00:00:01 Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, home of the modern white tail hunter, 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 two and today in the show, we've got Mario Trafficante from The Hunting Beast and we're gonna walk through his hunting season and how he would approach different phases of the year. All right, welcome to the Wired Dunt podcast, brought to you by First Light, and today in the show, we've got Mario Trafficante. He's from the Hunting Beast. If you listen to the Hunting Beast podcast, if you're on the forum, you've seen some of their videos on the YouTube channel. If you're familiar with Hunting Beast gear, this is Mario. He's one of Dan in False Partners and Crime in the Woods. They spend a lot of time and they are pros at hunting pressure deer in a lot of different scenarios. Mario has a great what would you say, just just a great way of explaining what he does and why he does it. And this is not like he's got these ten ten thousand acre preserves hunt. He's hunting stuff just like you and I do, and he's having great success. And so today what I thought we would do is walking through a few different phases of the season. Let's talk you know, mid September, let's talk mid October, late October, let's talk November, and then what he's thinking about as far as how he's keying into deer movement, Where does he think dear betting, where and how do we think deer traveling and feeding? How does he plan his setups, how does he plan his access? We dive into great detail on all of those topics, taking a walk, you know, week by week, month by month into the hunting season. We're also get into some really interesting background around you know, you know, learning as a deer hunter, about growing as a deer hunter, about how to filter all the noise and all the different ideas and then you know, testing things out. Really interesting kind of introductory conversation around some of those topics. So if you're relatively new to deer hunting and just trying to figure out, you know, how do you handle this great, big learning curve, I think you'll really find value in that. So that's it for me today. I'm going to get into the conversation with Mario. I'll just remind everyone there's a bunch of new outerwear from First Light available now in our new Specter whitetail patterns, so the Catalyst, the new white Tail, Catalyst jack and Bibbs, new Sanctuary two point oh uh jacket and bibbs. You can find all that stuff over at first Light dot com. And then, finally make sure you're following all the other cool stuff from Wired Hunt. We've got launched our new Wired Hunt YouTube channel, new website, lots of articles from great deer hunters like Andy Maybo, Martonic, Tony Hansen, Tony Peterson, myself and others. You can find that all at the Meat Eater dot com slash wire. So that's it now, let's chat with Mario. All right here with me now on the line, I've got Mario Troficante. Mario, thanks for being on the show. Appreciate it. Mark, thanks for having me. Yeah, I'm excited about this when I've you know, been following the work that that you and Dan and everyone has been doing at the Hunting Beast for a long time now, and it just seems like an an endlessly useful set of educational conversations you guys get going and resources you put out there. I know this is not news to you, but you guys are helping a lot of folks and I'm excited to get to dive in with you because I've I've talked to Dan quite a bit, but you and I haven't got to yet. So so thanks for making the time to do it. Yeah, I appreciate it. UM. I think one of the most rewarding aspects of this is sharing the information. Get to meet different people, talk to them about their experiences. UM. I still learn a lot from from talking to different individuals and just getting their take on different hunting scenarios that they're going through, questions that they have. They make me think about how I set up and what I'm doing throughout the year and really approach things in a different way. Um. Every year adds a little bit of a different twist. And so it's it's good at these conversations I enjoy. Yeah, it's it's one of those things that I love about it. You can never you'll never stop learning. There's there's always something more to figure out to try to wrap your head around. It's it's, uh, the never ending story that we're taking part in here, and uh and kind of along those lines, you mentioned something before we start recording. You mentioned how important it is to you that folks remember that anyone can do this, this kind of stuff that we're gonna talk about. And I think that that point is particularly important these days because there's more new hunters kind of intrigued by hunting than maybe ever before. Like the last year is brought a lot of new people into the fold um that are kind of dabbling or looking into this, and if they go online or they look on TV, they see, you know, they see us or Dan or someone on the outdoor channel killing big deer all the time, having so much success. It can seem a little bit daunting when you see that, and then you go out in the woods yourself and you don't see a single deer. Um. So, so why is it that you bring that up? Why is that so important to you? Like? What what do you want to get across on that? I think it's important to me because everyone starts out at a certain base level. When you're trying to improve your hunting game, let's say, let's just call it that, or improve the learning curve on what you're doing and I think a lot of it. You know, everyone has a different background and experience of how they grew up and where they started hunting. Who are the mentors and the teachers that they had when they were young. That changes over time, and I think people coming new in hunting or who have been hunting their entire life. I believe it's really important. One of the one of the biggest tools you can have with this is to have an open mind and to listen to the people around you. You're not always going to get good information, but a lot of times, uh, you are going to get some good information and keen in on those those things that you get. Um. One of the things I noticed early on. You know, I grew up in central Wisconsin in a small town and really my dad was from Italy. My grandfather, they did a lot of really rabbit hunting, waterfall hunting, pheasant hunting. Um. That was a big part of what I grew up experiencing that that type of hunting, being in the outdoors a lot, and not just uh, not just for the capacity of of hunting, for sure, but it was hunting to put food on the table, and it was really a it was a different type of experience because through that, through hunting and fishing with my dad, my grandfather, and the circle of friends that we had where I grew up, I really just formed a passion for it, like as a recreational pastime. I mean, I would be out in the woods, exploring around, spending time observing and learning what was going on in that natural environment. You know, if you compare it to maybe what's going on with you know, younger kids today or today's generation, there's a lot more what I would call digital distractions going on, and it's it's not everywhere, but depending on where you're where you're living, in the circle of friends and the things that you're associated with, there's a lot of other things that can pull you away from hunting or if you're interested in the outdoors. And the one piece of advice I would kind of like to give people if you look at some of the predominant names or mentors that we would say and hunting, and you look at their their history of kind of what they did growing up, one of the things I recognized with them is a lot of them they spent a long time in this exploration phase as a kid, as I would call it, um. They spent a lot of times just being out in nature, whether it was hiking, camping, hunting, fishing, um. And it's during this time I think you you really observe and this might sound a little weird and a little uh I guess hippie issue, if you will, but you start to observe the natural rhythm of what's going on when you're in the woods. And and what I mean by that is, you know, there's there's a certain rhythm that takes place with change in the season, uh, changed during the time of the day. You know, what are the wind patterns doing or weather patterns doing when they come in and out? How to different animals behave in the woods during different times of the day. You know, birds, squirrels, and then you can get into larger mammals like deer that we love to hunt and everything in between, you know, hunting waterfall and pheasants and rabbits and doing that a lot when I was a kid. It introduced me to all those different cycles and allowed me to really enjoy that rhythm and getting into that. I find you know, as as you get older and you know, family and kids and work and all the other things that you have in your life. A lot of times it's it's more difficult to just step back and focus on that rhythm that's going on. And I think from the perspective of a hunter, being in tune with that can lead you to observe irving behavior and specifically how dear behave in their natural environment, um, how they travel across different topographies, how different animals might signal when there's movement going on in the woods during different times of the day. And if you really take the time, you know, now everyone's got smartphones, right, so you know you're out in the woods doing a sit and you might be scrolling through some feed on your phone. But if you can force yourself to put that away and and just sit and listen, um, I think you'll be pleasantly surprised at at some of these different signals that you see happening. A couple of things I tend to notice or I picked up when I was a kid, or just certain times in the in the morning or the evening where you'll see when the birds will be into chirp or migrate to different areas of the woods. Um. This different movement often signals when deer are going to move from bad to food or start moving out of certain areas. Um, we've probably all encountered the scenario where you have a j that's calling incessantly in a certain part of the woods, or a squirrel is chattering. And you know, I know this stuff has been talked about before, but I feel it's a finer point that sometimes remissed because our minds are all caught up in the end goal, which is, you know, I want to get on I want to get on that book, or I want to see a deer, I want to see an animal, and we sometimes miss the reaction of the whole ecosystem together that we're kind of sitting in. You know, such a great point, very very easy to do. And Uh, your point about trying to push away those digital distractions, especially when you're out there in the field, is it's surprisingly difficult. It seems like such a silly thing. But I've realized when I start paying attention how often I reflexively reach from my phone without even thinking about it. It's it's embarrassing when I start catching how often my mind turns to that. Um, But you brought up another point that I'm kind of curious about how you approached this you talked a second ago about you know, the importance of having an open mind and you know, taking new ideas and things like that, and so as I'm kind of envisioning what a lot of relatively newer hunters are going through, I think your first point about learning to be you know, a little bit more in tune with their surroundings is really important. The next thing I'm thinking about is these folks are trying to learn the basics or the next level of foundations to becoming a deer hunter, and they're going to places like the Hunting Beast form or or this podcast or wherever, and they're trying to learn, and they're hearing from all these different people. They're getting all these different opinions. Um, I think you're in a little bit of a unique position because you're you know, you're in the field doing this yourself. You're hunting with a bunch of really great other people too, like Dan and others. And then you're also kind of tapped into the forum and your community and hearing from all these other people and the questions they have, the questions that they submit to you guys, etcetera. So, So my question is this, given what you've kind of picked up from all these different people and what you're hearing. How would you recommend people learn to filter all these different ideas? Like how or how do you go about filtering through all these different ideas and learning? Okay, what do I take from this guy? What do I dismiss? What did this guy say? Should I try? What should I not? Um? Because it's really easy to hear it from a hundred different people and get all confused and turned around and not know left from right because you're hearing so many different ideas, sometimes conflicting. Um, how do you approach that or how do you recommend other people try to do that? In this information overload world? Wren? Yeah, for sure. UM. I think the first thing you gotta do is you gotta evaluate your history and where you're coming from, Like what's the base you started with? You know, if I take myself, I think back when I was a kid. I'm really my dad, you know, coming over this country and and moving up to Wisconsin. He was we were hunting to put food on the table, and he was learning from people and his friends and surrounding area to hunt deer sort of at the same time, when I was growing up and it's it's interesting because they ran across some old video tape that that my mom had converted to digital, and there was a video in there of my dad and my grandfather talking to Italian discussing how they were gonna set up and move this ladder stand from one part of the property to another part of the property to sort of in essence, uh, you know, cut deer traffic off from where they had observed of them moving predominantly. And I think back when I was a kid, what I was taught and what sort of the traditions were. And primarily at that point, you know, my mom and dad, you know, they were they had part ownership of a smaller farm. There was a lot of public land areas around that high school friends and I would would frequent, but a lot of the hunting took place on this farm and the things that were taught were, you know, a lot of it was the kind of the sit and weight game. You have a specific stand set up throughout the property, and there wasn't a whole lot of conversation around betting. It was a lot of focus on location and food and waiting for the deer to come to you. So for myself, I kind of had to do an assessment of when I really started get being back into this and saying, well, what are my goals and what do I want to try to do, and like anyone you you aspire to, well, I want to shoot a big book. It's fun this The the big book is like this mystical thing in your mind as a kid, almost when you're growing up. I mean a lot of the circles that I was in, you know, you knew that guy and you got a glimpse of that big book at the gas station when it was being registered. And it always seems to seem to be this thing that was just out of reach, or it happened because of luck right, or it happened because circumstances came together. And some people are fortunate enough to have mentors early in life that we're teaching them a format or a process where by which they could they could take larger books, you know, when they were a kid. But now I think the majority of people, if you look at what was being you know, shown in magazines and media at that time, um when they were growing up, it was more of kind of the the wait and bait or the sit and wait for the deer to come to you scenario without really understanding behaviorally why the deer were doing that. So first thing is, you know, understand your background, like what are you starting with? You know what what is your learning curve? And in my case, um, I knew that I needed to change. I needed to change my mindset on that because going back and hunting the same locations, the same sets, the same farm and not getting outside of my comfort zone was going to prevent me from getting to that next level and shooting a mature animal. Right. Um. But the exciting thing about that is, and I think we're having an open mind and setting goals is is once you decide to do that, it's like you're a kid again. It's like you're a kid for the first time going out on an exploration in the woods with your compass and not worrying about getting lost because you're just doing a walk about on an adventure. You're experiencing all these things again for the first time, and that's a lot of fun. There's a lot of fun or adventure in it. So I think you know your history and then set a goal, like what is your what is your goal that you want to accomplish? Do starting out, do you just want to get on a buck that's in the farm or the public land or the area that you're hunting? Um? Do you have a certain age class that you want to shoot? Do you just want to shoot a dear period? You know, often I talked to people and obviously everything that's a lot of things that are advertised. Now, like you said, there's a lot out there. You can scroll through Facebook and it seems like everyone is shooting monster deer, right. You kind of get in this echo chamber where it's almost like everyone who's hunting or following these pad earns is successful. And why am I not? I think what people need to realize is that more often than not, in the case it is true for me, you're still doing several sits or having several hunts where you're seeing very few deer um because you're looking or trying to set up on that that right set up that gets you in front of that target deer that you're after. Uh. And I guess that you know, I'm kind of jumping around a little. But one one point of that is is when people are hunting maybe on a private farm or they have a location on public land where they're comfortable with hunting. They may see a lot of deer in that location, right, and it's attractive because they go out and they hunt and they see deer. But quite often when you switch to trying to hunt mature animals, you end up seeing a lot less dear. It's at least that's been my experience. It's sort of the irony of of focusing in on these areas where mature animals tend to hold up. Uh, you stop seeing you know, large herds of dough or several other deer come out of these betting areas because um, you know, they're more reclusive and and these mature animals secure those areas up for themselves. So history and set a goal would be the first two things that that I would say, Um, and then as far as learning, there is a there's a ton of information out there right now. I think what I tell people is you can spend a lot of time reading. You know, I would say you take hill country, and obviously you know with with hill country, there's a lot of documentation, a lot of articles you can read out there about following a two third elevation line, following the lower one third, getting on those scouting a property looking for beds, you know, looking for the thick on top. I think if you're new to let's say a scenario like that, my my recommendation is if you have the time to commit, is to get out there and observe, and you really have, you know, your whole hunting season to do that. But more importantly, you know, in in the Midwestern states, in Wisconsin, you know, we have this change of season and a lot of the dear behavior movement as we know, they adapt to those changes in seasons, and they're doing different things during those those different times of the year. In the spring, which is well documented and well talked about, you can get out and really look at where those deer are traveling, and where that line was laid down, you know, for the previous season, and and what are those key areas that you want to look at. But then throughout the summer, I really invite people to spend a lot of time if they can get out in the woods and just camp up next to a tree and again do some observation and not only with the intent of seeing dear movement, but again observing the whole environment and how everything else is reacting. How does the wind travel through that area. Because how the wind travels through one area and one topography based on the trees, the swirling openings, changes in elevation, that pattern that you might see at that specific property, it will be repeatable at another property that you may encounter either later on that year or later are on in life. You know, as you expand a broaden the scope of the properties that you hunt. So I can't say enough about time in the field and drawing upon those observations of not only wind, weather patterns, different topography, and then how the deer and other animals react in those environments. Yeah, um, yeah, I love that. I'd i'd add to and you you kind of alluded to this. But the next like step on a lot of that is once you observe and learn some of these first areas, then a simple way to take that next step is to go somewhere new, Like constantly put yourself in new situations like that always forces the next learning curve allow as you take that next step. Once you figure out, Okay, this hilly terrain in Wisconsin. Now I've got that figured out. Maybe a couple of years later if you want to really keep that growth going, maybe try flat farmland in Minnesota. And if you figure that out, and then it's okay, let's go to Indiana and do big timber or whatever it might be. Um, that seems to be another one of those things that that observation and that walking around and exploring. You've got to keep on kind of pushing to the next thing. And then, like you said, you start noticing patterns that relate back to this other thing, or you go somewhere new and you realize, oh, this is actually a lot like this certain terrain in such state or this corner of this area, and all of a sudden, these things build off of each other. Yeah, So I would I advised to start out in small chunks. Um. Obviously you can, you can read, and you can collect all kinds of information on different different topographies in different sets, whether it's swamp, you know, river bottoms, hill country, farm country, and all the different topographies that exist in those. But I would you're probably most people are going to have in their home area, like what they're willing to travel and what they're schedule allows them to travel, there's going to be a certain type of topography there. So and it's and most likely a certain area that they're comfortable with hunting. So the first thing you want to do is to say, well, if my goal is to suit shoot a certain age class book, like do I believe after what I've read and and would have been able to do, I believe that this area that I'm hunting even could hold that age age class of book. And you know, now with with cameras and and other technologies that they are able to use in a different mapping software. I'm not saying it's easy, but it's easier to determine by use of cameras and other observation during the summer, whether it be you know, if you are allowed to shine at night and you have access to shine areas or adjacent fields, which is another thing I you know, I believe in if you have the time to do it, because even if you can get eyes on deer that in adjacent fields, you could start building out a map or a grid of where those deer might be traveling in proximity to where you think they're bedded in a location that you can hunt, and you can start putting those pieces together. But I would focus on on that area that you're comfortable with, and then in an area that you might have hunted the same way for several years. You know, if I take myself and this small farm that I hunted for many years as a kid um When I started to have this change in mindset, sort of, the first thing I knew that I had to do is get out of you know, these these fixed sets right where I'm thinking in my mind, it's the afternoon, I'm gonna go sit up in a stand and I'm gonna wait for a deer to walk to me. I have to get out of that mindset. So then the first thing I wanted to determine was, Okay, where on this entire property if if any could dear be betting, and if they're betting there, how can I access the property to not disturb them? And it was sort of interesting because I didn't put those two things together right away. The first step was really getting mobile, and for a lot of people, I think they're transition to mobile. During a certain time, climbers were really popular and it was an easy way to do that. So for myself, I started using a climber and I just set a goal for myself that I wasn't gonna sit in the same place twice. You know, kind of this arbitrary, silly goal if you think about it a little bit, but it it really hones in on the element of surprise. Like my thought process was, all the stuff that I'm reading is pointing me towards the virgin sit or the first time that I'm in an area where I feel that deer are going to be crossing through or I'm going to encounter them coming out of a betting area, is my best chance at those deer After that, they're gonna pattern me. And I observed this through doing the bad behavior of sitting in the same sets over and over again, and then over the years finding that observing deer actually work their way around me, or other people that I was hunting with would tell stories of you know how they would look up and look at the side of the field where the stand was, or intentionally navigate around from year to year and avoid those areas where hunters frequented. Right. So it it was this idea of the deer are pattering you as much as you're trying to pattern the deer. So I think a good first step is in figuring out that property that you're hunting on is how do you have to hunt it, And so the first thing I did is get mobile, So I started start hopping around right, and by hopping around, it brought me into areas where I would see dear travel that I normally didn't observe them traveling right because I was always fixated on going to these specific thoughts. And then through those observations of seeing them travel in those different locations, I started putting the pieces together and understanding more of why they were there. I was asking the question, why why did this deer show up in this location at this time? Why are they using you know, this elevation or this ridgeline. Because the area that I hunted had a lot of hills and valleys in it um adjacent to crop fields. Why were they traveling in those patterns? And I guess, to make a long story short, through that, the lessons that I learned about that particular property was that hunting it any more than four to five times a year literally was over hunting it. And primarily it was because there was only really two key spots on that property. We're talking like in eight acre property where deer would bed on a consistent basis. Now, the surrounding area had three foreignered acres worth of farmland that dropped down the river bottom um which had houses along there, which was really thick elevation. So what I what I began to realize, is that the deer primarily are not actually betting on this property at all, um. And there's only a couple of key times during the year when they're betting on these certain ridge tops, and that was in the early season when the foliage was much thicker and they had more thick cover on top. But the problem was that the way that we predominantly, you know, I hunted with a couple of buddies, would access this property. Um, they had site advantage on us almost exclusively every time we would enter and hunt it in a certain way. So I began to break down of you know, I guess a plan or a formula for how I would hunt the property going forward, and it really consisted of a specific time of the year when I would go in and hunt it. It would consist of specific locations based on where I knew there was betting on the property, and then it was highly dependent on access, like how I felt I could access it from the primary location that we normally accessed it from, versus getting permission to access it from other sides, from the adjacent farmers. And what's interesting, if I would have known what I know now ah as a younger kid, you know, in my teens, when it was more free country, like a lot of the farmers they just let you roam around and hunt wherever. Um, I probably would have killed a lot more bigger stuff when I was younger on there because of the way that the deer patterned through. But what I but for this particular farm, what I recognized is that during the early season, if there was a there was a predominant line of oaks that ran on these ridges, and then there was a line of oaks that ran on the adjacent crop field. So probably about a there was a half mile ridge line that ran across multiple properties right and it's spilled out into a crop field, and then the adjacent farmer had another field where he had catalan, and then on the back side of that where the woods where there was more crops, and then it drops down into lowland swamp and marsh um. The deer were predominantly betting on the neighboring property kind of in this low where there was a lot of raspberry and briar and thick, but they would bet on these tops in the early season and they would come to feed in these oaks. But if you over pressured it, meaning if you went and hunted those tops or even the lows of those tops where they had line of sight to you, and if you went in there and hunted at time and time again and I'm talking like two to three times in a row and got your scent in there or pressured that area, they would vacate the entire property and then your your chances of seeing a mature animal in that location outside of the rut significantly decreased. So and that was that's one of the harder things I think, at least for me, it was to change, was to actually not hunting area as much, because anyone who enjoys the outdoors, I mean, when you have the free time, you want to get out and hunt. And um, so that's where I also think it's incredibly important to expand your portfolio of properties every year. Right. Um, if you have the time, you know, put multiple properties on your list that you want to go out and look at, and start expanding that radius of the areas that you're willing to go out and hunt and look at and even going blind and hunt, because staying away from those key spots that you only want to focus on during certain times of the year is really important and can play into the success of that first sit or that virgin hunt that you have. So on that property I developed like we can hunt it, you know, opening weekend under these specific conditions, if these food sources are there and we have to access it a specific way. Predominant wind is a southwest wind. We have to come in, you know, from the north and loop around the field and set up in a specific location where you know, line of sight isn't to those hilltops were those mature animals could be betting and coming down to us. Um. So that was one set and it was like you do that hunt, it plays out and then you you put it away, you put it on the shelf if you will, um, and you go on to other areas. And then the other thing I observed about that it was kind of a turning point for me for that location and property was that during sort of the pre month pre rut area, you know, so mid October to late October and then you're getting into the rut um, mature bucks would use that ridgeline and they would run it and there were two specific spots where they would corral dough and it was thick enough on top where the dough would go into these areas to kind of hide themselves from the bucks. And again I I didn't really learn this. And still I started doing a lot of reading, like on the Hunting b site, and you know, getting a lot of advice and observations from other hunters that were much more experienced in this in this arena, right, And so I started thinking, well, how can I put these patterns together? So I started testing these theories out right. So I'd wait to that certain time of the year when you'd start hearing posts about either late morning movement or pre rut activity, because in this scenario, you know, you quite often see a lot of rubs, a lot of scrapes along field edges and common draws. Well, I'm going to set up over that scrape that's on that field edge, but really not realizing that most likely that thing was done during the evening. Um you know, it's it's more random than you think directed, but it attracts you to want to set up there, versus actually understanding how the deer are traveling across that specific piece of property and why. And I think the interesting thing about being hunting a property for a long time is that you've probably observed or spooked or disrupted deer movement on that property for many, many years. So through those mistakes you can kind of trace back and say, well, why why did I spook or disrupt these deer out of this area and why were they there? And then if you start applying some of the teachings of how you hunt the leeward side of a ridge during the pre rut, or why a buck would be traveling that on a specific wind, or why are those dough going to that area on that ridge to bed And again it's timing, timing of the year, backing off and only going in. And that property is no longer in the family. But the last um four years I hunted it, I was I was fortunately tagged out during that kind of prime time, but I had a friend local that would still hunt it with me, and and I took him back on that property and applied some of these principles of moon phase movement in the morning as well as that pattern that I figured out of how bucks would corral dough in that specific area. And there were three years in a row where I put my buddy on a buck more than one buck that was you know, or bigger, which for him, you know, it was a great buck. Unfortunately, and hopefully he doesn't get upset with me for saying this, he bagged the shot on all all three of them. I have footage. I have footage of a couple of them because I was I was filming. But the reason why I tell that story is is because I think for people starting out on this, it's it's proof that you can break like old patterns that you have, or old ideas that you have about um a property that you haunt, or even a certain topography that you haunt a lot of. And during the course of doing that, I mean, you get a lot of naysayers, You get a lot of people that you're around, and you start talking about these philosophies and maybe not so much now, I mean again, you get you get a little bit in these what I call an echo chamber. Everyone's talking about mobile hunting, and these teachings have been told so many times now that I feel like a lot of people are teaching the same things, which is great so now it's for me, it's about looking for the nuance or looking for what you know those quiet killers are doing that are killing big deer every year, but aren't necessarily talking about it. That's that's what I look for, you know, what are the unique things they're doing. But um, you can change your philosophy and the way that you hunt stuff, and I think for a lot of hunters sometimes it means backing off and not being so aggressive and really think about how you go in access wise, why the deer are there, and how they're moving through that piece of property. And then timing of the year is super important, like when are you going in and why you know? So I don't know if that answers your initial question. It was a long ramble. It was good stuff, though, but you you ended it right where I wanted to take us, which was fast forwarding from these learning experiences you had in previous years up to where we are now and you're hunting approach today. And the way I thought would be an interesting way to examine your current approach is to think about it from a time of the year perspective, which which you just mentioned how things do change at different parts of the season. So, so here's my idea for the restless conversation. I love the foundation we just said. Now let's talk about how you would apply all of these lessons you've learned over the years two hunting each different chunk of the year. So let's start in the early season and let's talk you know, the first I don't know the first week of the season. If you're hunting there in your home state, that's you know, mid September ish. Can you first describe to me what you are keying in on and what you're assuming deer will be doing from a betting, feeding, and travel perspective. Like when you think early season and you're trying to lock down those three aspects, what does your mind go to? Yeah, early season, Um, I'm thinking primarily about summer patterns, and hopefully, if time permits, you've been able to get out and glass or set up cameras to start getting intel on your target locations and what animals are living in those target locations. Unfortunately, I've been able to build up enough of a portfolio of properties, Like just this past year, I did a lot more hunting out in western Wisconsin and did some turkey hunting this spring and added like four more properties that I was quote unquote turkey hunting, but ended up scouting all of them, uh you know during that time. So what I'm what I'm primarily thinking about when I'm walking those properties. And if you're thinking about early season, a big obvious draw in these locations is oaks, um and whether or not you know there's gonna be a healthy acorn crop as a primary food source. Um. The second thing is is whether you know adjacent fields on private h or if you're on public and there's adjacent private that has crops, what crops were in there? Is it corn? Is it beans? I really like those scenarios where corn is mixed in and farm country and it creates those uh protective corridors that are right next to or adjacent to betting. Because I've had a lot of success in that early season again with that element of surprise, because I feel mature animals get comfortable walking those areas when they're not pressured, right, And so for me, it's it's food and it's really those behaviors of those patterns that the deer are betting closer to those food sources in that early season. Um. The other thing that I like here in Wisconsin is hot weather in that first week because I feel like, I feel like really hot weather degrees and nasty, buggy weather prevents a lot of hunters from getting off their couch and going out, which means that the opportunity uh for additional hunter pressure in the woods or getting into some of those key areas. Uh, they're they're missing out right because they're like, oh, it's too hot, dear, don't move when it's hot. And that was really one of the things that I learned when I initially started hunting with Dan that that's you know, it's it's kind of hogwash. You know, deer. Deer are living in this environment all year round right there. They're living through these different seasons, and whether it's ninety degrees out or fifty degrees out, they're going to get up and move. They're going to get up and feed. Now, their patterns and what they're doing during those different temperatures might be a little bit different. But I have had success in the early season keying in on water sources and not necessarily man made water sources or lakes or ponds or rivers, but low lying areas that hold water due to rain um, that are rather remote. You can get mature animals moving to those areas, and if you're monitoring them with a camera, they can be a really successful spot to slide into in that first week to put a kill on a mature book. Um. So I like remote food sources. One of the obvious ones is you know, remote oaks on oak islands in swamps. That's kind of one of my favorite spots to hunt, I would say, in the early season. Um it, it's an obvious destination for these deer, and a lot of times these deer will get up and move out of bed early, even though you might have daylight hours that are you know, going past at night. These deer getting up and moving at three thirty four o'clock in the afternoon onto these remote areas to feed if there's oaks there and they're dropping a corns during a certain time. So I like keying in on on that, on those remote food sources. So can you walk me through then maybe either a hypothetical example or maybe an actual real life example you can think of of how you would set up on kind of an ideal early season situation like this, you know, how you'd approach, how you would think about the wind, how you would hang your set in relation to all these features. I'd love to kind of get the nitty gritty of your whole approach there in this example. Right. So, UM, one example on like a remote watering hole. I mean there was there was a specific property that I was that was hunting. Um it had a low spot. It was really like a mud hole in it, right, And so early in the summer, I threw a camera up cell camera up on top of this thing, and I was just monitoring it. And what was interesting. You know, I still I'm a journal or so throughout the season, even if I'm tired at night when I come home. UM, I forced myself to write down a quick journal and scrape a map off of ONYX of how the hunt went, what I saw and what was going on wind weather, uh, you know, the temperature, a quick map of how I saw the deer travel. And then I'll start to pair that with the data that I can collect off of trail cameras of times that these deer are traveling to these spots, Um, what the temperature is, what day during the week it is, etcetera, etcetera, And then I try I'll take that information, and I'll map it against what my availability is to hunt, because that's another reality for a lot of people. There's uh, we're not. Not all of us are fortunate enough to be able to hunt every single day, which I think, you know, there's one key factor two for people that are starting out in this. If you have the advantage to just get out in the field every day and get up to bat every day, it seems like an obvious thing, but you're gonna put yourself in the game more often, not even if you're making mistakes or you're screwing up, because you're just you're getting more time out in the field and you're learning and observing more. So I'll take that data with what I'm seeing on the trail cameras and what I have in my journal, and and know it's from years prior of when I've observed you know, box moving in this area. For this particular watering hole. Was interesting is that does and fawns would move into this watering hole and they would meander in this watering hole in broad daylight and in the evening hours. But you know, more importantly during daylight shooting times, they'd walk right in front of the camera they'd spend time in the watering hole drinking. Uh smaller bucks that even go in there and do some sparring, and they would constantly be traveling through there. The only time in this specific area that I would see a mature buck on camera was during the hottest days of the summer. And what was interesting about this one spot is that this particular buck that was a five by six, he he would only show up. He showed up on camera three times, and it was during the three hottest days of the summer. And when he showed up, there were two different directions that he was coming from each time that he showed up, and he would only extend far enough into view to drink from that watering hole, and then he disappear. Now, you know, I know there's studies and theories of whether or not Dear you know, you know, can recognize that the cameras in the area. I'm of the opinion that you know, they do know it's there. They can sense it's there, whether it's by sound, shutter noise, or what'sever going on with the camera, electromatic, metic field, whatever you want to believe or read out there. I think, Dear no, when something is added to their environment. That's odd. You know. Part of the reason with getting them in there early and letting them soak for a while is trying to avoid that or putting them in locations that are away from where you want to hunt. But for this particular set, you know, I wanted to know what was company that water hole. So now that I know that a mature bucks company to that area, I have a general idea of what I want to hunt it. Well, I want to hunt it on one of the hotter days, right, because I'm gonna wait for that really hot day during the first week of that season to go in there and make an attempt on this book because I know it's it's traveling to that location. The second thing is I have an idea based on how this deer showed up on the camera and how his body was positioned as to where he might be coming from. Now, again, it's just an idea, right, because the deer could have walked around outside the view, a camera could have came from a different direction. But how do you break that down? Well, if you're going into this location, it's blind and it's the first time you're you're observing it through a camera or hunting it, you may just have to guess, and and that educated guess is going to be based on looking at an aerial map and coming to a conclusion based on what you see on the topography as to where you think this mature deer might be betting. So then once I identify that spot where I think that deer is going to be betting, then I start to factor in wind and thermals into my setup for that particular watering hole. You know, Um, again, predominant wind in a lot of these areas is going to be a southwest wind. So that one's a little bit tricky because one of the areas where I felt the deer could be traveling from would have me at not a wind advantage um for accessing it. So, um, I had to be creative with my access, meaning I had to think of a non conventional way to access that watering hole instead of taking what would be the the main preferred trail that you know, every other hunter, maybe it would take into that property or the trail that that was predominantly everyone walked in. So so once I established that direction, I think about access. So in this particular case, I figured out that, okay, I need to access this location coming from more of a northwest pitch to angle in into that location. Um. Then I start thinking about trees and obvious places where I can set up that I know of in that location, and that's where I think boots on the ground UM. And I don't recommend and you know, boots on the ground a week before the season, you go in and get out. You might get away with doing something like that if you have a large weather event, if there's a storm going on or it's it's raining rather hard. I think you can get away with going into those areas and checking things out. If you get a washout scenario, that's going to get your scent out of there. But I don't recommend, you know, going on a walk about and kind of criss crossing around the whole area if you plan on hunting it in that first week because from a betting perspective, if you think about those remote oak islands, there's gonna be a lot of deer that are that are typically they're not pushed back, you know. If I think of site sound safety, you know, and smell, they're going to be bedded closer to that food source, and they might be bedded up out of the water on those islands, on those fringes in the early part of the season, which makes them much easier to bump off there if you go in there and tromp around. So I really try to stay out of that area altogether. But if I do get a rainy or stormy day and you can get in there and look at it if you haven't before, then you could take advantage of it and go in and pick out a tree. Now, really from there, I mean you've heard this. I'm sure you've heard this before or we've all read about it. But picking the location to set up based on wind, I always try to be facing in a location where my set is facing where I believe the deer is going to be coming from, and where I have some type of wind advantage. It's not necessarily that the wind is going to be coming directly into my face, because I would say, of the time you don't have that advantage. But where there is a just off wind, or so a wind that's cutting across or at an angle where it won't reach that deer before he's in an area where I can shoot him, I guess if that makes sense. Um. The other important thing is is an access. I made this mistake a lot early on when I was learning these theories, is when you're trying to pick that spot where you want to set up, because sometimes you know you you I go into these locations blind. I mean my schedule now and what it allows me to do and where I get to get out and scout. Sometimes I don't have the time to go and pre pick a bunch of trees, if you will, or really get boots on the ground to understand where I need to set up when I get in there. So I'm doing a lot of it on the ground, reading sign when I go in um so as a lot of people do. I'm using milk weed to check the wind as I'm coming in. But what you want to do is get into the spot and just sit, sit and observe for a little bit and take your time. I mean, I Dan he has this knack for doing this where he'll just he'll just sit and watch an area when he gets into it and really take slow down and take the time to observe what that wind is doing. And if there's an idea of where that buck is coming out of bedding, think about how that buck is going to be traveling out of betting to you because if you walk maybe ten yards further and you cross the trail, you can't take that back right. Or if you walk twenty yards further and you cross the trail, now your sense on that trail, and if you backtrack and set up behind that and I've seen this happen to me. If that mature animal comes out and they cross your scent, the game's up. They're not gonna get to you. They're gonna smell you, and they're gonna bust out. So if I'm in that situation where I've pushed too far, ali, I may vacate the spot, or I just may say, you know what, Um, I'm gonna set up here and I'm gonna hunt and this is gonna you know, I'm gonna see what's gonna happen. So I guess, to answer your question more directly, it's it's taking the time once I get into the location to really understand how the wind is channeling through there, and the wind you're going to have the predominant wind that the weather report tells you, but wind moves through these areas differently based on how the layout of trees are. You know, in this particular case where there's a watering hole, all the mature trees kind of wrapped around it, and there's taller swamp grass and cattails on the back side of it. But it creates a bowl or a swirling effect, right, So as the winds blowing into it, you've got to think about how that wind is wrapping around that bowl and when that buck enters it, how are they going to use that to their advantage to wind you. And I'm thinking about the spot where that buck enters that bowl, where that watering hole is that I can shoot too, where he will not have the wind advantage on me. That's what's going through my mind. And then obviously with wet and water, right when it hits that dusk moment and the wind dies down, then you're thinking about the thermal poll and how that's changing. So yeah, all that stuff is going through my mind when I'm thinking about a set up that is that was perfect. I couldn't have asked for a better detailed description of how you think through that. So you are you're an A grade student in the class of this This podcast ed him Ario and what I want to do because I was so good. I want to have you do it all over again, but fast forward a month. So let's go from that, you know, kind of mid to lay September time period you just discussed, and let's jump up to like October give or take right around there. So part one would be what are the things you're keying in on, you know, the food, the betting, and the movement, and then part two would be what you just did there, which is then describe your whole thought process to setting up on that. Um. I feel like I'm being lazy because I'm not asking a lot of foul up questions, but you're you're covering it so well, you're making my job easy. All right? Well, thanks, um, and I will know you know that one watering hole scenario with with remote food sources. Um. There, here's one thing I learned to when I first started hunting mobile like this, and I started hunting remote islands and swamps, So I started hunting fringes, right, these edges or transitions, as we hear a lot that they're called these changes in topographies. My first natural instinct early in the season was, Hey, I gotta push to the edge on everything, right, I gotta get on the edge. And what I learned, Um, you know, I got busted a couple of times on some really nice deer. Is that that pushing to the fringe really doesn't come until later in the year, until that mid October later October, that conversation that we're transitioning into that actually when you're hunting these food sources and they are primary food sources on these islands, that those deer will move to the center of those islands. So you know, you want to find that. Like in the case of this watering hole, it when they would come out of betting and they stage in a certain area. This was a destination that they were coming to in daylight and it was an area that you could sit act in that was further away from betting, but they were still getting to in daylight right in that early season pattern. Um, which because the foliage changes and the cover changes as you transition into the later months, they likely will not be traveling, you know, that far in daylight as you get later on in the season. So that same spot that's good in the early season then drives up or is not as good because of the change in the cover later in the season. And I feel like sometimes those those remote sets when it's hot and humid. I mean, I've had a case one year where I pegged betting to be to my north, and really betting could have been to myself or to my east, but I made up my mind that I was gonna see have bet income, you know, travel come from the north. And that was based on some previous years experience where I observed a book that I didn't want to shoot, but he came right in set in the oaks, right in the middle. Wasn't the age class book I wanted to shoot, but I got a good video of him walking right on through. So then I knew that if oaks were dropping again, I wanted to get in there and hunt that. Now what I learned through that hunt. It was a super hot, calm night. And you ever get in those sits on those nights where your scent is literally just hanging in the dance do so everything was just dropping right right below my stand, and in that case, it happened to be where the betting that was being utilized was directly behind me, unfortunately, and I had three shoot bucks that came from behind me, one of which was charging right in to go to the center of those oaks. But the way that the way that they accessed that one ended up coming right underneath me where I was set up, and he got right underneath me, and there was a bunch of foliage and he froze, stopped deadness tracks underneath me, you know, started licking his nose, raising his nose up, and he spent about you know what seemed like an eternity there. I didn't have a shot because it was directly underneath me and there was branches, um, but that buck immediately pivoted and slowly walked back off behind me, and I tried to kind of swing everything around right because I'm facing north, because I'm expecting everything to come from the north, but they actually came from myself. So when I spun around, I actually realized and I got the camera that there were two other books, um, one of which was a larger book that were back further in the thick that we're also coming out to that oak flat to feed UM. Now, the lesson that I learned from that, I know you wanted to get into October, which we'll get to. The lesson that I learned from that. The point I want to make two people is that's not yeah, it's a failure, but it's a failure that I can put in my bank and put in my journals that the next time that this scenario, and it may not be in that specific property, right, it may be on another property that's got a very similar scenario. How do I set up in that location where I'm good to shoot to both access directions for both directions where I feel deer could be coming from. And so there there was a way, after I really thought about it, how I could have set up in that location and where I feel all three of those bucks would have walked to the center of that oak flat um. And that was a you know, a hard lesson to learn, but a lesson learned that the next time I'm in that scenario. That's another thing. When I'm boots on the ground and I'm looking around and I'm determining where to set up, I'm not getting hyper focused on one area that I know there's betting. I'm thinking about, well, if there's multiple locations they could be coming from where I know that there is betting, I know that bucks could be betting there. How do I set up to shoot the first time they enter into this you know, my shooting zone. I'll call it when they access the food source. So I just wanted to share that because I had I probably learned way more from the misses and failures that I've done than from the books that I've killed, you know, listeners. So anyways, onto the I think, you know, my next favorite time and to hunt is is the pre rut. So I think the rut and a lot of people you know, talk about this. It gets a little chaotic, right, It's hard to pattern mature animals depending on where the hot dough is at in the area that you're hunting. Um. You know, this is pretty well documented, but a lot of people start to pattern during the rut doll betting areas and think about, like I think about how mature animals are traveling through a specific area to scent check doll betting areas more so during the rut than I'm specifically thinking about where bucks are betted, maybe in a primary betting scenario like I would think about in the early season, um, because I think they start to bet in different satellite loca sans to monitor dome or and monitor that kind of traffic. So because of that, because of that chaos, I think that the next favorite time is really in that pre rut because, Um, during the pre rut, I feel like you get a lot more daytime movement um earlier because bucks are out, bucks are still betting in there what I call you know, safe zones or their areas that they feel are they have an advantage for you know, site, smell, sound, and and safety. Right. You know, it's kind of like that combination that they it's their home area that they feel comfortable in, but they're getting up and they're traveling earlier because they're going out and they're checking community scrape areas, or they're traveling around and there they might start to be checking on dope betting areas and for that reason, they're getting up out of their beds earlier or in the mornings, they're traveling back to betting later. And I think, Um, that particular scenario actually got me my buck last year, I believe because the buck that I ended up shooting off the ground. Um, I'm pretty confident that the only reason that deer was traveling in the direction that it was during you know, the between seven and eight o'clock in the morning was because it was late getting back to betting, because he was out perusing around, checking scrapes and so forth. And so I like that scenario because if you've pre scouted betting areas or you know how a piece of property lays out, like where you know where the primary betting is for bucks, or you've observed bucks betting there before, or you've gone in in the preseason and you've actually found areas that you believe bucks are betting in, and you know there's adjacent areas where those are betting. You can start setting up um two key on those travel corridors, if you will, or those areas where bucks will be coming back to betting in the morning late or they'll be getting up out of betting early in the evening. And the particular hunt last year, I had walked across on my way in and I there was a scrape that opened up right and I would consider this was, you know, a scrape that I hadn't seen there in years past, but it was kind of in a primary area where a lot of deer based on how the land laid out, because it was an area of high ground that was adjacent to a Tamarack swamp that then to the east and then to the west. There were two cattail marshes right that was split by a peninsula. So if you think about it, it kind of looked like a big cross or a big X if you will, of how the high ground laid out with the adjacent lowland around it, and this scrape kind of centered itself in those travel patterns of the high ground in the lower ground. And what was caught my eye on this I remember snapping a picture of and actually sending it to Joe, was there was a giant turd in this scrape and it was like a It was like a week a week earlier, two weeks earlier, when I noticed that the scrape was active and it had this fresh sign in there. But I had my mindset on, you know, like I said, I plan out kind of where I want to hop around or these areas that I want to hunt based on previous patterns, or if I'm lucky enough, I've been monitoring a deer that's in an area, So I'm hopping around, hunting down or grid hunting an area to get closer and closer to where I want to go in to hunt a specific animal or a specific betting area, if you will. Right, that's holding has the potential to hold multiple animals, and so I just walked by this right. Um, the night before I was out in western Wisconsin for a few days and I was hunting down there. Had an encounter with a really nice book, one of those scenarios where we posted a video online of it. But um, it was I was freezing my butt off. I'm I'm a human being like everyone else. You know, we all again are mistakes that we make. It was raining, it was cold, I had it was just getting like it was right on the ageless light. Dropped my bow down and sure if I hear, I hear a snap. And I look over and here's this. After I watched immature buck. After immature buck walk past, I watched do walk past all this stuff. Put my bow down, and here comes the big daddy. But I got a nice little show. He walked right past me and torched a tree behind me, and I filmed him and it was all good. And I put that on my bank for right. I put that in my bank for for you know, this year and years to come if I if I get down and hunt that area again. So I'm feeling sorry for myself. I'm like two and a half hours away from home, drive back home, get get back home at like eleven love and thirty and I'm thinking to myself, the first thing that pops into my head is that scrape. Right, So it's late October and I'm thinking to myself, there's there's a lot of getting a lot of reports that there's morning movement happening, you know, reading online, and there's a lot more daylight movement books are getting laid back to their beds. Um. I think that that scrape, that area that I saw deserves a morning hunt, and specifically because of you know, where I knew from from previous years hunting, where the betting locations can be and where these animals might be going back. So I set up in that location. And you know, it's kind of funny because at I was deciding back and forth where I set up in the standard set up on the ground. I ended up based on just how the area laid out. I ditched my stand and just set up on the ground and ended up being on the ground. But at seven ten there's there's like a walking trail, you know, I had other hunter walked past me um and at seven fifteen, you know, after that that hunter walked through and went to where they were going. A small buck came out of betting across the woods and check that scrape. And then not five minutes later, you know, the bigger eight pointer that ended up shooting came walking right down that what I would call the human trail right you know where they they will tolerate scent, you know, or access on that trail, but not off the trail, and paralleled me and then immediately turned and went right to that scrape and check that scrape. At about seven in the morning, and after or I shot that book, uh, and that scenario played out, I went and I traced like the steps because I had never you know, when I saw that's great, I didn't follow it back to where I knew the betting location was there anything. So after I shot that book, I actually took the time to walk back and go look in the area where that trail angled back towards betting, and in the thicker areas that were covered. You know, we we have a lot of buckthorn that's really consuming a lot of these areas that we hunt. Um, it can be very tricky and troublesome to hunt because it overgrows everything and you don't get a lot of sapling trees that are growing up anymore. It's just literally walls of buckthorn. But the deer oal form corridors through it and they like to travel in it. But what was interesting is is once that once I got past that open area where it actually shot the book, and I got in on that armory trail leading back to betting, this whole sort of bedroom opened up. This book had multiple scrapes, um rubs all inside this protective little comb of of buckthorn ah that led back to his area that he was. You know what, I believe at that time he was obviously betting at so um. I don't know. That was a long I guess story about how that particular time from you know, the twenty October through early November. I feel like you can pattern books based on where their primary betting locations are, but they're going to be on their feet more in daylight. And if you can get on hot sign, like when you see it, get on it within you know, in this case, it was within a week of it. And I think the personality of that book he was, he was probably a little more outgoing than maybe you know, other books. I think animals have different personalities and how much they show themselves daylight and so forth. But I I believe that Buck was late getting back to betting because he was out rooting around and unfortunately he uh, unfortunately for me, he ran into me, and unfortunately for him, you know, it didn't end up so good for him. But real quickly you mentioned how I think this is what you said, was that he came up that human access trail, right, And I know I've heard you in the past you and and talk about sometimes using a similar approach to that, to creating your own access trails, and that you will if you're hunting a given area and you think you're gonna hunt it multiple times, you'll use the same exact access trail, so that deer eventually become used to Okay, this is where there's where there's human scent and they're used to that, but it's not everywhere. Um. Can you just expand a little bit more on on that kind of idea, or if I got it wrong, how you think about some of these access concepts and how sometimes there's somewhat counterintuitive ways to go about it so that deer get used to it in some places, and and feel comfortable elsewhere. But you can take advantage of that, yeah, I think. I mean, you can observe this. And if you live in a subdivision and you have, like I had forty acres, used to have forty acres behind me, right, and they clear cut part of it and they started building houses. But there was a herd of deer fifteen or so dear that lived back in that forty right. So I've lived in the spot I think for like thirteen years now. Um So I would watch these deer move up off the ridge and come down off of bedding primarily though, right, you can go up there and find their beds around there. I'd walk up there with my kids and stuff. Um But what is interesting to me is to watch as this area has been developed, watch how these deer move through this new subdivision. Um So, I knew the primary trails through watching them of how they've come down off the hills, and even with all the disruption of the construction, those deer would still follow the same pattern down off those hills. And how they get used to human pressure I think is interesting as well, because at a certain point, as you know, people would start walking back there and you could observe people walking next to the deer feeding right in the adjacent field. Um, they would tolerate you walking on the you know, newly minted sidewalk right and they would watch to you and observe you there, but the moment that you stepped into you know, that field or that area, they weren't comfortable with that. And then now as time has gone on and there's more and more activity and more and more houses being built in the green space, you see less and less dear and there. And maybe that seems obvious, but they won't there. They become less and less tolerant of those areas where people are walking or there's high traffic areas. So when I look at a scenario when you're hunting a piece of property and you're you want to look at your access as not just I need to get into the property and then kind of sprawl from there and figure out where I'm going to hunt. You want to look at your access from an advantage point, like how can I get access the property and be uh that the least disruptive as possible. So and you have control over that, right. So we a lot of times hunting groups, you know, or there's multiple ones of us that know about different properties or areas. So we'll we'll kind of split up during a weekend and we'll all go and hunt these kind of go to target areas and then you know, for successful great or we'll report back with what we saw and then we'll move on to the next What's really important between that group is that everyone understands how to access it and why. So again, access is going to be controlled by you know, first and foremost what you have property rights too to access. Sometimes you don't have a choice, you can only go in a certain way, but other times you do have a choice. I mean, maybe there's a side row or there's another non conventional way on the back side of a piece of public that you can access it that gives you a site sound, you know, safety and smell advantage from accessing that property. And then once you determine that, you know, based on not just one location or one area you may want to hunt in there, but the access that gives you an advantage for multiple areas that you might want to hunt in it. And what I mean by that is a lot of times we approach these areas and and grid them out or stage them. If you will maybe if it's a larger, you know, thousand acre, you know, public, public area. There's a lot of options, but you have to think about a specific way that you want to access it. So when you're accessing it, you're not burning locations that you want to hunt. Um, so access it in a way where you're going to reach your first destination that you want to hunt. First hunt it, check it off your list, and then continue your access the same way. So the next time you come in, you're going to access the exact same way, walk past that location that you already hunted, but then push on to the next part in the grid that you want to hunt, and be very kind of specific not to meander around. Now I will say, uh, you know, the rules get thrown out the window. Obviously when you see sign on you know when you have boots on the ground, so you want to pair that with matching it with the sign that you're seeing boots on the ground. So the other thing that we talk about is that when you're going into these spots, we may have pre scouted something and we might have ideas of where a location is in a destination and how we want to access it. But if you get there and the sign is just junk, then then move on right, move on to the next access point where the sign starts looking better, and set up there. Um. The key key point, I guess is what you're saying is is that if you are going in there again, I already know that I've got my scent, and I'm already assuming that any mature animal in the area knows that I've been there on that specific trail or that specific access route that I've gone in. If I'm not bumping, dear constant when I'm traveling in that access point, the deer will get used to or accustomed to you or other hunters or people in general traveling in those areas. That's why, you know, a lot of times on public areas sometimes they'll have you know a lot of times around here. They create a lot of free walking trails that run through these different public hunting areas or as different communities or subdivisions expand and build out, public land shrinks down, and you get these little slivers of public land that are adjacent to parks and areas where people are walking, whether it's hikers or hunters or um access trails that you as a hunter or your group of hunters that you hunt with, decide to make the primary access. It's really important that you stick to that and um, every time you access you use that same pattern and think about hunting these different properties and a staged approach, right. And I think if you don't, if you get into a scenario where you can stick to those rules, um, a property, a property could be hunted in that stage manner and you can have a lot of successful haunts or have a good success not over pressuring those deer or bumping those deer out of an area because someone or a group of people are walking all over the property with different access points. And I know, um that can be kind of loose cannon and and difficult on a on a piece of public right, you have no control over where everyone else is accessing. But I think at that point it becomes looking at more of what human sign you're seeing as you're entering in. You know, are you seeing boot tracks, are you seeing other obvious things that indicate like cat's eyes on trees or flags on trees, where you see that people are accessing or traveling into an area over and over. I mean, let's admit it. You know there's there's a lot of people that you know, they get out in the woods, or if they're traveling a far distance back, they they may get nervous about how they're going to come back, so they're marking their trail in and out of there. I think taking advantage of those trails that are being used by the majority of the hunter that are going into a location. They'll be monitored and tolerated by the deer in the area, and you know that they'll stay away from there, so you can sort of hide your access by utilizing those. But then obviously when you're thinking about your version sit and you're set up, you branch off of that and get into your setup where you need to be, knowing that you know you didn't you didn't burn areas going in because you you stayed on that access. I guess it's the point. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Um, so let's in the interest time, let's move on to one more time period because I want to make sure we at least cover the rut before we have to wrap this up. Uh So, can you give me a similar rundown as we just did for these last two time periods, but for like that November somewhere and there were most people would think you're you're right in it for most parts of the country as far as the rut period, What what to your approach at that point? Um, I mean the most I think that the salad approaches really understanding how dear and mature books use a particular piece of property and the topography that's on that property. And what I mean by that is is no matter if you're in swamps, hill country, farm, river bottoms, I think there's a particular way, an efficient way that mature animals travel through those properties to check out what's going on and specifically to monitor dough that are coming into asters or monitor other books that they're competing with for those dough that are coming into asters. And I think it actually takes for it to become less random. I believe it it takes multiple seasons to really understand how bucks are are navigating properties to do that. That's not to say that you can't find a property, locate what you believe to be a primary doll betting area area or do or betting, and then key in on a setup where it puts you at an advantage of monitoring that you know, this is pretty common downward side of that that betting area where bucks will be cruising. Um I, but understanding why the bucks are traveling there during what times of the day A lot of times that depends on how the topography lays out. And what I mean by that in in those you know, really obvious pinch points or funnels. You know, if you get a tape ring of a small island or peninsula that connects to a high ground between two uh cattail marshes, you know that might be an obvious corridor where it pinches down and you know that there's going to be travel there. You set up on there and you wait right and if there's buck travel during the day, he may come through there. But I think it's understanding it to a further level as to say, well, I've actually observed that during the regular season, um earlier or during that pre rut, there's actually no bucks betting in these what I call satellite locations. Um. They they're just not in those areas. But then when the rut comes on, the bucks will move into these satellite locations, whether it be edges of transitions, edges of fields, edges of changes from high ground to swa ump like in cattails, and they'll monitor those locations for travel of those that are coming into heat. Right. Um, So it's it's kind of like getting into those spots where they're they're cut off points that they're monitoring points for those mature areas. Those are the areas that I want to get into and hunt. Now, how do you know those things are there? Right? I think that's a difficult one, Uh, to try to just pick out again, you know, the more the more obvious approaches to locate the dough and then start patterning where the doll are traveling and put yourself in a scenario where if you get where the dough are and the doll comes into asterisk, the bucks are gonna be monitoring that area as well. But I think on top of that, if over the years of hunting in these rout scenarios, if you can begin to identify where and I've seen this primarily in hunting cattail marshes on these islands, where bucks change their bedding locations to monitor high ground where dough or traveling across and maybe laying down scent on a scrape or traveling across to an area which has a piece of topography for whatever reason. It might be a dip in the topography or a piece of high ground that bridges UH three or four lower areas where it seems like every deer in that area crosses that spot right. A lot of times you'll find what might be called the primary scrape there. But there's gonna be a lot of scent activity or a lot of a lot of sign where a mature animal can enter that area and get an assessment of what other box are in the area or what doll or an estis in that area. UM and I would call that like rut betting or you know, satellite betting. That's UM betting that they utilize that is more transient than they utilize it as monitoring during the rut H and that's what I try to focus on during that time. Does does your your approach when it comes to you know, stage hunting as you described earlier, does that change it all during the rut? Will you stick it out in a a spot longer versus you know, moving in, moving in moving in because you know eventually a buck will cycle through one of these places like the cut off points that you've described them, or is it similar still UM? I think by that time it's I may have stage hunted. You know, it really depends on what areas I've hunted. I've tried to hop around and stage hunt. Maybe the key areas based on like less random betting spots, like areas that I know there's a history of Bucks betting in right during the rut, I believe that. I still believe Bucks will use those betting areas, but I think it becomes much more random because if a hot dough is in an area a half mile away, I mean I've observed this, then every book in the area is moving to that part of that part of the property and you you may or may not have access to that area, right, So so I like to move around a lot and spend more time on stand during the rut. So I think all day haunts are obviously going to get you an advantage, but moving frequently, which takes some endurance and takes some I guess fortitude to maybe set up in the morning on a particular scenario where you believe m a Buck might enter that area, access that area to monitor betting, and if it doesn't pan out and isn't working, get down and then move and look where go to where the sign is leading you. And by sign, I think during the rut, you know, key in on where you're finding scrapes that are adjacent to what you believe to be primary betting areas, and in this a scrapes or rubs that are adjacent to those dough betting areas that are active or hot. That's where I think those scenarios, you know, being mobile and moving multiple times during the day can be to your advantage. UM, Because again, I uh, you know, I think there's a certain there is a certain level of randomness. You know, I think hunting hunting hill country is fun during the rut because if you know, if you know there are a lot of mature animals in the area, UM, you can key in on those high travel corridors or low travel corridors, and you know, yeah, if you spend enough time on stand, you're likely you're likely to to encounter an animal. Right. But I still think what I've seen with mature bucks is that if you're hunting in a scenario, for example, and in a swamp topography right in the earlier part of the season, I may stage hunt in and get myself all the way up to the edge of that transition. Um that mature animal, he may never leave that swamp during the rut, like all his activity might be in those corridors that exist in you know, standing water, where there's small pods of high ground underneath tamaracks or trails that criss crossed through, uh cat tails. So then you got to think to yourself, how can I set up where I either have a vantage point to shoot to those access trails that that buck is going to travel in out of betting, because he's not going to come up onto the high ground, or how do I push in further and actually get into that that lowland area. And that's really during the rut where I get a lot more aggressive, and I'll get in and actually push in and set up in closer proximity to those betting areas on those known travel corridors that are coming in and out of there in a in ah, you know, like a marsh or a swamp scenario, which I think are a little to me are a little bit more obvious and less random than a helld country scenario for example. Yeah, well, Mario, I um, I realized two things. Number one, I realized I need to get you back on the show. Again some day soon, because there's so much more that I want to eventually cover. But I know I can't keep you here till the wee hours of the nights, so uh so I want to wrap it up and give you a chance, though, to talk about something that's related to this whole idea of being mobile and getting aggressive, which is what you've got going on with Hunting Beast Gear and the and all the products you guys are put an other to the world. Do you want to do? You want to wrap it up and kind of give us an update on where things stand with the new gear and what's available and all that stuff. Yeah, sure, you're happy to Thanks for Thanks for Sharon. So Hunting Beast gear we've got. We just released our tree stand. So it's a sub seven pound tree stand. Um, it's super lightweight and very quiet. It's got del Ron washers across the entire setting system. And I know there's a lot of options out there for mobile hunting, and you know, the one thing with mobile hunters right now is they do have a large palette to choose from. I think the key things with the products that Dan and I developed, you know, we really came at this from the point of trying to solve a real human problem, which is walking back in these scenarios and sometimes walking great distances back. And so we wanted something that was lightweight, packable and quiet, and there were other products that were out on the market. Um. You know, back in two thousand seventeen when we started noodling with this stuff, we spent a couple of years building prototypes, trying different um scenarios out. And I think the key things if you look at our sticks and what we did with that and the design around that very popular right now is a fixed double step stick uh that has a twenty in length, so it's compact. The double step at an angle allows you to get up a tree securely, where you're not tiptoeing on either side of the step worrying about your footing going up or down. It also provides you the advantage and this is another thing when you're setting up and trying to be really precise and quiet, that you can, you know, balance the full width of your foot across the step as you're setting up and setting up your stand um the stand in and of itself being half the weight of you know, the predominant model of mobile stand that was out there it when you use it, You're really gonna see the advantage of it when you get it in your hand, because I think anyone who hunts like this, we've all been in that scenario when you're getting up and hunting in these fringes. Not every tree that you get in is perfectly straight up and down and on every tree that you get in is completely bare of any branches. It's actually quite the opposite when you're hunting in a lot of these edge scenarios of fringe scenarios, and you end up having, you know, a lot of branches or angled trees that are growing towards sunlight. Right whether it be the open swamp or if you're hunting in farmland, tree tend to grow on an angle and towards the field and so on and so forth. So by the stand being really lightweight, I mean I love it because I get to the top of my sticks and literally with two fingers, I'm holding the stand in one hand and looking down and focusing on where I believe that betting area is or where I believe those deer are going to be coming from, and I'm using that tree as a shield to shield my movement and shield what I'm doing. And with that stand being ultra light, I can slide it up, strap it on, lock it in, and then slowly wrap myself around the tree, minimizing the amount of movement and noise that I'm making. Um. So, you know, I think that the big take home with the things that that we're making. I mean, our passion really is to try to share these experiences and this hunting knowledge with the greater community. Right we want we need more people hunting, We need more are people passionate about this? And out of that spawned these these products, which were really you know, the idea that Dan and I had of Hey, I think we can make some really cool sticks for ourselves, and and we can make a really ultra light tree stand. And you know, after after we made them and started using them for a couple of years, we really wanted to share this with the community of hunters. And and that's what the company is really all about. So I encourage everyone to take a look at our stuff. Um, there's a lot of there's a lot of options out there right now, and I will I will say, pay close attention to the details and look at look at where the trends in the marketplace have gone this year alone. I mean, uh, you know, we were the first to come out with an angle double step, and I think there's like six other competitors that came out with that this year. So uh, I think we did some than right when we initially came out with the design. But we've got a great warranty. You know, if you ever have any of the issues with the with the stand or the sticks or anything, you know, we'll take care of you. And I think it's a great option for someone that's getting into mobile hunting and is wanting to hunt in this way. It really provides you an advantage, um from from an equipment standpoint, and many of us to do this, I think we're very by the numbers. We have a system. You get to the tree, there's specific steps that you follow, rehearse practice. That's part of your process, and your equipment is an add on to that. Um it's it's the next step and things that add a little piece to your game to make sure that everything lays out just right. And you know a lot of guys that you talked to that kill big stuff, they're very particular about how they pack their equipment in how they tear it down and how they set up on these mobile hunts, trying to protect against noise, limited amount of movement and so on and so forth. So yeah, I love it. And what's the website where folks can find that. You can find it on www dot hunting b s gear dot com and that has all our products out there, and then there's links to all of our social media sites. As everyone knows, Dan runs the Hunting Beast forum. There's also the Hunting Beast YouTube page where you can get a bunch of educational stuff and videos on hunting. Dan has his DVD series that he fells, and there's a couple of different Facebook forums for the Hunting Beast as well as Hunting bes Gear that you can join and get a lot of useful information as well. Awesome, alright, mar Well, I really enjoyed this. I really appreciate the time. Um just tremendous, tremendous resources you provide us here. That really interesting, getting this deep look inside how you approached this thing. So thank you, thank you so much, thank you thanks for having me. I appreciate it, all right, And that's it for us today. I hope you enjoyed this one a lot to take in there as as probably as every week we have these. I feel like I say that at the end of every single episode, so I think that's a good thing that we're covering so many different bases. But I hope you enjoyed it. I appreciate you spend time with me and Mario here today and until next time, stay wired time

Save this episode