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 four eleven, and today in the show, I am joined by Ben Rising in Ohio, white tail bow hunting addict, and we're gonna be running him through a series of hypothetical and challenging deer hunting situations to figure out exactly what he would do. All right, Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, brought to you by on X. Today, I'm joined by Ben Rising. He's the founder and host of the White Tail Edge hunting series that you can find on YouTube, and he was also a longtime member of the Jury Outdoors team previous to that. He's one of the most well known and most consistent deer hunters in the country with a specific focus on hunting the biggest, oldest bucks, and he's doing that at a remarkable rate. So if if you're in that part of your hunting journey where you want to level up your chances that that kind of deer, Ben is definitely a guy you can learn from. And for this one I'm jumping back into the what would you Do? Series that I kicked off last year. The basic gist of that, if you miss those earlier episodes, was that I am going to pull together a series of different hypothetical deer hunting situations and run these past Men and then have him break down exactly you know, what he would do in those circumstances, how he would do it, why he would do these things, and really trying to get a different angle on how Ben thinks about deer hunting and how he would approach deer hunting, you know, issues and challenges and situations, so that maybe for us listening, we can learn a little bit more or learn in a different kind of way that becomes more actionable for us when we're actually out there in the field. So that's the game plan. It's a great conversation. I think you will be able to learn some things from Ben, and I'm excited for you to be able to listen. So, uh, you know, without further ado, I'd say, let's just get right into it. Here's my chat with Ben Rising all right now with me on the line, returning for a second appearance since I think it was two thousand fifteen. Ben, I think that's what you're saying. We got Ben Rising. Welcome back to the show. Ben, Hey, thanks for having me Mark if you were the first guy I ever did a podcast with. Man, I uh, I'm honored, and I'm I'm honored that you're back, that you were willing to come back onto the show, and uh, Man, it's a pleasure. It's it's been something that over the years, I've of course followed your hunting exploits all over the country and and you're just one of the most consistent guys out there that knows how to get the job done when it comes to deer hunting and target big mature bucks. So it's it's always something that our audience is going to be excited about. So so thank you, Ben, And I wanna I wanna propose something to you. This idea, which is something that I've done with a handful of other really consistent, really great deer hunters, which is have a conversation today that's kind of framed around a series of hypothetical scenarios. So I want to pitch a bunch of different situations at you. I'll kind of paint a picture and then I'm gonna just ask you to walk me through what you would do in that scenario if this was happening to you, What would you do, how would you think through it? Why would you do certain things? Um? And then we'll just kind of play through a bunch of different things like that and see where it takes us. But uh, that's what I'm hoping to do. Does that sound Does that sound good? Yeah? Perfect, man. It sounds like a neat twist, the same old thing all the time. You know, It's just a lot of the podcast I have listened to. It's just the same thing about scouting and everybody. You know, It's like the same things that everybody talks about. So this is just to be interesting. Yeah, that's exactly my thoughts. We gotta keep people on their toes, right, So so here's here's where I want to start. Then I want to jump right into things. Uh, no softball has been so apologies here, but I read the other day that you described hunting season as your hardest fall in years, one of your toughest years in a long long time. So I want to know if we were to fast forward to the fall of let's say it's I don't know, middle of the way through the season, let's say so maybe we'll we'll put that somewhere in November and you're in the same position again. It's mid November, and you're thinking to yourself, my gosh, this is the worst season I've had in ten fifteen years. What's going on? Why is it so tough? If you find yourself in that same position again, what would your advice be to yourself? What would you tell yourself future Ben in mid November when you're having your heartest season and years, don't pass the deer I passed. It's that easy. Yeah, well, not necessarily. But you know, I ate a tag in Illinois this year for the first time in many, many years, and that's because I passed a really good, dear, solid, big mature deer trying to hunt a bigger deer. Which but that's what I do, you know, That's what I'm about, and so I'm not mad at myself. You know, I wouldn't have been happy with the deer that if I would have shot it. It It was a great, big, mature dear. I would have been you know, I would have been happy, but I wouldn't I would have felt like I let myself down. Because I'm a challenger, you know, I challenged myself and I was trying to hunt a bigger deer that was in the area. It wasn't certaly always on my farm, but he was in the area that I could hunt. So, you know, my cameraman wanted to push me out of the tree when I passed the deer. I passed, but I thought for sure i'd get back on that deer. But long story short, all both the deer, the one I passed and the one I was after, both got killed. So that's just the way the cookie crumbles, you know. Um So that made it an altered tough for me because then I didn't have a deer to hunt in Illinois, so that I wanted to shoot, I should say, and I won't settle. I'm not gonna shoot what I call just a video buck to produce a show. I'm not gonna do that. I'm not a guy that's gonna sit there and be like, well, look at this big, mature buck and it's really a three year old that everybody knows it's a three year old, and you're just trying to make it up so you can look good. I'm not that guy. I'll eat my tag and talk about the story, show the footage of the deer we passed, and you know, build a hunt around that instead of actually harvesting an animal that I really am not gonna be happy with. And there's nothing wrong with guys shooting three and a happy year old deer if they're happy with them, you know, I mean, it's to each their own. It's just as you know, I've killed a lot of big deer in my time, so I'm not happy with a smaller buck like that. I'm past that stage and that's just what drives men big deer. I totally can relate to that, and I'm at a different level than you. But I've also found myself, you know time, you know, year after year, changing my goals and adjusting and having that same conflict internally between well, gosh, a few years ago, I would have shot that deer, or a lot of other people would have shot that deer, and they think I'm crazy. But you know, if for some reason, I feel like I'd be letting myself down by doing that, you know why, I don't need to settle just to make somebody else happier, just to make a TV show or something. So I I can relate to that for sure. But but here's my question, what just say, you know, but also there was some other factors that made the season tough. You know, I'm just it seemed like deer weren't like even in the late season, it seemed like the deer weren't going to the corn fields and different things like normal. And I talked to numerous guys that said the same thing, that the deer just didn't seem to be acting normal, like they weren't going to the food sources in the cold like typically in the past. And you know, just I don't know what it was. It didn't seem like we got the major cold cold till after season was almost out, and that could have been some of the factor. You know, we kind of had a mild fall and winter early winter. What do you do in a situation like that where the deer you're after get shot, you don't have something or you don't have conditions that are going the way you wanted them to, Like, how do you just how do you handle that? Mentally? Did you find yourself being like, Okay, I gotta totally reset and try something different, or I need to go somewhere new, or did you say no, Keep study to the course, keep doing what you know always works, and eventually things will go your way. Well, you know, so I can't trail cameras have changed hunting forever. You know what I'm saying, Um, some to the goods, some to the bad, I feel. But you know, I'm really big on using my cell cameras to help scout, especially out of state. You know, I killed a big buck early in Ohio, so that was out of the question. So any kind of hunting I needed to do, I had to drive hours, you know what I mean, And so I was really relying on my sparting cameras to kind of tell me what was cooking, you know, on my on the places that I could hunt and out of state, you know, And I had permission to hunt a place in Kentucky, and you know, maybe I should have just went and hunted, but I didn't have anything showing up on any of the cameras. You know, I had a guy helping run cameras down there, and nothing was showing up. And so the same thing going on in Illinois. I had, I think I had twenty cell cameras or being twenty different cameras running and another guy helping check cameras because you know, it's an eight hour drive for me, and we just couldn't come up with a shooter. You know. Now, I'm not gonna say that I couldn't go out there sitting to stand and possibly a big deer come walking by that I not every deer walks by your camera, but at that distance from home and taking away from work and my family, even though I am producing a show or trying to, it's not my living, you know, And so I have to weigh all those options. And I just really couldn't prime myself to go spend a bunch of seat time in the tree stand after what I would false hope. You know, I'm big about recent information giving me telling me, okay, it's time make your move, because a lot of the biggest year I've killed, I've killed him in the first first sit to the third sit, you know, right in there. And so I'm big about how having that most recent information, Yeah, that makes that makes a lot of sense. Like I get I get that focus on that most recent information and the value there, but it brings up something else that I have heard about you, which which is an interesting maybe like into the yang of what you just described where you're saying like you really focused on that very specific recent information. But I've also heard you talk about how you can look at the big picture of things. And there's a quote I think this was on so maybe share this on Instagram. You said, I'm just different, I think different and this start This is a quote I said, I'm just different. I think different. And I see the forest for the trees, reading the land and feeling it through my soul in the game I'm chasing, and I can see how they use it. And it's something that I cannot teach. So if if you had to teach someone how to see the forest for the trees the way you do, see the big picture of something the way you do, how would you how would you try or what would be the very most single important thing you would try to convey to them to help get someone to see the woods the way you do. If there was just one step that they could start taking that direction, what do you think that would be? Well, woodsmanship is huge, um, and so one thing is is is understanding animals, all animals and how animals use the lay of the land. Okay, I think that is that is the book that is laid before us that tells you, Okay, here I am. This is the canvas you have to work with or to hunt and to try to find that buck that's living in that campus, that area, how is he going to use? And the whole before I even get to the farm that I'm gonna hunt or look at or scout or never been foot on, I'm king at what I'm driving around to get to it. What's what's over here, what's on this neighbor, what's in the whole time I'm there, I'm thinking of those things like whether I saw a standing bean field a quarter mile away or corn or you know, cut off timber or water sources or it's just something that like it's like a checklist that just like in my head. It's kind of like the wheel of fortunate wheel going around stinging ing ing ing, nicking ingickickick inging. You know, those things just resonnate with me. And it's almost like when I step into a property, then I just try to, like I guess you, I say, I try to become one. I don't know if you ever watched the movie, and this is like I tried to explain it to a guy the other day because he asked me about that same post that I had made. And there's a movie out there, uh, with Will Smith and he's a caddy back and this is like a early two thousand movie. I want to I think it's called the Greatest Game Ever Played, Or no it's not. It's called The Legend of Bag or Vants. That's the movie. But you gotta watch that movie and it it shows where like the golfer that he's teaching, how the field just blurs like like he just sees it and he sees how he needs to hit the ball. Well, that's kind of how I think you need to approach when you get to a woods or a new property or something like that. You just kind of need to to really see everything. You know, how the deer will travel on it, how they will move through it, and the woods will tell you that, I mean, whether the contour, how bucks will use it, how deer will use it. And there's some simple factors you know, as far as like if you know dear at all or if you don't know here, but you know how mature dear will use areas that some deer won't use, and how those will use areas that they take over, the best betting, the best covers, the closest cal were to the foods. Horses, the box are the biggest box I found are always left thick over, you know, the artist stuff to travel from and too. And I've learned a giant deer will walk a long way to eat to feel safe when he goes to bed. You know, so what what are some other things like that? When you talk about a couple things you found about how those big old deer travel or act or live differently than than the does a few of those rules of thumb, Are there any other things that jump out other than that? Yeah, for sure. I mean so I'm a very I guess I'm kind of a controversial little bit in a sense of like, I'm not saying that anybody's wrong, but you know, I've deer hunted long enough and I've killed enough big deer that and I think my wall speaks for itself. And I'm not I say that in a humble way because I feel very pleased to be able to harvests deer that I have. But it's not come by not working hard at it. We're noticing things or you know, I don't listen to what everybody else tells. You know, I'm kind of that guy. I'll go against the grain and figured out, you know, because I taught myself out of Bola pretty much. Um. But one thing, like, you know, I read this all the time when guys are writing articles about deer hunting or scrapes or you know things where it's like they say that all bucks, big bucks will walk through the timber and they'll stay fifty fifty yards down wind of scrapes and check those and they won't go to those scrapes so that way they can keep moving. I have never seen it here, do that. I mean I've shot. I shot the biggest deer this year that I shot standing in a scrape, the black Widow's deer piece scrape. I mean, that's like, that's the whole idea of scrapes. You know. They want to be there to check it. They want to put their urine, and they want to dominate it. They want to show everybody else like you better get the heck out of my turf. Or they're also saying, hey, i'm hot, I want to breathe. If you're a dove, you know what I mean. So it's one of those things where their communications in a buck can't communicate office gram fifty yards way. You know, I've read this numerous times where guys says that you're staying fifty sixty yards down wind of you know, scrapes, and you're gonna kill the biggest buck. I think that's complete. BS. That's that's just one you know, Um, if that makes sense to you, it does. And I actually would say I've seen more of what you're describing than otherwise. Um. Yeah, what other things have you seen that would make the typical status quo deer hunter, Uh surprise? Any other things? Yeah? Well, just like public land? You know. Um, I don't hunt a lot of public land because I don't have to, you know what I'm saying, And I'm not set anybody that does, because hey, that's the hardest stuff on the planet's hunt. There's absolutely no doubt about it. Uh. But does that mean the deer on private land are any easier? Not necessarily. But I've I've gone to Iowa and I've hunted a lot of public land, and when I go to IOH, that's pretty much what I hunt. And I've killed some big deer on Iowa public and even in Ohio public that people think I've killed on private ground, but I've actually killed him on public land. But I don't want to give that up because you know, then you've got people, you know, horning in on you. But I have found that a lot of these really big deer on public ground are a lot closer where the people are than what you think. Um, you know, I think those deers that live on public have become survivors in an instance of learning how to live and adapt in that environment. And they know by being able to do that is to keep taps on of people. I mean, I've killed a couple of deer on public land. Some I've gone really deep. It's just it's a process of knowing, you know, you just gotta figure it out when you're there. A couple of big deer I've killed really deep on public and then a couple I've killed within a hundred and fifty yards of a parking space. So it's just a matter of doing your homework and kind of learning that spot. And sometimes you do got to put your time in, you know, in those areas. Like typically when I'm out of state and I'm grinding like that, I'm not killing the biggest deer within the first one or two sis. Now at home where I live, and I've got the ability to monitor those deer and cameras and know what's going on through scouting. Yes, I don't hunt, you know, until I make my move, but out of state, I grind, you know, and I'm forever scouting and you know, figuring out what those deer are doing and moving until I know, Okay, this is the pattern that makes sense. Yeah, yeah, So that's a good segue to to kind of get into a hypothetical hunting season. Then let's let's say it's the night before opening day in your home state of Ohio. What are you doing on both season? Eve, how are you doing it? And why are you doing some kind of scouting or preparation that night before or is that the night to spend with the family or what does that last few hours of the last day before hunting season look like? Well, the last few years it's been pretty uh boring because I haven't had a deer I wanted to hunt, you know, right off the rib um, which you know stink because I have killed you know, I killed a one eighty three two years back opening day, you know, But um, you know, typically if you're on a deer like that, if you've done your homework, there's not a whole lot you gotta do the night before, you know, other than maybe you want to shoot your bow and you know, you got the Willie's in your gut. But you know, one thing I noticed that people do a lot of and it just blows my mind. And I'm not saying it's completely wrong, but for me, it's it's almost like kissing your sister on the on the lips. If you're you know, if you're like going to go hunt opening morning of bow season and you're gonna go hunt your buck in the morning and you know, the first part of October or end of September, I mean, you might as well just go run through the woods with a dinner, you know, with a bell and just ring it, because I mean, I just think that's nuts. Now. I know people have killed some deer like that early, you know, but for the you know, especially guys that maybe bad a lot. I know that there's been some gear killed in the mornings like that. They may have a dear pattern that direction, but you know, typically morning early season like that, I'm not I don't even step foot in the wood still evening, you know, hunting afternoons or things like that. And then if I don't have a deer doing what I want him to do early season, I just don't hunt. And it's hard. But because I know I want to hunt, but I don't hunt, I'll go shoot those or something. Yeah. Now, now I totally understand the reason to avoid mornings and favoring evenings, and I know that argument. Uh, but there's probably some people that maybe don't. Can you explain why do you think those morning hunts are so risky early in the season, and why those evening hunts are typically a better option. Well, what I've just noticed is, you know, especially just monitoring my own trail cameras, you know, those big mature deer already back to bed, you know. There, unless you get a phase where like maybe you've got a little extra cool morning early and may be like, uh, you know, the right moon phase where the moon is falling height late, you know, and it coincides we'll say, a red moon or whatever. Well, then you know you might get a deer on his feet a little later in the morning right there. But you still got to get into those spots. And I think the intrusion factor that you're making and the scent that you're leaving around, you're just minimizing. You're maximumizing your you know, scent and everything to set that deer off, you know what. You want to keep that at a minimum. So you know, that's why it's like, Okay, I would rather take that those steps. If I'm gonna hunt early, I want to do it in the evening when I know he's getting itchy and wants to get up and get a drink, take a dump, and head to his fields, you know, or wherever he wants to eat. And you know that's I just feel you're better off to catch them them because you're not walking in bumping them out of their beds. You know, you're hunting an edge typically somewhere or staging area for I'm up betting to a food source like on an acorn flat, or you know a little patch of grass or something that's close to a thicket that they're they're walking through to get to a bean field or something. So I just feel the early morning stuff too early in the season before they really start, you know, feeling their oaths is just really telling them, hey, I'm gonna hunt you, and you know a lot of guys. I hear the story all the time being he was there early, but all year he was there and then early and then now he's gone. I don't know what's going on. I mean, I've hunted him a lot. I just never see him well while you're not seeing him beause you're hunting him a lot. Mean, I hate to say it like that. It sounds like a smarty pant because you know, we all want to hunt, you know, and I don't want to tell young guys or whatever they're like, hey, don't hunt at all, you know, don't have fun because it's all about killing big deer. But you know, maybe try to Just if you're on a big deer and you really want to kill a big deer, maybe hunt somewhere else for some dough so you can get your hunt time in and get the get the edge off, you know, somewhere else where it's not going to mess up the deer you're really trying to kill. Yeah, I've always thought that was a good way to go about it. Um. Now here's something that I always struggle with in balancing, you know, keeping pressure low while also getting enough shots at that buck Let's say it's that opening day situation again, or the first couple of days of the season, and you do have a buck you want to kill, but you don't have daylight photos or you haven't seen him moving in daylight yet. See you know he's there, but you don't have that m iri that tells you, oh, it's go time. But at the same time, it's the first day of the season or the second day of the season, and you know that every day after that there's gonna be more and more pressure on that deer from other hunters. There's the chance that things could happen. How do you think about that? Will you go in there and hunt opening day because it's opening day even if you don't have that intel that says he's daylight or how would you what would you do? No? I don't hunt at all. I mean if I don't have any daylight pictures of them, or have seen him in daylight in an area that I want to hunt, absolutely don't hunt. Because I look at it like this, like your neighbors helping, because they're they're gonna be hunt. The guys that don't take it as serious as you or I, they will be hunting and they'll be tipping that deer off, and he's slowly gonna start shrinking his core to the area that he's not being messed with, and that's gonna just tip the odds in your favorite Now, would your answer change it off? I told you that opening day or the second day the season, there was a big cold front hidden. Mm hmm. Not necessary. I mean, it would have to be. Things would have to be really right, I guess. But because I've I'm you know, I'm not a giant being of cold fronts. You know, everybody says, man, I got a cold front coming, I'm gonna get out there, and I've heard it so many times, like, man, I just didn't see the deer movement. I thought I would see. Well, I honestly believe that sometimes in the early season, when you get too much of a cold front, it kind of shocks the deer to a cent. Now, there's times in October when you get a nice cool front moving through that really drops the temperature twenty degrees. If you're sitting on a food source like a food plot or a bean field or something that you can get in and out of with great access, absolutely hunted, you know what I mean? Because anything can happen, and I've seen it happen and you might get pictures those nights if you weren't hunting, but you don't want to hunt those spots and it not happened if you don't have an access an egress strategy to get out of there, you know what I'm saying, Like, that's the biggest thing. You start tipping those deer off on the way out. Maybe once you can get away with it, but if you keep trying it and it's not working, it's gonna get tougher. So I'd say, yeah, you can do it, but make sure that and it does work well in those early octobers, you know, because in October can turn into a October real quick if you get the right weather patterns. Um. But I do believe that you need to know that the deer is there, that he's close to where you want him to be, and that he might use that scluted food plot or the edge of that field or something you know, and you can get out of there if he doesn't show, so you're not tipping him off in the dark. All right. Now, what about the reverse situation? What if you did have a daylight sighting of him or daylight trail camera of him maybe two three days before opening day, but it was it was cool, it was pretty nice conditions when he was moving in daylight then. But now opening day arrives and it's hot, and maybe it's just it's just hot and humid. It's just a nastiest kind of day that you don't typically think at least maybe maybe I'm wrong on this, but I would not think as a great deer hunting day it's seventy eight and humid. Um would you go and hunt that subpar weather day because you saw him moving two days or three days before end? Or would you say Nope, it's different conditions now, I'm not going to risk it. Yeah, probably not, because, Dear, this is one thing I've noticed, Dear feel a lot like people do. I mean, I just feel that way, like you know the days that I look out that window, or the way the weather feels other than the rut I think, Dear, there our internal systems almost feel a lot of like I think, as far as you know that whole, just like man, this is a gloomy, low pressure day, it's early season, or it's blazing hot and I'm just gonna lay in this shady creek bottom until nightfall, you know what I mean. So I guess I just don't see the point and having to risk risk those things when you know he's gonna be on his feet sooner or later at the right times. Okay, Let's let's say you do go hunting. Let's say the conditions look good, and you had some kind of recent information that this buck was out there and moving in daylight. It's September, maybe the Ohio seasons open, and you went in there, and you set up on a great evening location. You're close to some kind of food source, you know where this buck's probably betted or you've got a decent hunch on what you think he's gonna do, and you feel like it's a killing night. You're set up, and then you hear a noise. You look to your right and on the other side of the neighboring property, so across the property line, maybe let's say a hundred yards away from you. You happen to be within sight of a property line, and you see another hunter coming in on his side of the line, making noise blow and sent all over and he then walks out of sight. Do you stick it out in that location or or do you pull the plug and just bail and try to minimize the damage or try to find a different spot. Uh, that can be a tough one. I mean, you know, if the deer is fedded close by to you, you and you're hunting close to his bed, and that guy come through there, and you're pretty positive that the deer while in his bed probably heard that fella or the commotion or it might have set him off, then yeah, I would probably fail. But if the deer is farther back where you think they're coming from, you know, on this travel route, because obviously you're hunting a travel route, or you wouldn't be sitting there where you think this deer is gonna come through an early season in daylight, So you gotta be hunting somewhere where you feel confident um that he that's the kid. You just have to make that determination whether you know, if he's too close, and why waste your time to get out of there and let things settle down for a while. Try it again. Would your answer be any different if we change the date and said it was November. Absolutely, Because one when you just start getting bucks feeling their oats and you know, they started hitting their scrapes in daylight, especially in the mornings, like when you start getting bucks working scrapes and they're hitting those scrapes on the way back to bed and late October those are magical times too. Hunt. I've killed three booners on October. Now that ought to tell you something. I mean October, and I've killed two of them in the mornings on October. So in both scenarios have always been when those bucks are at that point where they're cruising their territory a little bit at night, they're going back to bed later, they're marking their scrapes, they're letting all the other bucks know that they're there, and they're starting to put shop the subordinate bucks because they're locking down there major breeding area and they're the dominant buck right in that corp. So when you get that situation going on, it's time it's time to make moves on the deer like that. You know, it's time to be in the stand because you're gonna see them. Um, So that's when weather can really help. Yeah. But basically, if I'm reading you're right, you're saying, once you're in that pre rut to rut, time frame late October into November. You don't care that the other guy came through, like you're saying it's all right, Yeah, I mean I I guess the thing is is you're going to get away with a lot more at that point because deer kind of getting a little bit, you know what I mean, they're starting to lose a little bit of especially when they're full blown lockdown run you know, when they're in that November phase. Were there in that trance. There's not a whole lot that's bother knows it here, you know, So that last week of October time frame, Yeah, they're still on their on alert pretty good. But they're doing their thing and their romans. But they're not going to be easy. But I do think you're gonna get away with more towards the runter. They see all they care about is eating, you know, when they start thinking about the breeding phase in the hot doughs and where they're they really left their guard down, just like males do. Yeah, yeah, I have to make a few more mistakes. Uh yeah, going to that bar sounds good. One more drink, one more drink. Um. Alright, what about this, It's it's a tricky scenario that a lot of guys and girls have to deal with in certain parts of the country. And I know certain parts of Ohio are like this. I think you've you've dealt with some of this, and that is hunting in areas of big timber. Um when you're in stretches that have a lot of hardwood timber, a lot of oaks. Let's let's say hypothetically that again we're talking October still um and for whatever reason, you're stuck hunting one chunk of land, and this chunk of land doesn't have big egg fields, doesn't have food plots, it's mostly timber. How do you go about picking out your focus areas in a situation like that? How do you isolate a few key spots when it isn't as simplest saying, well, obviously the great big cut corn fields right here, and all the deer want to head towards that. What would your approach be if I dropped you on a new piece of big timber like that. Well, so one thing I look for is bogged off areas, anything that's, you know, maybe had some clear cutting done or some recent logging activity in the past year or two, because there's gonna be a lot out of food right there. Um, that's gonna be one of your major food sources. So those edges, those transition zones between bogged off areas and bigger open hardwoods is major, uh place to find gear sign um great place, great places to figure out what the deer doing, and you're gonna start seeing their scat manure, you know, things like that buck sign, rubs, anything that you know they're doing, you're gonna start seeing it in those areas that they're spending some time. And another thing is a water source, because if those deer in that big giant timber, you know, they've got to still drink and so kate some springs or you know, is there a creek. Where's the creek that they're gonna be going to eat out if they're betting up on these hills or in this clear cut. You know, try to just pinpoint things that can start narrowing down the puzzle. Where's the oak flats that the acorns are falling on this here or are none falling? And do you need to look for you know, a different food source such as the brows and you know, different kinds of shrubs and things like that, that they might be feeding on you know this, uh, little berry patches, anything, apple trees. So yeah, again it's just a different you kind of take that whole. Say you're looking at a five acre block and that's all you got to hunt, which you know, we deal with a lot of that in Ohio. Well, those are the scenarios that you just start looking for and you start tearing them down, you know, and I think eventually walking to them kind of spots and looking at them will lead you to some sightings or some pictures or you know, some success pretty you know, sooner than later if you were in that situation, would you hunt more days? In a situation like that where it's not quite as easy to or at least if it's a new property and it's not as easy to already pinpoint like exactly where you think these kill spots are and you're kind of prospecting still and in that kind of situation, would a quantity approach there? Absolutely? Because like you know, if you're talking a lot about like the guy traveling, you know, and he doesn't live there or you know, things like that, he doesn't have a chance to run trail cameras and figure that you've got to hunt. I mean, like when I'm hunting out of Stay, I hunt every day no matter what I mean, because I got to maximize my stand time. But I try to be smart about the winds and where I'm hunting and where I think those deer might be doing. If I haven't seen them already, what could they be doing that I'm not seeing them? And you know, there's nothing more frustrating, though than getting nighttime pictures of those dear and knowing that they are there, and then you can't lay eyes on him at the daytime because sometimes they're just nocturnal, you know, to a degree, until they're just complete to be ready. I mean, I got a farm that I call it the night Walker farm because I feel like those tear just do not move in the daylight until it's rout, I mean like almost full blown rout. Then they start, you know, and then they'll be on their feet pretty much the rest of the season. A little bit. You can catch them in daylight, but man, that early time that farm is just brutal. What do you do if that happens while you're there? So you've got your weak time period and for whatever reason, it seems like they're still on that night walking kind of pattern. Do you just wait it out in hope, or do you change your tactics at though, go to the local gas station and pay four kids and push it out? And he said it the telegram. I mean, I, I honestly can't give you that answer because I don't think there's anything you can do other than like bumping them up out of their beds, you know, getting in there and stir them up, you know, and trying to has them coming back. I've never been a big fan of hunting that way. I know some guys do, and it works. Um. I'm not saying that it don't work, because I know it works, But I do believe that there's a time where you could do something like that, maybe stir some things up, But you're also taking that chance that if you're not successful and that's the only farm you got to hunt for five days, you could really be shooting yourself in the foot too, you know. So I think in my mind that's kind of like a just the way that I hunt. That's like my last resort ditch effort is trying to pull the dupe on a buck pipe off of them out. You know. I'd rather try. I try to plan my hunt's more based upon the timing of the year when I leave out of state for recent information, saying that it's early season. But I got this buck coming to a food source all the time, or use it this water hole or this creek crossing daily, you know. Then yeah, I mean I'll make my move. You know, I used to be we used to have to use trap catchers to make that stuff. Take a break to the woods, break out a trail and just figure out what trails because we didn't have cameras when I was younger, you know what I mean, just to tie strings across the trails and you know, not time tight, but when the tier would come through the trails, they break the string with their chests and set the timer off on those trail timers. And I tell you, okay, like eight thirty five, something walked down the trail, had no idea what it was, you know, the good old days right there? Man? Yeah, is there anything you know? Trail cameras are pretty I mean, they're standard fair for almost everyone these days, and you've been using them for years and years and years now, But is there anything substantially different with how you use them today? Than maybe five years ago. Have you had any kind of like ah ha moments that have really changed things there or is it do you kind of have your tried and true method just stick with up? Well, um, you know, one thing I've definitely learned is like, especially if you're just using regular card cameras that you know, aren't relaying pictures to your phone app or something. You know. I used to I just couldn't resist, man, I'd have to go check that camera, you know. And I'm going back to the days and when you had thirty five million meter film and you can only get thirty five pictures on the role, you know, and you take it to the drug store and just couldn't wait to get your film back and you just wasting all that money. But you know, even then, I would check my cameras too often. And so I've learned to be a lot more patient in those areas where I have cameras like that, especially and I and I mean this more or less than the off, don't just don't be going in there all the time, you know. And that's where cell cams, you know, some people are like, well, I can't afford a spark camera in my personal opinion. You can't afford not to have one, you know, because of the time that they save you, the amount of gas they save you for running around looking at you know, checking your cameras and all that stuff, and the information that they can relay. You can save you so much time and effort and intrusion on a deer, you know. And let's not kid ourselves this day and age, there's not less hunters, you know, at least not in my area. You know, I've watched my area completely changed in the last ten years. I mean, everybody and their brother is sitting on a corn pile on twenty or forty acres with a box line, you know, and a crossbow hanging out the window. And I mean it's just it's brutal. Wan You you've got to know what your deer doing. Yeah, how do you how do you adjust to that? What have you had to do differently now than you did ten years ago to account for all that new pressure around you? Well, again, I've got to know what my dear doing. But I don't hunt as much. I mean I hunted one time in Ohio this year. I killed my box the first night I hunted him, and I didn't sit him till October six, fourteenth of me wait season was in two and a half weeks before I even sat. But I killed him the first night. And what made you sit that night? Why was that the night that you decided to finally strike? Because he had hit his So I put some black widow mock scrapes in that area of his betting, and I knew that he was I knew the pressure was going to put him in that farm, and that's what it did. I knew that I knew he was getting pounded on the neighbors both sides of me, and and he was I mean, and uh, just nothing against how they hunted, just that they wanted to hunt, you know what I mean? And I get it. But that's how I killed that deer because it actually benefited me to the point that I could back off of him and just be patient because I knew he was old enough and he knew the deal, and I knew everybody else was baiting a snot out of him, and he'd used their bait. But he wasn't a deer that went to bait a lot to daylight, and so I just kind of had him on them scrapes and the second, I knew he was feeling just a little bit too comfortable hitting scrapes going back in the morning and then in the evening a little bit before he could do his thing. I was like, I got you. And on the thirteenth I had him standing on that scrape, showed him on the fourteenth of his name scrape and that was daylight showed up. Yeah, so man, And that was a card camera because we're that I couldn't get service right there, because it was such a deep bottom that I couldn't get self service on cellf cam there. So I literally had to use a regular spartan camera that just you know, took pictures and uh, I had to go in on feet to check that. But I was waiting. You know, he actually been on that camera day like two days before that. Even um so, I knew he was right. I'm like, he's so comfortable right now. And I had already hung the stand for this whole situation. I had done that, you know, in September, and um so I was ready for me. So all I had to do was slide in and hunt. It was risky walking in because you know, it's two hillsides looking down at you. Um and the thermals were a little bit tough, but I knew I had to try it. And you know, I'm pretty big about my sand control and using the phase system for pollution and all that, and and along with some black woodow deerp as a cover sent spraying it in the air every so often. And I literally had doze bedding down window me on the sell side, and I you know, they started to come down the hill. They busted me for a split second. Then I started spraying the urine in the air again because even what even before they couldn't quite tell what I was. But I've really found that mixture of illusion system, space and the deer urn together I can almost beat any geer. Now. It's pretty incredible. And it's on film. I mean I literally show you these here laying down. And then a little while later that block comes out of his betting area and pushes some dose around. He's just it's in a staging area. He pushes some dose around and then he finally I grought to him a little bit because he was grunting in some dose. So all I did was to him two times, made it act like I was messing with the dough back there because there was some younger bucks around, And I mean he instantly just turned and grunted. Crape got mad, He started working up his scrape, jumped up in the air on his hind legs, breaking the tree. As soon as he came down, I slammed him. Yeah. I love it when it works out that way. Yeah. Yeah, But I'm just saying, you know, those are scenarios that you know, people just have to learn too to be patient, you know, And I hunt hunt smarter, not harder, you know, in in pressured areas. You know, That's what I've had to learn to adapt to in Ohio with so much hunting pressure around. Now. Yeah, now you kind of alluded to this earlier, um that some of these things change a little bit when you get into the rut. These deer will deal with pressure a little bit differently. They're a little distracted thinking about other stuff. So I want to I want to get into a few rut related issues or questions, but I first want to understand your process of just preparing to hunt for the rust. So imagine it's I don't remember, one, you're off on your rut trip somewhere, or maybe you're hunting local, but whatever, it's November, the ruts on the alarm clock goes off in the morning. What does your pre hunt morning routine look like? This is a weird question, but like what are you when are you getting up? What do you do before heading out to hunt? What are the things you're thinking about? What are the things you're making sure you don't forget to pack? What are the nitty gritty details of of everything you do leading up to that all day sit or that whatever the big hunt is you have for the day? Um, what's that look like for you? Well? You know, I mean obviously, if we're hunting rut in the mornings, you know, we're getting up a good you know, good hour and a half before it's time to be where we want to be, you know, and if we've got drive time, it could be more. But if we're on the farm or close to it, you know, I want to be in there a good twenty minutes before daylight at least. And then there's spots at times that I'll walk in in the daylight, like because I want to be able to see the field. If I got across an open field, I want to be able to see instead of just blowing across it. Um, but I always make sure that I've got my dear yarn that I used as a cover spray. I've got the Phase phone, which is my face every thinking thing in the world when it comes to an ascent elimination product or a scent cover, you know, to help you minimize scent. And I'm not trying to sound like a plug here for my sponsors, but we truly believe in these products. We've proven to them, proving it over and over again on film that these products work. And this has become like my ritual now. And you know, obviously having your clothes as clean as you can keep them, whether they're hung outside or in a scent scent free toads whatever you want to do. That's to each his own. But I typically just hang mine out if I can in an area where they're not going to get soaking, wet or frosted or whatever. But um, you know, boots clean things like that. Just trying to be as minimal as you can. Packing my you know, black rack, a grunt call, things like that. You've got to have those kind of things in the rut because you never know. Many times I've set up where I thought I needed be, and the deer might be chasing a doll or cruising, and he might be because when the rut comes out, you don't know what they're gonna do. They may be seventy five yards away and would have been coming there, but might have got distracted because he got a whiffus something. Well, if you've got your rattling antlers or your grunt call, you still might be able to get him turned and have him come your way. So you gotta make sure you have that kind of stuff, um, you know, making sure your bows and shooting shape. I always checked my strings and all that before I walked to the woods, making sure I don't, you know. And I carry two releases because we've all left our release somewhere and walk up stand and got son. You know, yeah, we've all done it. And so I carry two releases now in my pocket. And I'm I'm a fan of cover releases, that's what I shoot. So I always got two in my bag, you know. Um, that's just about it, you know. I mean, I don't know that I do anything crazy special. I just you know, try to be prepared for what I think I might need that day. You know. Definitely, first thing I'm doing looking at weather and wind, you know, because making sure things don't change on me. I look at the hour by hour. I want to know what that pressure is that day, if it's high pressure, low pressure, you know what time is the wind switching? Because I'm already playing for the evening son if the morning hunt doesn't work out, you know, so I try to adapt and just be like a chameleon and be very versatile and knowing what's going to be coming. Yeah, when do you typically make your decision of where you're gonna hunt the next morning? Is that like the night before you have a plan and then you just double check the weather in the morning, or are you kind of a last minute, gut decision once it's just before time to walk in, Like what's that process look for you? Look for you? Well, mostly it's it's kind of it's always wind oriented location of deer that I'm after. You know, what has he been doing and what do I think he's gonna do? You know, um or what has the most recent information told me that he's done type of things. So those factors all come into play. Very seldom do I just blind hunt, you know, like I'm just gonna go sit this stand and hope for the best. You know. I don't typically do that now. I will at times when I'm out of state, you know, because sometimes you just have to um. But usually if I'm doing that, I'm sitting on an edge somewhere trying to scout, but I'm also hunting at the same time. That makes sense. I'm just kind of observing and seeing if I can pick something up that may be a big factor, you know, that might really help me, you know, put the put the pin in one. So That's happened a lot, you know. When I go out of state a lot, especially on new ground, I like to observe. I'll hang an observant a stand and observing position where I do believe if I can get a shot at a deer also or call to one. But I'm also not just blowing in there and blowing the farm up right off the bat. I want to be able to see what's going on. I was gonna ask you about that that first day of an out of state hunt during the rut, and and you maybe just answered it. But I'll just ask a little more specifically. On day one of that seven day rut hunt or whatever, let's say you haven't been there yet that fall. Does day one a scouting day or is it? You know, first thing in the morning, you're hunting in a prime spot. You know what does that very first day breakdown look like? Well, so for me, I'm gonna base even that on like sake, cameras that I may not have in that general area. But like, if it's just pretty much across the Midwest and social media staying the deer rolling, I'm gonna hunt, you know, and I'll go to a good, fun, old good spot in between, and I'm gonna hunt all day if we can get away with it. You know, you just gotta put your time in in those instances. You know. There's a hot we did back in two thousand. Uh it was called scrape Master, And I hunted that deer six six or seven days before we killed him. Um, but I came to the realization that he wasn't even on the farm for like the first six days, you know, he just wasn't there. He had been there, and then he disappeared, he went somewhere, and then he came back and I killed him. So but if I wouldn't have been hunting, I wouldn't have known he came back because I killed him the day that he came back pretty much, um, you know. But during the rut, I mean, you gotta put the pressure on because that's the most magical time of year. That's when they're moving and you may run into a deer that you've never even known existed. Just because you didn't have pictures of him at that time of the year doesn't mean that a buck from two miles away not might not be coming through that timber, you know, and going gonna go through that pinch that you're hunting. Yeah, I think if I were to oversimplify the types of places people hunting during the rut, you could put him into one of two oversimplified categories. You could say, people are there gonna hunt some kind of pinch point, or they're gonna hunt around some kind of dope betting you're feeding are like a dope hot spot. Let's just to keep it really, really simple. If I had to force you to pick one of the two, you had to spend your whole rut vacation on one of those two. You can't have both. You gotta pick one. Which would you pick? And why would that be your preference? I'm gonna hunt, I'll pick dope betting areas are great, but I would rather pick a good known travel route funnel because I feel I'll maximize the amount of different bucks I'll see, and typically in the funnel situations, I can get into them and out of them. The way I set them up to hunt a multiple multiple times that it's not tipping the deer off to where if you're hunting a dope betting area and you got all of them hobag's noses around, then you're gonna start tipping them off and they may switch up what they're doing too, or they're gonna be busting your butt all the time, winding you're blowing, driving you crazy, and it could just ruin your whole hunt. Yeah, it does. You said, the way you set these spots up in these pinch points, is there anything like what do you mean by that? What uniquely do you do when you're setting up on a travel funnel like this that makes it work so well? Well? I just I I gotta have the right way to get into them, you know, I really planned that out. Whether it's a ravine, a ditch, a creek, you know, I look for those funnels. There may be five funnels on a farm, but I'm gonna hunt the one that has the best access for me to get in and out of it. That's the one I'm gonna pick, and that's where I'm gonna spend my time. I'm not saying I won't hunt the other ones, but I like to really not, especially if I've got to be on that farm and that's the only place I can hunt for a while. I really try to really not let those deer know that I'm hunting them. Yeah, Now here's a tricky thing with with some funnel spots like this is and I know trail cameras could solve the problem here. So let's let's say for some reason we're not getting trail camera data. That's gonna push us one way or another. But here's a challenge. Sometimes when you're hunting a spot like this where you know that a buck should travel through this funnel eventually but he hasn't yet, Like, how much time will you give a spot like this that just screams a rut travel quarter But you hunt all day on day one and there's nothing, And then you say, well, you know it's been day one, but I know if I spend enough time here, he'll come through. And so you go out there the next day and you know you didn't spook anything, so you hunted again. Uh, and then he still doesn't show up. Will you? Will you go a second day, a third day in a spot that just looks so great? Or do you say Nope, I gotta change it up. That's gonna depend on what else I'm seeing, you know what I'm saying. If I'm not seeing any deer, then no, I'm not gonna keep doing it. If I'm seeing dear moving those bucks and things like that, then I still know it's only a matter of time. He's probably with the dough and he's gonna break free eventually, and he's gonna be coming through those spots Like I try to find those travel pitch points that that lay between dope, petty curious. Those are my key, That's what I love to find. Yeah, yeah, that's ideal. So that way I can maximize, you know, the activity of how many places they're trying to cruise through this day. Yeah. Let's let's say you're in a spot like that. You you found this dynamite funnel. You know it works out well for your access in your exit you know that there have been deer coming through here. It's just a matter of time until that right buck does. You're sitting out there, it's November three, four or five, something like that. End the big buck year after steps out. But he gets down, when do you? And he smells you and he just he doesn't high tail it out, but he smells it and he's like, nope, he's gone. Do you immediately moved to a totally different place? Do you stay right where you're at? Do you adjust a little bit? What do you do in that situation? Well, if he was with a hot dough, you might be able to tweak it or stick it out, because if she comes if she didn't get you, chances are she's gonna come back through there and don't forget about it. But if if his mind wasn't on a dough and he's still got you like that, chances are he's gonna be done right there for a little bit, in my opinion, because a good chance next time he comes through there, he's gonna go around stiffing and trying to find your tracks and what you're doing. You know, Yeah, that's that's my take on that. You know, one thing I tell people to do if they want to learn something about a really big deer, or dear in general, just any deer. Can you go into hanging tree sty and take an extra camera with you hanging on the spot you're just hunting that tree stand. When you walk out, you'll be surprised at what follows your trail to that tree stand. H I think they they they're gonna scope off that sent Huh. Well, I'm not saying that they know what exactly it is. I'm just saying it's it's interesting to see how dear de're curious, not necessarily saying that deer smart enough to be like, oh, I'm gonna go sniff out and find this ladder, and I know this is what Ben's Honey. It's just they know somebody was in their area, you know what I mean, and they're they're searching it out. They want to know what was going on. You know. It's just like if you're not a smoker and you're sitting and you're you know, you come home, you walk in your house, you smell a little bit of smoke or a cigarette, but you see a cigarette butt lane somewhere, you know something's up. You know that's that's how dear are you know? They're the same way. You can't enter their world and them not know it very often, So so what's the buffer? Then? If if this happened, you're out there, he wins you, uh, he moves off into the direction, and you think to yourself, Okay, I need to adjust because he's he's not with a deal right now, he's he's kind of onto me. How much of an adjustment do you think you need to make to still to be in the game, because this is a great spot you so you still think, like, man, they want to come through here. But he smelled me. Is he gonna Are you gonna totally just cross that whole funnel off? Or will you make like an eight yard adjustment and hope that he'll still come through but skirt where you were? Yeah, I mean he could still be using it. I mean honestly, I mean he might come right back through there in the next morning, like like it was nothing. You just don't know for sure, But I'm not gonna be especially if they see you or they're like almost pin pin point you. I think you need to switch it up at least thirty forty yards, you know what I'm saying, uh, but I think it depends on really how bugger they got, you know. I mean if he just kind of tucked his tail got out of there and he just wasn't sure. I mean, he could just think, you know, it's a neighbor fixing a fence or something. You know, he just got to whip up a human. But if he comes back through there again and get you the same spot again, yeah you're done. You know you need to just graph it for a little bit and then try to pick him up somewhere else. Think about where he was at it or going to try to pick him up there. Okay, So here's a different kind of curveball to that kind of day. You're out there and you see the buck you're after, but he's locked on a doe and he follows that dough off away from you, and you know that. Let's say it's in the afternoon and he's heading towards the gentles action of a food source. So in your head you're thinking, man, it's it's really unlikely that he's going to leave that dough and come back to where I am. But there's still two hours of daylight left or something like that, and you're only after this one buck. Do you just say, at well, that's my evening and I'm gonna sit it out just in case, but I'm not gonna do anything. Or will you get aggressive and say all right, I'm gonna try to loop way around and get ahead of him, or do you do you do anything in that case? What? What do you do? Well? I guess it just depends on you know, how locked on he might be with that dough or you know, if he if he's in full in love mode and just glued to her, chances are he's not coming back through there unless she doesn't, you know what I mean. And there's a real good chance she's not even going to go to an open area when she's feeling that way, you know, because she doesn't want to get her asked by a bunch of other bucks either. And so typically when those deer in that in that mood, they're not getting out of the timber a whole lot. You know they're gonna be So unless you know where there's another good betting area, an area that maybe you can pick them up. You know, I'm not saying you might as well just finish out the hunt and just see how it goes, you know what I mean, because you're already there, You've already walked in later sent you might as well just hunted out and maybe she'll come back through or type type thing. You know what I mean. It he'll follow, or maybe they'll be done and he'll come back through looking for another dough that he was that he saw earlier in the day. What does that mean for your future? For like the next day. So when you see a buck that really seems to be locked on to that dough, I know, and historically for me, oftentimes I've seen these deer wolf really kind of shrink the area they travel, and I've always thought to myself that I've got a day or two window where that buck is going to be right in this little zone. And I do things differently when I see something like that, versus when I see a buck just cruising around. Um, what would you do in that case where Okay, he moved off, he's very locked on. Maybe you you saw him breed her maybe and then they just walked off. What's the next day look like for you? I'm gonna be right there again, because if I saw him there once, you're going to see him there again. Most likely yep, same stand Or would you adjust fifty yards based off what they did or something like that. No, I mean usually I would hunt the same stand. I mean, I you know, unless the wind's gonna be sketchy, you know, then you need to make an adjustment. You can, but that same general area. There's a reason they were there the first time you see him. That's why they were going through there. So trust your gut. He's gonna do it again, or she's gonna do it again and he's gonna follow, or again he's gonna lose her and feedback through. I mean, I'm I'm okay with hunting those kind of spots multiple times, you know, because I do believe that's if you know, it's the right spot. Those are the place, you know. Yeah. One more locked on a dough situation. Is there ever a situation where you would try to call a buck off of a dough or yeah? I mean, do you think it's realistic at all? The call a buck off a dough that he seems to be locked on. Well, I'll always test them, you know what I mean. I'll throw him a call or two and just see how they feel and how they react to it and how they react will tell me, okay, just don't push it, or okay, maybe I can get a little more aggressive. Because last year in Kansas, I called one off a dough um. A few years ago I killed a two fifteen was, you know, with the dough. But he was with the dough of the morning before I grunted at him. He's like his tail let me knew he heard, but he didn't bristle. He didn't even slow down. He just kind of kept walking her and smelling her. I grunted one more time. He didn't even react. You just kind of flared, and I was like, you know what, I'm just gonna I'm gonna make it. I'm gonna push him. So I left him alone. I killed him the next evening in the next morning, so um in the same general area, but I had to move a stand. We moved at the middle of the day and moved it like forty yards and I killed him on basically the same same general area, about forty yards from where I've seen him the day before. And killed him in the morning without it though, and I caught him. I got him to come in by tickling, you know, the antlers, And he was two fifteen the five inches broken off. So what specific what's the specific body language you would need to see to make you say, Okay, I'm gonna get aggressive and keep calling, versus oh no, I gotta layoff. This isn't the right time. Well, so like the hunt it's on white Tail Edge and um season five where I'm in Kansas, this but comes in with a dough to a betting area. Yeah, I grunt a couple of times at him, and he snort weez is instantly and just flares up like haul Hogan, and I knew right then. I'm like, okay, he's he's mad and he's piste off, so I can I can work this buck. And we didn't. We didn't get him to come marching right to the tree, but he gave me a forty five yard shot through a window, and you know, I was able to pin wheel him. So it's one of those deals where like if he wouldn't have reacted at all, then I probably wouldn't have kept calling. But I got super aggressive with him and I snort weez back. I grunted hard couple of times and kept after it, and that dough actually started to come towards us and he followed, and then he was snort wheezing at the same time. And then he didn't want to lose her, so he kept up, and he thought he was going to get into a fight. You know. He was basically bracing himself to come around those theaters and run into another deer. He ran into something. Yeah, So, I mean, it's just telling. It's just telling their language, you know, being able to read a deer when to back off, you know, when to let it go. Yep, yep. They wag their tail. If if you call to them and they wagged their tail, they've heard you, you know what I mean, they know you're there. And then it's just it's just kind of like a turkey. You just keep feeling them out. You need to yelp a little more. Does the gobble or not? Or do you need to heat him up? Or do you need to just back off? You know, like a turkey that's goblin. Every time you call, I lay the pipe to him, buddy, I just keep you know, and get him to come, because it just excites them so much that they just like explode and they come running to where if one's not answering you every time you call, those are the birds that you typically you just let him know you're there every so often, and eventually he's just gonna sneak in. Yeah, there's a certain it's it really takes some time to kind of learn what that right balance is, when to push it, when not too, how to read the deer. It's that's an interesting thing. Yeah, No, it is, and I mean it's and it's all just a matter of getting out there and trying it. You know, you're gonna make mistakes. And that's how I learned. You know, I learned by watching deer runaway go Oh he didn't like that. Yeah, those lessons stick. Yeah, I learned it on a really big one once, so, you know, and that probably the biggest deer I would ever killed my life. I learned it and I was, you know, like two thousand four and I was hunt in Illinois and I'm pretty sure this deer was two forties and I I just called too much to it, you know, I got two jacked up on it. And here I thought he wasn't going to come at all. Well, all I did was just set him off to make him look for me, and he came in down when and by the time I realized he was there. He was twenty five yards behind the tree. He snuck in so quiet, trying to sniff me. And I turned around and there he was. Yeah, in fact, I didn't even know he was there until I stood up to look at my camera guy and just complain one more time. I felt that I messed it up, and here he was right behind us and we didn't even know it. This was an hour later. This was an hour after I had what I thought scooped him, and here he came looking for us to bust us. So what's what's the lesson learned there? Like, what was the thing that you thought to yourself afterwards? Ope, I'm I'm never gonna do that again, or I will definitely do this the other thing again. Well, one is, I don't ever think just because you called that they're not going to come. Always be looking down wind. Now, I really try to set up in spots if I know that it might be a calling situation where a deer has really got to expose himself or really can't get down wind of me without me seeing him, you know, but he can't sneak in the back door, you know, on me. Yeah, like having a pond or creek bottom on their down wind side or opening. Yeah, anything, just something to make it harder for him to get down wind of view without you know, when he's doing it, you know. Yeah, alright, Ben, We Unfortunately we've got to do a slightly shorter chat today that I sometimes like to do, and I'm really enjoying this, so I hate that we have to do this, but I want to get into one last section here where I want to just run you through five or six quick kind of rapid fire questions. So just like a one word answer if you can, and we'll bounce through these really quick and uh and then we'll wrap it up. So are you ready to do that? Yeah? All right? Does the moon matter to dear movement? And would you like put your life on it or would you put a season of hunting on it? Yes or no? Yes? Would you take a fifty yards shot at a white tail with your bow? Yes or no? Yes? If you could only have one of these for the rest of your hunting life, which would it be a set of rattling antlers or grunt tube rattling antlers. That's a tough one, huh, yeah, expandable or fixed blade broadheads, expandable. Should you stop a buck with some kind of sound before shooting with the bow? Yes, what would you rather hunt over if you had to choose only one of these options? A rub line or a scrape? Scrape? All right, And here's the last one. It's not so much a rapid fire question, but it's a little bit of a wonky one. Let's say that I am the president of the United States or something like that, and I have control over your hunting privileges, and I'm going to say that you cannot hunt for the next ten years unless unless you kill a five and a half year old buck this year. So you have to kill a five year old half year old buck this year. I'm only going to give you one day to do it, and only one tree to do it in. Which day of the year would you pick and describe to me that perfect tree to kill this very high stakes buck. Mm hmm, only one day of the year? Huh, Well, then that's gonna be. I would have to go late season on a very used food source on one of the coldest days of the year, with a tree that is tucked in just enough on their way to the field or to the food source, whether whatever it be that I can find a meating on in those cold days, all right, and if you had so that that would have to be that I would have to pick that day to be somewhere in that January time frame. Okay, I like it. I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go with their guts, you know, because the rut is too they're too all over the board. You can't you really can't pinpoint them to where one of their slaves of their stomach is when they're the most patternable. That makes sense. Well, Ben, Uh, you past the rapid fire test and I enjoyed it. Do you have anything you can tell folks as far as where they can go to uh follow along with what you're doing, or watch your hunts or anything else they should keep an eye out from you. Yeah. Sure. On so we air on masiok Um that's an app that you can download for you know, your TV, your smartphones, different things like that. Um, we are there. We're on YouTube, um, white Tail Edge Official on Instagram, Whitetail Edge you know on Facebook. We also do Spur Brand. That's where you can get all our white Tail Edge apparel. Spur Brand is our Turkey brand. But it's a really cool uh clothing line and hat line and stuff, and we even do turkey calls. Um. But you can go to spur brand dot com and that's where you can get white tail edge gear also and pats and shirts and all that kind of stuff. So we need all the followers and views we can get, so you know, again this, I feel very blessed that I've had the life I've had to be able to hunt the deer that I have. And you know, I'm very humble about it. I don't normally talk. I can be in a crowd for a long time before people even realize I'm a deer hunter. So I think people who enjoy the show the way we try to teach people how to hunt deer um, And my biggest thing is is just enjoy it. You know, if it's trying to hunt mature deer is driving you crazy, you know and taking the fun out of it, then get back to reality, you know, like these I hear these kids talking all the time about being thirteen fourteen years old and how they're passing up deer and this and that. Man, when I was thirteen fourteen, I was killing everything that walked, you know, just just get out there and enjoy mother nature. Those green years of your career will be the ones you remember the most. You know, the fresh learning experiences, the mistakes. Soak them up because their God's gifts to helping us learn. You know. Yeah, that's that's great parting advice A good place to end and uh and wise words. So Ben, thank you for taking the time. I I've always enjoyed your videos and your hunts and uh there's always something new I can learn from. So so thanks for sharing this list today. Yeah, well thanks, thanks to you. Mark. I appreciate it's been awesome watching you grow in the industry. It's been really cool to follow you and see how you've taking your passion and what you've turned it into. And now that you're with Steve doing stuff, I mean, that's just awesome. Thank you. Thanks. Meat Eater. Meat Eater is my favorite show. Dude. I don't watch I really don't watch TV hardly ever. I don't watch hunting shows. I don't even watch my own, but I watched I watched meat Eaters because it's I don't know why, I like that guy and I like how he does things and it's just interesting. I think he's got such a cool spin on something different and he can appeal to everybody. And you know, some kudos to Steve Ronella for that. And it's really cool that he's brought you into kind of help do things, so that's good for both of you. Yeah, thank you. He's uh, he's definitely put a great thing in place here and he's been a great mentor for a lot of us. So I'm glad you enjoined it. Yeah, all right, and Steve need to come hune Ohio with me sometime. Hey, don't be careful what you ask for, because before you know it, I'll be knocking on your door. All right, thank you for listening. That is a rap on my conversation with Ben. Make sure you are doing a couple of things in the meantime until our next episode. If you are not already subscribed to our white Tail weekly newsletter, going over to the Meat Eater dot com and sign up for that. That's gonna get you all the latest white Tail content from the meat of your team. Also, make sure you're following me over on Instagram. That is wired to hunt is the handle. That way you can see what's happening in my own white Tail World and uh, lots of different updates coming there as well, So with that, I think we can wrap it up. This has been fun. Thanks for joining me, thank you for listening, and until next time, stay wired to Hunt.

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