00:00:02 Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wire to Hunt podcast, your home for deer hunting news, stories and strategies, and now your host, Mark Kenyon. Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. I'm your host Mark Kenyan. In this episode number one twelve, Tayn the show, We're joined by Eddie Claypool, a freelance outdoor writer and super successful white tailed bow hunter, and our topic is going to be d I Y, public and private land white tail strategies. All right, Welcome to the wire to Hunt podcast, brought to you by Sitka Gear, and today I'm joined by Eddie Claypool, a longtime freelance outdoor writer and can tributor to Peterson's Bow Hunting magazine and one of the most successful d I Y and public land bow hunters in the country. He is an avid white tail hunter and a guy who knows how to get it done on wily old bucks in tough conditions. And that's exactly what we're gonna chat with Eddie about today in the next hour or two. My goal is that we can get an inside look into how Eddie is able to have such great success across the country chasing mature bucks all on his own and on a reasonable budget. And I want to do this because I know there are a lot of people out there, maybe you, who want to go on that dream white tail trip, but you're not exactly sure how to pull it off, or if you can afford it, or where you should even start when trying to plan it. So that's what we're gonna try to talk about today, hardcore d I Y private or public land tactics that can help you pull off the white tail hunt of your dreams, whether that's fifteen miles from home or fifteen hundred. But before we do that, we need to pause briefly to thank our friends at sick Gear for the supp or of this podcast, And as have been the case for the past few weeks, I'm recording again at their headquarters here in Bozeman, Montana, And in a couple of days, the Hunting Film Tour is gonna be launching their two thousand sixteen tour here in town, and one of the films that I believe is going to be on that tour is called Beyond the Roar, and it features actually a past podcast guest of ours, Aaron Hitchens. You might remember that episode last year. I think now over the past few months As you likely know, we've been sharing short sitcast stories here featuring different hunters, and they're interesting or exciting experiences that have taken place while wearing clothing. Well Beyond the Roar the film is without a doubt interesting and exciting and remarkably profound, and it's also a sitcast story. So rather than regale you with that story here, I just encourage you to check out that film, which you can view online when you get a chance. It follows Aaron and his friend will Is the embark on a wilderness moose hunt in the UK on by way of canoe as they seek out adventure and a way to honor their recently past friend. We just posted the video over on wired to Hunt dot com, so head there and check it out. Beyond the Roar is very well done and very much a sick story. So with that said, let's now get back to the show and give Eddie a call. Alright with us Now on the line is Eddie Claypool. Welcome to show, Eddie. Thank you. Yeah, I'm very excited to finally chat with you. You know, like I just mentioned off the air, I've been reading your articles for a long time now, and uh, I've definitely learned a lot myself, so I'm excited for you to be able to share some of your experiences and um, some of the things that you've been able to do over the years have so much success because I for you to share that with our audience. UM, So, you know, before I dive too far, and I'm gonna be kind of eager, I want to pick your brain about a lot of things though. But before we get to that, Eddie, can you tell us a little bit about about your background. How you got to this point as you such a successful outdoor writer. Well, you know, I don't know how successful i'm outdoor writer I am, but I do take pride in being a h very you know, hardcore do it yourself bow hunter. That that started as a teenager and I've displayed it through all my life. I have never really been interested in going on guided hunts. I would rather fail on my mom than succeed with help. I guess you could say I'm kind of hard headed old cuss uh been an independent fella. And so you know, when you climb the ladder of hard knocks all on your own, you learn things the right way and you eliminate the the you know, the inferior stuff. And for the past thirty forty years, I've just been you know, I started out whitetail hunting and progressed in the western hunting and even have taken you know, whitetail hunting out west quite a bit too. I I hud a very large percentage of my stuff on public land, but I mean on whitetail hunting. I have traveled all around the country just you know, knocking on doors and gaining permission and to hunt on private land too. So I just take probably being well rounded and what I do, and I do it like the average guy. I was not born in the privilege or money, or I didn't have a grandpa with a big amount of land. I've just kind of been a construction worker all my life, which did give me an occupation that allowed me to take off more time than the average guy. So the one ingredient I have supplied for the many years of time, and I insisted upon it one way or the other. I made it part of my life. And usually, you know, in the fall of the year, I'm never working and just both hunt seriously and I'm not ashamed to load the pick up up and drive to a state I've never been and start ferreting out some stuff and it's led to you know, a lot of good types of habitat that I've learned to hunt, and and a lot of good you know, getting away from the maddening crowd type hunts too. It's getting to be tough nowadays because of the you know, mass commercialization of the hunting industry here in the last ten or twenty years. Things are getting a lot tougher than the way I come up. But it can still be done, and I still have good success by this going around and hunting either public land or private land, and I access usually through a handshake and hard work. Now, you said you started white till hunting and then moved to try some different things out west, in different species and whatnot. How does wait to hunting stack up with all the other big game you've hunted now? Is it still doesn't still have that special appeal? You know it? Whitetail hunting has been my main squeeze all my life. But also I'm kind of a closet Western guide to the point of I've had a hard time differentiating between which of the two is more important to me because they each had their own appeal. White Tail has been my main squeeze because I grew up around him and I cut my teeth on him, and I've always had a special place in my heart for him. But I'm not gonna lie to you. I mean, you know, I know I'm probably a minority nowadays. Uh. You know, everything's turning into a kind of it seems like the whitetail world has become a money sort of deal where you either have to have land that you've bought or least or something. And you know, I just don't fit into that world anymore. Um, It's been hard on me the last half dozen years. I've lost access to most all my good places, and I've had to really dig in scrap to stay in the game. And I've went out West to the big public plans out there to try to hunt white tails to get away from the you know, the what's going on back here in the Midwest with this mass commercialization stuff. But white tails have lost a little bit of their appeal to me over the last half dozen years due to the fact of just what simply is going on in the industry itself. It's turned me off. It's a lessened the average guy's ability to hunt at a high level. It's anymore. It's become more of a dog eat dog, competitive money minded industry, and I come from a different place in time, and that's just kind of turned me off a little bit on light tills recently. But it sounds like you're still you're still able to have some success. Would you say that the average guy or girl still can get it done without having the big money and the big property and all that. Oh, it's absolutely doable. It's just way harder than it used to be. I mean, you know, in my heyday, you could drive to any of the premium white hill states, you know, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Kansas when it opened and access just virtually anything. The farmers were open. They wanted their dear killed, and they wanted decent people on their property. And you know, even though it's evolved now into more of a money thing, it's still very available. I travel a lot now and and just rather than mass with headache of trying to get on private property anymore, which is almost undoable in the quality states, I either go to the lesser, you know, highlighted states or just hunt public land. And I've had good success last few years on public land, and some of my friends had even astronomically better success because they're not as much of a wild goose chaser as I am. They'll they'll stay right there at home and work on a good commodity at their fingertips while I'm out running around like a nuts and we're looking for a pot at the end of the rainbow. They'll they'll stay home, and they're a little honey hooles. And you know, there's a lot to be said for that, because really that's the way the average guy hunts. He doesn't get to travel all over a lot. And you know, if you really learn how to ferret out, you know, how to beat the system on the public lands, you can you will soon find out that the guys at hunt Um really forgive me, but they're not really dangerous per se. Uh. And if you can beat that the way they're doing it and get into that ten percentile that does it differently on public lands and usually usually come out with a real good tax termy bill. That's always a nice problem to have when there's a big text dvermy bill, that's for sure. YEA. So for a little context here where all, have you hunted white tails out what states? Well, if I had to spread it out as why as I could to give you an overview, I mean, the farthest east I've hunted him is New York State. Farthest north Alberta, Canada. Farthest west basically Washington Idaho line, and the far south if you include the cow's deer, the desert white tails, I've hunted them to the Mexico line. So just about most of our geographic country I've traveled through. And you know, and just an old Ford druck and uh ice chest and a camp were on back and I've driven a many a thousand a mile of back roads knocking on doors. So I've hunted them. I've been blessed to get to do more than most people because I've had the time for thirty years. I've just taken the fall of the year off every year and went, you know, through these cycles of going to different areas. And I've been blessed so many different types of habitat from from mountainous big woods northern white tails, to urban white tails, to farmland white tails, to high plains to desert white tails. So I like them all ever, ever type of habitat has its own challenges, and I'm by about like a new challenges. When I get something kind to go in my way, it's usually not long until I start looking somewhere else for something to tackle. Um, I'm not dissatisfied and mastering something and setting on it and you know, builping the good out of it forever. I like to try to match with with something that might get the best. To me, you know, it sounds like we share the same disease. I definitely have found that I can't seem like I don't get too comfortable. Once I get comfortable, I kind of want to move on and try new things, new states, new areas. There is a certain appeal to that new adventure kind of that you never know what's around the next corner and trying to figure it all out so right, and it keeps you at your edge, to you on your edge, you know, it makes you makes you study hop and uh. You know, I have friends that have some premium properties out in Iowa, and you know, the Illinois type, managed type properties we might call them. And I've watched them, you know, settle into the little places and over a period of years, you know, they get everything groomed, and they get the big bucks grown, and they got the tree stands all placed, and over a period of time it's kind of almost becomes like a I don't know, a staged act or something. I mean, they got the deer name, they know how old they are. They they won't shoot him till they're so many years old. And they got their tree stands, they know every single spot they're going to get everyday pre rehearsed, you know. And to me that I got close to that a couple of times, because you have to you have to mature through stages, and you need to taste the stages to really know what you think of them. And I attempted some of that and realized that it wasn't really for me. I don't either. I'd rather go try somewhere new and hunt and unknown and kill a hundred in dear maybe even off public land somewhere, because the challenge is so much greater, and I hunt for the challenge not just to large antlers. I I love large antlers, and I've got enough something that I got two kind of I guess mature to mature through the stage of just being focused on acquiring big antlers, and so, like you, I like to challenge of new places and new hunts, and so I don't even really fantasize anymore about owning this premium piece of Iowa or Illinois property that I can homestead for twenty years, because it wouldn't be long I'd be looking to sell it and try something different. So so this is perfect because I think this is exactly what I want us to try to focus on. It's for that for that listener that doesn't have a big property, they don't have a family member's got the big farm, but they still want to chase this idea. They want to chase this idea of of you know, a mature buck or traveling to hunt one of these other places. And you obviously have just you know, share with this the fact that you've been able to do this successfully all over the country, you know, from north to southeast to west on a budget. So I really want to dig into how you're able to do that, and I think you can correct me if I'm wrong, um, but I think a good way to do that might be to actually reference something I read in one of your articles a while back. You'd written about how you like to break down how you hunt mature white tail box, and you break it down to four categories for the d I Y guy or girl. First you talked about you need to figure out where you hunt. Then you need to talk about when you hunt. Then it's finding the exact location, and then finally sealing the deal. So I kind of want to walk through each of those four steps to understand your process. Uh that does that sound like a good plan? Yeah, that sounds fine with me. Just jog my memory on each one them in order and I'll address him a little bit. Yeah. So, so where are you hunt? Obviously is that first question? You know, for a lot of people maybe who live on the East Coast or you know, one of these non famous deer areas, they have these dreams of going out there and hunting there, but they might think it's impossible or super expensive. So I guess I'm curious, how do you go about deciding where to hunt from a region standpoint, or just beginning that process? How do you go through that to the whole situation figure out where and how you're going to go somewhere? Well, I think mainly it boils down that's a very individual and very personal, you know, topic for each hunter. It depends on what your priorities are. I mean, we all know where the the main genetics are, the biggest bucks, the biggest antward ones. And you know, if that's all you're after, then you know you know the direction to go there, you know about you know which places to go, and you know you're probably gonna have to either go outfitted or have a silver spoon to get into those type of hunts. I don't even think about them. I don't even mess with them anymore. Um my priority being uh poority outing, uh reasonable mature buck, you know. And that is basically real realism to the average get Joe, and you don't have to travel to the most elite places to do that. Most any state, virtually any white hill state has some good quality gear in it somewhere. I live in Oklahoma, and we're not known for big gear at all, even though the state does kick a few out or like pink elephants, it just doesn't happen. It's a rarity instead of a you know, normal thing. And yet you know here, I have traveled around my home state and come places. My my closest friend, uh he stayed local here last year and hunted on a piece of public land here in the state and killed a hundred and fifty eight in class ten point buck, which is beating the system. Uh, I myself, you know, I can find what I'm looking for in any state. Basically I have driven east, you know, which is not considered ko shirt if you're looking for good deer. But when I went to New York that time, I hunted some ground up there that you know, I had a chance to kill a hundred and fifty class buck up there, which I know that's an exception to the rule. And northeast, But anywhere you go, it's just a matter what your priority is. If it's large antlers, you know enough set about that you know where you've got to go and what you've got to do if you're looking for a good hunt. The Midwestern states and the Western states are still very available as far as plenty of public land and plenty of the game and fish departments have a lot of what they call walk in type hunting areas in these states. And if you're willing to go out west, which is you know, a far stretch for most people, there's unlimited public land out there, unlimited. You couldn't touch it in a lifetime, and lots of it has quality white toil hunting. It's not like your average Eastern type hunt, but it is certainly, you know, a quality experience because of the habitat the environment and the lack of people generally speaking. And so to me, that's a priority from me. I've always been a wilderness type fanatic. Um. I do not like, you know, fighting with people over a hunting resource. And a lot of times I'll hunt an area that won't have as many deer or as good a deer just to have a quality outing. So you know, where I go or where you go, that's a personal thing. Uh. You know, I could go ramble on a list of countless spots that I have hunted that are good, um, but ever one of them to me, did not weigh the other one in any facet. Uh. Some of them were bigger buck places, some of them were better you know, overall hunting experiences. But I can't tell you, you know, if I would suggest anywhere or other than just pick a state close to you. If not, if you're not gonna, if you're looking to travel, if you're at home, you already know what you're dealing with. But if you're wanting to go out of state, as I have so much over my life, just pick any of the common sense states and have white tails and then it's you do your homework ferret out. You know the hidden public places, and all states have numerous low profile hidden public lands. I have hunted some little patches of public and Kansas in different states that were acres, little spots that don't even show up on the radar and taking good bucks off them with very little people around. Um, so you know where if we addressed the topic of where, that's just a total personal preference because you can hunt them in any type of habitat, from the northwest of the United States to the east, to the south to the north. Just uh, I just leave that deep individual will make his own decisions on where he wants to go because other than going to Iowa or some of these premium spots, and you know, whether outfitting and everything is so prevalent where they grow the big deer are they then those which go without saying yeah and going on a guy an hunt. If you have average Joe, just whatever tickles your fancy is my description of whortigo. So so let's say, then I pick a state. I've just got a fancy for state. We'll just say state X. I don't know what state is, but I picked a state. Now, now we need to figure out, Okay, where are these hidden gems? Where are these pieces of public that will provide a quality experience, however much you're willing to divulge? How do how does someone go about finding those places? You know, when they're back home. Let's say I'm I'm eight hours away. What can I learn from home to help me point myself in the right place in that state far far away. Well, I'll tell you there's almost an endless amount of avenues a guy can pursue on that game and fish is a starting place, you know, to see what they have shown on their hunt and lightless is and on their walk in programs. And you know, every state has numerous countless names for the different types of land they have accessible. Some of it will be public, some of it will be private. You know, they have you know, access yes, programs and whatever you want to call them for pub private land hunting. So you've got to dig through the game and fish and dig deep. I mean, you've got to go through each link and to the next link and look and you'll find what you can find. Then. You know, a lot of times, a lot of the ones I've found that are off the map are little ow pockets that are you know, uh, county park type things or around impoundments. There will be little public areas that don't show up on game and fish radar. There are more of a local level thing. Uh, You've got to dig deep. You know. Sometimes I haven't found my gems until I actually got into an area and actually started physically hunting it. I didn't even know they were their pre pre trip. Um. You know, it's a lot to be said for being local. We know how the locals all over the ground on like the back of their hand. But you know, if you pick a good area and go there and become semi vocal to it over a period of time, you're you're gonna find some hidden gems that will be there. So there's always that unforeseen blessing that you'll get from picking in an area and going there for a year. Um. And I'm the world's worst about you know, spending maybe three trips in a year to go to the spot. I'll use it going to Debta winner, Uh, take a long weekend and take two or three to four days and travel to a spot and camp in it in the winter and learn it and scout it. Do my reconnaissance, uh invaluable if you've already got a piece of dirt to hunt on, to go and look at it in the debt of winter for the scouting, you know, is so great that time of year. All the rutt sign is there, the people whore gone, and you can really do some power scouting in the winter. But you also just get familiar with the people of the country and you'll start picking up these little hidden gems. It will be there, you know, people talk and all this stuff is. You know, the localist guard it pretty carefully usually, and unless you're there and giving yourself a chance to you know, to be in the frying pan, you may not be able to research at ahead of time. There are plenty of places to research, and you know, you may need to pick a larger or higher profile area from you know, off the internet or game and Fish or local websites and go and start it, and then you can get into finding these other little spots of your own. And there's always landowners, there's always some, there's always a few left here there that will let you hunt. I've never been anywhere. I don't care how taken up it is with commercialization. There's still some landowners that will, but you hunt, so overall it ain't rocket science, you know, it's just a matter of you know, you've got to pick a spot and say, well, I'm gonna give this a couple of years. And you know, I've I've been through about four cycles, maybe five cycles, and why kill hunting? Lifetime of picking areas, going to them, trying to homestead them for a given amount of time, and losing them eventually and every time barnet and it's been to the commercialization of the sport that's run me out of it. I mean, you would go there, you know, knock on doors and have open hunting opportunities and end up somehow another cancer of money hunting shows up and you know, you go down the road five six years later, but you just got to stay ahead of a little bit. Moved to another state that's not getting as much attention. Uh. You know, in the past half dozen to ten years, the main focused states of Iowa, Illinois, Kansas and stuff like that. There just as a whole lot left there on private property to access for the average guy. I live right beside Kansas, right beside it and have spent over twenty years in it, and I don't have a single private land place left in that state time. It's that bad. And so you know, I'm missed pretty well, alligated to hunting little nuggets of public here and there. But I've been able to take you know, bucks that will you know, hundred five to thirty five inches off of those places pretty well every year. And there are bigger so you know, it's just a matter of doing restarts. Get on Google Earth and you know, get plat books, call counties biplat books. I have a stack of flat books that's ridiculous. Some people may consider an old fashioned, but you know they certainly give you land ownership of every bit of the county, show the road systems and different things. It's just mass research and then putting a putting a warm body in that spot for a year or two and doing the footwork and the leg work and the driving. And you know, if you within you know a year, you get a strong feeling you're wasting your time in a spot, which I have done. I went to a spot last year. It's been a month in it and just walked away from it. So this is waste of time and time to cut my losses and go to Plan B. But you'll win something, you'll lose some, but overall, if you do the work. It's like anything else in life. If you spend the time and do the work, you will reap the benefits. You know. So on these trips where you're you're trailing out there to this new area. Um, from what I've heard from you, it sounds like most of the time, or maybe all the time, you're camping up there. And I imagine that's a big part of how you can do this on a relative relatively small budget. I'm assuming, Um, is that true? Is that something you do to to make these trips more feasible? And if so, you know, how do you go go about pulling that off? One of the logistics of your of your mobile camp right, Well, you know, I usually try to start on an area and the like I said, because I'm gonna move somewhere and explore a new state or a new area, I'll do it. I'll try to start it off in the late winter and I'll go there and yeah, I usually just camp out on those little short trips for a few days. I'll you know, use my I have a lot of gear from being a Western hunter, you know, good bags and tents and you name it. Or now I've actually, at my age now migrated up to a little pick up or to a bolt camper. But I lived got to pick up shellf campers for many years, and you know it's rough. I'm not lie to you. If you ain't got to wherewithal to tough it out some, then you probably ain't going to get this whole picture painted anyway. If you're not mentally tough and physically tough, you probably won't paint a good to it yourself white tail pictures. So that's a warning right up front. If you're scared of camping out and you know, putting up with a little bit. Uh God forgive me, but I just basically say, you know, go play golf or something, you know. Um uh anyway, Yeah, I camp out a lot, and then by the time that I have decided whether the place is going to get an entire season of my attention or not. Um I usually by then I will take my you know, trailer with me and stay in yet or if it's not logistically sensible. I have actually rented a room in a place in or rent room for a month. Uh, there's places to be found. And you know, sometimes even if you have to get a motel room, if you're rent by the month and have a hut anybody with you, you can get very budgeted on on things. So when it comes down to that month in November, you know, a lot of times I try to set myself up a little bit better than camped out if I can, though I have had to camp out in a lot of really remote, rugged places. But um, I don't always camp out. I like being able to get up in the warm room, put my clothes on, and have a shower, you know, in different things. But um, I just go with the flow. Um. I just try to tackle each thing as I face it. And I live out of my truck most of the time, even if I'm not camping out, I don't go eat out at two or three times every day and things. And U I'm a very you know, low uh low overhead guy. So all right, let's say what we're there. Now, We've picked a state, We've picked an area. We're gonna camp out for a week or a couple of weeks or something like that. How do you start that process on a new property. You've done some digital scouting maybe, and maybe you did your winter trip, but what how does this process start your first couple of days. Are you just scouting? Do you jump right and start hunting? What do you do? Well, let's just say it it's a public land place. Because we don't have any strings attached to that, we can do what we want pretty well most any time of the year. What I try to do is, you know, I will usually get there in early to mid October and spend another week, possibly the five days for sure, hopefully UH had another little camping trip and put the boot to it. Uh. I will drive. I want to go around the perimeter and learn the access points and figure out, you know, where most of the man says are going to be coming from. Then, if I've done my you know, digital scouting properly, I'm going to know where the most remote areas of this public area are the most inaccessible. Those are the priorities to me. That will that's what separates, you know, the the doers from the hoopers, you know, the ones that hope to kill a good deer. Um, I will find access to these remote areas one way or the other, however it might be, and get that set up and get it figured out. Gett my some stands, sights prepared, you know, get in there and do the physical scouting and figure out where and how I'm gonna hunt and if I access it's difficult. Like there's some spots hunt that I have to have a boat, you know, I may use a canoe whatever. I just get that figured out, get all of the gistics you know, lined out, so that when I come back a few weeks later in early November to do the killing. Um, you know, how ever I got and never keeps. That's what my October trip will do for me. It'll get me, you know a lot of time saved and a lot of heartache saved by physically being there and getting myself prepared so that when I come in November, I can spend my time in you know some spots that have already got prepared and um, I don't have to, you know, I plan on them. I'm a rut hunter. I'm not a real preseason rut pre rut hunter. I don't pattern there early season well and hunt them on food sources and different things. I know there's guys that do that, but that's a different line. I'm not there. I'm a I killed ninety nine of my dear in the rut, and I may not never have even seen the deer even though it exists. I like to hunt what I call kind of rutting corridors where I feel the bucks are going to walk film at some point during the rut. There may not even be a lot of sign there. I just kind of have learned what these places are and how to you know, you know, through your digital and foot scouting, you can kind of narrow down it, don't scientists. If you break it down in every square a mile there there's a lot of factors like access by the people, and if you if you start marking off the areas that are going to not be any good because they're way too easy to get to and way too many people be them, and then take what's left and just figure that the deer will be hiding pretty well in that amount of country, then it shouldn't be you know, rocket science to figure out how they're gonna walk around in that country during the rut and get from one area to the other. And what I try to do is pick some either penchpoints or types of funnels that when they're moving from one area to the next, they're going to walk through it. And there isn't often a lot of sign in those spots, and there isn't often a lot of hunting in those spots. It may be a fence row across the pasture, you know, between two creep drainages or something. Everybody hunts to two creek drainages. I'm liable to be setting out there in a tree in the fence row, you know, in that past year. But you until you get ready to go out on a limb and kind of do some of that stuff, you really will not know what you're missing, you know, on big running white tails. So when you're actually out there doing that on the ground scout, if you're not looking for some of the kind of stereotypical type of dear sign that lots of guys think about, what is it specifically that you're looking for when you are scouting for your style? You know, I've said this for years among my friends, and some of them have come to get a grip on it, and I don't even know what it means myself, but I just say that I hunt by what I call feel, just by feel, And I guess it'd be like, you know, maybe you get a photo album of pictures or something, you sigm through it and when you're done, you shut it up, and then your mind floats back to what you just looked at through that hole, you know, compilation of photos. It will have, you know, have a theme. Well, when I out there, either whether I'm on foot scouting all this country or I'm done at by Google Earth or topographic map or whatever, aerial photos, whatever, I let each one of these factors be a photo to me in my mind, and I'm logging everything that I see down, everything from what people might call you know, betting areas or trails or food sources, to you know, open fields versus thick vegetation, creep bottom coming up against a bluff. I look at the over over the basically, I look at the lay of the land. That's what I try to do and put the whole picture of it together, and then I'm just going to buy steel. I'm gonna kind of know or get a pretty strong indication of where I can set in the month of November and have running bucks passing through as they're traveling around because we you know, we all know that they're going to be up on the moon even during the day in November. And no, they're not going to be in of the habitat during the day, but that five, yeah, they're going to be up in it during the day trying to breed a dough or find another dough. And I just kind of look at the whole picture of an area, and after time I will get a feel for two or three spots that have all the ingredients right to the highest percentage, and then you know, that's where I will set in November, and it's the best you can do. From that point on. You've got to toss it to fate. It ain't it ain't a perfect science. There's no perfect formula that can be given to make it work every time. That's why we like it. It's hunting. Just you know, don't put so much pressure on yourself, do your best to have fun and learn, and you'll get good at it over time. I didn't. I didn't get where I'm at in ten years, you know. So you talked about funnels. They're one of the main things you're looking for, these travel quarters, these running funnels or pinch points, and you know that's that's it was the term that we his hunters, white to hunters talked about all the time. And you know, there's the very generic type of pinch point where two big pieces of timber pinched down into a little narrow section. But other than that, I think sometimes a lot of guys I don't know exactly what to look for when it comes to some of these slightly little more subtle pinch points or funnels. Can you can you kind of walk us through some more specifics of specific types of terrain or cover or whatever it might be that that youth key and on when trying to find those those funnels or travel quarters. Right, well, I'll tell you one, there are so many different facets and it's so many so much depended upon what type of train. But like Frenches, I had a lot of habitat in Kansas that has a good mix of open and wooded. It's you know, let's just call it fifty fifty. Maybe it's farm land or pastures. And then what did great bottoms and what did old and if it thinks there's a lot of edge cover, you know, even in a creek bottom that's a long landing or a creek bottom that's open on both sides. Rutting bucks. You know, you want to travel that edge. They want to travel the edge and if if not, possibly more shade down into the open um during that peak of the right now. And I'm not talking about October or December. I'm talking about when they're you know, on the psycho bench and uh so I will often rather than get down in the creek bottom where most of the sign is and we're traditionally, you know, everybody thinks, well, you know they're gonna travel along the creek down there in the cover. Well that's not always the case at all, especially sometimes for the bigger bucks. They will literally walk right outside the edge of the you know, the edge of the creek bottom timber along the open um. So I will set out there, you know, in a tree and the edge of the open where I can see a large area because I've learned to prioritize getting eyes are reading buck over necessarily setting in a spot that he was going to walk by within bow range. That's good if you can figure that out and get set that close to where one's going to walk right by. And I have places that are that defined, but I would rather be setting in a general area and get my eye on a rudding buck, even if it's a two hundred yards or something, because I'm going to probably call that deer in uh. You know, those deer are crazy that time of year, and if they haven't been educated or harassed to death, they're very susceptible to calling. And so I'll set out on the edge of a tree line instead of down in the cover. And most people don't even look at that edge as a funnel, but it is. I don't call it a funnel, it's more of a h corridor. They will travel along the edge, um, instead of be down there in that thicker cover. They're down in the creek bottoms at night and are going crazy down in there because that's where you know, all of those go down in there to feed. But during the day, I've watched more big bucks to lot and lay in the open, even by themselves, whether with hot bulls or not, bed out in the open, and then make their way down to that cover in the evening, you know. And people kind of got to break away from traditional logic on you know, just hunting the you know, the standard spots of cover I've killed more big deer out in the open or virtually semi open, than I've ever killed in the thick cover. And there's there's different habitats. There's places where what I'm saying is not feasible. I'm not giving you a cover all here. I'm giving you about an instance of one of my more popular types of habitat, I hunt. But I've seen places to where I've hinted in Illinois, places in the farm country to where if you could find the thickest, nastiest, wooly boger place to get in, then yeah, that's where you need to be during the middle of the day because the bucks are gonna be done in there. They're not gonna be laying out in a farm field. There's too much human activity. But everything is relevant. But you know, bottlenecks, to me, are just some kinds as simple as a change of terrain, like um, you know, in Kansas, where a hunter's a lot of rolling hills and and um, there may only be a little swag in one of the ridge lines. You know, a thirty ft deep saddle in a ridge line between two creek languages. If that has any type of uh, you know, I'll even setting homemade ground blinds in those saddles. Most people would think you're out of your mind hunt there. But during the month of November and especially mid to late November, those bucks will won't jump drainages. They'll jump drainages, and they won't do it traditionally by going all the way down and bending around to the well. The next creek comes into verms that and going up there, they'll jump over. I've killed some of my biggest bucks jumping over open country, and I look for my saddles between you know, drainages that are a perfect spot for a reading buck to hop over from one drainage to another. So there's just a lot of different little things to do with habitat and you know, the geography to look at that can become semi bottleneck type features. You know. Yeah, something something you mentioned just a second ago kind of jumped out at me, and that was the fact that you put it seems like you put a lot of confidence in your ability to call to these deer, which kind of surprised me because you know, from some of my experiences and a lot of people have talked to a lot of these public land deer are pretty weary when it comes to calling. Have you had a lot of success with that in specific areas versus others? Is that something that will only work out west versus the East? Or what are your thoughts on calling and how do you go about doing that on these public pieces. I won't lie to anybody and tell them that there's not a big difference. It's just like anything matter if it's you know, fishing or a bird dog. If your fishing fishing hole has been beat to death, you're not gonna have nearly as good luck there. I mean public land in the Midwest and back east. Now, I don't put a lot of stock in calling because those deer are hammered, they're educated, and you know, it just makes common sense. It's not going to be as good. Uh. You know, you try to do everything you can to get the odds in your favor, and one of those things would be you know, the average hunter is going to look for as quality as spot as he can find, and that means, you know, some of always got in a good number of deer and it's got a lot less people. So a lot of my hunting over the years, I spent a lot of time looking for spots that are right and depending on whether I'm hunting. You know, a public land spot that's out west, it just the deer are fairly uneducated and unbothered versus a private land place. You know, you may hunt a private land area here in the Midwest, it doesn't get bothered in the deer fairly at ease. If the deer are fairly unbothered and fairly at ease educated, calling is deadly on running bucks. I've had, you know, like astronomic results calling deer right into bow range and just you know, has them commit suicide from two to three four hundred yards away. But you've got to use your head. It's like every aspect of this outings, every aspect of the whole game. If you you'll know in your in your heart whether or not or brain, whether it's smart and if you're hunting, you know, like there's some areas of hunter in Kansas to the public plan that I spend more time avoiding what the people are doing and how they're messing me up than I do actually hunting deer, and I don't do a lot of calling there. I've I've had good success calling here there, but I've had I've had some bad experiences too, because you can tell. I mean it's if I call it an elk out west, you know, if it's a wilderness elk or urban elk, you know, you blow people an urban out, you'll run another direction. But you go to wilderness and call one and you'll run in there. Well, there are out and jump on it for you. But uh, you know, white tails are kind of basically the smartest of all the species and resigned and if you're if you're hunting deer that are fairly you know, unbothered what you're going to be trying to do because you're gonna try to have all you know, the percentages in your favor. Then calling running white tails from around you know, the fifth and November on can sure enough double you know, punch tags. So what specific calling techniques or process do you actually use in these situations? Are you rattling guy or just grunts or all the above? I would love to hear the specifics of exactly what's working for you. Well, I'm about as refined on my calling as uh. It doesn't get I don't go into science about it, and I don't make no big to do about it. I carry a runt call, and for the first twenty years my life, I didn't mean he's a grunt call. I did it with my own voice. And you know, I just got to where I carry one now and rattling antlers, yeah, I'll carry him. I don't use them very often, and a lot of times when I do use them, I don't try to mimic the big classical rutting fight, you know. I do a little time kickling and things. Uh, I just look at the deer. When I see a running buck somewhere, I can look at him for a minute and see where he's going, what he's doing, what's on his mind. And usually I can pretty well decipher, you know, whether or not calling him as even more twile. And sometimes I'll judge your rudding buck and just go, that's a waste of time. I'm not going to even blow, you know, at him or rattle at him. But I just look each case, you know, and if I think the deer is, you know, susceptible. A lot of the times, the older bucks, you know, three and a half plus year old bucks, they've been around, they're not dumb. He's they've been called to and they don't get it. Uh. You know, if I'm in an out west place, I don't worry about it much because those deer are just far less educated. They have not, you know, over the generations of time, have not been refined down like the eastern white tails, you know, you honey, until in Pennsylvania, New York, and his great great great great grandpa has been messed with. It seems like that the dumb ones don't survive in some our another we refine a specie down to them more intelligent animal, you know. And I'm not going to tell you that you don't have things you weigh a little better out west with those western white tails because they haven't been hunted the way the eastern ones have. But I just look at the rutten buck and what's going on and everything considered, and I decide whether to call him or not. I usually try to grant and call the bucks um, you know, and don't overcall. That's the first thing that will kind of get them out of sorts, you know, because just get their attention. Soon as you get their attention with it, give him about one more sound so that they know they heard that sound, and then leave things alone. If they're going to respond they're going to respond. If they're not, uh, you know, if first, if they're scared of it or educated about it, then they're you know, you can mess with them for the next five minutes usually and all you do is is further you know, educate them. But if they're going to respond in the rut, it's usually a quick, quick deal um and rattling. I'll clack my horns wants to get them to stop and look in my direction, and then usually I'll just give him a grun or two and leave it alone. If they want to come, they come. And if I'm calling to the deer, it's because I figure he will come. And you know, half or better of the ones I call to do respond positively to my calling. But I don't sit there and call for three or four or five deer a day either, you know, I may go or five days at a time. I never make a call until I see the right can do with the right deer, you know. So can you elaborate on that? What specifically are you queuing in on to tell you whether or not it's a buck you showed or you're not called to. Well. One of the greatest fail safes is if it's a like a two and a half year old buck. You know, they're just at the age to where they're extremely active in the breeding process. But they're not old enough to be real educated and refined in their senses. Yet they they're aggressive, they're frustrated. They're looking for or not trouble, but they're looking for just something and they don't know what they're well, they know what they're looking for, but they can't get at the bigger bucks. Keep them run off a frustrated two and a half year old, We'll usually it's hard to not call one in. You know. Now you've got to decide if it's something you want to shoot, because a lot of people like to call there just for the fun of it, and that's great, but it ain't profiting nobody if you're not going to shoot the deer or leave the thing along, you're just educating it, you know. But when you get up to the three and a half year olds, what I look for is like if the buck, a lot of times the buck will be following the dough and you're just going to have extremely limited Since says calling the buck off of a dough, that he is right in the you know, presence of if I see an older buck that's on a good stiff walk curly when I call trolling or you know, just staggering around in a rut stupor uh yeah, he's a prime handed, especially you know, if he's looking like he's traveling looking for another deer, if he's down in the middle of a group of other deer and doing his thing, I'm not probably calling him out of there, but I like to catch him out by their self covering ground, which is what they're doing a lot when they come by me, because I'll set out in places that when they go through there, they're usually covering ground to get from point A to point B, and they don't really expect much out there, so when they do hear a dear out there, they will often respond to it, you know, because a lot of times it's my thought that these bucks, these running bucks that are covering that ground through the sagum overs or you know, travel corridors, when they hear another buck out there runt or something, they will immediately think that there is a buck that's got a hot dough out there, because they take those dough it's out of standard habitat during the breeding cycle and take them out into the more open and more off the wall country. And when another buck's covering that ground to get from one place to another and he hears a running call out there, he will automatically think there's a hot dog close, so he will usually come over there at least take a look and see if he thinks he can get in on the action. You know, makes a lot of sense. Yep, sorry, go ahead now, I mean I'm just saying that, you know, I don't know what level I'm talking at here. I mean, it may may not make sense to anybody, but to me, hunting is an individual sport and you've got to this a science down for your own things. And if you've got confidence in what you do and and you know, put it into practice, you'll be successful people that go out there. You know, I've been around them that have hunted for twenty years for white tails, and they never seem to get it. They never seem to learn, and it seems like they're always trying to, you know, get this secret bit of advice. Uh. And there's a lot of big shot experts out there today that want you to believe that have some secret advice for you that they could make you Fudini bow hunter of white tails, you know, but that's so they they can market yourselves. The bottom line is it's not really like it's a secret, you know. What it is is the fact that you get a brain, you know, get a warm body out there, do what you do, learn what you learn, make mistakes, have successes, get confident in what you're doing, and and you'll you'll get good at it. Don't go around all your life searching for the hidden formulae and you know, getting some expecting some guy like me to be able to tell you just exactly how to do it, because it's more it's a personal experience. Bow Hunting white tails is something that there is no magical potion for. Just do it, as Nike says, you know, yeah, it's it's funny. This this is it resonates with me so much, especially in over the last shoot. It's two or three years now we've been doing this podcast and I think this is episode I think it's episode of hundred and twelve. So we've interviewed, you know, over a hundred different very successful hunters and probably the biggest takeaway I've I've gotten is that to your point, there is no secret. There is no single thing that we need to As soon as we know that or as soon as we have that product, or as soon as we've got that perfect thing, oh, then all of a sudden is gonna change. You know. There's there's so many different ways to do this, oh absolutely, you know. I mean it's man, it's human nature to take anything difficult and master it. That's within the human you know, way of doing things. And I've been fearful that we're gonna master whiteheil hunting. But it's not gonna happen. The closest they've gotten to the courses some of these you know, managed properties in the Midwest were you know, they've refined it down to almost an art killing great big deer. You know, by the time you put enough trail cameras out and put out enough feeders, put out enough food plots, and monitor them every where they go and everything they do, you can almost get it down to an art, you know. And but the average joe it interested in all of that. He's interested in learning it on his own and the challenge of it. And so now if you're just the average guy, you're never going to taste that that conditioned whitetail hunting success that comes with Usually there's a lot of money involved in it. But you know who cares. Let them, Let them video jockeys have their star status. I don't care, you know, let them put them on peace public somewhere and let's see how they do. You know, we've we've talked about that before. That would be really interesting to get some of these big, big name people, put them on some more completely new and see how they go about it. I think it would be very interesting. It would, but it won't happen because people that get to that late status are going to protect theirselves, you know. And and I don't worry about anymore. It used to threaten me. I used to be bothered by them, you know, TV stars that are killing all these great big bucks consistently. And I even know guys that aren't TV stars or just average guys that have got places like an Iowa and Illinois and places. And every year I got a guy up here in Kansas said, you know, they're on a massive, massive branch up there with him and two buddies have least it, and you know, every single year they both kill whitetail buck that will be over hundred and seventy That is that is um. I don't know what can you say about it. I mean, that's just not really even in the realms of abnormal. It's almost unbelievable to think that the guy could do that. But when you add at what they do every year to get that done, and you saw the picture that's painted, it's it's really just what I call phony. It's phony. I mean, they spend thousands upon thousands and thousands of dollars on dumping giant corn piles out and they have leased up tens of thousands of acres for multiple tens of thousands of dollars so that these deer are totally like in a zoo like atmosphere all year. They don't mind walking into a corn pile. I mean, it's so phony. But yes, they end up with giant antlers every year. But God forgive me, but who cares? I mean, uh, I I just don't think that's what white tail hunting and bow hunting is all about. It's not the end, it's the means. And uh, people like you and me and the people who are probably gonna listen to this don't know exactly what I'm talking about. And so you know, we can just get off of that. It's entertainment to watch it on TV. But I don't consider it hunting. I consider it entertainment, you know what I mean. And uh, I think it's a really important distinction to make. I think a lot of people watch TV and that it unfortunately affects their own expectations of what their hunts supposed to be like. And then you got a lot of very disappointed and frustrated people out there. And so to your point, it's so important to realize that this is an entertainment. You're not seeing all the stuff that goes into it that you know, it gets this twenty minute that twenty minutes show that's packed with big bucks. Um, you know, set expectations based on where you're at, what makes you happy, what's realistic, and then I think you're a lot more fun doing it. Oh, absolutely fun. It's been lost in the thing. I don't know how it comes about, but it's involved to a state of you know, and this is a real touchy topic. And it's even touchy for me because I it's just like man hugging each other. You just don't want to do it, you know, I mean, you do want to do it, but you don't want nobody to see it. You know. It's kind of it's a it's when I talk about the male ego. You know, we don't like to address that, but we all have egos, and a lot of time it's all about you know, me the man, the hunter, killing the big thing and having the bragging rights and being a big story, you know, and and you know you've got to evolve. I remember the day when I was in that stage way back there. I mean, I wanted to kill something and take it around and show it off and be admired. I don't run that down. There's nothing wrong with it. But ultimately you're going to evolve, especially if you're trying to become a good white tiled bow owner, you're going to evolve way past that one day and and you're going to get to where it's all about the means not the end. And uh so you know that's what we're talking about here, is how to get some means together and go do it. Have fun, don't forget fun. You know, even when you go do it on your own, you can get in that binge of trying to be so successful that you put too much pressure on yourself. And that's one of my greatest problems. I I slow. I'm kind of like a you know, an addict there. I have a problem. I don't watch myself, I'll fall off the fence, you know, and on and I get on that side of wanting to put pressure on myself, you know, and I just have to stop and have a complete change of heart, mind and approach and start over. And that's happened many times in my days. And I you know, I'm I'm doing my best to stay on the bandwagon of have fun, because whether you're under pressure, whether your anals, or whether you're just having fun, it's not really going to change what goes on in the fields. A matter of fact, I think people do worse when they're under pressure, you know what I mean. You know. So it's all about bow hunting for white tails in a fall setting, doing it on your own, learning from the good and the bad of the trip, and you know, and trying to get better at it, and just having fun. Yeah. I definitely find myself in a similar camp as you, and that I'm so so passionate about it, so invested in it, that I put so much pressure on myself. And to your point, you know, I'll be out there and I'm getting angry at myself with situation, frustrated, and then all of a sudden you have those moments. Hopefully you have a moment where like what are you doing? Like, yeah, this is supposed to be fun. Why are you doing all this if you're just going to be miserable the whole time? So it's exactly and to your point, I really do think that when you flip that mindset, when you're able to catch yourself and keep that positive attitude, that's when you end up being the most ready for the moment. That's when you're the most you know, prepared and emotionally and physically capable of pulling off a successful hunt or seeing that deer and getting a good shot or whatever it might be. So really, your mindset can have such an influence on how an actual hunt plays out. Well, just take that to sports. I mean, when you're in a good mindset, you get on the field and you feel in control and happy and you know everything's going well, you're going to perform at a superior level. Versus if you go out there browbeating one day, some guy just knocked the fire out of you, and you're like, whoa, you know, I feel like a little insignificant punk out here. You know you're not going to perform al or maybe you know the height you just had a fight to watch that you know you're not gonna play ball is good. So it's like that one hunting, it's you know, go out there and forget the TV hype and forget all of the you know, industry hype, and go out there and perform at a personal, private level. You'll be You'll be satisfied whatever the results stand. You know. Yeah, such such great advice. Now, Eddy, I want to take it back a step to something we're talking about. I want to go back out to this piece of public land hunting. And one of the things I always think about a lot when I start out on one of these trips on a new piece of property is you know, how do what? What's my plan for how I'm going to hunt this property? You Know, sometimes I think, Okay, gonna start in an observation stand and then we're gonna try to learn something and then I'm going to try to dial in from there. Um. One of the questions I'm always curious about to hear other people approach this is, you know, how long or how do you go about hunting a property? You know, are you gonna hunt the same spot repeatedly or is it once and if you don't see what you want to see you move on? Or what's your minds that when it comes to breaking down your actual hunts over the course of a week or two weeks, for however long, is you're that you're into place right? Um? You know that's that brings back when you asked the different approaches like that. I just my mind is flashes to so many different episodes of my hunts over my life in different places. You know, I've I've had plenty of times where you know, I went to a place and I just beat it down during the offseason and felt like I had a really strong game plan when I first went into it the first time. And I've had instances where those game plans worked out great. I've had instances where I realized that I was backwards, just you know, really felt stupid because by the end of the season, I've changed everything, was doing everything different. So once again, there is no perfect rule for it. And other times I've went in and not had a game plan and just you know, started maybe hunting and working my way in as you might say, observed, observing and things. I've killed some good bucks out west by doing that. It depends on the habitat. If you're in a habitat where you can do a lot of observation, uh, especially if I have a hunted the place. I like that approach. Start in the early early stages of the rut and get that observation done, and start working your way in so that by the you know, the really high movement time in November, you'll already be into the you know, the core spots. But you know, once again, there ain't no pad answer for it. It's a matter of everything as individual to its own spot. And uh uh, I like to have a game plan when I go somewhere from my digital and all my other scouting. But like this public that hunt up here in Kansas, Um I went into it the first year I lost a private place. That year I had everything set up and it comes November the tenth I went up through the hunt. No landowner kicked me out. Some guys with money had come along and got it here. It was November the tenth. I had all my stuff set up to hunt, and I'm at ground zero. I have to pull all that, you know, drive to a place, walk in their public and start over. On November basically eleventh or twelve. Talk about feeling like a lost pup, you know, I mean I I was intimidated. I mean, here it is already time to get the good stuff done. And I'm back at ground zero. And I went in there, and you know, I had to make a decision. Am I going to go in here and really, you know, try to learn this place inside out and beat it down and then make plans, or am I just going to hunt my way in? And it was about fifty fifty open thick habitat where I felt I could observe a lot. So I just started going out into the to the most remote harder to get two spots and climbing some trees where I could see for good ways in any direction around and trying to observe you know, running bucks moving through the habitat and you know, dose or whatever, and I'll be doggone. I called a couple of deer in, you know, from a distance, they were not going to have come by where I was at, but I spotted them and called them in and you know, got success. They were not huge deer, you know, they were just barely poping young caliber deer. But for the first year, the first week on a place, you know, I mean I felt good. They have just gotten in places to where you know, there would be ten cars parked in the parking lot at daylight and if you want in about that available habitat from there, you weren't to have people problems, but there would be ten or of it that. If you really could ferret that out, you could get away from most all them. People will guess where most the deer we're going to be, I mean them deer are going to figure that out pretty quick. Wherever the people are coming going from that activity is gonna slowly, you know, migrate away from that. And you know that's just a public land key right there. Figure out where the people are going to be and spend your time where they're not. That sounds like overly simple, but public land deer are sharp and there's always nooks and crannies on public places that for some reason they're not getting hit US artists arrest those deer figure that out way before you do, and those will be the places you want to be, so you know, get in there and and if you want to just go all out, go in there and set up and just sit there until you know, you know what freezes over fine, because you know, during the peak of the rut, you know, if you get throwed into something like I did in the peak of the rut, you ain't got time to make a big game plan and start trying to refine it down. If you're throw it into something like that, and you can't leave home until November the tenth, and you're gonna drive to north South Dakota or somewhere and and go into this place, then just you know, if you've done your preceding h work, you don't know about where you're gonna get, get in there and and and either go in and basically get it a bunch and stay all day in the tree. And you know, we don't none of us like to rely on luck. We like figure it out and kill him on our own. But hey, if you don't have any luck, uh, and won't rely on it, which I used to not. I used to say, if I kill one by luck, I'm not even gonna count. You know, I wanted to, you know, kind of know what I was doing, and figure I had a good hand in it. But if I kill them by luck or by skill. Nowadays there's still bow hunted white tails and and and I'm still appreciative of them. So don't be bashful to get into an area and stay all day and call ever so often, and don't be bashful to set out on the edges and hunt your way in whatever makes you happy, um and the most Hey, there's certain formulas for it that can't be you know, overlooked. Once you do everything you can do, then nothing more than sheer. Time in the field is the greatest odds upper, you know what I mean. And from about November the tenth th I can't tell a person one thing better than more time in the field to have better success. That's the number one odds increasing factor. And very few people got to work with all of a sud all day. You know, Uh, you're an all day hunter during the ruck. I try to be once again it's case specific, but I try to have places that I can go to and said all day. Uh, there's places it's not good for it. And if you're you know, halfway an outdoorsman, you'll know when it's not really common sense. You're not gonna set, you know, right out beside the edge of a fairly accessible farm field probably all day long. You're gonna go back in there, off down in the river, bottom in the brier thicket down there and set. But out west it's a different matter. You know, there's lots of places that are excellent for all day setting because those deer can move freely all day. But yeah, I said all day most of the time, and I've killed I'm gonna say one out of every three probably of my better bucks during a time between ten and the morning and two in the evening. To youive, any advice for people that struggle staying out for that those long hours, any advice for just handling the full day, said, yeah, the best thing you know. Of course, it varies with that age. And I'm an authority on that because I've been doing this for thirty years, and so I've watched myself change. But you know, when I was younger, in my twenties and thirties, it wasn't that hard for me to adapt all day setting. I was mentally and physically psycho and uh, it didn't get too tough for me. Is I've gotten older, it's tougher. But the main thing I do nowadays to make it easier on myself is well, of course this is no a no brainer. Number one, have a place you feel confident and setting all day. If your mind ain't with you, if you're setting somewhere thinking you're wasting your time, you won't stay hooked. So number one, you know, Number one, get in a spot that you definitely feel about, could come walking by in the middle of the day past number one. Number two, you know, take the time that if you if you can ahead of time, and it's not always possible, but get in there and get it set up properly to get it to where you feel happy hunting it. In other words, don't get in there and jump up in a tree that you can't shoot your bow twenty yards out of in any direction and you can't see, and you're it just mentally beats you down. Get in there, may be an offseason, clean it out a little bit, and get things kind of where you're gonna set in a pleasant spot and you're gonna be able to see things happening, and get an extremely comfortable tree stand. As you get older, that's more important. You know, some of these. I put up some stands that are more like a little loungers, you know, And I mean it's kind of embarrassing compared to the point I used to. I used to set fourteen hours on a little homemade thing that was I mean, you couldn't even barely have enough room for your feet to stand up on and your butt was setting on a little six ins round circle. But that's when I was tough and dumb, you know. But but anyway, nowadays, get a really comfortable stand and getting a good spot and take a good lunch. You know, here's my thought. I'd rather be caught in that tree stand goofing around once in a while trying to eat my lunch, then be at home and never even be out hunting. Uh. I mean, forever, time you get caught moving or doing something in the middle of the day and you scare your deer off, there's gonna be two or three other times you don't get caught. You're gonna kill that dear. So just play the percentages, you know, take you a good lunch, take you a book if you want a lot of you know, we're high tech nowadays. Everybody sitts out there with their phones and messes with them all day. Which here's my advice for that. You're gonna sit out there and play its electronics all day, Take up golf, okay, get out of the woods and quit messing. A good hunt up for me, okay. But anyway, that's another line of thinking. But you know, do something to have a good time while you're sating there, and be comfortable. Dressing layers and dress comfortably because setting in a standballing around all day can get uncomfortable. You know. Don't get bound up in clothing that's you know, really uncomfortable. I actually even use a in the colder weather, I use a thing called the heater body suit rather than a layer up real real thick and bulky with clothing because it gets uncomfortable. I'll setting out heater body suit and I'll have very much on underneath it, you know, and uh, I can move round inside of it, not really, you know, it's not visible to the outside, you know. So you know, just use common sense tactics on all day sets and whatever makes you happy and comfortable. That's what you've got to learn. And one last thing you probably ought to start trying a few all dayers about a week or ten days before you're ready to really really get serious about it. Because it's amazing how after you do it for a little while, like maybe you said all day, you know, three or four days out of one week, and in the next week you might might go five or six days. It's amazing how you'll work into it not being nearly as bad. You're toughen up to it, you know, it is it's it's you know, it's not fun. It literally I've never probably said a fourteen hour set that I called fun. But you know, if we're serious white tailed bow hunters, there's a point where you to balance to fund versus productivity, and when it gets to be miserable, no, I'm gonna say, you know, go playing around golf, rebalmeny and watch football. But if you can keep it at a you know, tolerable level and be productive, then you know, you got to sacrifice because if it was easy, if it was easy, everybody would be done it, you know. So oh yeah, it can be a grind, but it's definitely one of the things that um I always talked with the different types of fun, and there's type one fund, which is you know, playing golf, drinking a beer, watching watching football game. But then type too fun is that it's a challenge in the moment. You know, it can be whether it be hiking up a mountain with a bowl kuck on your back, or sitting all day. But once you get through it, it's a great story. You're so glad you did it, and it's fun looking back on I think those all day said, especially the ones where you see a nice buck, or you kill one, or you have some kind of cool experience, that is a lot of fun once you're able to to push through and actually do it. Yeah. Here, a couple of years ago, I've sat quite long and hard on my public place something Kansas, and I'd passed up a number of you know, good deer, nothing over hundred twenty five or thirty inches. But finally it was getting late in the season there, I mean, it was getting close to Thanksgiving, and you know, I'm like, dang, I gotta get I takes to another level, you know. So I got my body suit and my lunch, and I had been practicing the old man way of hunting, which is, you know, a break during the middle of the day, and uh, I thought, well, you know how bad do I want to get a deer, you know, And I'm like, well, I still want one bad enough, so I'm gonna do it. And I went out there and got, you know, on an all day set, and sure enough, leven forty five, you know, fifteen minutes till noon, here comes to the deer for me that I want, you know, and I kill it basically right up noon. And you know, it was on public land, heavily heavily hunted public land. And I'm gonna bet nine out of every ten and people that had been there that morning hunting, we're probably not there then, you know. And that deer probably who knows it, might have got to run out of some other more frontal habitat. And I was back in the back in a hard access place. And I mean, use your brain once again, you should brain God gave you. I mean, where do you want to be in the middle of the day. You want to be back into places where the deer are going to be hiding out right, you know. I mean when you got public land and people get up roaming around at nine or ten in the morning, and then they're coming back in it too in the evening. Pretty safe bat you want to be back in there where the teer are going to be avoiding that at you know, but you know it just as a matter of I guess, slowly but surely getting a wherewithal to put it all together, you know, And and it does a forever perfect example like I just gave. It doesn't work that way, uh one once out of what ten times? You know, there's a whole lot of more mistake some failures than than a few successes. But it's all worth it right when it does come together. That's it. And to me, it's always builed down about mental outlook. I mean, it's perspective and a really really successful white tail bow hunters or Western bow hunters whatever. To me, I have one thing in common mental. I don't know what the word would be, desire, I guess I want to perspective is his success. The pain is never not worth the gain. They're going to put out what they gotta put It's a labor of love, all those old things. It applies to the the people that are diligently successful. I've been that way. It's just who I am. I don't put on a face about it. I'm not saying I'm any better or any worse. I'm just a human being, but I love bow hunting and I like to try to be successful. And I don't know why, but that's why I'm wired. You know, I can definitely relate. I think we have similar weary and when it comes to that, now you talk, it's a little bit ago about uh, you know, having a comfortable stand for these all day sets. And they got me thinking about your stands setups. You know, it sounds like you're moving around a lot or you're setting up stands during a hunt on public land. You know, what types of stands or what's your stands set up look like that you use for these d I y public polic land hunts. I kind of got two levels of it. I got some stands that are very very lightweight that I will just strap on my backpack. And of course you're going to develop a system for if you're running and gunn and I call it, you know, living off your back in other words, if you're walking into areas and scouting them and maybe just throwing stands up and getting them on the spur of the moment, you gotta work on that. You gotta work a system out, you know, you gotta have all the support gear. You've gotta be able to get it up quickly and quietly. I mean, I've spent many hours just setting up a system for running and gunning where I take stands around and walk into new spots, still hunting almost and I will see some thing that just makes her stand up on my neck maybe and go, okay, I'm in that tree right there, and you know, ten minutes later, I'm up that tree. I try to not even make a sound getting that stand up that a deer could hear, you know, a hundred yards away. And I've I've killed a lot of deer like that, just running and gun and just popping stands up. You know, Uh, you can call it a hunt in as you go approach. You know, it's similar to it. You know, I wasn't really planning on killing one that first set in that spot, but it will happen more times. And there's a lot to be said for a first hunt. I don't know what it is about white tails, but a first hunt is worth a lot. You know, every time you hunt in a spot thereafter you're not up in your odds. Usually you're down on them, especially if you understand too much. But then there's the other approach where I have a heavier, bigger lounger type stand and it has a receiver on it that you can put on the tree to where you're hanging the stand. So you know, if I'm on public land, i have a lot of problems with people. I've got to be careful because people were not only I've had stand stolen, but I've actually come to get him and had guys sitting in them, and I mean all the stuff that you can imagine. I've been through it, and I'm not real good at dealing with that stuff. So I don't want to deal with it because I'm not real diplomatic and I don't need to be getting in them. I'm not good at getting in them situations, so I try to avoid him. So look at the situation. If you're gonna put a stand up, it's big and comfortable, and you're gonna try to hunt it quite a bit, you just got to decide if it's something to get away with here at this spot, at this time. I do leave some of my stands like that up for periods of time, but some of them I will take down each time and carry him out with me. I'll leave the receiver in the steps or something, because a big stand like that will catch somebody's eye, you know, And you're setting yourself up for some problems on public land by going in and thinking that you can just set up a bunch of stands and leave them and do your thing, because don't work that way. Yeah, do you do much, you know, shooting line clearing on a on and gun hunt like that? Or is that you know, too much of a disturbance and you just can't deal with what you have. I leave it alone on those type hunts. It's always a dilemma for me because I don't like climbing up somewhere and then realizing, you know, you get up there ten minutes later and you get set and you're looking around you and you're going board. This is dumb, you know, this is d u M dumb because I can't shoot nothing if it comes in here, you know. But really, over the years, I've done it both ways, you know, I've I've done everything between just leaving everything alone and getting up there and feeling like I can't shoot nothing, to maybe doing a little bit of trimen to just help myself a little bit plumb, to just get in Psycho and going okay, I'm I'm fixing this up, and get just you know, spend the thirty minute session of raping and pillaging, and then get back Montree. I've done it all the ways, and it always seems to me that it's worked out better if I'm running and gunning to leave things alone and just get up there, do the best I can to be in a spot where I can shoot the best I can, because you're better of to have the deer in there and then worry about how you're gonna get it killed, then to get away to kill it and not have it in there. Um and light tells you know as well as I are supersensitive. And any time you do a big to do around a tree, um, you've just about done away with your running gun tactic to begin with. You know, you uh running buck ya that's coming from a half a mile away. He can still stumble by there, But chances are he may not, because if you've run all the local does off with your tremming and your banging and going and doing. It's funny how they just don't seem to wonder by whether they ain't no, does you know? And so anyway on running gun I usually leave things alone. I'll try to you know, I'll stand there for maybe a minute or two and stare at six, eight, ten trees right here, and I'll try to make an educated decision on the best one to get in to put myself in the best position. And that means, you know, worthy wort. I expect most of these deer may come from where it's the best place for my when to be, according to what tree I'm going to get in and what tree can I possibly shoot out of the best over this area that I want to look at, you know, So all of all those things are just factors that are unique to each scenario. But I'll climb up there usually, and you know, I might trim a little old thing or two right there where the stands at real quietly. But I don't do much opening up on running gun hunts. Yeah, like you said, sometimes it's not worth the risk of ruining the chances of any potential encounter. So so you start talking about the shot, you know, getting to that point where you can actually get a shot. And that brought me back to those original four categories that I brought up at the beginning, and the final of those four categories you've mentioned in the article was about that moment of sealing the deal, the final steps to actually see that deal. So I gotta believe over all the years you've been bow hunting, you've learned some things about how to best make sure you're ready and and execute on that final moment when that buck shows up in your shooting lane or is coming in. Could you share of this, maybe some of those great lessons learned, or maybe something now that you see is that big turning point for you that helped you seal the deal. Well, you know, this isn't rocket science, and everybody pretty well knows it and probably heard it hashed out to them to Earth. But for me, I plainly remember in my hunting bow hunting life, what was the big changer for me. Now, it didn't it didn't make me go from you know, totally inadequate to totally perfect. But it was a big game changer. It made me go from you know, rarely successful to mainly successful. And that was the ability to control buck fever. Because I've always been a person that you know, I turn in and see a big white tail buck coming to me, I would go into a sort of automatic pilot mental psycho mode of excitement. Well, buck fever is a debilitating thing. It's debilitating and I had it for years and it costs me dearly. As a matter of fact, I can't stand to talk about it because if I had not had it, some of the deer that I should have killed back in my early days would have been game changers for me. Because my God, I run into some of the biggest ones and should have killed him back to him, but I didn't because I'd get too excited. Your mind goes into kind of a fog. I call it automatic pilot mode, and you're just you know, you're functioning out of a subconscious set of movements. Well, that's not gonna work because if you can't keep your right mind and assess the situation that's unfolding and react accordingly, you're gonna blow it most of the time. And that's what buck fever does for you. It causes you to not think through and blow it. So getting past buck fever? Now, how to get past it? I've been asked out a million times and I've dealt with it with my wife for fourteen years now. She is a world class buck fever psycho woman. And I've done everything on the earth on the earth that I can think of to get her past it, and she's no further past it than the day she started. I don't know that there is any solution other than maybe getting drunk before you go get in your tree. I'm just I'm just saying, take take um sleeping pill or something, but get past it one way or the other. Go out and start shooting does. I'd say, forget big buck hunting. Go out and shoot does until you think killing deer or the bowl is not fun anymore. Maybe that'll get you past it. Just do something to get past buck fever, because that's the big obstacle. And then after that, what I've refined down over the years is just the fact that you know, you just learn how to set up everything that you're doing, from the tree stand to your gear two your mental you know. I mean I said earlier that you know, he maybe take a book and read it or blah blah blah and all day sets. Well that's fine if you got to, because here's my opinion, you're better setting and reading the book than cannot be setting there reading a book. Now what I mean by that is I I don't want to say I don't set and read a book because I'm just sure that Buck's gonna walk up on me before I can get ready, you know what I mean. And that's why all these sets are so hard on me, because I make myself set there scanning the country like an eagle all day and it just wears you out, you know. But just be sensible, you know on what you're gonna do in the moment of truth, you know. Uh, And always remember, here's the biggest thing that gives people buck fever. They don't really prepare for the unexpected. In their mind. They have kind of fantasized about this big Buck's gonna walk in right over there and there he'll being and Bob. But it don't work that way. They always do something different. They come from behind you, you don't know, they're they're unil they're under you, or they come and chasing and oh by you. Nothing goes as you kind of picture in your fantasy mind, so that throws you into a automatic panic mode. You know, don't panic. That's the worst thing. That's what causes buck fever. Keep a level head. And when I try to tell people, is this just picture in your mind that you're nothing but a casual nature observer until you've killed a deer and kill the moment that you have shot that deer and harvested it with a bow, you might as well have just been out there with a camera setting there taking pictures, because you really ain't accomplished nothing. If that bug comes in there and freaks you out and gets away, you're gonna go home and tell people about it. Nobody's gonna care about it. Nobody saw it, you ain't got no proof of it. You might as well just not even tell it. But if you take it home with you and eat it and put the otlers on your wall and tell a story about it, people are gonna make note because if you don't stay calm, you blow it. You're just a nature observer. So don't get excited. There's nothing exciting about nature observing. What's exciting walking up and wrapping your hands around the rack when he's laying there. So try to just condition your mind to the fact that you're not really doing nothing worth being excited about. Until you have arrowed the buck. Then you can let your heart go through the roof, because you can go, oh, I just did it, you know, and so I don't know if it's just a mental game, but anymore, when I'm sitting there and a big deer shows up, of course that first one second to me wants to lead to the roof, you know, But then I I just immediately go, you know, Claypool, you know you gotta you gotta just kinda get this done. You know, people think that you know what you're doing, so don't disappoint him. Just kind of act like you act like you know what you're doing. And you know, yeah, that's a hundred and sixty ins er there, but you know, so what, he ain't going to Oklahoma with you if you don't follow through. And I just stay calm. And um. I lost the largest buck in my life here not too many years ago because I thought I was completely over buck fever and I found out that I was not, and it attacked me in a debilitating way and costs me the largest antlerd buck of my life. And this buck was one hundred percent dead. He should there's no way he should got away. So we can still happen. Can you tell us that story, Eddie? Yeah, real quickly. I mean I was sitting with my wife, won't eating up in Kansas, and I had got her a tag for dough and this was back before you had to get a buck tag to get a dough In the earlier days, you could just get a dough tag. So I trying to teach her to bow hunt, and she was just wanting to kill it here. So we had a bow tag, dough tag and me sitting there and I was like, I watched your shoot doing and saying well towards Eden and nothing to come by, and we were freezing and we're gonna get down, and it's almost, you know, time to get down, probably ten minutes before time to get down, and I said, well, I said, give me this second. I got my grunt call out and made a couple of quick grunts and up through the woods up there out of side, I heard one just do that roar that I mean that raw back, you know, that grunt that sounds like unbelievable, you know, and I, holy smokes. I turned around her and I said, did you hear that? And she said yeah, she said what was that? And I said that was a buck and I said probably a really big one. And I'm kind of turned around talking to her. She sitting behind me, on the back side of the tree and I hear something. I turned around. Here comes a behemoth thing trotting right up to me. Just and I didn't even have a mentality of even being bow hunting that evening. I had took my bow to the tree, but I had done something I've never done in my hunting life that I know of. I had hung that bow up without an arrow on the stream. And I didn't even realize. I did not realize I had done that. And when I turned and see this thing coming, it's instantaneous giant. So anyway, I didn't I looked, I didn't have an arrow on my bow, and I had I I just don't do that, but I did it that day because I wasn't even hunting. And by the time I grabbed my bow and tried to pull an arrow knock it, the buck was running literally up in under the tree stand and I went ahead and got my self reddy, and I kind of turned around and I looked and he was standing maybe off yards in front of the tree, which would be behind me, in front of the wife, standing there, quartering away, just looking around for whatever he'd heard. And uh, by the time I got slowly turned and drawing on him. He got nervous and he trotted right back off the way he'd come from and disappeared back up in the woods. I got back on the grunt call, and here he come again, coming right back down there, and I got the full draw on him, and he got to us in about thirty yards of me on that second approach, but he was so cautious. He's on full alert and he was hanging to the thick cover and he never gave me a shot. I had him standing there at thirty yards and had to just let him walk away. And to make a long story short, a little bit later the can's gun season opened and the landowner there killed that buck and he was a hundred ninety in typical and uh so that was basically my one in a lifetime chance. And when he come up running up on me like that, I remember going into his just this main straight line brain leage activity. I had no thought processing and I it was like a really out of body experience because I was totally unprepared, and I let it really freak me out. If I had kept my head, I did some things wrong. You know that I won't go through. But I didn't think things too. I could have got that deer killed, and I still have a hole up here on my wall where he would have been. I have a place up here where I left an empty spot in all of my whitetail mounts for that one in a lifetime er, you know. And he was headed, he was headed for that that day. But but faver got me and uh a big another big another big one that got away. Yeah, well, I think that's that's a pretty good story for us to end this one on, because I think it's a great example of that even the most successful, you know, one of the most successful bow hunters out there, we are still all just human beings. We are still infallible. We make mistakes, and nobody, nobody else there should feel bad when things don't go right because it happens to us. All That's very true. Have fun, be happy and take it as it comes, and if you do, you'll end up better at the end of the days and trying to become a expert. So so true. So so Eddie. If if our listeners want to hear more of your stories, read some more of your work, where should they go to find them? Well, currently I'm on staff for Peterson's bow Hunting, and I kind of keep my work with them. I'm not freelancing anymore, so I don't spread it around over many of the other archery magazines. I haven't got dedicated enough to do any books yet. Maybe that will come in the future, but currently I just say, you know, look for me at Peterson's bow Hunting or humped me up on Facebook if they want. I love to have bow hunting friends, and uh, we'll all will compare notes. Sounds good. Well, this has been a lot of fun, Eddie. It's been great to be able to compare some notes with you, and uh, I've just really enjoyed this conversation. So thanks so much for join us likewise, uh any time, and God bless and have have good success whether it's fill a tag or not. You know, absolutely well, thanks Eddie. Good luck this season too, and with that, we're going to call it a show. I don't know about you guys, but after this chat, I am stoked to head out on a bow hunting adventure of my own. Now, real quick, before we go, if you have not left a rating or review for this podcast on iTunes yet, it would be so awesome if you could do that. It's a huge help. Just takes a minute. So thank you in advance for taking a look and giving us a review. Also when need to give a big thank you too, sick Gear, Trophy, Ridge, Bear Archery, Redneck Blinds, Hunter a, maps, Ozonics, Carbon Express, Maybe Optics in the White Tail, Institute of North America for supporting this podcast and wire dot Com. And finally, thank you all for tuning in today. I hope you enjoyed this one. I hope it inspired you a little bit to get out there and try something new, and I hope you'll stay wired to hot m m mmmmmm