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 and today in the show, I'm joined by Janice Patelis to discuss the scouting stand prep inhabitat improvement projects that two of us took on while visiting his Wisconsin family hunting property. All right, welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, brought to you by First Light. And today I'm sitting here with Janice patel Us and I'm in Wisconsin in the I don't know this is This is the hall of history for you, isn't it? It is? It is. I've spent a lot of time in this building here over thirty years. Yeah, And I know how special having that kind of place can be. I've got my own little cabin with with decades of memories, and it's so special every time you go there, and I get a little misty eyed about it and over nostalgic maybe, but you can't help it sometimes, right, Do you still feel that way? Well? I think I feel like that now more than ever. You know, when you realize the history that you have and um that you know, you hang out here with like with who are like my elders, my mentors who are now you know, at seventy getting into their seventies, and you sort of realize that you know, ah, life does not go on forever, you know, and that there time here is limited, you know, and you should get back for as many opening rifle seasons as you can. Um, yeah, stop, that's for sure. Uh So, So we're gonna talk about scouting, We're gonna talk about stand preparation, We're gonna talk about best bang for your buck, d I Y habitat improvements. But before that, can we just dive a little bit more into that, Like can you give us a little more of the history. When you were on in the Fall, we talked a lot about your hunt here last November and how that went and some of the things you learned, But I don't think we really talked about like the people and how it all works and what that's looked like for you. What's that story a little bit because I've been constantly has been out here, like, so how does this work? Who has what and who does what? And who all comes and who hunts one? What's the whole story there? First, I M, I have a sip my new glares moon man. Pall, do we need to talk about this? Palele before you answer the question, this has been on your mind. Only available in Wisconsin, Oh, for sure, it's I was just telling Mark that it's like ongoing and we need help deciphering and and figuring out our little problem. We enjoyed neclar beer, but when I posted a picture last Ball of me taking a whole bunch of beer across state lines, which is technically illegal, back to Montana, quite a few of the comments were like, dude, she's like anti gun. Yeah, Debora carry the owner I believe that's her name, um, the owner of Nuclaris and her husband and um. So without doing any fact checking, I kind of brought that up to Doug during and Dougs like, I love her, She's great. Let's see if that's really true. You know, did some googling and turns out she's not really anti guns. She's actually my kind of politician because I would what I would call her a centrist, and I like that and like like all uh, you know, big businesses and uh, just players in general, she contributes to both parties and guess what that gets remark hate from both sides. Well, but yes, yes, hay from both sides. But you also get to have a seat at the table when either side is in power, and you get to help along you know, your community, your business ventures, you know. And she does all this right. So from what I read online, she's got like like she sounds like very cool, like my kind of person. And didn't you say that she shoots herself? Oh yeah, And there was some quote of her saying, Hey, if you think I'm anti gun, come over to my house and I have like a I forget if she said a quarter mile, half mile, you know, shooting range basically running up my up to drive up the valley or whatever. Um. Then we checked that with the person that we with, one of the people that we've got some misinformation from, and he said, no, that's not true. It's actually known that she's like an H, S, U, S or p D supporter. Now I'm like, might be worse. So if anybody out there can really give us a straight dope or deb if you want to, just email Mark or call Mark up and clear straight. We clear your name. We love drinking Nuclaire's uh brewing. I like the moon Man. I'm not really a spotted cow guy, just because I'm not a wheat weird guy that much. Like it's a fine beer and I can have like one, but I'm much more of like a light pale ale which moon man really. Yeah, it's that Bill Nicely. This is my first, my first New Glares, and I've drank a bunch that I've been here and this has been right up my alley, the No Coast pale Ale, the moon Man. Yeah, it's good. Yeah, I hope there's I hope her name is clean, and so we can continue, we can keep struggling it back to Montana, which I'm never gonna do again. So don't try to catch me. So what were you what were you gonna say about your camp? I was wondering about the story here of your hunting camp. So I actually came here first. This building is is owned by like a group of Atvians that owns some land kind of communally in the area, and um people come up here to celebrate like a lot of Latvian like traditional um ah, how do you say in English? Uh? Like? Basically like the like the cornerstones of the year, like the summer solstice, the winter solstice, and the two equinoxes, right amongst other holidays. So summer solstice, as I think, you know, it's called Yanni Day, and for that one, we would actually leave and go to another farm that was like thirty or forty five minutes away, and then the great big valley that led up to this hill. On the top of the hill you'd have like a uh post with a burning barrel on top of it and giant bonfire. There was as there always is with you know, traditional Latin and get together lots of singing, some beer drinking, dance and you do you do a lot of um um. I don't want to call him like rituals, but yeah, I guess sort of like exercises that are just um metaphor is the wrong word, but sort of like like you swing on the swing at Easter time for the spring equinox. You swing on the swing and there's a special song that you sing to have like a great summer ahead, right, and then you you know, at the summer solstice, you gotta grab a partner and jump over the fire together because that equals you know, good luck. And a good harvest or whatever. You know, there's a lot of like stuff like that that's like old timey traditions, and whether or not you actually believe that it does something, it's a fun way to celebrate the passing of the year, you know, in the seasons. So that's why I first started coming up here. And then, um, probably around that same time that my dad got in with this group of Atvians, he also got invited by the same group of Atvians to come and join the hunting camp because he was actually getting into hunting when I was about six. UM, So he started coming up here, came up here for whatever it was four or five years without me, and then I started coming up before I was old enough to hunt, which I can't remember now if it was twelve or fourteen in Wisconsin when I was a kid, what the age was, because I believe no. I shot my first year in Michigan, but not many A couple of years later, I shot my first year here. I do remember like a big difference was that, like Michigan was shotgun but here we hunted with rifles. So it just seemed like that alone made it seem special, right, loading an actual cartridge, you know, and instead of just stuffing some shells into the old pump. Different deal, different deal, Like you just know you're gonna shoot farther, although you're probably not. But um, yeah, so that was I don't know, that was probably you know, I first probably came here to hunting camp. I'm guessing around nineteen, my first year here, and um, you know, yeah, I would say in my you know, in the ground blind with my dad, and then eventually, um, you know, we actually came on a on a bow hunt one time, and uh, I've ever told this story. We hunted I'm that little bottom over here that's kind of between the knob and the main hill and that was just recently cut and you're like, oh, that would be a good spot for a food plot and the cage. Yeah, so I was. I had a stand set up somewhere in there in the bottom, and I think my dad was set up just a little bit farther down more on the field edge, and we set up stands. Like the day before. I didn't hunt that evening, or maybe hunted somewhere else. But for whatever reason, the first time I went to the stand to hunt, it was in the morning and We're going down a trail and I knew and basically where I had to bang off, and it wasn't far, like somewhere between thirty and fifty yards to my stand. My dad cut me loose. I had maybe like a couple of reflective markers or something to mark my way in there, and he kept going and he wasn't that far from me, you know, he was like, well, i'll tell you later in shouting distance. But like I got a flashlight, you know, and I peel off. And this might have been my very first like alone in the woods going to a stand experience, like twelve or fourteen something like that, right, yeah, probably four yeah, probably fourteen ish, because I just can't imagine that I was like actually gonna climb up an entry with a bow at twelve, but maybe yeah, somewhere in there. Um. And anyways, I started looking for the stand and cannot find, like where these markers are, and so I'm just like looking and looking and walking and walking and getting more and more turned around, probably just spinning circles in the same I want to say a hundred yards was probably fift yard circle, you know, but crunching a lot of leaves, making a lot of noise, and eventually from the distance, it's like, what the are you doing? You know, and I'm just like, I'm shocked, you know, because you know, I'm already sort of freaking myself out because you just walking on the dark kind of laws. Now you know you're not but you are. I can't find where you're supposed to be. And then all a sudden there's some like voice yelling from a distance, and for a moment I was like, one, It's like, was that my dad? Dad? Was that somebody else in the woods? That's like because for him this to yell at me in English like that and not say something in Latvian was a little bit different. You know. Obviously he had just heard enough of the crunching and walking around. Yeah, and uh, I think he just tells me just sit down, let it get light and then you'll find your stand, which is what I did. I remember like it got light and I literally I didn't have to walk. I looked over, I'm like, oh, there's a ladder, and I got to my stand and by the time he got back to me, he had, uh, you know, later in the day he had chilled out. But he always just told me that he thought that I had pretty much ruined the morning hunt. Um. But yeah, so that was a bow hunt and then but mostly we came up here for you know, to two and a half days of rifle hunting for the Wisconsin Rifle Opener, which would always be around you know, November eight. Um. Yeah, so I probably came for closest ten years in a row. And then once I moved out West, I definitely couldn't just just couldn't afford every year would come, you know whenever I could, and uh, yeah, it's um been a good deal. What's been cool about it is that you know, the hunting whatever. I've definitely learned some things here. But like those uh you know, my dad's friends. Those guys have been like consistent you know, mentors throughout my life. And even though like sure I knew him through in other parts of Latvian society, like at the Latvian summer camp that I'm always talking about in Michigan. Um, you know, I knew him from there and we'd meet up and chat or whatever, but like you know, it isn't hunting camp. It's sort of you can have some deeper conversations, you have some time to sit aside and talk one on one with somebody, chill out, you know whatever. And you know, now, I've known those guys well as long as I've been hunting here, so for thirty years, and it's definitely like even this week and hanging out with him, Like, I'm sure I can't tell you right now, but I took something away from like what they're talking about in their seventy years of life experience, you know, that's valuable to me. Yeah, And like you said, at least in my world, I'm guessing yours. We don't often have time or or the space or whatever to sit down and have those kinds of conversations with these with the people that we care about. But hunting camp is unique situation where you actually have that space to do that time and space. So what's what? So why are we here now? Like it seems like you've taken a and this from the outside looking at but like a renewed interest wanting to go to the next step. Like I know you've hunted here over the years, but now it's like you're trying to relearn it, rethink it now, do some work on it. I know, I feel like I'm having to um, what's the word when you like, say a statement, then you want to take it back, oh politicians your statement? Because I remember we did a podcast and Matt Cooks with Steve and I and both of us were kind of on the like, why would you ever spend a bunch of time white tailed deer hunting in the Midwest when you can live out west? And do you know this long list of things that were to tell you about, right? I forgot about that one, right, that's a while back. It was a while back, but um, yeah, man, I like, I don't know. For me, it's like a lot of it is getting more into things that I realized that I just don't know that much about, you know. And even though I have hunted white tales, like as a kid growing up and even as an adult, you know, when I lived in Colorado, we go out to Nebraska and hunt white tales, definitely different than hunting them here, but you know still and uh yeah, you kind of just realized like what we have here. And I think a lot of it has come to with like I'm now because doing my own show, I have the freedom to sort of pick my hunts where Steve could see literally could care less about sitting in a tree for a white tail again, you know, but for me, especially having this property that I can hunt and sort of not just hunt, but like spend time figuring it out, learning it better, all coupled with like the memories and the nostalgia. Like it's just like, you know, we know the hunting is good here, I just have to like figure it out right, And I like having that like challenge ahead of me and and not like going back down to Colorado to my old stomping grounds where I could like walk into the woods after three days and probably find a bowl out to shoot at, you know what I mean. It's like you kind of just like I know the I know the steps, I know what's coming, and here I don't have that at all. I'm still very much just like well, like we were talking this morning, we when don't want to do it. It's like a place for a a Eastern property. Whatever it is about it, it seems huge. It's almost so big that you're like, I wish there was less that I could and it would just be easier to focus on. And it's not that big, but I've roughly access to around four hunderd acres feels bigger than that it does. And maybe it's just a topography. There's a lot of up and down around here, very little flat. So yeah, so anyways, I'm fired up man to uh to do it, you know, the kind of a little bit to the I mean, I gotta say. And maybe it's just like I'm not trying to plug anything, but like the saddle thing kind of gave me a little bit like Okay, I don't have to go there with ten stands or twenty stands. I can just roll in with this one system and kind of hunt it all. And as we talked about last fall, it's not quite that easy when you realize, you know, still work, it's still work. Um, but yeah, you know, and and and again I have like I just have the time where I can say, like, Okay, these are the haunts I want to do every year on a bow hunt Elk in September, and I want to bow hunt white tails in November and do each for a week and I'll probably be a pretty happy guy and then mix in like right, mule deer hunt in November. I know, I'm kind of listening like everybody's dreaming. All I want is these two simple things and this and this and you know every so often dry sheep tag. Which have you told the world about that? And I we'll say that for another day. Uh, but yeah, it's yeah. When I when I look at my fall and I'm like, like, what are the top haunts? Like you want to go and do? Like the rut? What do you guys call it? Rut? Casitions? Occasion? Yeah, like it's up there. Plus it's a way for me to spend a lot more time with my dad, get them both. So what what was your hopes and dreams for this week? This weekend? You've been here turkey hunting and then also invited me down. Yeah, so I was here turkey hunting. Invited my buddy Jim Miller, who is a longtime friend and mentor of mine too from Colorado, one of the guys that got me into turkey hunting. Um, he's hunted eastern turkey in Missouri and Florida, but it never really hunted upper Midwest. And after five days of hunting here, I felt like he had one of his best, better if not best, eastern turkey hunt nice and we hunted here with tough hunting conditions for two and a half days, and then headed down the dogs for two and a half days. Might had a little bit of better hunting conditions, but certainly had more birds to work and uh killed some killed some gowlers, which which was sweet. Um. I do have to mention like I've never hunted turkeys, and at a time here where it's so leafed out, where there's times where literally get up on a high point where normally you can just broadcast an owl who or you know, work the box on a lot, some loud yelps and just hear him echo through the woods. And when you do it right now, it just feels like the woods around you just just suck it up and it just does not go anywhere. You know. We had a gobbler today, goblin like hundred yards maybe a d t like not much could have been And this dude was in the field and we're on the field edge and when he's goblin, for whatever reason, somehow those trees on the field edge are sucking the sound out of that gobble. Yeah, it was not loud at all. Had he been another hundred yards, I don't know if you would have heard him. I don't think a little bit of wind might have played into that, but like it's uh, it's been frustrating. It definitely like makes you like kind of like, you know, rethink how you're how you're doing everything, how you're approaching the turkey hunt and um yeah it's uh you know again, That's why I love to do some of these hunts because they're they're constantly challenging and humbling. And yeah, even though we had killed birds this week, man, like we worked our tails off, you know. Yeah. Um so yeah, So I came here to shoot an episode which you'll be able to see probably next spring, uh, me and my buddy Jimmy turkey hunting, and you should watch it not for the turkey hunting because but because you're gonna get to meet Jim Miller, who's like really like one of the coolest, interesting, nicest like people on the planet. But since I was here, I was thinking, man, all shows should do some spring prep for this upcoming fall as far as White Cells are concerned. That's what I called you, And I'm like, hey, man, let's what you want to come out and kind of help us. Like, so I gotta give a little bit more backstory. My dad just bought forty acres here this sort of part of you know this this chanco land um it adjoins um some of the properties in this area, so kind of as a group, it just kind of gives everybody a little bit more land to hunt. But you know, they've only had it, they've had it less than a year, and we figured like let's get you out here. You can like take a look around and kind of give us some My goal is to how do you give us some like some like short term like what can we do right now it's going to make a difference for like this upcoming fall. And then also what can we do thinking about long term that you know it's like more of a five ten year plan which we really haven't gotten into, and we can do that now. Um. And then if you had like a good one that was short term, like actually try to execute it right now. Um. And then other than that, like walk some of the other areas properties and look at where I hunted last year and just sind a kind of dissect where I hunted last year, how I set up if I was making the right decisions. Um, and uh, you know, maybe help me pick out some new spots maybe you know preps some and a lot of it was, you know, coming back to the hunting out of the saddle, is that hunting last fall I realized like when you want to switch trees, you're looking at like a major investment. And unless you're like, oh, I'm only gonna go up ten or fift Okay, maybe you're only gonna chop down a couple of limbs, what you better do in a spot where there's not a lot of other trees around you, because if you want a bunch of shooting lanes, you to spend time doing that, you know what I mean. So I'd say on average, when I was like leaving a tree, by the time I got perfectly ready set up in the next tree, and it didn't matter if I was moving a hundred yards or whatever half a mile, it was probably taking me three hours. Yeah, you know, And again it's like something that you learn and maybe on the next time you when you set up, you like you really start analyzing the ridge more and you're like, Okay, you're gonna be moving here and here, let's choose here because I can get in that tree and I only had to cut two trees or limbs for to be happy with my shooting lanes versus fifty yards farther. You know, I might as well bringing the the crew and and multiple chainsaws. Yeah, that takes experience to kind of figure that level of nuance out. So those are those are my goals here. Uh so we probably could have achieved all of that if I didn't cut my visit in half right because of the airport tobaccle of fromel Yeah, you you. I don't want to say you said a record, but I don't think you're going to run into many people in your life there are going to tell you about a longer trip that they unexpected airline trip that they had than you just did. Yeah, I certainly hope I never have a longer one. So I left. I mean, if you're going to like Mongolia like you're expecting it, but when you're going Idaho to Wisconsin shouldn't be like not so much. So I had a seven am flight Saturday morning that was supposed to get me to Wisconsin left or one. So it's from Jackson, Wyoming to Denver to Wisconsin. Now, because of our living situation right now, my family and I are out of our cabin. We only have one vehicle, so we had to figure out a way to get me to Jackson, which is an hour and a half away from where we live. UM as family, so that the best way to do it would be that we would go as a family to Jackson that evening and then they would drop me off at a hotel at stay the night at the hotel, and then catch a taxi first thing the next morning to the airport. YadA, YadA, YadA. So my trip began Friday afternoon, went to Jackson, did all that that night. It like, I don't know, ten or eleven o'clock at night, I got a notification saying that my flight was delayed the next morning and my seven am flight got pushed to one thirty in the afternoon, and they said it was because the flight crew got in late and because of federal regulations, they have to have a certain amount of time before they take the next flight. So okay, So my I was gonna get into Wisconsin at one thirty. Now I'm not leaving till one thirty, and I'm now going to get to Wisconsin at ten thirty. And then from there I had to pick up a rental car and drive hour and a half or two hours from there. So I was thinking not jeez. Now I'm not gonna get in till Saturday night at like midnight or one o'clock or something. Would have pained the butt. But that's what happens. I I getch a flight at one thirty, and then we're in the air heading to Denver. And then the flight, uh, the pilot comes on and says, hey, we've got some serious storms over Denver. We're not gonna be a land. We're gonna have to circle up here and wait to see if things clear up. So we do that, and fifty minutes later he gives us an update. So it's still still pretty bad. We're gonna keep circling. And I remember seeing the same little town along some river uh that would have been north of Denver, along the front Range. And we circled over probably twenty times. I don't know how many times. But I never kept looking. I'm like, I wonder where the river that is? Kept looking and like thinking about it and trying to look at the visually. I kept visualizing the Masters probably is either um, I would say that I think it's the big Thompson that would go into Boulder or uh, the Pewter, Yeah, does that go up towards the Ray wild Wilderness or something like that up that way. Is that the river that runs up that direction? Man, I don't know that right. Well, well, well I don't have to look at the map and figure this out because I'm I can just see it in my head still. So we kept going over and over and over and over and I don't know how long we a nasty circle like bumpy h No, it wasn't horrible. We were outside like we were. We were in a patch of clear air and north of the storm, so we could see fine. Like. It wasn't weird or sketchy where we were. Um, circle, circle, circle, circles circle. Finally says, hey, guys, this storm over Denver is not letting up. Um, and we're running out of gas, so we have to go and land somewhere else. So we've been diverted to such and such a little airport in Nebraska. So we get going right into Nebraska. And I should say that at the beginning of this whole flight, I had several people that sat down behind me. We were ripped, roaring drunk um. They had been partying or whatever in Jackson, and I'd say, these folks are like in their fifties. Um, and I as I got to hear, like one of them is from couples and from Texas, and the couples from Las Vegas. So you know, take every stereotype you want about Texas and Las Vegas with people with money, and then put a bunch of liquor in them. And those are the two personalities we had. And so this group behind me was ripped or and drunk, and then this happens, and then they start complaining and bitching about it and getting upset. And then we land in Nebraska and this is like a little private airstrip. This isn't a big airport, so there's no getting off the plane. There was no anything. It was like, hey, we're just you're gonna sit here and we have to wait till they refuel. Well, this little airport is not accustomed to having great big jet liners and stuff there. And it's not just us, there's like seven other major jets that had to come in because everybody was getting diverted. I didn't find the thirty seven major jets had to be diverted around and outside Denver because of this. So we sit there and wait and wait and wait, and then he keeps giving us updates and says, hey, they don't have enough gas for the plans. They have to go out and get find gas. And so they got gas and they come back and now like all the other people ahead of us are getting gas and long story short on this. To try to take what ended up being a very long story, we end up having to sit on the tarmac in Nebraska. I think it was six hours six or seven hours. We sat there and eventually like we got gas in there, and then they did it wrong. They didn't balance our tanks, so one side had too much gas on the other side, so they had to remove it and blah blah, how are your drunk friends doing at this point? Well, so they went from drunk and like happy partying too drunk and angry to hung over and quiet. And then one gale got really, really, really mad and she was blaming everyone for it was happening, and it was everybody's fault, right, um, so as the pilot's fault, it was the airline's fault. Even though this was like a weather, it was like an act of God or whatever, you know, that they was actually punishing and the rest of you were taking a Bronte having to go through hell with her. So she was lambasting everyone. And then she was on the phone with customers Sir, trying to get things rescheduled, and it went so far as to the point where she was threatening to sue the customer service agent and was talking about her fancy schmancy lawyer and how they have a dog at home and that they're not gonna get home in time to take care of the dog because of this, and this is how this is their fault, and and like screaming, so like everyone in the back, you know, I'm in the very back of the plane. Um, everyone in the back of the third of the plane can hear this and seeing it in they're cussing, and you know you big time wire to hunt. Don't ride first class? No, no no, no, I'm like three rows from the very back bathroom. Though she was very irritated that she wasn't in the first class, she kept bringing that up, we should have been a first class. Maybe maybe I'm trying to remember if she said something like maybe they had bought first class at some part of this trip and pushed out of it or something, because I remember something along those lines being said. But I mean she was throwing a fit, just foul. And then politics were brought up, and then like their hooting and hollering about you know, such and such political person they don't like, and how this is so and so's fault, and how this is you know, everything you could imagine. Um, we finally get on, get in the air, we get sent in we Land, and because of this long delay, I missed my two connections. So then to get a new flight scheduled, I just sit in line, waiting in a physical line while also on a phone line trying to get to a person to see which one I would get first. And I had to wait for almost two hours. So this is now, I don't know, like eleven o'clock at night or something, at the airport trying to figure out some way to get here, and ended up getting rescheduled to fly to Chicago, and then I would change my car until rent a car in Chicago and then drive here. So I had to spend the night in Denver. Next morning, this next flight the next play they could get me on. I couldn't even get anything here to Wisconsin list I want to wait till monday. So I got the Chicago flight didn't get me until I don't know, ten thirty or something Sunday night. I landed in Chicago at ten thirty and Sunday night, I go to pick up my luggage. I wait for forty five minutes for the luggage to get there and nothing, and so all my luggage got sent to the Wisconsin airport. So I had to spend another night in a hotel in Chicago because the Madison Hotel airport isn't open till the next morning. I spent another hotel night, get up the next morning, go to the Wisconsin airport, get my stuff. Finally get here like two and a half days later than I was supposed to say. Started Friday afternoon evening and you got here probably about eight thirty or nine am Monday, Monday morning. You could have probably driven here and back Tataho in that time. It's not ridiculous. There's a whole lot of extra money paid for change tickets and rental cars and hotels and all that for yeah, just chaos the long period of time. It's frustrating. Instead of having all those days, we ended up having like most of Monday all a Tuesday, which is today. And now when we have about half a day a little bit tomorrow, and in that time still we got some ship done. How do you feel about what we got done? Given like all those hopes and dreams you had that you just listed, Dude, I mean we pretty much you know, check the boxes, consider the time. Yeah, I mean there's you know, we'll get into there's a couple of things that are you know, not quite polished. But like, um, I mean, I don't know if you want to just jump into it right now into my dad's kind of forty and and discuss it. But so we did the tour. It's really cool. We went up and uh, and there's basically one ridge. It comes to a point and then on on three sides of the ridge drops down onto the property and then it's pretty much flat and the ridge and the surrounding areas are what I just call it midwestern hardwood oak forest. And then that transitions into a planted white pine forest for probably twenty acres or so. And uh, we went up on the ridge and uh, you're like, man, there's all points on this ridge probably were some box bed and sure enough it was really cool to see. Is like we went up on one little outcropping you know finger that you know, drops down off the main ridge should be a buck bed. There were some beds there, but it didn't look like was there a bed there. I don't remember if there was a bed there or not, but I was like, there should be one here, but but wide open, no, like, uh, what do you call horizontal horizonal structure? Cover it off? Just I'm a wide open little knob. There's a there's an old little bench up there where people used to have sat and hunted. We go the next knob over, which has literally like Mother Nature's hinge cutting job right at the end of it. I mean it's not like five or six ft up, it's more like ten feet up, but a giant tree is snapped ten feet up and laid over on its side. There's a couple other trees and guess what like four major buck beds kind of covering the compass rose you know, around around this point, you know, and like just underneath them there's almost like this like sandstony little bluff micro cliff kind of a feature. And uh, it was great just to for like you like you're saying to like you can that's something that you can look at on on X put the pin there and be like, you should go look there, see if there's things betting there. And then you go out there and you're like, yep, sure enough, that probably where your buck that lives on this property, or you know a couple of bucks bed right in here. Yeah. It's amazing how much once you learn a few general patterns of how these deer like to typically use certain train features. It's not always gonna be right, but it is a great starting point, you know. I mean that helped the toime and the one thing we haven't done, and maybe we should just do it in the morning. But I'd love to go and hinge cut that other knob and then revisit in a year and see if there's three buck beds on that other knob. It absolutely should be being used like that. It's it's so well positioned. I mean, we talked about this a lot. These bucks when they have these knobs, when they have elevation, they love to bed on the ends of points or ends of the knobs that comes off ridges where they can see an area they can protect themselves visually from the front and by scent behind. If they can ever have that, it's really hard to beat that from a security standpoint for a deer, and and yeah, I mean that's exactly what we found it was. It was it was like textbook except zero cover, zero cover, and though that is more west facing where the other one is more like more southeast. So when they're on it, they're getting that wind over their back, but on the other knob there with the wind is gonna proominally be in their face. Yeah, but I do think like if you were to improve that with the cover there, it's still it still could get on that sure east side and use it, because otherwise it was set up so nice. Um. So yeah, that's a that's a way where you've got the starting point. Okay, here's a feature. And so much of what we talked about and what we will talk about on your property, both the forty and the larger camp is when it comes to habitat oftentimes, look at what the deer want to do naturally and then define it better, improve it better, sweet in the pot, Like, it's much easier to help deer do something they already want to do, versus try to make them go way out of their way to do something they don't naturally want to. So if you can find ways to maybe encourage them to do it just a little bit more this way, or to do a versus be just a little bit more, but making sure the a's within the set of things they do. Like, you know, you don't need to make this thing more hard than it has to be. So finding the spots they naturally want to bed and then sweeten it, finding the natural line they want to travel from betting defeating, and then finding a way to slow them down in a specific spot between the two where you can and get a shot. That's a great way to do it. Um, which we'll talk about the food flop. Now those buck beds mhm. We talked about how to hunt them, obviously not hunting them, but how to hunt bucks coming out of them. But like during the rut when I'm usually bow hunting here or will be again this year, they're not necessarily using those beds, right, because they could be bedding with the dough. They could just be like, well, I've been cruising for ten twelve hours, I'm just gonna bet on this point, which could be a mile from like his normal spot. So like, how important are those buck beds still to me? Being like a guy that comes here and hunts the rut. So I would not plan your hunting strategy around them during the rut because of the things you just said. You're right, they may use those beds sometimes during the ruts. Still, they may not, like you just said, they might be elsewhere. They might be just hanging out with the dough. They might be cruising for the day. Um. So I would not let that be like something that drives where you hunt during the rut. During the rut, you should be focused on where the does and where are concentrations of travel where those cruising bucks might be pinched through like our hub type situation. Um. But having good buck betting areas is good for you throughout the whole year, the whole the rest of the year. It's good for any other bow hunting or hunting outside of that window of the rut. Um, it's still gonna give that buck like, hey, I've got good betting area here. Maybe I can call this part of my home range exactly. Yeah, if you if you've got the best taj mahal set up around that bucks there, if there's multiple taj mahals around, more bucks are gonna want to, like you said, have this to be a part of their home range. And the more bucks that want this to be part of their circuit and their home range, the more likely they're gonna be the ones that you see during the rut checking your dos if they're in the zone, if they're in the area because of some of the improvements you make. While they may not use them exactly how you envisioned, they will be at the party, And if they're at the party during the rut, you've got a chance. So I you know, I would certainly think it's worth doing, but it wasn't the first thing I recommended we do in this situation, like what we actually went with, because there's something different that would give you a better bang for your buck that would apply during the rut and at all times. Um while improving that betting. It'll be good, but it's not gonna make a noticeable rut difference for you. What we do decide to do is improve upon in Hey, I guess you could call it like a fallow food plot. The prior owner or actually a hunter had access um to the owner's property that hunted it um with a bow. He probably put in a fluid plot. I don't know. I'm guessing ten twelve years ago, kept it up for five or so years, and now it's been It's basically when we rolled in and saw it, it was a what do you think it was like a half acre was a third of an acre and ways to chest high raspberry bushes and really walking through there, it's like, because we're looking for stumps to mark for the um the neighbor its tractor. We'll get to that in a second. But not a lot of deer sign on the edges of that meadow, in those brambles raspberries, Like not a lot of sign right, yeah, none time. There's some dropping us here and there, but nothing remarkable. So you figured, like short term goal like improve this property, Like you know, let's make a spot we have basically like in the middle of the woods. Um, we've probably got three or four yards away, we've got some agg and Um we figured, hey, great this food plots like tucked away, be a great spot for them to come to on their way to the agg fields or maybe on the way back from the agg fields. In the morning. It's already here, Like, let's see if we can't get it plot planted in the time. We have a day and a half and you know, A big thing, like a big part of that decision when I was thinking this through, and we've talked about this over the last couple of days, is when you're looking at making some kind of improvement on the property, I always want to start by considering what's the missing link, like what's that missing ingredient on my property or in the neighborhood. Even you can sometimes zoom out farther, and so if you look and say, okay, what a deer need? They need food, they need cover, they need security, all right, they need to be felt like they're not being messed around with humans all the time. So when you zoom out and look at the zone, it is hundreds and hundreds and hundreds maybe thousands of acres of salad, mostly solid timber. And then there's a couple crop fields on the outside of this massive zone of timber, but not a lot. You have one of them on your neighbor It's not what you quite would call like up north woods, because I think up north woods definitely are a little bit more heavier um conifers, right uh, but I mean just here from here, compared to the Durn farm, it's like way more big woodsy feeling where you can walk through oak forests, over oak ridges, through oak bowls for hours and not see a field. And so that's that's what I looked at. It's like, hey, if we're gonna make a change, let's make a change that fills that missing Lincoln provides something unique here. Deer in this area do not need more cover, but there's lots of lots of good cover. Um what they don't have a lot of is like a super desirable small food source. An interrupt just a second tomorrow when we're out walking, I want you to, like, as often as you see, I want you to point and be like Doe betting good idea. Yeah, we can do that. Um so so yes, it seemed to me that all the things you said are true. There was already an opening, was a small opening that had been kind of reclaimed by nature, but we could we could open it up again and create this little opening, which would be unique in the area. And then we could plant a highly desirable food source, which would be very unique in the area. Other than a corn field out there ways, there's nothing else like this. So a little tiny food plot could make a big difference for a certain number of deer in a spot like this compared to maybe by dogs or somewhere in aisle where there's tons and tons of that kind of stuff. It's it's just if you did this food plot and one of the dogs was I don't know, I can't think of a reason other than it's maybe more secure. Think going down to the big, big cornfield. And even when those plots that can help some it gets you that secure zone. It can be a transition point. But here it's so different and unique, it's going to have a larger a larger impact. So so yeah, I thought, shoot, within you know, we've got twenty four to thirty or six hours to do something. We might actually be able to reclaim this thing and make it a food plot and set just up up, set up a perfect little set up for you or your dad. Um. And it's kind of neat to do something in like entirety. So rather than they could do a little project here, a little project there, a little project there, it was, Hey, let's make let's fully set this thing up from top to bottom and have this dialed for hunting season. And that's that's kind of what we try to do. Yeah, your first thought was that we would just um set it and then knocked down the raspberries and use those as mulst basically and see what would happen, and come in and spray to kill the raspberries and see if we get the clover to come up. We're lucky where we have a great neighbor. Ah the dust some farming has some farm equipment. I talked to him ahead of time and said, hey, you know, if we need you, we maybe hire you and your tractor. He's like sure. So the biggest question was he was he gonna be able to get down a little like you know, two track that we have for access to get his tractor in there. He was able to, and so instead of doing what I just described, we're able to go full on tiller and basically till the whole thing up now. Unfortunately, so he rolled in. Um, we got a couple other things on this morning that we'll talk about a second. But he rolled in I don't know, just afternoon with his tractor and just like dropped his tiller and then like the next five minutes you've got you know, six by whatever, fifty sixty yards just like the prettiest dirt you've ever seen you're like, okay, like we're in business. Unfortunately, a whole bunch of stumps left in that food plaque. I think the guy that did it before us did not have heavy equipment, didn't take the stumps out, and so we were trying to just sort of till through them, and it was chopping up some of the smaller stuff. But we pushed it and shared a couple of pins, bent a um on the times on the tiller, and uh so we went from about a third of an acre to a sixth, which when you go in there and you look at it, you're like, dude, really nice food plot. You know, like probably fifty to sixty yards long and twenty yds wide, why i'd say wire and twenty so still sizeable chunk. He's gonna come and finish the rest while we're not here. My dad's gonna come back and see the rest. But we figured we would just keep moving on. So you recommended clover, which I think you should speak to that, like why the clover? Yeah, Well, I was looking for something that we could plant, you know, something would take well in the spring, something that's relatively easy to get going, and then also that doesn't require constant work. So a lot of other food plots that folks used and that I've used, and I still use. Our annuals where you plant in the fall or like late summer, and then it bursts out the ground and you get great growth in the fall, but then it's dead in the spring. To plant again the next year, to do it every single year? Question? Yeah, is that why? Because we kind of had to run around to a bunch of stores in town looking for seed. Nobody had just straight up clover, but we did pass over some and I hope this isn't like the actual name of a brand, but it was like buck crack and crack, but buck crack and you know, I forget whatever else there was, but it was like other blends of seeds. How come you didn't want to go with those because those are annuals, those are fall falling it. Yeah, and we you don't even want to plant that stuff now because that stuff would if you plan that stuff now, it would mature before hunting season and be less desirable once you get to the fall. So clover you could plant now and you can establish it in the spring when it's wet still and it's relatively drought hard to see. Even if we had a tough stretch, it will do better than some things. And the thing is that it will stay attractive right on through, So that clover is going to be attractive to deer, you know, within a couple of weeks, and really, yeah, a couple of weeks will be in there eating and it's gonna stay attractive right on through with fall, right into the winter. They might still be pawned at it in December January in some cases. I mean, it's it's the closest thing to a year round food plot you can find just about any part of the country. Clover is just it's magical in that way. There's certainly going to be some things will be more desirable at other points of the year. So you know, one window, if somebody had a bunch of brassicas, that might become more attractive in December than what you'll have. And when the corn gets harvested in November, that's going to become more desirable. But clover is going to maintain this steady like it's a pretty damn good thing right on through. It's really hard to find that with anything else. And you have no vested interest in clover to be selling clover. No, this isn't like wied to huntover no wire dun clover. All that's a good idea. Maybe that's the next business venture we should explore. Right, If you just want clover, yep, I got it, Come dr Mark. Uh. But you actually bought two different kinds of clover, Yeah, just two different varieties, um, both perennial clovers. Um. Just I think it's always a good idea to have a little diversity and what you've got. You know, sometimes one will be a little bit more impacted by drought or something, one will be a little hardier, One might be a little more attractive early, and one will be a little bit more attractive late. So I oftentimes, if you can any kind of diversity and kind of mixture, we'll just get you a little bit. It's just like you diversify an investment portfolil. Exact same idea with the food plot. Um. So like what we did in the back forty we super diversified that and those were fall annuals that you planted, but we had some perennials mixed in, so that had a lot of different things which provide a whole bunch of different benefits. In this case, we went the minimum diversity. Diversity but a little basically a couple of perennials. We'll get some clover out there, get us started, get this thing rolling, and then you know you're gonna be able to do a lot of different things with in the future if you ever wanted to. But it's gonna be relatively maintenance. You don't need to plant again next spring. You don't need to plan again next fall. All you need to do is if you see a bunch of weeds coming up, maybe spray it, maybe mow it, probably at least one mowing a year, and then maybe a spring, and that'sover. Get on its own. Oh I've never tested exactly how high it would get, but you usually want to mow it. If it gets you know, upwards of I don't know, eighteen inches or something like that. It gets it gets stocky and not as um not as lush and attractive when it gets too mature. Most everything reaches some point where matures and does not become as desirable. So that's part of the reason why the mowing is a good thing. Mowing will knock back competing weeds, and then we'll also kind of knock that clove over back to that younger early stage growth a little bit and becomes super attractive. Then when it starts in this you know whatever upper Midwest climate and you know seasons, is there like a time if you had to guess, you'd be like, man'd be pretty optimum if you mode it in August, because then in October you'd be you know, still rocking and or you know, yes, I can't speak to other parts of the country that I don't have experience with, but in Michigan, yeah, late August. I like to cut late August because you're gonna get a bunch of rain. You're gonna get the fall rains coming soon. And at the same time that's gonna line up well, if I cut that stuff in late August, you're gonna get all that lush, nice new growth leading right into opening day. Growth. It's not like new growth out of the existing shoots, like you've already got fresh seed in the ground and it's full on fresh growth. It's it's fresh growth from the existing plants. So like new growth from that you know that plant. Now it's got a Greek grow and that's tender and uh and just jam packed with a super concentrated DOSO nutrients, I think, um, so, yeah, you're gonna have the beginnings of a perennial food plot. There might be a little maintenance like I mentioned, but it's gonna be you know, not too bad compared to what it could be. And this is gonna be something that's sustainable to you know, this could stick around for five six years. I've got a perennial clover plot that i've you know, with a little bit of fixer upper time. It's been around for eight years now something like that, and I've not had to disc u till I do anything. I haven't had to restart it. It just keeps going and I kind of tweak it every one smile, and I'll broadcast a little extra filling any patches, and I'll moll it once a year, and I might spray it once a year, every a couple of years. But that's not the beginnings of what you have. And it's tucked way back in the cover. It's kind of in between two different bedding zones. Between those two different bedding zones, and then we're that big food sources. So and it's the transition between the Yeah, the two habitat types there, So you've got this little like I keep I remember referencing. It's kind of like a little ice cream truck is what you have there where it's the special thing that they're not finding anywhere else, and like this concentrated little dose. Plus it's an ice cream truck that like shows up to your bedroom or shows up in your living room, like right in your safe space. These deer don't need to go out to the street to get their ice cream. The ice cream is coming right into where they feel very comfortable, way back in that cover. So I think we did the old line distance on on X, which if you're not using that tooling, get off from underneath that rock and go hit the little tools but so far left it says line distance. Hit that. Then you basically tap your screen wherever you're trying to You're you're doing this just a measure a distance. So usually it's usually from where I'm standing. So I'll tap like right next to the little blue circle, and then I go over to I had already marked where those buckbeds were. Tap that, and all of a sudden there's a line, and it tells you how long the line is, and sweet sweet function. It's probably aside from just looking at the map and like following a direction on the map, that's probably the next most used feature that I use all the time. Um. Anyways, those buck beds or I think were they like two or fifty yards I don't remember that one something like that from that food plot, which and he said it was like four yards to the eagg fields or something like that. Yeah, wasn't it along those lines? Yeah? I mean it's it's it's close enough to those bedrooms up there that this will definitely be within their circuit. And this is a much nicer wave for a buck to start his evening feeding routine. If this is like in October, mid October or late September, since you guys have a September opener, I could very easily see bucks dropping off those points, slowly transitioning hitting this little secluded food plot, you know, over the course of that last hour of daylight, and then from there slowly moving to the southeast towards the big field and then never need to show their faces in those big fields till after dark, and all the neighbors or whoever that would be hunting that kind of stuff wherever never know these bucks lived effort. You guys would see them because your four hundred yards further back into where they feel safe, and you've now all of a sudden, like these deer were making a similar travel route, like they were going from that general zone to that general zone, but they had no particular reason to go to a little third acre portion of that on any kind of consistent basis. So to try to hunt those deer and to know like, oh, yeah, they're gonna come through here, and to say oh this buck does this or that, it's a total crapshoot. Now we have this little wonderful feature that's going to be like a magnet that will pull things that want to generally go from A to b like that general path, but maybe spread over five yard with all of a sudden, Now they're all going to kind of still go from A to B, but this one's gonna swing a little more to the west, and that deer swing a little war of the east, and they're all gonna want to pass by the ice cream stand on the way to get there because this is a great, a great treat and safe treat right on their way. You say, all like it's some important to mention that there's a bunch of country here and it's low dear density like twenty years ago. I think there used to be more deer. But um, when Mark says all, I think that like if you sat there on the evening hunt and had you know, anything more than two deer, you'd be like, whoa, it's all a bunch bunch deer tonight, you know, you know, roll through here, you know, hopefully maybe one of them would be a would be a buck. Um. So yeah, it's kind of like I don't want to say I was ever really against like I am against still against like farm and deer, like if you especially if you throw in the fence aspect of it. And then like there comes a certain point where I don't know, person, I've never been there, so I really shouldn't just speak to it. But it's just looking from the outside in, there could get to a point where the woods just would cease to feel like woods because so fabricated and like right now, like with what we've done, there's a lot of fabrication that we did in the last you know, twenty four hours. But I think that once you know, it turns into a clover meadow. And sort of like the other words that we did just kind of blends in. It's it's not gonna be this like great departure of what naturally is there, you know. Yeah, it's it's a nice way to you know, enjoy the benefits of some of that stuff without going overboard with it. And I think it's going to be the just a great kind of thing for your dad enjoying a bow hunt out there and having a Yeah, you know, those country's got a lot of big ridges that are you know, roughly from roughly the tops of the ridges they are three feet higher than than sort of the bottom lands around here. And uh, he's seventy this year and you know, hoping the ridges. He still does it, but like, would you do it six or seven days in a row. No. This place though, is like a flat three hundred yard walk from where we've decided the access point is going to be, which we should probably touch on, uh to get into this stand that's on the food plot, which um, we should talked about that stand man. I mean, it just like turned out it's almost perfect. We hit like it's like nine out of ten that that negative one point is a big one for you there right now, isn't it. Well, Yeah, but I'm the only one that climbed in there after I got to sit there for a day. Um, with the negative that we're talking about, it's like it's in the right location for wind. Um we're looking at west northwest winds prevailing. So we went southeast corner, east side. We're on the east side towards the southeast corner, and Um, unfortunately, it's like I said, it's on that transition between the white pines and the oak forest. And guess what we're in like a giant like you know, even where the stand sets is probably still an eighteen inch diameter white pie. And after cutting a bunch of limbs and putting that stand up, man, that stand is I don't want to stay covered. But like I climbed into it today and definitely came down a sticky dude. It's all over the climbing sticks, it's all over the safety line, it was all over the bow rope. Yeah, chair, like the seats, the seat had a little bit on it. So we're gonna figure it out. My dad's gonna have to deal with that. But we'll hold on only option call to action for people listening is my mission. I really want to figure out some kind of creative solutions for dealing with pine trees that are leaking sap all over your stuff. So if you have an idea something that will slow the SAPs dripping out all over your stuff, or something you can coat a cut limb with or anything like that, if you have any ideas if you're a guy that haunts or a gallon haunt's all uh, you know pine forests, like let us know how you deal with it. Be something you just can't like. It's one thing to have it on your like gloves and a little bit on your clothes, but once it was sort of would become part of your bow, I could see issues right if it's like in your cams and on your string and I don't know, on your knock and then and then it's like with aeril flight as the air as the knock leaves a string, who knows. It could be a problem that you don't want to be in that you want to take a break and just close that window because I think you're getting a little weak. But yeah, otherwise, there was a lot of good things going for that spot. We wanted something, as you mentioned, good for the wind perspective. We checked that off the list. We wanted something that would be within shooting range of as much of that plot area as possible where we thought they'd come from. And and we had a little bit of a debate around this, which was balancing the three factors for a tree that I think about at least that being the wind, that being within range of where you think the shots will be, and then finally, will I be able to stay concealed in this tree? Does I have the cover factor? And so every time you choose where to sit, you got to continue to think about those three things and then figure out, in my given situation, how do you wait three because sometimes one of the other is more important. And so in this case we got the wind covered good. What we had to figure out was how do we choose between cover and shots. There was a tree. It was tucked back into the woods, about seven yards off the edge of the plot. That would get you tucked in there very nicely and you'd be very unlikely to be spotted at all. But it was in the far southern part of the plot. Um it was, like I said, like seven or so yards back in there and surrounded by lots of trees on all sides. You basically have one shot right in front of you, and you know sixty percent of that small food plot would be out of range something like that, and so that's tough from a perspective. You know, I'm actually gonna get a shot. There was another tree, as you described, that was on kind of centrally located up and down north and south on the east side, and from that you could shoot basically anywhere in the plot downside. It wasn't it was right on the edge and maybe even like a little from yeah, just a little bit. So that was the thing was how do we want to which one is more important getting the shots are being more concealed, and you know, ultimately your dad was gonna hunt the most, and he said, hey, I would prefer more shots, and I would probably say that you've got a better ability to manipulate the other factor in your favor in that one. So by that, I mean if I sat the cover one, the one deep in the woods, now I need to say it, is there some way I can improve my shot opportunities. And there's a couple of things you could do, but not as much while with what we chose we it. Okay, we're gonna get all the shot opportunities to want. Now, can we improve the concealment. And it's much easier to improve your concealment if you have a pretty good tree, which we had a pretty good tree option. Oh, I see the tree is great. One is wide, which like just you know, it just sucks up the human profile and then uh a fair amount of branches coming off of it at the right height, and we obviously had to do you know, a fair bit of pruning. But like right now, when someone's up in there and you're standing in the plot, you're not seeing much humano. And I recommend three other things too. Number one, I recommend we put the tree stand facing off the back of the tree, so that we're not wide open on the front of it facing the big opening. Instead, you're facing the opposite way, so the trunk is now cover. So anything approaching from the food plot it's likely not going to see you if you're coming head on because you're facing the other way. Now, to get a shot, you just stand up and kind of lean over to your left and you can get a shot behind you. So that was number one. Number two, your dad was thinking Hey, let's grab the ladder standing put up here. And I was like, on this edge like this, I'd rarely do we do everything we can to keep this low profile. So let's not use the big bulky ladder stand that will stick way out. Let's do the climbing sticks that attach right to the side of the tree and hang on again, a little more stealthy, a little more um low profile. And then finally, which we weren't able to be done yet, but I hope we can do at some point add some pine bobs and a few spots just to give you a little more cover, just to be on the safe side there. And if we do that, we do those three things, we've essentially nullified all the concerns about concealment while getting all the upsides of the other two things. So that was my thought process on picking the right spot and making it the perfect spot for what we had to work with. Yeah, and the last thing that we did planted a tree. Oh yeah, sort of sort of, So yeah, you're right. We we wanted to um to sweeten the pot. Like I always try to find, like when I'm looking about what I'm thinking about word hunt, I oftentimes first try to find the right zone, like what's the right general spot, and then it's what's the right spot within the spot. So then you micro analyze and you think, okay, So the first was all this food plot is going to be a great spot, and then it was figuring out what's the spot within the spot, which was what we described find the right tree. And then the the next thing is is there anything I can do to sweeten the deal? And so there were a few things we did to this area to sweeten the deal, and one of them is this tree you describe um. Longtime listeners will know that I'm a big fan of planting. These fake scrape trees were basically you put a tree, you cut down a tree and stick it in the middle of a food plot or a field edge where it will stand out really conspicuously and you'll create a mock scrape huntreath it and these bucks will flock to these trees, just like a large mouth bass will flock to a sunk tree in the middle of the lake. All right, it's the structure, and almost all animals are attracted to structure in the middle of a model culture. So whether it's a model culture of water or a wide open field. Uh, they want to go to that, and in this case, they really want to go to a scrape tree. Because this is a communication of if you can get them to start using these, which they almost immediately do, they start making it better and better because every deer they visits it leaves a calling card. They leave their name and the number. Who I am, what I've been doing. Basically, when do you think we'll start seeing dear hit it tonight? Really? Now tonight, It's gonna be like, what the hell is this thing? What's going on? And so they'll be dealing, sniffing around, concerned. You might see them get spooky. Um, we've got two cameras in the area, so you're gonna get to see this um ones on video mode, which would be really interesting. But you know, assuming there's deer in the area, which I'm assuming there are, Um, they will hit it tonight and they're like, what the hell is this thing? What's going on? That? There's a lot of human stink here. We're gonna go in there tomorrow. There's gonna be deer tracks in that in that dirt might be shocked. There wasn't the only reason why there wouldn't be, as if it's just such a low deer density. But if I did this like in Michigan, where I know it's high deer density, oh absolutely, a bunch of them checking out. They're curious critters. They might not do it in daylight right away because there's there's so much commotion, like they're gonna be uneasy about it, But at nighttime that's when their curiosity comes out and they're thinking, man, what's going on here, what's happening, And what's eventually gonna happen is they're gonna start you know, they'll get comfortable after a week or two or something, and then dear, we'll start using that scrape. Not right now, they're not going to actually start pawing it up. That won't happen until the fall, but bucks and does will start leaving chemical signals on that liking branch. So basically, we took a tree, cut down, you know, a six ft section of it, buried two ft of it into the ground, and now there's a big pine pole in new Ella's field with several branches hanging out at about four ft tall. That will be the licking branches, and then there's gonna be a scrape like a scuffed out oval of dirt underneath it, and in the summer of these deer will sniff and lick and rub their eyeballs and their foreheads and their noses on those branches, leaving all that information. Once we get to August or September, WHOA, I recommend, like you your dad kickstart that ground scrape and then from there they're just gonna keep it going and going and going all year round. They might not scuff up the dirt all year und but they will be smelling it all year round. And um, what that does you know, what's gonna do for your dad is that hopefully come You know, I don't know if he's hunting in here, lay October, early November, whatever. If a buck comes to check out this food plot. If it's early season, maybe he's coming to feed. If it's November one, he's coming in to check if there's does, because there will be does consistently busy this Um, he's gonna come in there and he's gonna check it out, and he's gonna see the community bar or whatever, the online dating app in the middle as you were saying the other day, Um, and he's gonna go hit it and he's gonna go to that scrape and he's gonna stop, and he's gonna be sniffing. He might kick it up, and all the while we position this scrape right where we wanted it, so that scrape is positioned even angled to get the buck to angle in the general way we want him to. So he'll walk in there. He's gonna be twenty yards away from your dad, and he's gonna angle perfectly broadside while looking at this tree and this scrape, and your dad's gonna be off to the side, out of sight where this buck will never know it and help you'll drawback real nice and get a shot like that's the script you write and you hope will happen. Doesn't always happen like that, no, not at all, but it it gives you a good chance of something like similar to that could happen. And even if he like comes ten yards down wind of that scrape should be in bow range, you know. Yeah, that's the other thing that we mentioned to sort of like not make some shots that are too close and not put deer that are gonna end up getting directly down wind of you know, your ladder and where you've been because we sort of like right on the edge of the food plot behind the staying in. Uh. We there was already a brush pile from when the when the plot was cleared, and we just sort of extended that with the trees that we took out from when we were doing the edge feathering and made basically like a natural fence that's probably forty yards long ish. Yeah, And the goal there is is that if they're actually like coming towards the stand and they're gonna end up being like right underneath you, that that sort of visual will make them go a little bit wider and instead of being like a three yard steep angle shot and nobody wants to take, you know, push them out to ten fifteen where you've you know, you got a shot out. And it also kind of protects your down wind side because we we placed that wall on our down wind you know, on the down wind side of us. So you're hoping to push them, you know, to the north or south ere a little bit. So if we have that due you know, northwest wind basis basically is what we're protected from. Now, you know, it's going to push these deer too. You know, they certainly could go through like when you say fence. Don't anyone think that we literally got a barrier. It's just a couple of down tree limbs and stuff, But it's enough. They could just make it a little bit of a like a nisan, make it inconvenient. And almost always a deer is gonna take the path at least resistance she or he does not want to go push him through extra stuff. They don't have to. If there's a really easy open path ten yards more that way, that's the way they're gonna angle. And so now he's got the that sweet scrape tree in the middle. That's going to get one thing going. And then if they go past that and he hasn't shot anything, he's got now another thing that's going to divert their traffic just a little bit out behind him to avoid getting winded, to maybe give him a better shot at angle if he ends up wanting to do that. Um, I mean, you're just stacking a bunch of little things, like any one of these things might only help you two percent. But as I always like to preach, like you got to take a shotgun approach some times to deer hunting because there's so many things we can't control that every little one percent I can stack could add up to maybe seven of a better chance. And the seven percent better chance can make a huge difference when you're trying to get that one deer you're gonna get cracked at all year. So so that's why I like all these little sweeteners, all these little tweaks. You know, that's sometimes the difference between seeing something and putting something the freezer. So we did that, you made you did a little bit of edge feathering, which you know, some hinge cutting, some edge of feathering, basically just making some cuts, kind of making the plot edge more regular, more diverse. There's gonna be sunlight getting into the edges now, so it's not gonna like a hard food plot to pine timber. It's gonna be food plot two kind of brushy brambles down trees and then into the timber, whether it's the maple oak stuff or the pines in the south. Um, so all these little things are going to add up to this, you know, being the I keep saying, but this is gonna be like the the neatest little damn ice cream stand anywhere around and uh positioned really well for someone to get a shot at something. You told me, you feel like again, unless there's just like such low deer density that like there aren't deer moving around through there every day, but that just about every sit if you do the right thing with access, play the wind right, don't sit on a bad wind, that you could kill a deer like a dough or a buck. Every time you said it, I'd be shocked if you couldn't. Assuming you don't, I assuming all those things you just said, and that you don't over pressure. So if you hunted it every day, they're gonna catch on you, right. But if if you were to go in here October one and then you went in again like October, and then you hunted it five days from November one, the November five or whatever like that kind of thing, I'd be shocked. If you're not shooting. If if there's not a doll family group hitting this every day, I'd be very very surprised, and I'd be very yeah, something's wrong with if that's not happening, because it's just it's so ideal. Um. And if that's happening, if there's a dope family group visiting this every day, if not multiple, which they're variable, might be multiple, there's going to be bucks checking it every day during the rut will be the one you want to shoot. I can't guarantee that, but there will be days where four bucks will come by. Yeah, I think it's it's going to be a good thing, and it's something that could help and produce whether you know you or your dad were out here hunting on opening days Stember, or if you're here doing the rut. This kind of thing, you know, because does on the rut a betting defeating type of thing like this helps right just as much as it helps in the early season. So let's talk about the access a little bit to it. Right, Basically, like off the main road, there's like a logging road that comes in pretty much goes straight to it. Because when I say logging road, like a two track through the woods. There's also another one sort of does like a huge shape to it, and it's it's a loop you know, that basically has its food plot at the far end of it. Um And really we decided that well, I don't know you talked through the access. The big thing is that you just want to think about where are these deer when I'm moving through in which one of my routes will allow me to make sure I'm not educating them to my presence. So for a evening sit I'm thinking, Okay, if I'm going to walk in there at two o'clock or three o'clock in the afternoon, where are those deer right now, whether they're up on those bedding ridges and knobs, and so I want to make sure that I damn well don't go anywhere close to those as I try to walk in there. So right now, that northern two track gets pretty tight to that point. So if the leaves are down and it's a little bit still, and you try to walk that like most obvious trailing, which I'm sure this past hunter probably did. All right, That's probably what a lot of guys would do. They'd walk that two track. If there's a buck or doze betting on that ridge or that knob, they know absolutely everything you're doing. I bet you when you're at the closest point from the closest buck bed on that knob as the crow flies is probably yeah. So I just can't do that. So in the afternoons, my recommendation would take would be either to go to the far southern border of your property or at least the far southern two track and walk that and stay as far away from that betting ridge and knob as you can, circling basically on the down wind side of that tree standing will come with the back. So that's what I would do for an afternoon, said, I think about it the opposite way for the evening, because now when it's you know, four thirty in the morning or five in the morning or whatever, and I want to head into hunt that spot. What are the bucks now? We're any deer now? Well, they're at least a good portion of them are probably out in those big agg fields to the south. And how do you get to that southern two track we mentioned to that southern border. Will you have to at one point walk along the edge of that cornfield or get very very close to it. So I wouldn't want to do that. I'd want to do one or two things. Either drive to that edge and get dropped off, or find some kind of stealthy way to park a vehicle there and hop out and walk the edge in a way that you know, deer often are less disturbed by vehicle, or as I got to think and shoot, maybe just take the north to trek in where you don't need to go anywhere near that cornfield, And yeah, you are walking a two track that hypothetically some of these deer might cross when they come back about it, and they could cross your path and could possibly win that. But as I started thinking more about it on our walk back this evening, I started thinking, jeez, that might be one deer two deer versus. Again, I don't know deer numbers here, but it could be twelve deer out in that corn field. You would spook that will never come back your way that day if you blow them out way to the other direction, right, So so again I'm thinking where are they right now as I need to walk through, and what route keeps me as far as possible from that? And I think that's a big thing like on this property in general, thinking about whether it be that staying as far away as possible or you know, in one of the scenaris we talked about, and I'm sure we'll talk about here soon, you know, you have certain terrange features that act as highways on this property. And if you walk on the highway the whole way with him, it's one thing for dear to cross your trail and he's on your scent trail for three seconds and then he's on his own way and gone. It's another thing to ask that buck to walk your trail for a quarter mile and not to be boogered. Um. So you have to weigh those things and make decisions to um. But yeah, as far as the Papa Yanni stand, the Papua Yanni, heidy hole sweet spot, I think we did a lot of things that will make it awfully nice. Oh yeah, I think he's stoked, man. I mean, I hope. So we went from zero to hero today seeing all that we worked on it yesterday too, But yeah, I mean there was like there was literally nothing there, no reason to hunt there. Really, Now there's like a great couple of great reasons to hunt there along with stand. That puts you right in the money. It's so I'm very excited, Like standing up there yesterday and looking around, and then today as we transformed it more, I just kept thinking, I'd love to be sitting here that first day and to see those first dear kind of trickle out through the cover and get in here. I mean, that's that is one of the coolest things when you work on some kind of habitat and fervent project is the first time you see wildlife using it and enjoying it and doing the stuff you were kind of hoping that they would. That is a really cool feeling, like, oh wow, it it actually worked. This actually did the cool thing I was hoping it would do. It's very rewarding. I'm hoping to kill a turn in that food plot. It will be a nice right exactly, Yeah, really nice little stut zone. Yeah there's roost trees not too far away. Yeah. Um, but yeah, access brings us to like where I like to hunt, which is more up on the ridges, and it's basically like bowls and ridges country. That's kind of what I you know, describe it. Describe it as again, a couple of hundred feet maybe three under feet elevation gain and big bowls that have you know, fingers that come out into them. Um, some longer than others, but you know long ridges that connect to other bowls. And the way everybody has been walking this country, and it's the easiest way to walk this country is to get on a ridge, walk a finger up to a ridge, get on the ridge, and then just run the ridge until you get to the bowl. Or you know, the flat or whatever you're gonna be hunting and then jump off the ridge because the ridges all have a what's running you know. Well that was a big eye opener for me today when you explain what you already explained earlier. Is like, dude, you're asking that buck a lot. If you've been walking on that ridge for ten twenty minutes more and you think, now Buck's gonna jump on that ridge behind you and end up coming towards you down that he's just not. Yeah, I mean at least nine ten times it's not. You have the there's always exceptions to the rule, but but yeah, you know, there's deer running the side hills, those ridges. There's deer running from the top of the times, different times of the day. I mean, they're the easiest route for you, and they're the easiest route for those critters. So my idea was, let's look at different ways you can do an end around those and pop up the drainage. So find us about where the deer aren't is likely to be congregating and traveling, and then you know it's it's it's just like um, you know, back home by me an idea that I like to use. Walk a creek and then have a tree stand right in the edge of the creek, so you don't need to walk across anything the deer is going to travel on. You walk the creek and you just pop up the bank up into a tree. It's the same kind of thing here where you're at the bottom of the drainage. You don't think that box is gonna do that take that same path. I know they take it because the buck that almost got shot on would take that path, took that path to get to me. A creek. No, not the creek, but what how you're telling me to get into this spot that we looked at today. Certainly could happen. But I'm just saying that if I'm if I'm playing the game of averages and I'm trying to say, like, how often are these bucks gonna cruise or travel through here, I think it's more likely that deer will be cruising up and down those long ridges on the side hill either way, and does probably sometimes on the tops. Like that's a major line of movement that thinks me relatively consistent. While random ups and downs and random places in the drainage, I think that's more random and so I would rather bet on an act of randomness versus the high probability odds that they're gonna take the typical upper third ridge somewhere along their ridgetop and be somewhere along there. Um, so why don't just pop up this little drainage and then do just have to walk thirty yards across the high travel profile versus yards along that stretch. Um. Well, it's gonna be interesting because I'm gonna have to try to like introduce that idea for traveling in this country to basically everybody has been hunting here for the last forty or fifty years, because, like I said, man, that is just how everybody gets to their stand Um. But yeah, another cool thing about well, the way to introduce where we were today and check out was that it's a spot that I wanted to hunt. I really actually wanted to hunt it ever since I was like a kid, because we call it the Oak Flat, and to me, the Oak Flat just whatever forever reason, it just has like a there's just some like twinkly stars around Oak Flat, you know, and it's just like seems like a place where like it's one of the first thing you learned about deer in the woods is that they eat acorns that fall out of oaks, and that they would come up out of a bowl and feed up on this flat. So there's other spots around here that have the names, like the first Valley, the second Ridge, you know, the old uh Um Foundation. You know, it was like an old foundation from like a home setter up one of the valleys. Right. None of those spots are like kill big buck here. But when someone's like, oh, the oak flag, You're like, oh, I'd like to go see the oak flap. So last year I was like, straight up nostalgic reasons because I've been thinking about it for thirty years. I wanted to hunt there. But then looking at it on the map, I was like, man, three ridges come together. There's like, I don't know, depending on how you want to break it up, three or more bulls that kind of dropping off on all sides. One of our neighbors is close by there, and he couple three years ago did a cut a pretty I'd almost call it a clear cut. I mean there's parts of it that are wide open and a lot of leftover stuff, a lot of you know, thick bedding cover now growing coming in Um, it just seemed like a good spot, so I hunted it last year has some good encounters you were as one of the spots that you want to check out. You showed me an on Xllent. We're like you should You're like we should go there. I'm like, oh, that's the Oak Flat. I and have a long history with it, and um, yeah, tell me why you liked it so much. Well, what I try to do in a situation like this is try to try to simplify the game a little bit, because when you're looking at the amount of space we had here, like you said that, there's a lot to work with, there's a lot to over analyze if you tried to. And so I wanted just to look at the big picture and see, Okay, what's how's word deer? How do I expect dear to travel across this big terrain? Like? What are the major major features? And then what do I know about how dear generally travel? And can I can I find a couple of focal points? Is there anything that's going to really move deer in a predictable way more than anything else? And so I'm looking and as you have talked about the big ridge, systems, and this particular ridge system has like a main river, and then if you envision this being like a river is the way I was kind of looking AT's like a big river like the Colorado River, and then there's several big tributary rivers, like how the Green River comes into the Colorado River or something like that. And then there's all these little creeks that come off of it, little knobs and points and things like that. And so I started looking, and there's if you take a passing glance at the map, it just seems kind of hodgepodge, all sorts of points and ridges and all this kind of stuff. But if you focus, you'll start to see. Actually, there's two points in the property you can hunt where major river is converge, where there's two points where three major ridges all hubb up. And so you're pulling in from three different river systems almost, and the Oak Flat was the best one of those where three different big ridge point systems that also had their own tributarias and different things coming into them all came together. This is the only place that had that is prominently So right away I'm thinking, Okay, during the rut, I know there will be there will be bucks cruising these and this pulls in the most water from tribut areas to creeks all into one place. And oh, by the way, you have this hub of movement that also is up high where you can have essentially bulletproof wind by hunting an edge of that and blowing your wind over one of these big bowls. So there's two great things going for you. You've got the wind thing figured out. You've got a concentration of buck movement during the rut that's more predictable than almost anything else. And so right there that gave me like, oh, I need to check this out. And then got there I found out what you just said, which is that your neighbor cut his north ridge, so one of these spokes of the wheel has got this mega cut and now it's just brushy, nasty. I mean, there's got to be does betting in there. So now I know not only is this a hub a funnel of sorts. Not only do you have a great wind situation going for me, but it's also adjacent to what's got to be a really good dough betting area. And we didn't even mention the fact, and you alluded to it but there's a bunch of oaks on here, so and there's food. You can't write up anything better for a October thirty one to November hunt. And so that's the kind of spot when we got there and I saw it, and I saw that everything kind of matched stuff the way I was hoping it would, plus a little bonus. That's the kind of place that you could hunt day after day. And explaining this to me because I feel like the one thing that doesn't just sort of like fall perfectly into a slot with like that what we've been talking about is that the box want to be running that third of the way down right off the off the ridge. Yeah, this spot like you're gonna sit be sitting on the ridge pretty much. Yeah the ridge one ridge kind of rises away from you. But like you're hunting the top. So how how are you um just find that when you're thinking the run, the bucks should be, you know, fifty yards below you. I don't. I don't think in this case they will be fifty yards below you. Two reasons. It's tight enough that even on your I mean, I'm trying to think of how to describe this verbally without and not making sense to people without seeing it um right next to you. It's super steep. I don't think they're traveling super downlow because of how steep it is. Is that true overall? Like if you're in one of these bowls and you just see just like something that you're like, wow, that would be like a good ski run, or it's almost like like it could have a cliff or something down there. Little ways you can kind of exit that off as a val route and think that you are gonna go around that. You could, like all these things should be like starting points, like an assumption. I would make that assumption to start. I'd want to verify it. I want to, like i'd sit and watch and see. Like you know, sometimes these deer can be like mountain ghosts and surprise you, but more often than not, they'll take a easier path. So yeah, that's gonna act as like a pinch and push them farther up into the slightly easier stuff. So I think that if any buck comes around that corner where we decided to set your stand, they'll come through in range of you there. I think that if any buck comes down from the ridge on the straight across from you, you're probably gonna see him cruising up and around there. You also have I mean you have the oaks, you have that betting, so they'll be cruising on the down winds or I mean on the thirds. Will there be criss crossing. They'll be bucks that want to get from one side to the other. So there's going to be crossed the top movement on this hub. I think. So if you imagine, like if someone's thinking of this at home, Um, what's a good way to scribe this? I don't know, Like your arm of your hand is this hub, and then you've got like one of these ridges is your arm, and then one of these ridges is your thumb, and one of these ridges of all the rest of your fingers if they were squeezed together. And there'll be some bucks that will side hill any one of those features. But then there will also be bucks that want to get across to the other bedding and to the other stuff. So you're gonna have criss cross, you're gonna have side and you're not gonna cover all of it, but you're gonna cover a whole lot more than you would anywhere else. You'll be in the game on a whole lot more. Um. And so that's That's why I would play it this way to start. Maybe you're gonna hunt it, and you're gonna see everything crossed. And then they dropped right down the hill and I never saw my saw for two seconds and the cross and then they were downhill, so they're sidehilling more. Maybe you're gonna hunt you know that south tree that we talked about, So if you had a northern would northerly wind, you would hunt down there, and you can see down that hill a little bit more. Maybe you'll hunt that and see that. Yeah, they really do hug farther down there. And and I might be wrong, but I would like to start on closer to that hub and and observe and see what happens. That would be the starting point at least. Well, and again I have some personal experience, you know. I said it for I don't know, four or five CITs last year, And interestingly, wow, see the last year was a little bit different. So we kind of kind of had like a south wind, which is hot, but all a year that I saw up there came from kind of the north and then onto the flat and then kind of hooked and got you know, started working across or up the wind again. And and that's the nice thing about hunting mobile like we do, is that you can adjust. See, Like I always go into this with like a thought through assumption, but then I always have to confirm that assumption with a sighting, with observations or sign on the ground that tells you something different. Um. And then you get to be able to jump on that once you see that you were wrong and tweak it fifty yards or a hundred yards or ten yards, whatever it is, um. But it's it's a really really good zone. And the spot that we picked, you know, I thought with a prevailing wind north in that case it would be more of like a westerly wind. And the other three he picked me for north or northwest, you're gonna be scott free with a wind on almost any win like that. You're really gonna a hard time getting winded out there. And you can so you can sit this a couple of days in a row, and you know, assuming all other things go okay, it's the kind of spot that if you put in the time, I would just be shocked if you don't have bucks cruising through there. UM, I would almost be willing to put I'm a high roller I'll put ten dollars on the table and say that if you sa at that for three days in at some point in the first ten days in November, if you sat that all day for three days and you access to it right, and you hunted the wind right, I would bet you ten whole American dollars that there's no way you would not see mature about come through there. I'll do it, all right, and I'll pay up ten ten bucks three whole days, though, three whole days I'm gonna have to fight my foamo bad man. I realized that from last last ball man. Like it's especially especially when there's you know, you're looking at an acre or two, there's three some other odd acres. Gosh, it just gets in your head to be like, down the ridge has gotta be better off the ridge. I should go check it out, see if there's more scrapes or more buck rubs down there. I really believe in it. It's gonna suck in. It's just and I don't know what the right analogy is, but that sucks in a lot of you know, it's it's it's like all the rivers right now in certain places are blown out because they're sucking in muney water from all over the place. All the money water is gonna get sucked into the helb this place to be. I like it. I'm gonna haunt it. I like it. I like it too. What else? Now I know how to get in there? You know what else? Did you have questions about? Or we walked some other place? Is like, what is there anything else I didn't answer? Or I didn't we didn't get to explore yet? Or well there's two two questions. Um, let's cover this one first. Ah, I've got cameras on pretty much the major saddles its property. Now, part of that has to do with that. There we have other cameras to just traditional shaw cameras, but my cell cameras set up on the ridges and saddles because that's where they get reception and I can reliably get the pictures. And you know, last year we kind of were like, we'll put one here because it's like a known travel corridor, and we'll put one here because there's a you know, scrape that's been here for twenty years, and you know, they kind of produced off and on and like obviously once Dear Heart started hitting scrapes. Yeah, all the ones that were pointing at scrapes, we're getting getting bucks um. But now we just kind of transitioned them all to saddles, and it's just like it's nearly constant. Maybe not every saddle has a deer come through every day, but darn closed, right. So my question is it's like, Okay, you know they're using it, great, but what other like what other ways are there to like what other data can I extrapolate from what I'm seeing there in the pictures? Like do I need to be like counting how many deer passed through a saddle at what time? Would direction they're most commonly going? Because it's to me it seems like impossible that you would keep thousands of pictures and then scroll through one camera and be like, oh yeah, most of them are going left or right, which means east to west or vice versa. Like is it is it worthwhile to take the time every every couple of days to be like, Okay, the spot we call the jungle has um. You know, in the last week, you know, fifteen dolls went left, five doors went right. So for the thing I would say is that you don't need to pay attention to anything like that that's happening from now until September. You know, after the first week of September, a lot changes, especially with bucks um velvet peels, bucks shift home ranges. Maybe five out of ten bucks are gonna live somewhere different in the falling word. During the summer, you know, there's a whole lot more competition between bucks they have to disperse. And then also around the same time, once you get in September October, food sources change, cover changes as leaves fall down, all that kind of stuff. So there's this huge shift in behavior as you go from November seven to October one. So I wouldn't worry yourself one bit about any details of what they're doing right now. I think it's it's nice confirmation to see, like, oh yeah, a lot of deer hump over these saddles right now. That would tell me, Okay, that's something to pay attention to come October. But I'm not going to give one rip of more of my time to it until then. What would be interesting is once you get into that time period and you start seeing box use them, then that's when I might look at, Okay, which direction of these bucks coming from the morning, How are they because basically what you want to figure out is where are they betting and feeding? Like what's their up and down movement or whatever. And you might start to see that when you're looking at times of day these bucks are moving or you're gonna see like, oh, this buck comes through here more often than any other and he always comes from the right. So that tells me, well, he's so where and that's happening, you know, in the evenings. So it looks like it's probably heading down to the food to the south. It's coming from the right, so what does that mean, Well, it's betting most likely somewhere over there to the right. And then you can start figuring those kinds of things out. That's if you're gonna hunt on like a betting defeating type situation for you, you're not, you're hunting, you know, one week in November, and in that case, the like the SADDLINEFO does help you and just like knowing like, hey, this is the path of least resistance a lot of dear travel. But once you move into that rut time frame, that's when I'm really zooming in on that data. So again that's you know, one of these places might really be lit up. You're gonna see that. Oh wow, this all of a sudden, this saddle or this hub, this convergence of trails is where all these bucks are moving now over the last two days, last three days, man midday cruiser, midday cruiser, late morning cruiser, Zoop. Here's your rut travel quarter. Like there's something going on. They want to be here. They're passing back and forth. Check Adoe betting area. All of a sudden, you're gonna understand what are these rut funnels pinch points. So are you saying that makes me think that my saddle picks for the fact that I've picked to set up in saddles with my trail cams, it's a good thing. Yeah, I'm not saying it's I'm definitely not saying it's not. Is there a from what you've seen just walking around the last day? Are there other places where you're like, man, like you're gonna gain some good information if you put a camera here, Like what else can I be looking for in this in this hill country? For like where to place the camera other than known? Because again, there's like there's trails, there's kind of trails everywhere, and there's ridge top trails, you know, but the saddles seem to be like everybody likes to hit the saddle, So not knowing, right, having no other personal experience other than having walked it for a day and looked at maps, I would be looking for the same thing. When I'm thinking about where I want to focus my time hunting, it's where do multiple lines of movement converge. So it would be like the hub we just described that whole thing like that would be I want to have some cameras in that zone because I know, I know this is a place that's sucking in a lot of movement across criss cross and all the place. I want something there. I want another thing like for example, in the Amphitheater, but we haven't talked about yet, but that's an area where like five different points all dropped down from different ridges and they all converge in one zone. Now it's a kind of a bigger zone. But it's like the reverse turkey foot if you took like a turkey foot. In this case, it's more than turkey foot. It's like a a bear paw or I don't know. Take your fingers and flip them upside down and then they all curl in and drop into the same little bottom. You've got all these points, and where does it drop out to. It comes from these big betting ridges and it drops down into the one big agg field around. So there's no doubt there's a lot of traffic sucking down that into the evenings and sucking back up in the mornings. So that would be a place like I know the zone, I don't know the spot within the spot. So that's somewhere I want to put a handful of cameras to help you determine where's the spot within this zone. That's absolutely something I would try to do. Um there's another area that's like the Oak Flat that has this converging river hub type effect you call the jungle. That's another spot I think would be worth trying to. Like you've got just so folks know at home, we called the jungle because not quite where the three ridges converge, but very near there, down one of the ridges, there's a spot where it just got overgrown with those giants. I don't even know what that vine is, Like, what is the actual plant name of those big thick brown vines that's the big grape vines. Yeah, they're just grape vines, because it's what I'm thinking you're talking about, you know, inch and a half diameter, but just like you know, a couple of downfalls, a couple of snags, and just a pile of vines, and you're walking down a ridge on a trail that's just like you can you know, whistling Dixie, and all of a sudden you come to the jungle and you've got to like divert pick your poison, like go right and drop off the ridge through like a raspberry, you know forest, or go left and hop a bunch of logs and go through some grape vines. It's just I just want to explain why we call it the jungle, and we haven't. I haven't seen it yet, but I love what you're describing to me because you're telling me that there's this like jungle bedding cover right next to one of these major lubs of multiple three plus ridges all coming together right next to it. Sounds like a dynamite betting are that screams to me, pay attention. And so that would be another zone where I would and maybe those saddles adjacent that might be the spot within that spot, you know, so that you might already be in some of those locations, um, but from a outsider's point of view, I'm looking at those points and saying, here's the starting point, here's the zone, and then give me cameras around it too. Then hyper focus and after we've learned something from those, that would be the next thing I would think about. So covering those not just with one saddle camera, but give me one on the north point, in the south point, at the east. See you start to get a better idea because, like we're saying the other day, you can put a camera here, and if you start making a ton of assumptions off one camera that's covering acres or something and said, well, he never passed over here, but he cast here. You know, you don't know much about what happens outside of thirty yard zone, right. They could travel ten yards behind your camera and you would never know it. So if there's a spot that seems that good, I would if you have the cameras to do it, which you know we're not always going to have that, But if you happen to have three cameras or four cameras that you can focus on the zone, I'd almost rather really get to know his zone and how they use it. If you have confidence in the zone, really figure that place out this year and then maybe next year, then you really figure out how to use the next piece. Um. That's one way to approach a camera strategy that I think has long term value. If it's a spot you're gonna keep punning any other any of the things. I mean, we talked about my horrible flight, we talked about some of the scouting takeaways we've had. We've talked about, you know, fine tuning one little heidy hole, habitat improvement for your dad. I think that the a good way to h to close her out is to talk about the like the long term yeah, for action and habitat goals, improvement goals. I want. I want to get well both. I want to get Aldo Leopold on this joint, you know, on the forty that at least you know I'm kin too. Yeah. Uh so what are you asking? Like smoth was what I would want to do. I know that they're in a um. They're in like I think it's called the Wisconsin UM the Managed Forest Law, Yeah, which is basically like you enter into it and they you know, the state basically helps you manage forests and you get a tax break for it. Right, I know that in the next five years there's some certain amount of wood that has to be cut out of there, So like would you have ideas of like where you know that cutting could happen, how would you cut it other places that you never caught um and just I don't know, Like, yeah, when I'm up here for my like, is there a project that I can start on, you know, next spring if I make it back this summer, I've got a couple of days like what's Yeah, what's the project That might take five years, but they can make a big difference. So I think there's a few things. Like the first things that came to mind to me would be better defining the best betting and the best little transition food. So it would be making taj mahals on those points, so hinge cutting and adding the cover on those knobs and points where they want to bed if there's some cover, and so that's an easy thing that is going to just make this a better hangout for bucks and does all year, and that's going to help you in ways during the run to So that first point we talked about absolutely should have some cutting on it. Thicking that up. You could even make the other big one better too. In certain place to thicking that up, you're gonna add some dough betting farther up the knobs off the ridge. So that would be one thing I would do. Um, And then I do think more of what we started today, like make another one of those, maybe make a third one of those. Um, the little food plots, a little hidy hole food plot, because then all of a sudden, steven have one. You could also create a line of them, and so you're creating lines of movement. This is a concept that my friend Jeff Sturgions is always talking about, like trying to define in some kind of way. It's always unpredictable, but you can encourage a slightly more predictable line of movement, and sometimes you can create criss crosses of defined movement. It's it's replicating what we already have up on those ridges, right, there's a certain sense of a defined movement. We know they're gonna go a little bit like this, a little bit like this, a little bit this. We found a place like that down on the forty that doesn't have that, So let's do something to create some of those. So we can create that with a line of these plots that we know bucks will then want to check this one to this one to this one and then hit the big fields. Or let's define where the best betting is, so we know they're probably betting all over these ridges or knobs. Let's go ahead and put two taj mahals that all of a sudden we know by far those are the two best. Now, if there's a big buck out here, he's going to claim that most likely not every night, not every single day, but you all of a sudden have a better chance he's gonna be there than you did historically, and that can make a big difference on future hunts. So those would be two things that it would be relatively easy to do UM and that I think would make a noticeable hunting impact. You know, the bigger stuff like where should you do substantial cutting? I have to think about that a little bit more because that's something that I think you want to be really strategic about UM because because I mean, what I see from what we've seen historically is like those cuts immediately turned into dough betting. It could be awesome, and there's probably lots of eat in there too, right, I mean these has got to be great. So clear cuts are probably the best stuff you've got in a lot of ways in this big timber country, for sure, for food and betting. What you want to make sure you do when you do anything, whether it's a plot or betting improvement or in this case, like a big cut, is just think about how that impacts, Like what's the trickle down effect? Like everything, every piece of a domino, it's going to hit another. So I always want to make sure if you're making this big cut somewhere, is that going to impact how you get in and out to hunt these other places? Is this all of a sudden going to create a deer hotspot that there's no way you can get around? Right? I want to avoid the attract and repel conundrum, which is where you make some kind of improvement that attracts dear but you don't have any way to get past it without them spooking and and a big cut like this could certainly do that if you if you position it right. I mean as I'm as we're saying this, and I'm just thinking about it like the far like a lot of your acts as has to come from the east, and it has to come from the south probably if you don't want to have to walk those big ridges and bumped it, which we probably wouldn't want to do because that's where are soom right yep. So like my first thought is improve, improve that ridge in the bedding in the northwest corner of the north and northwest, which is the hardest stuff for you to get to and you never you know, it's the hardest ever need to go through. Make that better bedding with some cuts. That probably is what makes the most sense. It's low risk from an access standpoint, high upside from an improved betting, and that probably just sweetens the whole up and down movement from bedding down to your little honeyhole food plots and and and yeah, because this this just basically it's sweetens where they want to be and expands where they want to be while maintaining the general line of movement which is from those ridge bid beds to your transitioning little food plot out to the big agg to the south. I think that's how a roach it. And I know you hate that. There's those white pines that are kind of a dead zone that comprise the bottom third of the farm almost, but they give you a nice little buffer of free wind space. Like deer do travel through them, but they don't congregate there, they don't hang out there for a long period time. It's a lot lower risk than if that was betting. You know, if you did a cut through that and then all of a sudden became in the spot where this deer hanging out all the time, you're s ol and a lot of those westerly winds northwest and all that kind of stuff. So you know, this kind of all stream of thought. I'm thinking about this as we go. But but that would be like a big project, and that would be a cool impactful thing. Looking that north half and northwest half of the forty for something like that, I think would make a lot of sense. Um Yeah, because you would just be kind of you'd be like connecting new betting to existing betting. Yep, yep. You're you're just you're looking at the general areas where they want to be in. You're expanding or or polishing what nature already has there, and you're you're putting the frosting on top um. And if that big, that big old buck that was haunting a dreams last year. If he's still in the area, it's going to be a spot all of a sudden, he's absolutely gonna have to be checking out. Um, take these places from being you know, maybe I'll swing by and grab a Starbucks coffee to all of a sudden, oh my god, it's the best coffee in New York City. I have to go there. That kind of thing, And um, that's kind of what you try to do when you're trying to manage and fix up and improve a small property. It's anytime you can do something like that, and you can't change the world. You don't have five thousand acres or acres like some people do that manage, you know, properties and deer. But if you can make these little sweet spots really sweet, you can have a disproportionate impact. And then just don't overpressure. If you keep them feeling safe and you give them these incentives to spend a little more time there, to go out of their way to to add that to their route, you can really do more with a small place. And people realize that's my take. I like it, man. I like that You're you're you're feeling optimistic about her, and I'm not saying ours. It's my dad's and his buddy's new forty. But you've got, I mean lots of potential. Obviously you've there's a good deer here. There are deer here. I think with a little TLC, with a little like adjusting some ways that we do things, make some tweaks, put the frosting here. It's there's no reason why you shouldn't have some great hunting here. So I'm I'm excited to see. I'm just really excited to see how things pan out this fall. You're gonna send me updates the first day, second day, third day, fourth days, like day, seventh day, every day, please, I will for sure, because I'll be hunting up top on the oak flat. We'll have service, which is it? Which is a real pro and con. That's true. It's nice, it's check the weather, it's nice. It's in market text. But well, you can spend too much time looking at the phone, not hunting. But even though I've yet to roost turkey in the evening on this trip, and I've been after it for seven or eight days here, ah, it's getting to be that time. I think, yeah, we better do it. We have a couple of hours laughing, try to kill one more gabbler. This uh, the spring of one set after you get the turkey blues at all, once the turkey season ends, I don't think I'm into as much as you are. I don't like I really enjoy it, but it's not something I get the turkey blues about. I'm right into white tails once. Once like the beans and corns start popping up, I get the yeah. And when I saw that, I was like, Oh, that's when I get the real like white tail. He be geebs or maybe not hepe gps, but something is pumping, and uh, yeah, it's funny how that happened when you showed up here. Like I was kind of like thinking like I was hunting turkeys, but I was kind of thinking of like the work we're going to do when you got here. But I wasn't really like in the zone or like getting excited about it. But then as soon as like what are we doing? When I looked back at you know, I was like, man, that's all it takes us to walk through the woods. Oh, we're gonna look look at the buckbeds. We're gonna go to look at those points, and all of a sudden, we just like switched into whitetail mode and it was just like I was on a different trip. I was like, yeah, you know what if we hear a gobble, just let it go and get back to him later. Like we're gonna we're starting to like we're starting to already tune in for November. You know it's going to be here before you know it. Oh man, especially these days, Holy mackerel. I'll tell you what. The one thing I just really badly want is I want to lose that ten dollar bill. So win that ten bucks and then we can wrap this thing up with a nice bow on November seventh or whatever day it ends up being. All right, Yeah, I know, I just had to pick a date range it's coming. Hey, while I got you, is there anything the folks listening to know about what Yanni the Latvian Eagles got coming out these days? Oh? Yeah, when's this gonna air in like a week or two? Oh? Perfect, Well, it's rough, so that'll roughly be like first week in June. I'm guessing it's it's either last week in May or first week in June. There still should be some uh yet to roll out. Meat Eater Haunts episodes. Um, the last one is gonna be my Dad and I hunting here last year. It's perfect, perfect you have if you listen to this whole thing, you have to actually go see the thing in person. The video here are some of the things again that I talked about in the last couple of hours. But you also, um, learn some new stuff about my my history here and meet some of the guys that it got me into hunting and taught me, you know, stuff about hunt in my early early days. Um, and uh, it's a it's a cool episode. I think he'll dig it. And then there's uh, there's gonna be like a Montana pronghorn episode. There's a Montana elk episode, and then the ones that have already aired, which you can go and check out right now if you haven't yet. But there's a great Colorado archery elk hunt with Jason Phelps and um, I guess since it well, no, I won't ruin it in case you just like again we're living under rock and you haven't gone to go see it, go check it out. There's some good calling action. You can watch Jason just like work his magic, which, like let me tell you it is there like I like, I consider myself a decent caller. I can get it done, but and I'm confident in it. But he has like the next level confidence where he's almost like like he can tell you. He's like, Mark, I'm gonna do this now, and the bull is going to do this and you're like really, and he does it and then the bull doesn't like He's done it a lot more than I have, right well, M So yeah, that that's great. You can always uh that's on the Metator YouTube channel. UM obviously tune into the Mediator podcast Stephen and Ella. I try to make it to as many of those as I can. UM, and then you can always follow along on my Instagram handle with his which is Joannice Underscore who tell us and UM nothing too exciting. They're just Johnny's general life, which is a lot of hunting, a lot of fishing, my dog, I'm cooking, ah when my kids are up to a little bit. So yeah, that kind of that about wraps wraps it up. That wraps it up. It's good stuff. And and thank you, thank you for welcoming me to this special place, like it's really man, it's really cool to get to be a part of that and to see it and experience it, and and I know that's no small thing, so thank you. Yeah, well, I believe that my dad said as he was leaving today that maybe we'll do a hunt together. Sometimes he might have been thinking, like Alaskan caribou. You're like, well, you know this will work too, A good whitetail place about seventy yards from here. Yeah, that would be a cool thing someday too. All Right, And that's it for us today. Appreciate tune in, thanks for being a part of this community and listening to this story. And until next time, stay wired to Hunt.

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