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 today on the show, we are joined by Zach Farrenbaugh from the Hunting Public to dive into how he would handle some of the most difficult situations in the deer hunting world. All right, welcome to the Wired Hunt podcast, brought to you by First Light. Today we are wrapping up our series of what would you do podcasts. Hopefully you've heard the three prior. We've talked to Jeff Sturgis, Michael Hunt, Sucker, and Adam Hayes, and you know the deal. We're gonna break down and discuss a series of different hypothe medical scenarios. We're gona paint a picture and we're gonna have our guests describe how they would handle this situation, what they would do, how they think about it, et cetera. Our guest today is someone you probably know. Hopefully no, he's been in the podcast in the past. He's well known because of his exploits on YouTube. This is Zack Farrenball. He is a member of the Hunting Public team previously was seen on Midwest white Tail. Zack is a phenomenal white tail hunter and he's doing it almost all on public land, all on public land these days, and uniquely compared to a lot of folks, he's doing it almost all on the ground. Now. He has really gotten into and perfected a style of hunting in which he's on the ground, still hunting, spot and stalking, occasionally ambushing. But he's doing it not from a tree. He's doing it down at deer eye level, and he's done it, jeez, at an astounding rate of success. This guy knows what he's doing. And so I today want to see how he would handle a set of different situations, and I brought on my buddy and Wired Hunt host of the Wired Hunt Foundations podcast, Tony Peterson, to help me do it. So Tony and I are going to present a bunch of ideas and situations and stories and circumstances to Zach and we'll see how he handles them. That is it. That's the game plan. This was really good. We're get into some good stuff. Even if you don't hunt from the ground, even if you don't think that's something you want to do. We get into some good general deer hunting knowledge kind of conversations that I think will help anyone out there, whether you hunt public land or private land. There are some some really good themes here that we touch on, so i'd highly encourage you to give this one to listen. Uh. In other news, I would just remind you to be following all of our Wired Dunt content because we're pumping it out at double speed these days. We're getting out new articles on the new Wired Hunt website. You can find and that the meat eater dot com slash Wired w I R e D or just google Wired to Hunt you'll find it there. We're putting in a lot of work to get these articles out there from great people that really know that what they're doing. Tony and I are pushing out our new YouTube video, so check that out. We've got quick educational videos coming out on the Wired Dunt YouTube channel. A lot is gonna be coming out on social media here to Hunting season is kicking off for both Tony and I and Spencer and all the other folks on the wire Dunt teams kicking off for a lot of us in just a matter of weeks. So let's go time and I hope you are. I hope you're as excited as I am, because we work all winter, spring, summer to lead up to this point and uh and now it's time to cash in on all that investment of time. So here's the opening day coming soon and without other way, let's get to my chat. Me and Tony talking with Zach Farenbaugh. Alright with me on the line, I've got back fair and bo Zach, welcome back to the show. Thank you, thanks for having me. Yeah, I uh, I just was looking back to try to see what it was we talked last on here, and it was I think two thousand eighteen, so almost three years ago. So it's it's definitely good that we're doing this again, and definitely good that we've got you on for this kind of episode because you're kind of wrapping up a series for us. SAC For the last month or so, we've been doing this series of what would you do? Podcasts? And I told you a little bit about this, but the basic gist of it is that we give people a whole series of challenging hypothetical situations. We're gonna paint a picture of a hunting scenario, throw you in the middle, of it and see how you would handle it, what your thought process would be, why you would do what you do, et cetera. Um, and then if you can make it out the other side and you're still alive, you win. You get to go on and continue on with your day. So that's what we wanted to put you through. Are you up for that? I'm up for it. Let's do it all right. And I brought my secret weapon with me. It's not just me, Tony Peterson is here to throw the real curveballs. Yeah, it's it's a pleasure to get to do this with you, Zack. Yeah. Yeah, I'm really looking forward to it, and and I'm excited to hear what what type of situations I get topped into? Only the worst, only the worst. That but that's good. That's the way I like to look at this is it's like a little bit of preseason training. Like people in football right now, they're training camp, they're getting ready for the season. Well, all three of us have our hunting seasons kicking off here in a matter of weeks. So I figured let's let's mentally go through some of those tough times so that when they actually do arrive in season, will be it will be a piece of cake. We've already been through it. Mark already forced me into this one, and I figured it out. I love it. I love like visualizations and you know, trying to prep mentally. I love it. I'm into it. Yes, all right, well, uh, I think we's just jumped into it. No beating around the bush. Let's just get going on these. And the first one is a little different than the rest um because I'm gonna ask you to actually step out of your own usual situation and instead imagine you're in an alternate universe. In this alternate universe, sec you are not filming for the hunting public. You are not able to hunt for weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks a year. Instead, you're working a day job, and you gotta work every day all day. It's like ten hour days. You get home and you have three kids and they need you doing stuff with them right when you get home, and on the weekends your slam with house duties and all that kind of stuff. So instead of being able to take off for a week long rut hunt or a week long hunt in September and week long here to this day, in that state and stay out of that, you maybe could get away with two hours on a Saturday morning. And the thing is that you are in a meat crisis, like the season is just opening up, your freezer is empty, the family needs food like now, and you've got two hours on a Saturday morning. So my question to you is this, in that situation, if that was your life and you have two hours opening Saturday morning, let's say, how exactly would you go about doing that? Like, what would be the specific way you would approach that situation and and how would that be different than what you do when you're traveling on a weeklong hunt trying to kill a big buck. Walk me through, like the details of what you do in that one, because we always talked about how to kill big buck, we never talked about how to kill a deal quickly. What would you do? Then? Sure, I think that if I was in that situation, you know, trying to squeak, it sounds like, you know, the busy lifestyle, um, with not a lot of time to focus on finding dear. But any chance I got outside of that two hours, you know, maybe on my way home from work, Um, if I could swing and just do a little bit of glassing, you know that's a big thing, and I think, um, we don't necessarily talk about a lot in our situation, but like something I've done in the past, like when I was in school or just you know, working a job in between school, It's like, if I only had a little bit of time, I'm trying to spend more time just kind of driving around trying to figure out what you're doing. That way, when you do have that two hours, you're able to just you know, commit to being in you know, or the right spot because obviously, if you're on the limited time, you want to put the odds in your favor as much as possible. And if you can't get out, um and put boots on the ground or whatever, hunting just any little thing that can help just tell you what the deer doing. So what I would try to do, probably in that situation of it, Saturday morning is when I have the time, maybe I would trying to make a loop before work, you know, depending obviously, um, if work starts at you know, five am, and I gotta work until dark or whatever, it's like it's going to be more difficult. But um, just trying to put as much time you know, glassing or just cruising around places that I have access to would be huge. You know, I think about the not exactly this situation because you know, it definitely is an alternate universe because I don't have any kids. But like when I was in when I was in college and working in the winter, I would get home from work and would just have like this tiny little window to where I could just drive around check out the places that I was hunting, and I was able to put a pretty decent pattern on what the deal were doing. That way, when I did get the opportunity over the weekend to get out and hunt, I was able to just go right to where I felt like I had the most confidence u you know, and just try to take advantage of that small amount of time. So you know, that's that's just I guess how I would try to create a little bit of extra time. I would just try to go out of my way to just get a tiny little bit. I mean it may literally be just driving top by and checking the checking the open field or past or whatever just to see if deer moving through it. And then that's just you know, helping put me in the game, because you know, you're talking that little amount of time you definitely want to put all the odds in your favor. Yep, I follow you there for sure. Okay, so you you've you've added a little bit of intel through scouting. Now Saturday morning arrives, walk me through like a hypothetical morning hunt. Would you still be stalking like you'd like you do a lot of times now or do you think with this situation you would instead post up in some kind of place, Like what specifically would you do with those two hours? I think if I just had two hours, like, I would just try to be um so like hopefully that intel from driving around would give me Like, okay, I can assume dear coming from this betting area. Um, you know they're feeding in this spot, they're betting in this spot, and you know, maybe I've learned a little bit of a pattern that way. I would just try to get in, you know, if that amount of time and stuff, I wouldn't you know. I guess in general, I've I've gotten away from using a lot of gear, so it's like I just have that amount of time, I'd probably just slip in somewhere, set up on the ground, you know, have a really high ops shot inside. It's one of yards, um, and then you know, the opportunity was there, I would absolutely always stop. But you know, I guess probably what I would do is just set up slip in, set up on the ground in the dark and you know, trying not to make a whole lot of noise, can kind of be in and out and you know, not have a huge impact on that area and just be able to you know, yes, pop in there and hopefully get get something down. Um. You know, I guess I'm always at this point, at least in in this universe that I live in, I'm always trying to like you know, make moves on stuff at the opportunities there. But in this situation with just a short window, um, you know, I would just have to play that by ear something was moving and I needed to get closer. Absolutely would get aggressive on it. But like you know, I guess the the initial setup would would be just that, like a set up probably sucked in somewhere, Um, nothing real fancy, just you know, hopefully a high odds shot where I got there, you know, coming in close, but you know, also having that confidence to be in that location, just based off that intel from driving around before work or after work or whatever it may be. Yeah, follow up on that. Let's let's assume that right, you're trying to fill a freezer, so you would shoot a oh, you would shoot a year and a half old spike whatever. And let's say one of those dear shows up but out of range, and you find yourself thinking, Okay, I've got to put a move on in these deer. Um, would you like, I don't know if you've had some experiences with this in your own life and you've noticed anything, But have you noticed anything different with how you need to or how you can approach and try to stalk in on a mature dough versus a mature buck or something like that? Is there anything you're doing different, thinking about different, trying to be more careful about or less careful about when trying to move in closer with a deer like this? Um? You know, I think that with with those, the biggest thing is you've got um a lot of times with the mature dough, you've gotten you know, younger deer with it. So if that's the case, you know, it just is more eyes. Therefore, that can be a little bit challenging. And um, you know, as soon as one of those funds, takes up and gives you know, picks its head up and gives you that alert like, hey, what's that. You know, Usually the does right behind and starts getting real curious real quick. Um. But you know, as far as a loan deer, it's just kind of the same thing. I mean, Um, you know, ideally I'd always rather be moving in on a loan deer versus a group of deer. You know, more I more noses makes it more challenging for sure, But I wouldn't say there's any real difference. Um. You know, I guess I guess maybe with the dough I would be like more aggressive there, just because it's like typically there's more of them in the woods versus a mature buck, you know. But at the same time, the goals filled the freezer, like, um, just I guess taking it, just taking it appropriate and just reading the beer. You know. If I can see a deer, that's when I feel the most confident because you can just read that body language. It's like if it's heating and relaxed and just browsing through the woods moving slow, um, you know, you can keep cutting distance. Um. And then obviously if the deer is dead and in one spot and you can see it. It becomes really easy to read the body right, which because it's like you're either good or you're not. You can tell it real quick. And a lot of times if you can read the body language, it's like there's any amount of like like alertness to the deer. You just back off a little bit, or not back off, but just slow down, let the situation play out like deer calmed down, and then keep making your move. So I wouldn't treat it that much different. I do think that, um, I do think that does tend to like rely on other deer more. So that's the one major difference. Where you know, a mature buff bettered alone, like way off away from all the other deer, he's got to be checking himself a little bit more frequently. But at the same time, you throw a dough with a couple of fawns in there, and she cares protecting those songs a lot, so like he's really looking a lot. So I just you know, it's it's just I would just treat it pretty much the same. And like I always think of it like this, if I'm making a move on a deer, it's like and I'm committed to shooting that deer. I just try to put my mind and like a different, completely different states than normally. I'm not thinking about anything else, so that making a perfect move, it's just like total game time, you know. Focus, don't make any little mistakes, don't break any sticks. Um, just really really really focused in on that because I think of it like this. It's like, yes, you're committed to doing it, and you're gonna make every perfect move like there's really nothing. And I guess if you make every move perfectly, you don't make any noise. You don't really you're you're probably not going to spoop the deer. But if you start getting easy, you started thinking, oh, this isn't worth it, and then you bumped the deer, you're gonna look back on that moment where you took a playoff, you know, and you're gonna get maud of yourself. And I just think, hey, even when I start to make a move too fast, I like check myself and remember, hey, if you make this move too you're probably gonna blow it. And if you blow it, you can never like let yourself, you know. I'm always just gonna remember that moment. Think man, why did I just like layoff? Why did you can play off? So so if I were to bet you, if I were to bet you a full American quarter, would you take that? Would you take that bet that you could get this deer killed in two hours on Saturday morning for a quarter? Oh No, that's a tough one. There's a lot of variables that come into play. Um, I don't know, to be honest, I mean, it's always one of those things like I think, I think when you said, no matter what goal you said, when you set a goal, it's like if you if you I guess. Let's put it this way. In my experience, the times when I say I'm gonna go shoot a deer and you know X amount of time, it usually ends up being more of a challenge. I think. You know, you set this goal and you're like, oh, I got this, I got this in the bag. Man, I'm gonna go out shoot a deer and get me the freezer like I'm just gonna fill a tag. Every time might say that ends up being more of a challenge than I think. So, Um, I don't know. I'd say I'd say there's a fifty fifty chance that I pull it off. I don't know, I've got faith. I think you'll get that twenty five cent piece. That's that's my take off. Um, so let's let's pull you back into the real universe. Yeah yeah, let's let's put you back into your own life. And uh, and Tony, where do you want to take it? Can it? Can we stay in in this alternate universe for a second? Mark? Because I think, well, two things. You could have given him eleven kids and made him an accountant, and you didn't. You would you went really easy on him, and you didn't have any like uh, you know, there wasn't any roadblocks there. You could have went nuts. But what I what I think I love that hypothetical because when Zach, when I hear you talk about, you know, just just hunting a meat, dear, let's say it's there's still so many variables and still this reluctance to just be like, you know, I got this. And I think that's an important point we should we should kind of break down a little bit. Is we give advice constantly on hunting big bucks, hunt mature bucks, and then you throw this out there, this is reality for a lot of people where you know, killing any deer is not easy. You know. It depends where you're hunting and your experience level. And what you're really describing is the all these different things that go into just trying to find a concentration of any deer and then get in on him and get that that boshe uh. And that's like the basis for you becoming this guy who can go out and stock bucks and in some ways have an easier stock on them if they're loaners in there in the right spot versus those dough groups. This is it's kind of a neat thought exercise because it kind of highlights how difficult this stuff really is for us. Yeah, for sure. I mean just in general, Um yeah, we talk about big bucks, I guess, and and we don't talk about just killing deer. And I think that it's one I always I guess, let's put it this way. I always think in my own situation, like if there's a beer that goes by inbow range, like it's a little exact, you know, because there's a lot of days, even when I'm looking for a big buck that I don't you know, have the opportunity to take a shot at the don there's a lot of days they don't have deer in range. So like anytime you know a I really do see it as a huge win. Anytime a deer lost past me, like you know, a small buck though whatever, I love it, like like gets me so excited because it's just like, man, like I really did something special here because full the deer's you know, I full the deer's nose and eyes. And I guess I always just the market is a little win. I can think back to last season hunting in Ohio, um in the hills of the Ohio, and like I can tell you the very few days that I had deer even in range, you know, like I can, I can remember him specifically, and you know, I would say, it's interesting. I guess this. It's interesting in general that when you're hunting big bucks, it does seem to be that like you don't actually get a ton of other deer in range necessarily. Like I would say of the deer that I got in range were I didn't kill any during both season. I did end up shooting one in Ohio with a gun, but I'm during both season, I would say fifty percent of the deer I hadn't ranged. We're like those are younger bucks that I chose not to shoot, but like theah' were some pretty nice bucks. It's just really weird how that ends up working out. So anytime I do have a deer in range, it's like awesome because it has a challenge. I mean, it's not it's suthingly take for granted. It's like having a wild animal inside of Boone Range, especially inside of like twenty yards, it's like quite the feat It's it's a good example of how valuable it is to learn to hunt deer first, and yeah, focus on the big bucks later. But if you can't get there, if you can't get the same thing happens. You know when when people go out west for the first time and they're gonna hunt elk, you know, and they're like, oh, you know, I just want a nice like tull and you're like, man, you got to get around you gotta learned to get around elk first, and that might take you ten seasons. Like it's you know, it's crawling before you walk type of stuff. Um, should I throw my first scenario, Adam? Now? Mark? I mean, can we explored that alternate universe enough? Yeah? I mean, you did intrigue me by throwing the eleven kids in accounting and maybe marital strife. I would like to explore that, but for the sake of Zach, I say we we move on, all right. So Zach, I'm sure you guys hear this, and you you've done a really good job with THHP on expanding where you guys are traveling to and where you're filming. But I know I I hear this a lot from people in a deep cell. So this is kind of where this scenario comes from. So you have five days to get it done in the swamps of Louisiana on public land, starting on their October one opener. This is a two parter. What do you look for east scouting before you ever hit the road? And then what's the first thing you do when you show up there in person? Okay, so the very first thing I'm looking at the act, it's like, I don't spend I mean, honestly with deer right now that I've been doing the last couple of seasons, it's just mostly looking for access points to start, just seeing where the road touches up a plan, and then I'll zoom in and out and just kind of get a read on what every access point looks like. If it's there's a big pole in with a big turnaround, I'm less interested in that versus something where you know, I don't see that poll off or I don't see the big you know, kind of parking lot type um access points. And then because there's any trails, you know, kind of take note of those as well. But then I always just zoom out and look at it big scale, have those pins, you know, pins where I can tell there's obvious access points, and then just try to find like any corner or like it may be a deep spot, but it may be something that's just kind of um, I don't know, maybe like a backdoor type spot, don't or you know, we always always talk about overlook but like you know, that sometimes can get confusing. It's like overlooked can look a lot of different ways. You know, an overlooked spot could be parking off the side of the road where there's not a major pull off and walking straight up a steep face to get you know, on the back side of a hill right off the road. Um, that may look like and then I get the Louisiana but maybe not look like that, but maybe it's water so maybe it's like I can tell there's a bunch of water, and it's like, yeah, nobody's probably walking around this big slow and just hunting, you know, ultimately three yards from the road or something. So I would look at it like that I find, um, you know again access points tough to find place or you know, tough to get to places. And then once I get there, even with five days, I would spend you know, at least probably the first day, the first full day, driving around and just like hopping out and looking at stuff real quick, like really just getting a gauge of what the area looks like, what these access points actually look like. How long does it take to drive to a spot from the nearest town, um, because those things have definitely an impact, Like even places and you know, tons of place I funded, um, different states, Like if you take that nearest town, which is kind of like probably where the most hunters are coming from, if you find a place on the particular piece of public lands furthest from that town, if it takes you know, if you can be to the public land in like fifteen minutes versus forty five or an hour and fifteen to the other side of the piece of public. You know, that's the type of stuff that UM, I think does have an impact on pressure a little bit, Like that's a good start. Um. There's always a chance that you get to a piece of um public that you thought was gonna be an easy access point. But you know, maybe it's a wet year and that swamp has swelled up and it's now going across the road and nobody can drive there. Maybe the rivers flooded. Um. You know, all that stuff I think is really important to just get your eyes on, because if you just look at a piece of public and you're like, this is the funnel, like this is where they're going, you know that. I mean that may be true, but in my experience, the places that I think are going to be the best, maybe they end up being good spots. Maybe that's even when I end up shooting a deer. But like, UM, a lot of times, I would say more times than that being the case, I'm driving around and I signed some oddball thing. It hinders people from getting into the public, and then you know that ends up being something that I focused more on than I hadn't anticipated. UM, So driving around looking for that type of access and everything and then the next thing is is just topic. Well, the other of thing I do when I'm driving around obviously looked for deer and I tried to get a Really this is one thing I guess I haven't mentioned a whole lot in general, is like I drive a real slow, like I'm talking slow, I don't cover a whole bunch of grounds. I'll literally drive with my head out the window looking for deer tracks. You know, if you're on a sand road or like down South and my experience, you know, you have a little bit sandier of a road versus like um Illa for example, You've got like straight uppart gravel road, it's harder to see deer tracks on the road. But driving down the road hanging my head out the window just looking for deer tracks, It's like if they're starts to be a big increase in tracks, you know, that might impact you know, where I want to be, especially you know, if you see a big buck track, I might have an impact on where you're interested in hunting as well, or like a high density of the big buck tracks. But drive really slow, look for tracks, look for rails crossing the road, and then also really break down the forest type like look at the difference in diversity. Like if you hit a big patch like like in the South, for example, a big patch of monotonous pine trees that are pretty mature that are about you know, probably gonna be harvested for you know, like in the rotation of the pine operation down there, it's like if they're gonna be cut soon and it's not real, you know, not a whole lot of diversity going on. Like I don't necessarily anticipate deer being right in that. But if I hit a patch of wetland where I can just tell the I mean, you can just look at it and say, oh yeah, there's a whole bunch of different plants in this. You know, I might start relating what I'm seeing in real life in this spot. Two, Like I'll look at where I'm at, look at it on the map, and try to find something that looks similar on the map. Maybe that's harder to get to, you know, that's not right off the road, So just getting it like a plant. Uh, I guess inventory is really important to me to Oak trees obviously have a big impact on you know, where dear could be. So while I'm driving around looking at if milk trees hanging over the road. Are their acorns laying on that their road, you know? And then it's like, Okay, that's a whatever oak. Then I know when I'm back in there to see that oak from a distance, I can assume that it's dropping acorns. You know. It's all those little things just trying. You're almost like I think on that first day, like driving around, you're just trying to gain like as much knowledge as possible, and sometimes it really feels so silly. We're like looking at the most minuscule little thing, like it seems people see that you're paying attention to it, like oh, there's a track right here on the road, But like you gotta think of it, you know, detective style, and you got to find every little, you know, thing that could give you a clue and just relate that to where you're actually gonna go hunting now. So, um, I think that's all that stuff important for the first day. Yeah, I guess. I guess that maybe answers the question. I don't I think that answers the question. Well, it does. And it's what was interesting is it took you about ten minutes to get to the deer because everything was about where are the people going to be first? And you know, a lot of East Coating advice is like, hey, look for the funnels, look for these soft edges, you know, look for stuff that's yeah, like important to deer. But if you're in a place where the hunting pressure is, you know, is at a saturation point, none of that stuff matters, and so you're go ahead, good, Sorry, sorry, that's right, buddy. Think about that though. The other thing about that, though, is like, if you're so, we can flip the situation and say you're a guy in in Louisiana going to you know, Drew and Iowa tag or you drew your drew a can this tag? Like, if you don't understand the plants that are growing on the areas that you can hunt, and you don't understand how the deer are using those plants, funnels may not really matter at all. Like there could be the greatest funnel of all time. But if it's like in a patch of trees that the deer's you know, there's a bunch of walnuts in there, like, the deer may not even be spent in any time in there at all. You know, So I think I think you know, you get your access points, you get figure out where you think antisipate the most pressure is going to be. But then you know, kind of learning just about it's something different, right if I was in Louisiana, Like I've never even been to Louisiana yet, so it's like I can make guesses on what the deer habitats gonna what's gonna be good, But I don't know anything, Like I gotta actually get there and just spend some time, um, just learning about the plant life there and how the deer interacting with that. Yeah, yeah, no, that's all right, buddy. Yeah. And you make you make a good point there about funnels and pinch points, because we talk about them as if they're absolute places deer are always going to go through and they have to they have to have a reason. Like if they don't have a reason to go from one side to the other, it doesn't matter how awesome it is. Um. I want to I want to touch on one other thing that you brought up there that you know, you said that you drive down the road really slowly and you're looking for tracks if the if the conditions allow for it, and that sounds like that sounds like kindergarten stuff, right, But a lot of people go in with this idea that I've you know, I've got all these pins dropped, and I'm gonna hike in here and look at this, and hike in here and look at this. And what you're saying is I'm just gonna be open to the fact that this gravel road might clue me into a place where these dear cross in a way that I could never see on East scouting. And sometimes I know you guys have seen this if you're in the right place with like patchwork public, where you've got you know, checkerboard public private, public, private, and you know, you might have really nice egg or feeders or something on the on the private, and then the public doesn't. You can you can cruise those section lines and see serious travel roads in the right conditions just by driving a road. And it sounds like too simple, but it works in some places. I mean it really works. It works well too. I think. Just learn so much about i mean different edges that they are using. I mean, like you said, dear transitioning from maybe they're betting on public and they're moving to private to go to a feeder or or a pasture with you know, just a different type of food source for them where they're getting some diversity in they're diet. I mean, I mean one time we were in Alabama driving around and we found where two bucks were fighting on the road, like it was just playing a day, Like there was definitely a buck fight right here, you know, and it's it's it's like, man, that tells you, O, there's two bucks here pretty close. You know, it doesn't have to be anything like I mean, I'm not saying that, it tells you exactly where it is, but then you can kind of use your other uh skills, like just knowing where dear bed to kind of reference that and say, okay, if there's two bucks right in this on this section of road, like where did they come from? Where maybe where they may be going. If this happened at night, you know what time and night, how far are they from their bedding area? You know, and stuff like that really can help put you right in the right spot. I mean, it's I love that. I mean I love driving around looking at the trails crossing the road and like, yeah, again it does seem kind of silly, but like I mean, it definitely can put you in the right put you in the game. At least you can help point in the right direction and maybe even teach you something about how the deer interacting with the vegetation. I want to play this scenario out a little further, um because I like where we're going here, and I want to let me. Let's assume that you start doing your drive, your slow driving. And to be honest with you, Zach, I don't know if I fully believe you on this because when I envisioned you driving around, I envisioned you driving just like you start walking into the woods, Like I see you sprinting in the woods and screaming. Well, I could just see you get in your truck and like peeling out, like put your head out the window and scream let's hunt, and then go seventy miles down the dirt road. That's what I think actually happens. But that's that's where it is. I could actually see how I do you would think that. But it's funny because I get accused of driving like a grandpa all the time, and like I always get I actually get frustrated when my dad is driving when we're hunting, because I'm like, hey, you gotta flow down and I'm looking at stuff pretty funny, but yeah, I can see where you think that. Yeah, well, let's let's say you do rip slow though. As you do that, you're you're seeing tracks crisscrossing everywhere. You're even seeing like big tracks that make you think, oh, that could be a big heavy deer. Maybe you are driving at last light and there's some crop fields kind of on the edges of this marshy stuff down there, and you see like good bucks um and just the area is seemingly loaded with deer, more than you could have imagined. There's a bunch of deer hanging out in this area. But you decided to poke around in the woods and you get to the first access point that you pinned. You start walking in there and you bump into another guy who's walking out to hunt a tree stand. Uh. You pivot and you go look at another spot, and there's two trucks at this access point, and then you decide to pivot again, and as you're hiking into another spot, you pass by two tree stands. So there's there's a lot of deer in the area, but you're finding people everywhere you turn. My question is, how do you navigate that situation. Do you say, all right, there's people everywhere, but there's also deer. I can work around them and figure them out, or you can say, screw it, I'm finding somewhere else where. There's not people all over the place. I think there's a lot of deer and there's a lot of you know, buck for example, Like you've seen them in there there and there's trapped everywhere. Like I'm saying you can work around them in that situation, um for sure, Like sometimes then and that's kind of helpful really, you know, if there's a bunch of deer but there's a bunch of hunters, it really like limits where those deer, especially like your older bucks and does are gonna be hanging out. Uh, because people are so virtual man, Like it's it's kind of weird, like you go into certain areas of the country and everybody hunts the same way, like like everybody kind of does the same thing. And gun season in Wisconsin, you know, like they all got up in an elevator a box line and they right there four wheelers to the spot, like you know, and if you can just kind of do something different than that. It's like a lot of times you surprise the deer. So I guess what then I would do if I'm in in this Louisiana situation and driving down the road density high hunt hunt deer, but also hunters, I would just really start focusing on some of those, like how can I do something completely different? You know? Maybe I park, you know, maybe it looks like this, Maybe I park at the access point that everybody's parking at, But then I walked two miles down the road instead of driving my vehicle down there and just kind of right off the road. But have walked, you know, a long way down the road. Maybe I you know, go or you know, get the waiters out across the you know, like waves high water to get to a spot that otherwise is tough to get to. Um. Maybe I guess this just really trying I get I guess to find the common theme of like what is everybody doing? You know, are they all walking in putting up three stands on a specific type of dry land, or are they hunting? Um, everybody hunting in the marsh, you know whatever it may be, like just trying to mix it up and do something different. Like it is really weird having traveled around to a lot of different places to see the tendencies of hunters, and like, you know, you hear this, and I mean I remember reading articles about this, like long long ago when I was in like middle school. I remember getting a magazine. You know, it might have been like q d M at the time or something like or whatever it was, because it doesn't really matter, just like, had this magazine article and was talking about our dear patterning you and I like at the time that it made sense what the article was saying. But the more I hunt and the more I see different tendencies of hunters in a given region, the more I'm just like, these things are not even doing anything. They're not that far from you, and they're like the most tempting things. You know that they're they tempt you, especially if you got kil cameras out, you're getting pictures of these deers like they're literally living right where you're hunting. But how do you break up the like the same exact thing that everybody's doing. How do you get into a spot that's completely different. Maybe it's not even a spot, but maybe how you approach the spot. You know, maybe there's a guy that's got to treat them in the spot. It's just a great spot. Deer go through it. But the deer are betted in a positions they know when he gets there, you know, or they hear you know, they're betted just close enough that when he climbs up the ladder stand and that ladder makes that pop, they hear it and they're like, Okay, that's our Q to not build that direction today. Like I think that stuff happening like so much more than people give dear credit for, um, unless unless you know, you spend a bunch of time hunting, like a ton of time hunting, you know, you kind of overlooked it. This thing so my best I guess my the decision I would make at that point, and I feel like it's worth hunting, which it sounds like it is based off of the situation you've described, Like I just want to try to pattern the hunters yet again, like how do I get to where the hunters are not? Now Here's here's an interesting situation that I think is happening more often these days now where what you described is what someone plans on doing. They show up, they see there's hunting pressure out there, and then they determine Okay, I'm going to figure out what these other people are doing and then I'll do the opposite of it. And right, like you're saying, a lot of times the current hunters are sitting in their tree stands in certain types of places, and once you figure that out, it's pretty clear how to get around that. But let's say when you show up at this spot and you're sitting all this deer and you're realizing there's hunters all over the place. What if you go back to the parking lot and you happen to see that there's two vehicles there in the parking lot and they both have THHP stickers in the back window. And then you go to another spot, you bump into a guy and there's three buddies there, and those three guys like, dude, Zach, we love you. You know, we're doing all the same stuff you do. And you find out that there's five buddies all here hunting like you. How would you hunt around people that hunt like you do, all trying to stalk one down, walking around scouting everything. How would you handle that? Um? Probably just I mean the reality is like if that's the case and everybody's doing exactly the same thing, it's me. I mean, there is a certain point where like it's you know, pulling out and moving through a different location, san is reality for me, Like I if it gets to a point where I'm like, you know what, I'm not feeling it here, Um just move, you know, Like that's a that's like an easy out answer, though I guess, um just very it depends to on this piece of public and like I try to almost always hunt an area that like prior to getting there, I feel like that's not going to be the case as far as like there's just never gonna be too many people with no matter what their ideas are, where there's not enough room to breed. You, I guess, you know, and I'm I guess I mean to like it doesn't matter to me as much, like I guess, let's put it this way. I can guarantee if I'm gonna go to Ohio, like I can tell you the places where there's too much there's too much of exactly that like what you described, but tell you, like if I go to a place in Virginia, like there's not going to be that because it's just there's more room, there's more, there's less Honestly, people are so drawn to big bucks it's kind of comical. Like I don't care if there's not as many like big antlerd Bucks in an area. I'll just go to where there's like, you know, less deer numbers probably and smaller you know, smaller antlerd deer you know. I guess that's one of those things to me too, where I feel like it gets to a point where like I'm not as caught up and shooting like the biggest ANTLERD Buck as much as I'm just like I want to get it out and I want to have the type of experience where I'm kind of out there alone. I feel like, um, you know, I just have room to breathe. That's that's what I'm attracted to. I want to adventure. I don't want to be bumping elbows with people. So like, I guess there is just a point where if that is the case, I'll let's get out of there, you know, just go do something else. But um, if I don't have another option, just to answer the question, I'm just gonna keep again or just reading what everybody's doing, Like you know, I'll talk with hunters, see what they're thinking, see what they're doing, kind of give them my game plan or whatever, and if it's like too much, then I'll just bounce within that piece of public to a different section where we're kind of spreading ourselves out. I do think talking with other hunters is really important to you know, just saying hey, you know, like we were hunting, hoping to hunt back in here, but like what's your game plan? You know what I mean? And then or we're hoping to hunt right in this spot back here, this is where we've been going. What's your game plans? Can we work around it? Or should I go somewhere else? And you know that's ultimately like what you have to do sometimes in some situation and if it gets too bad, just you know, pick up and drive. And I always have a backup plan and backup plan, you know, I always save a bunch of maths that way. It's like I've been in this situation a ton where I'm like, that's like hit a wall man, It's like drop down on my knees. And I pulled my phone out and I started looking at like where else can I go within the state where my tag, you know, where my tag is legal? And I do that often so you know that's that's like kind of my final straw type deal. Uh. I'm not letting you off the hook here completely, Zack, but I gotta ask Tony a question. Uh, what would you do in that scenaric, Tony, what if you were hunting a piece of public land and Zach or like a Zach lookalike or like wants to be like an acolyte of Zach shows up and a couple of guys are going to start hunting the same public land that you're hunting, just like Zack does. How would you handle a situation? I can tell you very specifically that one time I was hunting public land and Zack was across the river from me, and I shot a buck and got out of there, honestly, But no, I take the same approach. Uh, yeah, I'm not. I'm not joking. There's Zack um about that talked about that. I'm the same exact Zack's answer there is my answer. I mean, I've I've gone to places and a good lesson there like with what he said is without saying it was, you can't fall in love with the idea of a spot. And you see people do this a lot when they're like, I'm going, you know, I'm going to hunt public land in this state and it's gonna be awesome. And that's the that's the spot. Like they take this w m A or they take something, they go, you know, I got all my way points here, I got I got all my research, you know, dedicated to one area. Then you show up and there's people everywhere, or it just it doesn't play out the way you hope. And if you don't have that backup, you're gonna ride out a dead program. And so I do the same thing. I mean, I've had times where, you know, I went down to Oklahoma one time to hunt a property that was big, and I was like, this thing is gonna be unreal. And my buddy and I got down there and after two and a half day, as I was like, this is terrible. There's people everywhere and we can barely see a deer. But we had backup spots. We drove four hours to a different area of the state and had an awesome hunt. And so I think, I think, if you're gonna do this, you just have to have like Zach said, like, what's your plan, b what's your plans? See? And you know, are you, like, are you of the mindset where you can just go this is not what I want out of this hunt. I need to go find something different, And can you pull up camp and go do it or you're gonna kind of default and say, well, maybe maybe something will show up. I mean, I'm a mover man. I don't like I don't like not enjoying my hunting. And if I'm in a position where I have no faith in my spot anymore, I don't enjoy it. And so it's like it's worth it to burn a half a day or a day to go, you know, drive somewhere new, pull up camp, scout somewhere new, and just try to get that reset moment where you can start enjoying it and get in the game again. No. Yeah, that's that's huge. I mean with Turkey, we do it so easily that it's like I don't know, I didn't you know, it's like almost like old news at this point, Like we pull into a place and there's people and like Turkey is a really easy one. There's a lot of a lot of the situation you just described marks of like you know, people doing the same thing, and it's like if that's the case, I'm just leaving, like no questions asked, like not spending any amount of time on it, even if there is a bunch of turkeys. I mean, I hunted a place in West Virginia one time, but it was like, I mean, it was comical how many hunters were there. Now I was also on the flip side, the amount of turkeys was easily the most turkeys that I've heard gobbling in one spot in the whole season. But it was like we spent one day doing it, and Ben and I and my buddies and Collins who a hunt at the time, We're like, never again, make at least at this point the excuson Like so first of all, you could see in West Virginia never hunting the spot again, Like, no way, it doesn't matter. I'd rather hunt a place with like, you know, a tenth of the birds, with the not seeing anybody, versus hunt this place where there's like, you know, four on a tiny little ridge, but you know also five guys going in after him. It's just it gets to a point where like, to me, that's not that's not the experience that I want to get out of. Funting is like I don't feel like I want to have action. It's like, super consistently, I'd rather just have, you know, an adventure. I love being on an adventure and being a new stuff. So you know, it quickly gets to that point for me and I guess, yeah, uh, you want to throw up another situation, Tony. Sure. So Zach, you're you know, you've got this reputation as a guy who you stalk a lot of deer, but it's kind of a You've kind of got this style that's sort of a mix of spot and stock and still hunting and even posting up on the ground. It's kind of this diverse ground game approach. And so we know that's what you like to do, that's what you're kind of weird for. So let's say you're hunting Midwestern the East, doesn't matter. Not not a crazy it's not Iowa white tails, it's it's just a decent Midwestern or eastern state. You're in a big chunk of public that's mostly deciduous forest. It's October, a lot of the leaves are down, it's been dry for three weeks. It's super crunchy out there, and you've got, you know, your cameraman behind you. And every step he takes like a it's like stepping on potato chips. Do you do you ever hit a point when the conditions, you know, and let's say it's pretty calm too, because it's warm, You ever hit a point like that where you're like, man, my preferred approach of slipping around and seeing if we can get eyes on one and crawling in just feels it feels like that's not gonna happen. Do you do you kind of default back to the saddles then, or do you just try to figure out a way to keep riding that program? Um? I just keep riding that program. But it definitely looks different. Like the situation you described is exactly what happened to me last year in both hunting in Ohio. Um, it was November. It was in October, but the leaves were down, and like every time he stepped as like a bomb going off. It brutal and it was it was like early November was like seventy degrees every day for the whole entire like whatever seven that I think it was seven days I was there. Yeah, brutal, man, Like I didn't so loud, so hot, um so dry, but I mean I can. I can just give you like kind of that that experience, and it's the same thing I would do. UM. It's basically the same exactly um situation you just described. It's like what I'm doing then, is I'm not picking a spot even until i feel like there's a good enough sign. So I'm still cruising around moving um. But I'm just picking the easy, the quietest route. So like I love to move because I'm too like anxious to just sit for too long. I just kick myself if I sit for too long, but I want to But I will sit if I feel confident in the location, but I have to see the sign first. So for example, if I'm in like that situation that you talked about, I'm gonna try to find a route because there's always a route. You know. It may not be exactly where I'm gonna be still hunting along and kill a deer, but it's just a route that I can travel and learn about that area. So for example, maybe it's a ridge top. A lot of times there's a trail on a ridge top, and maybe like a old two track or something. You know that maybe the quieter option versus being down on the bench below where I actually think the deer are gonna be bedded. UM. But I can slowly move through that chain, just the pace of it a little bit and just read that sign. Then that's going to give me the confidence to move in tighter and get set up and actually find a ground set up. UM. Another like location or route that I like to take this creek bottoms, Like I'll just get straight if it's hot and dry, take my shoes off, and just straight up walk down the creek. Um. That's an option walking right on the inside bank of a creek, you know, where there's just mud and you don't have to be on those dry leads. But again, that's just trying to give me an idea of a spot, like finding a spot that I feel really confident in setting up in UM, and then I still just set up on the ground. And you know, for me, it's just like I don't I keep trying to minimize what I take to the woods, Like I just don't like carrying stuff, and like, you know, the other alternative to that is, you know, prep stuff prior. But you know, hunting public land, you know there's not a whole lot of prep work you can do. UM. You know, you can't really put stands up and leave them, I mean without the risk and them getting going. And I'm not in a place really long enough to do that anyway. So it's like I just don't like carrying stuff, Like even as easy as the saddle is to carry, like it just would prefer to not do it because I like to go out all day. I like to carry a ton of water. You know, I'm carrying him three to five liters of water a day, depending on the temperature. You know, those days when it was November seventy degrees, like we had to bring five liters of water between like like cooking up a little freeze dried meal or something, or just drinking in general. Like you get to a point where like you need that water, So I don't want to sacrifice that to bring gear. Um, So I still want to set up on the ground, and like the more I do it, the more I'm just like I really don't need a tree set up. I mean, there's really not many situations where I'm like I can't figure this out. You learn how be You're see and react two different setups than us, and it's like you just know what you're gonna get away with and where you're not going to. Yeah, there's some risk involved. Yeah there's you know, windows where the setup isn't great. The deer kind of have to come through here. But you know, I'm willing to try it versus I just don't like bringing stuff in. I don't like climbing up. I think that climbing up gives you away a lot too. Where do your hear you or see you climbing a tree, like maybe are like a hundred fifty yards? Like what does that do sit doing climbing that tree? Like I can hear him playing a day, you know, and I guess I don't want to. I don't want to do that, So therefore I don't do it. I just keep playing the ground game, and then I just commit to setting up a little bit more. I find those routes where I can still hunt and scout. It doesn't have to be right through the heart of it, but it may be like if I think, for example, there's a valley, but there's a valley, and there's a bunch of finger bridges that are falling into that valley. I may walk that valley and try to find where the highest doneity of crossing trails is if I find that X, then I can say, Okay, I want to set up in here, I want to set up close to here, and I'll just commit like to getting in there really early in the morning and the dark, when you know I'm not expecting as many dear to be in the bedding area for example. So um yeah, I guess that's how I would approach it. And another thing is too, seriously, if it's wet and dry, I shift to like setting up close to water um a lot more too. It's just because I kind of have a lightbulb moment last year when in that situation where I was hunting um really dry stuff stephany trees sept in this my great funnel, and it just made sense for dear to be crossing there. Go from you know, a number of betting ridges across this ridge that was kind of in between more bedding ridges, and that could just run up and over the saddle. There was tons of um scarlet oak acorns of the dry often. But we were way up at the tip top and I'm sitting there and I'm literally myself I'm drying out, man, like I'm hot. Just it is uncomfortable and I'm like, why would a deer, ever in the right mind, be spending any amount of time up here, Like down there low they can for one, get shade and two they can get water in three it's been so dry that up here everything's so dried out that there's not a whole lot of diversity as far as you know, vegetation goes definitely not as much as there is down that bottom. And man, we moved down that bottom in within an hour. We had a monster come into five yards and didn't get a shot, and he I guess he got close enough to be caught with of us and then looked at us and it was too late, but like he just kind of caught us off guard. But being in that being down in that position, we were in the game just by taking advantage of those conditions, And um, you know, to be honest, I just don't. I don't think that I would ever change enough. And I'm stubborn in that way too. I mean, I definitely am. It's like I love when people say, you know what, man, you couldn't do that in this situation. It's like he could. It doesn't like why does it have to be that way? Like why do people say it has to be you have to do it my way. Like if I want to do something different, I'll just keep trying and like I'll just keep adjusting and yeah, I'm gonna fail. But that's part of the fun if time thing is to me, it's like the failure that's what keeps me coming back. I do you know every situation it's just like I'm just slaughtering dear. It's like it would not be that fun. I love like failure and just like that chet. You know, it's like, hey, maybe I don't know what I'm doing in this situation, and that's cool. How do I learn? I want to learn? Yeah, I guess can I keep going down this road? Mark it? So I love that you just said that right there about people saying there's yeah, you know that might work an eye, Well, but it's not gonna work here. I think one of the things that I mean, but you hear it every where. We had we all our deer hunting difficulty biases, like our bias toward our dogs. Right, everybody has the best dog, Like you talked to somebody who owns the lab. It's the best dog ever. And the last dog was the best dog it always right. And then the best point, dude, you always have. The best point is this is great. Well, but you brought it up. It reminded me that when I started, you know, I had all these preconceived notions growing up in Minnesota hunting the way I did, and then starting to expand and go to these other states and hunt public land. What I realized is everybody has a local bias that they're hunting the most difficult deer. And it kind of ties into what you said earlier when you were like, you know, people are pretty consistent across the board, or at least regionally where they hunt a certain way, and you can kind of you know, some some places you can pull up your you know, on X and you can call your shots and say, there's gonna be a tree stand there, a tree stand there, a tree stand there, And people are insanely consistent and that it and and you know, habituated to their circumstances. But that works against them, just like believing that you have the hardest deer possible. It gives you an out or you know, if you think, well, yeah, you know, those Iowa hunters they have it easy. And I live in X state and I have it hard well that that may be true, but it doesn't do any good to focus on that. Like you still you're still hunting rabbits with antlers, and you can kill them in a shipload of different ways. Like you just gotta get out of your own way and just go, okay, well, yeah, you know, maybe I'm not as lucky as somebody who owns a thousand acres in southern Iowa, but I have this national forest to hunt. There's deer in there they're killable, or I have this you know, grandpa's farm or whatever, and I think so much of that mentality like that just works against us so much. Yeah, yeah, I agree. It's it's really interesting to like, you know, it's the out thing is so true. It's just like, well but here we are in this place and it's not this place, and it's like, yeah, it's not. But like there's always a local that's kicking ass out there, like you know, like there's always a local that's doing really well because like they found a style that works for them, or they just recognize what their situation is and they you know, they take advantage of it, like they learn, they learn what the deer doing. They learn what the hunters are doing and then they you know, take advantage of those things that they've learned, like you gotta go out and fail. And I just think that that's I don't know, it's it's something that we don't want failure, right, like as hunters there are just humans in general, like we don't want to show that we've failed. And that's while while that is true, you have I think I do believe that it's healthy to show or you know, admit that you're failing and say, hey, why am I failing? Want if you are failing, why and then what can I do to change that? And you know, you hear it all the time, and I mean it's kind of cliche almost at this point. It's like, you know, with the rise of social media and hunters, you know, sharing pictures of big bucks, other hunters feel discouraged when you know, it's like it really is becoming a cliche things like you've read that article before, you've heard that podcast. Whatever. It's like, but I guess it's just who gives a ship? Like who cares? Why do you worry about failing? Because like nine times out of ten or way more probably you don't kill a deer, you know, you there might be, there might be, you know, it might be every third time you even have a deer in range. So it's like it doesn't matter. And why compare yourself to other hunters, because there's no more true things than hunting than this. Everybody's hunting situation and goals are different, period. Like what I think is, you know what I what is a goal to me is not a goal to you guys. Necessarily, Maybe it is, maybe it isn't, But like who cares to me? When I go hunting? It's me versus like the woods and the deer. I'm just going out to be competing against them like they are living in their world. I'm trying to be a predator in their world and I'm trying to go in and trip them, you know. And I just think it's like why why care? Why compare? You know, because again, if you start, and it's so it's so crazy, have the like routes to comparing, you can go like if you're sitting comparing your Antler score. That's why I think score is so ridiculous. It's like your Antler score if you live in you know, uh, the Southeast for example, like if you live in North Florida and you're comparing score to what guys are shooting even in Tennessee, like you're probably gonna get discouraged. And then the guy that's comparing his score in Tennessee to the guys in I or Kansas, he's probably going to be disappointed. Go out that goals for yourself that you feel are realistic, and just go have fun because like it's no competition and it just is, like I don't know, it's it's frustrating to think that it is a competition, like you know, and it doesn't matter what anybody who else's goals are. Make your own, have fun like it's a it's a sport that is meant to be just like fun. Yeah, and it's an individual pursuit. Yeah, Mark, can I keep going? I gotta keep going on this right, No, you're fired too much. I'm down, I'm having I'm having a blast, So let's keep doing. I want to talk about failure because you know, you brought it up. And I always use the example of like an over the counter l hunt in Colorado, which is you know, everybody's default ELK hunt, Like if you you know, whether we love failure, hated or indifferent, whatever how you feel about it. If you say I'm going to go do that hunt, you're saying I'm as with certainty you're going to fail as far as killing an elk, But that's that's not why you're going. You're going to elk hunt and have the experience. Like we have a harder time with white tails in that same like getting that mindset right with white tails. It's like so so important to kill and and we're like a verse to this failure, but it's such a integral part of it, like it's it's coming no matter what. And so like that example you gave Zach of you know, when it was super hot and you're sitting there on top and you're going, why would a deer be here? Like you're you're hunting a place you shouldn't be hunting or a spot, And dude, I had an exact same light bulb moment, probably like five or six years ago in Nebraska, same kind of deal with like seventy five degrees. I'm sitting on this top in this public land that I've killed big Bucks in and I'm seeing nothing and I was just sitting there sweating my ass off, and I'm going, why would a dear be here? Like they're not here obviously, like I'm not seeing them, they're not coming through here. And I've got this stream in the valley below oh me with you know, all these nice conifers along it in this good cover, and I'm like, what, why are you sitting up here failing at this when you know like you'd feel better down there that's probably where they are. And I did the same thing. I went down there and I killed a buck. I didn't even have like my shirt on. I was wearing a T shirt and hung a stand and he came in right along the crew. I mean, it was like over and I hadn't hardly seen it here in two days hunting us out, And it's like one of those moments where like, yeah, that's awesome because the success came, But really the important part was like questioning why you're failing so bad? Like why why are you sitting here wasting your time doing something that you know? Like if you start to question it and go, why is this not fun? Why is this not working out? You're gonna make different decisions and probably move in that right direction. But it's it's like a hard thing to overcome sometimes in those little epiphanies though, are what are so fun? If you did? Yeah, that's that's it. It's the journey, the process having these little aha moments as soon as you start learn to appreciate that and realize that that's really the thing we're chasing here in a lot of ways, Uh, that's that's the ticket. Definitely agree with that as well. I Mean it's like we all want when we go hunting, we all want like a certain thing to happen, Like that's the the goal is like I want this here to walk down this trail in front of my set up, or I want to find a bedded buck or whatever. And it's like when all of a sudden it does happen exactly what you want to have happened. That's when you feel like on cloud nine and you're like, man, I knew exactly what was going to happen in this situation. And then like most times though, you don't, you know, and you just gotta keep chipping away at it. It's like, yeah, I mean you're gonna like hunting is like lower odds and you're you know, gonna batting average. You know, you think of a good batting average being over or whatever. It's like you're hunting at batting averages not through over three hundred like it my mind, isn't you more times? Are you gonna fail? So it's just I guess it's just one of those things that you embrace it. You're gonna have a lot better time. And then the other thing is like what is failure? You know? Because I always say I'd rather I'd rather be around I guess. Let's put it this way. There's a lot of hunters that have found like what works, and they just keep doing the same exact thing. And those people start to get to a point where it's like I'm not as interested in what they're doing because for their situation, I've learned or they've they figured that out and they just keep doing it. I'm almost, well, I'm not almost. I enjoy having a conversation with people, like I love talking to a guy that's only hunted a few years or you know, just less than me in general. But it's just like super curious, like they're they're asking questions or like what type of tree is this? You know what, you know, what would you do right here? Right whatever? Like asking a bunch of questions. Just you can tell they just care about it and they're thinking about it a lot, and like, if you're doing that, in my opinion, you don't you're not failing ever, you know, if you're always asking yourself like why didn't that work? You know what, I can't really figure out why that deer did that, but I'm thinking about it a lot. What do you think? You know, they want to have those conversations. They want to dive into like just deep thought about the situation. And then how do you ever fail? Because you're just trying to learn? And I think, you know, I think if you're trying to learn, you're never failing and hunting because it's just you know, you can just being curious about it. Man. I think it's huge and just caring. Because if you say I didn't get one to fail and then you give up, it's just like it's just like if you were if that guy was on your football team, Like you don't like that guy, right, It's like if you lose the game here and and that guy is like, oh man, we lost, you touched his tail us put his head down. It's like, hey man, we gotta get back to work. Like we gotta get back in and you know, we gotta this week in practice, we gotta like really focus on the things that we did wrong, and then we gotta get better, you know. And I think that you know that, I just I find myself relating sports to hunting a lot these days. Honestly, it's just you know, having having a positive mentality in it, you know, just keep continuing to improve. It is important. I think the two or two of the most important questions that should like always be on the tip of your tongue during hunting season is remember, one, why when something happens, asking yourself, like we're talking like why did this happen? Why isn't this working? Or even why it does this work? And the second question is what now? If you can if you're always asking yourself those questions, why did this happen? Or why did that deer do that? Or why did this not work? And then what now? Okay, how do I deal with that situation? Rather than tucking your tail, rather than giving up or saying what was me? It's like that thing happened or I learned this thing or observe this thing. What now? How do you move forward? Like those two things. Constantly ask yourself those two things and keep moving forward and enjoy it. That's that's it. I think the thing to add to that too is just like really nail that like really pounds of mistakes into your head, like how like don't forget that thing again. You know, if you make a mistake, try not to make it again, like I can. I'll use an example from last year, is like the most bonehead mistake that haunts me and we'll probably haunt me for a long time, is I was? It was? It was that time of the year, November, Ohio Hot dry found a really good funnel had set up close to it, knew there was probably a hot day in the area that they stop the day prior. Um we're basically set up right in the perfect spot where was gonna pinch deer down to inside of twenty yards and hilly terrain, which isn't always always an easy thing to find, but we felt good that we were in the right spot. Look down about nine o'clock and only deer we had seen all morning Shooter buck cruising. It was one of the bucks that we've seen the day before. He's cruising down below us. Um on the bench and I don't know, a hundred twenty yards down the hill. And you know, I love talking about the little things, you know, the little things that we we do that can cost us an opportunity or um whatever, you know, it can we can blow the deer before we get a shot, or make us miss or whatever. And one of the things that I always try to make right do well is be ready, you know, just like always being ready. And this deer went down below us and he just got outside. We tried grunting to him. He didn't make any he didn't have any reaction to it at all. And I looked at Keith, who I was hunting with him. Should we just try to rattle, like you know, I don't, I don't really want that was like the last resort, because it's like in a different situation, we just try to cut him off and try to get a different angle on him. But we couldn't move because we had too much crunchy. Um. It was just the conditions were too crunchy, too calm, that we didn't feel like we could ever you know, fool him. As fast as he was moving, we were never gonna be able to get in front of him quiet enough without spooking him. So the last resort was, well, we'll rattle and make a bunch of noise. But when I rattled and made a bunch of noise, I it worked great. Keith and I were both banging about just like thrashing in the leaves, rattling, and the deer was on us before I was even done rattling, Like I was just setting the antlers down, and he's a fifteen yards coming fast, and he's coming, I mean right at us. And the mistake that I made was is there two mistakes really breaking down the situation is I should have stopped midway through the rattling sequence to listen to see if I can hear him, because again the crunchy conditions, that was an advantage that we had that we could hear a ton. So I didn't do that. But then on top of that is I had turned to face where the deer was, but in my setup, I had been facing the other way when we were just sitting there, you know, looking for deer and waiting, and my bow was on the other side of me, and the deer ran up to like literally six yards and before he knew anything was up, and I ruined it. Because I wasn't ready, And I mean it would have been the most chip shot of all times. The thing was at point blank and I wasn't ready, and I didn't have my bone front of me. Like again, I kicked myself. I think about it all the time. Sometimes I wake up in a cold sweat because I've been having a nightmare about it. I'm just kidding, but I think about that all the time. But like, the worst thing I could do now is make that same exact mistake in the future. Now, it's just like focusing on that little thing and just being like, you know, sometimes it seems, uh, it seems like the most basic lesson ever, but like to make sure your bows in front of you, make sure you've got an arrow knock, make sure you're ready, make sure you're ready, you know. And I just pound that into my brain for the future to hopefully never make that mistake again. And you know, it's like I could power out about it, and you know, I definitely do sometimes in my own head. For sure, it's like, damn, I wish I wouldn't have done that, But hey, you gotta just cut your loss and say next time, I'm gonna do better. And the chances are that I'm gonna be in a similar situation to that again, And it's kindly not gonna list exact play the same. I mean, chances are I'm not gonna be in that same again, that same exact log I'm that same exact for it rattle into a buck with those same exact conditions, but I'll be in something similar, And just learning from that mistake is like, to me, that's what makes to me, that is what makes somebody really a a good hunter. It doesn't matter what you're shooting. It's just like, can you look at your mistakes and say, hey, this is what I did wrong, here's what I'm gonna change in the future, cut my losses and move on. Yeah. Well, and you know what's really important about that lesson too, is you know you talk about that buck come into six yards and how easy the shot would have been if you'd have been ready, But everybody who bow hunts gets surprised by them, and that's when bad shots happen. So you you didn't have the chance to get off a shot there. But you know, every bow hunter with a couple of seasons under his or her belt has been out there. You know, in quiet conditions or just not paying attention. You know, just got set up and then looked in that bucks walking through and it's a mad scramble, and that's when the panic sets in. And that's when gut shots happened. That's when mrs happened, and that's when you just fall apart, you know. So so, like you said, paying attention, if you get that you know, ten second lead time, or you see that movement in the brush fifty yards away versus fifteen, you've got a lot better chance of making a good shot because you have a chance to get your ship together versus just all of a sudden having that Chinese fire drill and being in real trouble. Yeah, and where what I you know, looking back on that situation, what I would change exactly is is I would just not turned towards the deer while rattling. I would have just stayed quartered towards my bow, rattled with my you know, my knees still facing my bow, twisted to the left and made the noise so that paused mid rattle, heard him coming drop. The antlers grabbed my bow and then just you know, I read antlers a lot on the ground, Like I it low enough and I practice draw where I can stay low and you know, knowing that the deer can't see me just based off what his you know, I'm low enough that I can only see his antler tips and I'm just reading that how to drawn low and then just slowly rose up and he you know, chances are high that about it. Done all those things a little bit different, it would have been money. But like, had you know, had I been in that same situation, let's say um turned the wrong way rattling. Even if I do pause and here I'm coming, I'm in that situation like you said, where I'm scrambling. I gotta turn back around, I gotta grab my bow, I gotta get ready. And at that point maybe he's he's too close, and you know, and they gets it gets sloppy. But like just in general, I look back and then what the hell was I doing? I mean, just so spy, like just just not good. But hey, you know, sitting complain about it or thought about it, but the reality is next time, I guess I just gotta try to do better. They get and or you know, make sure you're doing a little thing. What about a slight variation on that situation that I imagine has happened to you. I know stuffitely this is similar to this has happened to you. But I think a lot of other people, if they're trying this kind of thing, would happen too. Whether you're sitting in a place like you were, kind of waiting or stalking it on a spot and you get pegged by a buck that you were either moving in on or he moved in on you. He's right at the edge of your range. Let's say so he's not a chip shop, but he is hypothetically in range. He's a alert. You have your bow, you have it an arrow knocked, but he is on alert. He knows something is kind of up. He's doing the head bob. He's curious, unsure, not quite aware though that he should be out of there right away in that situation, given some the experiences you've had, what's the best thing to do in that situation? And from your perspective, do you wait till he makes any kind of tiny little movement and then just go for the snapshot or a You're gonna wait it out and wait till he's comfortable again and starts walking away. What's the take in that situation, if you could have taken a shot, just stay calm. I think, like read that deer, cover your face in your eye you know, have hopefully have you got your face and your eyes covered as best as possible, and just stay calm, because I've had that happen a lot. Actually, um Buckeye shot him New York, totally saw me, but he didn't know what I was. Um Buck in North Dakota that I shot last year, he saw Jake, didn't know what Jake was. UM. So I've been in that situation, and the best thing, like, man, it runs through your mind every time, should I just draw them, set up and shoot? And I don't think. I think sometimes it works, and I guess in one situation I did that. Um I did do something similar, but but we'll kind of loop back to that. In most situations, I think deer, And again it comes with a little bit of experience of knowing like what deer can see and what they can differentiate from like danger and just like a blob in the woods. UM, I think dear c head and shoulders so and face. I think face is a big one too. So like a lot of times I pulled my if a deer is closer. I know a deer is close. I really shade my eyes with my hat and basically cover half my my eyes with my hat and or put my bowcam in front of my face because I think that they see those two predator eyes, you know, looking right at them, especially there whatever twenty thirty yards, They're like, what is that thing? You know that doesn't look right? And if you've ever seen a human face in the woods sometimes it does stick out like hundreds of yards is just like, well, there's a person sitting right there and see their face, So covering face is like important. And then I mean I really do grow my hair out at this point. I mean I grow it out because I like it number one, but number two, like it breaks up the head and shoulders, you know, like I think that's like human outline humans standing on two legs and obviously walking across the landscape, like gear pick up on that quick. But also, um, just that head and shoulder outline is like, you know, very specific to humans, and I think they pick up on that as you know, predator danger real quick. So you know, if you know, like let's say, oh, in movement movements to the other final straw. So like if a deer is locked onto you and he's head bombing and he said, you know, your range is thirty yards and you're like, I know, he's right at thirty He's like, I know I can make that shot. He's broadside right now, and you rip the bell back. I mean, see you later. He's I would say, nine times out of ten running now, if you have a little bit of front cover, you know, and maybe you know, maybe it's worth a shot. I'm not saying that a percent of the time it does not work. But you know, if they're already pretty locked on and they're already like you know, on max suspicion as like is that a predator and you blow up out of your you know, your your hide, they're they're probably gonna run. So in my experience, I've just been really really patient, stayed, stayed, blow looked at there um antlers, and really just make that read you know, once they're not looking at you to make that move. Um. So I'll use the cample of New York real quick. New York. I was stalking in on a buck that was better with the dough. I was staying along a shaded the wind was coming out across wind. I love across wind and moving in on deer um standing on a shaded fence line. And as I was moving towards him, I was starting they stood up, and I knew they were betted, and I didn't know exactly. I mean, I pretty much knew exactly where, you know, within like a ten yard circle. I knewhere there were but I was playing it slow and safe. And then they stood up and I could see about stantler tips and I just started reading that. I was moving in, moving and moving in, and every step I would take, I would like tick the next step right, I would like take the next little patch of shadow or place also where I could get knelt down and draw my boat out getting hung up on stuff. So like really particular about where I'm making these next moves, and midway through as I'm like cutting distance, you know, really cutting some distance heat a car like stops or something or like rev the engine, maybe even just hip stop sign. I don't really even know what happened that you can hear it in in the footage the engine wrapped up. Deer looks at the engine or you know where that sounds coming from, And just like streaks out and he just takes off round it and he does a few bounds and he ends up landing right in front of me at like I don't know bow range, you know, pretty easy shots. But what I had done is because I had been picking that next spot. I already had my next spot pick, and as soon as he started bounding, I just, like you know, one too quick, scurried right into a little patch of shade. I got down into a ball as small as I could, and I put my cam in front of my face, my hat bound over my eyes, and I just was barely looking at him through my hat Billy and my bow can and he runs like head on right at me and stopped it. I don't know, let's just say yards. I don't know exactly how far, but I know it's really really close, and he's locked on. Like his pail goes up. He starts like kind of walk stomping towards me, and I just waited, and I mean it went through my head. It's like, man, he's closed, and he's as he started walking closer, like man, I might be able to just whip this bow back and shoot him right in the chest, and like you know what, that's never gonna happen, like never ever gonna happen. I mean, you know, your mind's racing at this point. My heart's going to the roof, and I just remember thinking to myself, it's blown. If you move. If you move at this point, you've blown it. The only chance you have is if he circles back to that dough and starts worrying about that dough again, or worrying about some other, you know, issue that could be going on in his brain, whether it's that car or whatever. You have to wait till he looks away from you, and then you got to try to draw. So because I had that cross wind, it was moving from right to left, and he had to circ if he wanted to circle me or that dough, he had to go to the left. And he just started walking and he cut back into taller grass, and then again just waiting for him to not not see his eye. You know, I I really think there's it's kind of as simple as that. You can't actually see their eye at all in your safe but like they'll check you too, like what he did the first time, and I didn't draw on this is he checked me like he acted like he wasn't looking, you know, and he looked to the right, and then he snapped it back to the left and he checked me, and I let him have that one. And then he did it again because he started to trust to the situation because he checked me, and I didn't move even when he allowed himself to be vulnerable, and I just like let him have that one. And then he looked again, and I drew stand really low, knowing that he at this point is starting to kind of go into this ocean of grass, and drew back slowly. And then he looked a third time at that dough and I literally stood all the way up and I shot him at twenty yards. It's like the woodshoot a three D target in the yard, and I mean it was it was. It ended up just being a complete chip shot, like he was looking the other way at twenty yards. So that's one situation. Another situation is in Nebraska. I called him on a buck um a couple of years ago, a few years ago, you have twenty eight and I was it knew exactly where he's dead. It I had a spot picked where I thought I was going to be inside his spent of yards or right at spent of yards or whatever, and I ended up getting there and here's the buck land. I arranged him three times, nineteen yards. I'm like, man like, all he's gotta do is stand up. And Logan, who was the guy that was filming at the time, Um, he was up on the hill and he was just barely skyline like the way he had to get up the camera. He was just barely, you know, sticking out. He he was wearing a gilly suit, so he didn't look like a human, but he definitely was abnormal in that landscape. And I was wearing a gilly suit and also just like tucked up against the cedar tree. I'm not perfectly covered, but I'm you know, I know that they can't tell exactly what deer can't tell exactly what I am. And I'm watching this buck bedded And in the meantime, the smaller buck came in and walked up to like point blank, he's probably five or seven yards away on the other side of the creek, and he starts looking at me, and then he starts looking at Logan up on the hill, and you just can't really tell what we are because I'm we're not moving either. One of us are moving, and he eventually gives up on the wind winds in our favor. That's important to note, and he eventually gives up on the situation. And for some reason, I almost made a bone head mistake here. As that other buck worked away, I looked up at Logan to make sure that he wasn't like signaling me, you know something. I don't really even know why I cared at that point. Again, it was it was kind of bonehead for a second. Actually what happened is that panic. I was like, I hope he's got enough battery or I hope he's got enough memory in the card. And then I like, really, I thought, why didn't matter at this point, But I looked up at him the only movement I made since I've got into the set up, you know, twenty minutes prior, and I look up at him, and I look back and the buckets standing up looking in our direction, the buck that I'm trying to shoot, and it's that was one of those situations where I knew prior, I'd visualized how he was going to stand up in that bed. I see how his body was oriented. I knew that if he stood up and he took one step, he was gonna be you know, there wasn't gonna be a lady there. And he stood up, He's looking in my direction, got a gilly suit on, I you know, got a pretty good amount of cover, and I thought, whatever, it's now or never he takes one step, he's out of there. And I just like pointed that, you know, I'd already had the arrow pointed right at him, and I just you know, with as much with as little movement as possible, I just drew the bow straight back, set will the pen and john him and he never moved. So two kind of different situations there, in two different slightly different, you know, again every situation being a little different. I did decide to pull the trigger there, but he wasn't as locked on like I think he probably at that point was just like huh, like that's kind of weird that something's right there, and he had not not really put that, he hadn't got fear in him yet if that might be a predator. I think you just thought on something different. And my movement was so minimal, and I was so broken up with that gilly suit that, um, you know I think that I just well, I mean I definitely did get away with it, but not every situation I would do that. I would say, most times, play it safe and just wait for them, and if you're not moving, they're probably not gonna run. Like it is really weird and like we're taught. We're taught when we first started hunting, or at least a lot of us, you know, um, you know, growing up in the East in the Midwest, you're taught to get into a tree stand and what movement you can and can't get away with, how to get you know, the right cover for a tree stand. But we're not really taught like what deer can and can't see when you're on the ground. And we give dear too much credit because what they are really good at is skylining you in a tree. They can pick a human body out of a blob out of a tree pretty easily. But when you're on the ground and you're broken up, I mean sometimes it can be a tuft of grass that's between you and the deer and they just can't really pick up if you're not moving. But if you're moving around, you know, they can see really well, but they're there. Their eyes are definitely different than ours, like they just don't see the same thing. Movement is bad, you know, having your face exposed. I think it's bad. But like it's really crazy what you can get away with um on the ground and and um, just like you kind of have to relearn what is right and wrong. I guess because in the tree stand you you play the situation a little bit different because they're not looking up all the time, you know, But in on the ground you just have to read the deer and and UM, I don't know, I don't know. I guess it's it's I just think of it. It's often like I'm surprised that what you can get away with in my setup now. Sometimes are like a few years ago, I've been like, oh, that's a sloppy set up that will never work. And it's like sometimes now I'm like, you know what, if the deer comes right from that direction, it's gonna work. And I you know, it may not work from every direction, but I feel most confident in the deer coming from that spot. If he does, you know, it'll work. And it doesn't have to be like super fancy. Sometimes it's just just a log in front of you. Sometimes it's just a big tree in front of you. You know, you're just kind of hiding off to the right side of the tree looking to draw around. But it's just, um, I don't know, setup set up things with a lot different I guess I got way off traff of here. I'm loving it and it's just got me chomping at a bit even more than I was to take off in like ten days heading out for my first hunt of the year. And uh, I gotta believe Tony and a whole bunch of other people listening are feeling in the same way. So you've done your job well, Zack. I just know it's something that I got just an extremely passionate bottle. I started doing this. My favorite favorite thing. It really hunting deer off the ground and that style. Man, it's just like I guess that's why I promote it so much. It's like it doesn't have to be hunting off the ground. It could be hunting out of a tree saddle or tree stand. You know, maybe it's hunting deer off of a horse or something. I don't know, whatever, like really makes you tick like that, That to me is um, you can make it so much more on if you just kind of mind a style that works for you. And I I was in a rut of deer hunting, not the right type of rut. That was just like kind of doing the same old thing over and over again, and I was getting kind of tired. I loved it. It It was always my favorite thing, but hunting off the count, he's made it that much more of my favorite thing. Like it's awesome. Yeah, I think that's a perfect place to wrap it up, because this message of just finding what you enjoy, finding where your passion is and and chasing it regardless of what other people do, or regardless of what other people say is gonna work or not gonna work, or no matter what other people think is okay for your shoot or not shoot. Like, I think the moral of a lot of this is go back to what makes you know, what scratches that is for you, what gets you fired up, and just do it shamelessly, screw everybody else. If it's legal, and if it does it for you, enjoy the hell out of it. So yep, I'm I'm all about it. So, Zach, you have made it through the what would you do? Gauntlet? You have survived, You've proved yourself very worthy of the challenge. Um, we gotta wrap it up. But I've got one last, like rapid fire round of questions for you, and uh and then that would be as this would be like one word answers is all we're gonna give you. Okay, okay, all right, so real quick? Does the moon matter to dear movement? Yes? Or no? Mm hmm Yes, but I don't understand it. Okay. I would say it probably has an impact, but I don't understand it. Okay. Would you take a fifty yard shot at a white tail with your bow? Yes? Or no? No? If you could only have one of these tools for us of your hunts forever, which one would you take? Rattling antlers or grunt to grant two? Expandable or fixed blade broadheads? Fixed blade? Should you stop a buck with a sound if he's walking before shooting? Yes or no? M hm? Yes? Yeah, okay. I mean that's one that I could go on and on about, and I think it's very situational. But yeah, okay. Um, if you could only pick one season that you were allowed to scout, which season would it be? Winter? Summer or fall? Mm hm fall? Which state has the better deer hunters? Iowa or Ohio. Oh man, I don't know, no comment, okay, fair enough, got to keep good graces. I don't want to offend anybody. I don't want to piss off your buddies in Iowa or the locals. We're you're up, Yeah exactly. I'd rather just yeah, there's no yeah, that's that's that's yeah. It's a trick question. It's a trick question. All right. Here's one that you can expand on a little bit. So imagine that I am omnipotent I have full control of everything in the world, and I'm going to take away your hunting privileges for the next ten years, no more hunting at all, unless unless you kill a mature buck this year on public land zact. So let's say, let's say four year ol buck. You gotta kill a public land four year old buck this year to keep the next ten years of hunting available to you. But here's the rub. You only get one day to do it and one spot to do it in. And since you hunt like a you hunt a different way than some people. You can have a type of spot that you want to walk around and check out. So give me the day. You're gonna pick, what date? You would think you've got the very best chances, and then described to me the kind of you would ideally want to pin your hopes on for this very high stakes hunt. Uh, Like first it would be it would be like, um, real early in the season. Let's just say I've had pretty good success on like the fifth and sixth of September. So I'll say sixth of September. Um, in just any wide open country where I know there's a good water source. So like if there's water and it's like it's a river bottom um with hills around it and pretty open, that's where I want to be. That's that's where I feel the most confident. Um, just where I can see it dear um ideally see a dear bedded That's that's where I feel the most confident. Like I would say that, yeah, seeing seeing is really important to me. So that definitely makes me feel like I could be successful. Um in that date. I just kind of love the mentality of the year. It's just kind of laying around kind of like that. So if you get them in an open, open country and they're just laying around and you can see him that it's it's nice. So that's that's where I've had probably the best success consistently. Really, I like it. That's a super fun way to hunt. I know Tony and I both are with you on that one. So you did it, Zach. Appreciate you bearing with us through all these questions, and uh it was fun. It was a lot of fun. Thank you. Oh yeah, then I had a blast. I I hope we can do it again sometime soon. Good luck on these hunts you got coming up. And uh we'll check in with it after September six and see if you killed the one already. Yeah, that's good, it'll be that'll be all right about the time to be see it, you know, see you too good. I'm gonna go to I got a new Mexico deer tag. It's a like four cantler deer so any buck, you know, I can shoot deer out there mostly, but that's that's it's going to be open country. So we'll see fingers crossed that that's uh, we can pull it off. So I love it. All right, we'll get there. You guys to have a good season, all right, Thanks buddy, Thanks Zach. Yeah, all right, and that's a wrap. I will just remind you that If you're not already following Zach and the Hunting Public team, you gotta check them out. They're producing some of the very best white tail content out there. Their deer tours kicking off and just a matter of probably days from when this episode drops, so be sure check out the Hunting Public on YouTube, They're on Instagram, they're on iTunes, basically anywhere you want to find stuff. They've got something. So check out what Zack's doing and the whole through. Give him, give him a subscribe, watch their content and you will not regret it. So that's all I got for you today. Thanks for listening, appreciate you being here. Best of luck with your archery practice, with your final scouting, with your trail camera polls, whatever you're doing, get after it, have some fun, and until next time, stay wired to hunt.