent we're using on the back forty? Um, So there are a lot of questions about what that tent was. So it's a tent from a company called Montana Canvas and the model was the spike tent was what that was? Um? Any thoughts on the tent, Tony? Any review? Um? After we after we got out of our own way and actually figured out how to put it up, it was pretty sweet. When we when we were first looking at the pile of poles and canvas, we were like, Uh, this thing sucks. And then we figured it out and we realized the problem was our on our end, and it was. It was a pretty solid tent man. Yeah, it did pretty darn well. And after you left, we had a mega storm come through with forty five to sixty five mile in our winds, and after were leading up to that, we tightened everything down, we added the rain fly, and after those updates it it handle everything Mother nature through Atta. So it did darn well. Yeah, that's that's a really understated important thing about tent camping. But you know, for anything, but if you if you head on a white tail trip, a good tent, a really good tent is such an asset and it's often overlooked by people who, you know, don't don't see that storm coming, or don't think it's going to be that big of a deal, or don't understand what it's like to not be able to stand up when you wake up in the morning. Like having a good tent is is huge. Yeah, big time. Here's a question from another guy named Mark and um to send control question. He says, curious, do you still use ozonics on every hunt? I do, but I can't really tell how effective is once you get to fifty plus yards down wind. I'm sure it helps, but I can see dear getting my scent sometimes even with the ozonics on fresh shower, in sent lot, clothes, etcetera, etcetera. UM. So my quick take on this is that, yes, I do still use nosonics, and I do think it helps. Sometimes I don't think it's sure thing. One. I don't think that anything I do from a send control perspective is is gonna get me through all time. Um. If I can get away with a deer not winding me two times out of every ten encounters, I look at that as a win, because ten out of ten is worse than eight out of ten. Um. And I do think that if I do more things right than wrong when it comes to send control, it could help me a little bit. And if I do, if I get a one percent improvement because I'm using clean clothes, and I get a one percent improvement in my odds because I kept my clothes outside, and if I get a one percent chance improvement because I ran my ozonics machine, that adds up to you know, three or five percent, or if I do ten things right ten whatever it is. My point being is that every little bit can help you. And my perspective has always been that there's so many things that are outside of your control when you're deer hunting, especially for a mature buck. That if there's something I can do that I can have some control over, I'm gonna do my best to do that. So unfortunate I can. I was able to get nosonics, and I know some people can't afford that, and so it's a luxury. It's a luxury that I do think helps me sometimes. UM, but I don't ever depend on it. I'm always going to play the win first and foremost. I'm always going to do all those other things right that I can. That's there's no guarantees, but but sometimes I do think it helps, and um, for that reason, I use one tony thoughts. I'm in the same boat. I gotta you know, when ozonics originally came out, I thought no way, and so I started messing around on some public land here in the Twin Cities and realizing, like, I think this has given me an advantage I didn't see coming. And so I started messing around with bird dogs because I play a lot in that space, and it was the best way for me to beat a bird dogs nose. And it really got me curious. And now you know, after you know, however, many years we've been using them, I really find that the biggest benefit to me when I'm I'm using an osonics machine is when there's that kind of lightened variable five to seven mile prour wind. You know, if it's if it's twenty miles an hour and it's blown pretty consistently, I can play that really well. But there's a lot of times you get out there where everything settles down in the evening and that winds kind of coming and going, and it's not that big of a deal for a year that's a hundred and fifty yards away, but when they get close to bow range, you're you're in trouble. And that's that's where I felt like I get a real tangible benefit from an osonics unit. Yeah. Yeah, it's uh, it's it's it's one more tool you can have in your toolbox. If if if you're fortunate to have something like that, you know, use it, but you certainly don't need to. I don't think anyone listening needs to think that, oh, I'm not gonna be able to kill a deer because I can't get one of these little thing with bober has put up at a sure you can certainly do it plenty of other ways, um, but it's helpful too. Um. How about this one a little bit general question, but it might give us some interesting ways to go. Eric asks if we have any late season archery tips. Um. The one thing I would jump on here. It's very simple, uh, not revolutionary at all, but practicing still in the late season I think is the biggest thing for me. I know in past some years I did not do a good job of that. I was great about my practice in the spring and summer and into the fall and into octoe Ober. But as soon as it gets really cold and it's not pleasant to be outside or it's a dark out in the evening when you get home from work, um, and it's not convenient to do it, it's really easy to fall off on that archery practice. And I can tell you, at least from personal experience, that if I'm not shooting my bow often my form and my accuracy drops off pretty quick. To like I needed to keep going. I need to keep my body like tuned in to be on my game. UM. So I'm constantly trying to do a better job of staying up on that, and the best way I've found to do that is to make it easy, like have it routine and make it easy. So if that means, you know, keeping a target out in a specific spot and keeping your bow hanging up near your back door, so when you walk out to go to the mudroom, you see your bow hanging up there, like, oh yeah, I gotta get my shots, and then you step outside and you shoot it right out your back door. If if there's some way you can make it less inconvenient at this time of year, that might help. Um, I would just say keep the reps coming, do it as much as you can. With clothing that's sim learned to what you're gonna be wearing out there in the field too, because it is different when you've got big puffy layers on versus a T shirt in the summer. Yeah, I would totally agree with that. And I think, you know, most people aren't going to shoot as much in December as they did in August. I mean that's just a given. But the peace of mind that comes from, you know, one three shot round before you go out and sit through the evening knowing nothing change, you know, knowing your bow is still dialed in, and you you get a little confidence boost. It's it's a big deal. You see, you can see what you're capable of. You're not sitting there going, jeez, I haven't drawn this thing back in a month and a half. I hope I didn't bump it around or have something change, but it is, you know, you you gotta you gotta make a little bit of an effort to do that. But it's a big deal. And it's also you know, when you when you consider if you haven't drawn that bow in a month or six weeks or whatever, you know, can you draw it really smoothly back to your face, nice and slow, and or do you have to sky it a little bit and throw some weight in do it? You know, if it if it's not, If that's not an issue, then it's not an issue. But if you're if you're pulling some weight that's at your upper end and you're you're out of practice for a few weeks or more, you might have to do more movement when you draw than you want to and that might cost you a deer. Yeah, And that brings up another good point, which is sometimes when you're really cold or you've been sitting out for a long period of time, it can make it harder to make those movements again too. So what I'll do oftentimes almost all the time whenever I get up into a tree all season long, but especially important this time of year, is practice drawing back in the tree at different angles. Um. So this is like a simple little exercise I try to go through every time I get set up in a new tree. I will try to visualize each different place I think a shot might happen, and then draw back and kind of play through that scenario so that I'm making sure, like, Okay, can my elbow extend all the way back without hitting something behind me? Well, my arrow clear some branches in front of me? If I turn this way, can I do that without my foot slipping off the platform? Different stuff like that. And if you do that, it prepares you for the shot. But then it also prepares your muscles just to be you know, going through that motion and do that, you know, do it in a way that's not going to happen when there's deer around you. But if you sit for three hours and cold, and you've been just frozen to the bone, and you've been maybe it's a morning hunt and it's nine am, and you're gonna stick it out for another forty five minutes or something, um, but you're frozen, Like, that's a good time to draw that ball back again and make sure you can do it so that when that deer does show up half an hour later, you don't get in that situation like you just described Tony, where you start to draw back and I can't get it back. I can't get a pull up high or do something crazy or get stuck. Like how many people have you heard about who have talked about some cold day onstand and they haven't moved for five hours or three hours and then a deer shows up and they can't get their ball back that in August it was a piece of cake and right now they're struggling. You don't want that moment, no, And you don't want any surprises when you draw, Like you said, so if you visualize where they're going to come in, where your shots are going to be, and you know you can draw, your elbow is not gonna hit anything behind you, or you're not going to run out of real estate, or the extra seven layers of clothes you have on are going to interfere. That's all stuff you want to know before before you know that deer walks into twenty yards because if you if you have anything come into the equation like that, even if you do get drawn, it's all of a sudden taking away your attention a little bit and adding another element that makes it harder to do your job. And you really want to keep it as simple as possible. So I don't I don't like any surprises when I draw my bowl. I want to I want everything to go exactly as I expected to. Yeah, definitely. Uh question here from Colin. Colin mentions that during the late season time, all you hear from people is focused on food, focus on food, focus on food. But this year where he's at, it's been unseasonably mild, temperatures in the thirties or fourties, there's no snow, and his assumptions that deer aren't feeling as much pressure to put the feedback on um. He says, have noticed that deer in my area are still very nocturnal despite the waning moon and decreasing gun pressure. So where should bow hunter's focus at this time of year when the weather doesn't necessitate the urgency to feed in the cover? Man, I mean, there's those deer are still going to browse their way through. They're still gonna go bed somewhere thick, They're they're still going to give you an option. And you know what what he mentions with the nocturnal aspect, I mean, that's that's just one of the most common things to deal with right now. I mean, especially if you're if you're gonna be a food hunter this time of year. When you look at it, you've got like nine hours of daylight and the rest is dark. It's it's easier for them to be nocturnal now than any time of year. And then you think about all the pressure that pushed them there, and so it's it's really a matter of getting in where they're going to move in daylight. And that kind of goes back to what we talked about at the beginning of this is get into the cover and figure it out, because there's there's options there beyond just on a on a field edge for a lot of people. Yeah, And I think it's it's it's tricky when you have to go and try to find that kind of thing. And I would give one other idea to think about, which is you can sometimes that cold weather and the great food source connect as a crutch a little bit, or or it's that thing that will get the deer moving when otherwise they might not. But you can also sometimes find places where the deer are going to move, regardless which which you alluded to. One of those could be like that good cover. Um. The other scenario that you might be able to seek out and find is like the sanctuary. And sometimes the sanctuary could be the best cover, but it also might be something different. It might be a neighboring property where no one is allowed to hunt, and if that's something you can find, or a little city park where no one is allowed to hunt or something. Those are the types of places where late season bucks will flock to after all that pressure, and if they find that little safe pocket, they might be much more comfortable moving in daylight once they find that safe area. So you might be able to find some non nocturnal movement, or you might be able to find that one buck that's still moving around if you can find where these little sanctuary spots are. Um, you know that that ten degree day with a foot of fresh snow is the type of thing that might pull a buck out of somewhere where he has been pressured and get him on his feet. But when you don't have that, you've got to find the spots where they already are. And um, it's probably one of those two things we discussed. Yeah, I think that it's really easy to assume there's a big time nocturnal thing going on. But also if you're it's entirely dependent on where you're sitting and what you're watching, or if you know, if you're running trail cameras this time of year, you could very easily buy into that, but it might not be the case. You know. I think that nice weather this time of year is actually more fun to hunt, and I find myself sitting longer, and I see dear doing things that I wouldn't expect them to do, and it's almost all movement in the cover. But I don't see even even really heavily pressured deer. I see them get up and move around, and sometimes you see like a nine thirty little little kind of blitz of activity where they must get up and go brows around in the cover. And there's a lot going on out there that you you really don't know about. To you go spend a lot of time in the woods, yea, Yeah, that's the truth. Now here's a flip side, Tony. If you've got the time left in the season and you haven't been able to find a buck yet, and you're sitting here thinking to yourself, Okay, I know where this good cover is, and I know there could be you know, some activity going on in there, but at the same time, the weather is lousy, the deer aren't moving a lot there in that cover right now, and I could push in there, but that's an aggressive move. And maybe there's you know, maybe there is a mature buck there. But if I push in there the wrong way, you know, I might really book your stuff up. Um, would you recommend waiting for some period of time if there is good weather coming. Let's say you've got two weekends or you've got three days of vacation. Would you burn it right away? Or would you look at the fifteen day forecast and then that does look like we're finally going to get it. It's the last two days of the season, but we're going to get it. Would you still do what you just alluded to or would you save your time and wait till you do you have those ideal conditions this time of year, I would I would check that forecast out, just just because you're probably really only working against the deer here. You're not probably considering a ton of extra hunting pressure, and so you're you're just playing the game against the deer. And if if your situation has some food, and you know it's forty degrees for the next five days, but it's going to drop down to ten on the sixth day, you know, then you can make that move. Then you can play that, you know, because you're not worried about other people going in and probably messing around with them. You know, if you're if you're hunt in public land and you think a bunch of squirrel hunters are going to go in there or something, it might be a different scenario. But if you if you have the option to wait and play the conditions and you don't think people are gonna screw that up, then yeah, that's that's definitely the road I'd go. Yeah, Yeah, I agreed. If you've got the flexibility, it certainly helps. It's certainly weather definitely can help a lot this time. If you can get on your side. It's it's not something to take for granted, Um, okay, we have to wrap it up here, but a couple quick ones. Um, let's see maybe one last quick one here, here's something that maybe would be interesting. Um. Nate asks, I've been saving a spot all year that has a wind turbine on it, a new wind turbine, and I've been waiting for them to get the equipment out of there. Do you think that that will disturb the deer too much having this new construction equipment there, um? Or should I have just been getting after regardless? Um. He says that he hasn't even gone out there to put up cameras, so he doesn't know what's going on, but he's been just kind of waiting for the disturbance to be gone. So I guess to generalize the question, would like a construction project of sorts, like a wind turbine, or like someone building the house or someone putting up some kind of pipeline through a property, will that mess up the deer movement or not? Uh? You know, again, it's a little bit situational, but my gut says no. I mean, I've just spent a lot of time hunting around wind turbines and construction here in the cities, and it's it really doesn't factor And I don't think a whole lot, you know. I mean, if it was right next to the only betting cover or something, sure, there's you know, there's a chance it could really screw you up. But I wouldn't I wouldn't be super conservative in that situation. I think that those deer are going to look at that just like they look at farming activity and and probably not see it as much of a threat. And I'd get after them. Yeah. Yeah, I think dear pretty quickly determine, you know, what's normal in a given situation what's not. And you know, that first day when the construction began, in the first couple of days, I'm like, whoa, this is not normal and I'm not into it, and they're gonna steer clear of it. But after it's been there for a month, um or whatever however long the time it's been, they're gonna eventually realize, okay, and this zone there's this kind of stuff going on, and they're gonna have to learn how to live around it, and they'll start moving again, and we'll start there'll be some kind of safety zone where they feel comfortable. But as soon as people go beyond where they usually are, then they'll become uncomfortable again. So I think that I think there probably is, you know, as you alluded to, Tony, there's gonna be a certain a certain degree of normalcy that that that starts again and that you can just start taking advantage of, and you actually might be able to use it to your advantage because all of a sudden, like they're okay with a certain amount of human scent blowing in there, and they're okay with a certain amount of ruckets going on because it's there every day and they've got to continue on with their lives. So they might not travel right into that betting air like they always used to because it's too close to something. But figure out how they adjusted and then adapt to that. Um I think, you know, you know, all of a sudden, now you might have a great place for your wind to blow into, or you might have a really good access route now that you didn't have beforehand. Um So, so just trying to figure out how they adapt and then and then roll with that would be my suggestion. Yeah, I agree, And I think the only way to find out is to hunt them and see exactly. Okay, Tony, let's do one last question here from Dominic and this is one. UM that's more just for me, but you can weigh in with any thoughts given your experience. Um. Dominic asked, when is the back forty being given away? And how are you going to deal with the emotions of lee losing a piece of land like that that you put so much work into. So I'll answer that the second part first, um, which is it is? It is bittersw in that definitely put a ton of work into it over the last two years and have seen it change and kind of begin to show so much potential. So part of me is like, man, I would just absolutely love to see what this place is going to be like in five years or ten years. And so many of the things we made or the changes we made are just just scratching the surface, Like I just barely get to get our fingers into it before you know, uh, And really with just that little bit of work, not a little, it's a lot of work, but with a short amount of time, UM, we've seen like really exciting first initial results. Um. So part of me would love to have another ten years and be able to keep grinding on it and see what it could really become. But another part of me is excited to you know, kind of let my baby go out into the world and spread their wings. And um, and and mostly that excited because I know it's going to spread its wings in a really cool way. Because we are giving the property away at the end of this year, and we just recently announced how we're doing that. UM. I don't know if I told you about this tone or not. UM, but what we decided we always said from the beginning, we're gonna give it away. UM. We you know, hadn't shared specifically how we're going to give it away, but we knew like we're not gonna hold onto this thing and have this be the mediator private hunting mecca. UM. We're going to you know, by this place, learn about it, share the experience, improve it, and then pass it on to someone or something. And what we decided to do was we wanted this to continue to be a a place and a resource for other people to learn about hunting and learn about wildlife and you know, learn about the natural world. And we've been able to use it for that the last couple of years by building content around it and by taking out all sorts of guest hunters and bringing new hunters out there and giving them those experiences, and we want that to keep happening. So we have decided to donate to give away the back forty to the National Deer Associate. So this is the organization that used to be known as the Equality Deer Management Association. It's now the National Deer Association. Um. They're the guys that came out with the Field of Fork program, one of the best programs out there for recruiting new hunters and bringing them through a mentorship program. UM. I got to be a mentor and be a part of that last year and see what they're doing. It's it's a really good stuff. They've got a really strong system in place for teaching folks how to be new hunters and pair them with mentors and give them the support they need. And so we're giving them the back forward so they have a place to run those programs, so they have a really high quality place to bring new people out to show them what's going on in a piece of lant like this, to take them out hunting and they can see a bunch of deer and get a chance at the first dear and learn how to get a deer and learn how to butcher a deer and all that stuff. UM. Talking to some other people I know, like Dan Jejo, who was the new hunter we brought out this year and he's been hunting public land and he's at a hell of a time seeing any deer at all. As a new hunter, that can be a really tough thing. And so he saw like one doll the entire season this year. And then he came out and was hunting the Back forty and you know, the first day he said, you know, I saw more deer in the last couple hours and I saw all season leading up to this, and he was so excited about that. Um. You know, having a place like that to give to be kind of fast track some of those experiences is is a pretty neat thing. And so that's what we want to happen on the back Ford and that's what we're gonna do. We're passing it on to them and UH, we're gonna continue to keep tabs on it and help out with some things out there. I'm excited about some other things will be announcing later this year early next UM, but we are going to continue sharing some of the stories from the Back forty and uh and helping it along over the future years. But that's what's happening, and you can learn more about that on the Mediator website where we describe in some more detail what we're doing with the Back forty and the last episode of the Back forty series just dropped this past weekend as well, so you can you can learn some there as well. Um, that's the plan, Tony. What do you think about that? I love it, man, I think it's I think it's awesome, and I think that I think that they don't understand how delicious those deer are that they're getting there. That's even an added bonus too. That's a good point, yea, you and I can both attest to. That's high quality venison. It's great. No, I think it's I think it's an awesome, awesome thing. You guys are doing well. Uh, it's It's been a lot of fun, and I'm glad that you could be out there too to both enjoy it and to really help us set the foundation with allow those those tree stands and box blinds we put up, Tony are are going to help a lot of new hunters of the coming year. So kudos to you man, thanks again for your help. Well, no problem, but it was a blast, all right. Well, any final thoughts were wrap this one up, just just get out there and enjoy it. It's gonna end soon and we're gonna have to wait a long time. And so just if you if you have the chance to hunt now, even if you think it's not gonna be very good, it's still it's still worth it to get out there. That's very true, highly recommended. And I always I love those last few huns when especially the last night, that last hour. You know, if it's if it's not action packed, I'm actually okay with that because I like to just sit and really just soaking everything around me and taking every every squirrel chirping on a branch next to me, or every every animal that does pass by, or looking at the moon rising or the sun setting or I know it's taking all those little things and just try to savor it. Just try to just soak every little last bid in and then then also reflect on the season um that led up to that. It's just those last hunts or something to just enjoy for what they are. So so do that, do that, and uh, until next time, Thank you for tuning in, Thanks for being here, and stay wired to hunt,

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