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 Wire to Hunt Podcast. I'm your host, Mark Kenyan. This episode number one hundred and fifty and today the show we are joined by a super successful d I Y public land deer hunter known by some as the Professor, Joe Elsinger. And this, in my opinion, is one of the most interesting and helpful interviews we've recorded in a long time. So get ready for some serious learning. All right, Welcome to the Wire to Hunt podcast, brought to you by SI Gear. And today on the show, we are diving deep into the mind of a super successful d I Y public land deer hunter, a man known by um as the Professor and to the rest of the world by the name of Joe el Singer. And today we're going to poke and prod and question and harass Joe until he shares with us everything we need to know to have the same kind of deer hunting success that he's had. So what do you think, Dan, does that sound like a good strategy for today? Uh? Yeah, it does. I've been thinking about property in general. Uh, today I called I called today an access route day because for some reason I get in these days where I have these days where I just think a lot about access routes. I don't know why that's good. Access routes are important. Did you come to any kind of like monumental conclusion. Do you have a new access route planned or you're gonna call someone new to get permission on a neighboring property or something good like that. Yeah, a little bit of all that. Um, I don't know if you remember me talking about using cricks at the beginning of this past year to access some stand locations. Well, because I tagged out so early, I didn't I didn't do any of that. So this year I'm gonna try to implement a little bit more of that strategy. I like it. Do you have like a specific crick that you're thinking about? I mean, is that a general idea or do you have like specifics, like to get to this stand or I want to stand off this creek? Right? I need I have some specifics already. UM, I'll go in. I'll hang the stand here probably in July June or July, and that way it's up. Uh. And the only thing that I'll need to do is probably put the bottom two sticks on and so then so then that's all I need to do for the setup. Right now, my problem that I'm running across is do I leave my truck parked on the road or not? And I don't know if I like that idea. So A I might have somebody drop me off, or be I might um talk to a farmer just to see if I can park my truck in their field. Now, why don't you want to park on the road just because you're worried about your truck getting messed with or you people know you're hunting there, or what a little bit of both? Um, dude, I there was a time when I was hunting back to Shipwreck this big deer. In the first two years, I almost had the place to myself. And then, you know, I don't know, people must have recognized put me in my truck together. And then the next couple of years, more and more and more people started hunting that property. And now I don't even hunt that property anymore. So I got a question about that. Well, where do you stand on stickers on your truck? Do you have any details or stickers hunting related on your truck? Uh, not on my truck. No, I don't have any. I don't. I mean, for some of that, it's just a big hey look at me sign And for me, I don't know about you. But for me, I don't own property, don't. I don't least property, So I can't tell you, know, hey, stay away from me. I can't say that. So I have to be as under the radar as humanly possible on some of the areas that I hunt. And uh, And that's part of the reason I went with the truck that I went with. It's low key when I when I decided to buy a truck, it's low key, it's not flashy, it's not jacked up. And uh, it's the same color as my current as my previous truck. So it's just kind of no stickers. People they'll drive by it and they won't think about it. But if you have some giant bone collector uh decal on the back window of your truck, people will remember that and they'll recognize it. Yeah. Yeah, I've bounced drawn on this a lot. I've gone back and forth between like I don't want anything on my truck too. Then one day I'm like, you know what, damn it, I want something on there. And then like a couple months later, I'm like, I don't want attention to draw on and I'm kind of in the I ended up putting some stuff on my truck and then like I end up having someone like tweet like, I think what you'd hunt is that this exit off such and such highway, and I'm like, oh, jeez, right, because there are some stickers that kind of made it gave him a good guess that this might be my vehicle and it was. So here's my idea to cope with that, Okay, okay, that that would be to take all the decals that you've ever wanted to put on your truck and put them on your wife's minivan. Yea, my wife's car. No, no, no kids, no kids yet, no minivan yet. But she does have a wire and sticker in a car. So there, she needs a bone collector sticker, she needs rage in the cage sticker, she needs what else? What's a popular sticker? That browning deer right or the buck with the dough and then they look like they're in a heart. That's pretty one of those. That's perfect. Yeah, alright, I'm gonna get right on that. Speaking of speaking of your suggestions for what me and my wife should do, I told her about your suggestion last week that we should fumigate our camper with car exhaust, and she thinks you're an idiot. So there's that. You know, I need to have a sit down conversation with your wife sometime because you know, I'm not here to brag, but you know, I'm a nice guy. I'm kind of cool. I'm kind of cool in a way. I think she thinks I'm some dumbass. She just thinks you're trying to kill us dan camper. Well, if you do that, you're the idiot. Yeah, it can be done. It can be done and done right, trust me. So so we shouldn't be in the camper when we're doing that though. Right. I have good news, though, But I have I have dealt with the mice problem without needing to use car exhaust. Okay, so what do you do? How do you do it? We used a multi pronged approach, utilizing several different mouse traps in a number of different locations, and we ended up harvesting three. Oh we tagged three nice Uh well too, Well, heck, I don't know I'm not sure if they're white ming mice or Montana mice um, but we got one of them killed while we were in Wyoming, and then we made the switch to Montana, and there were two more that I think came along for the ride, is my best guess. And one of them, unfortunately, might be with us for a long time though, because we heard a snap one of the traps go off in the middle of the night, and then I kept hearing this clunking and all this noise and stuff, and I'm like, oh man, what is that. So, like I know, ten seconds later, I go walking into the bathroom and I opened up the cabinet and you just saw in time the back end of one of these traps trailing behind There's this there's just opening underneath their sink that goes down behind the shower, and that must be where they're coming in through. And we must have got this this mouse by the foot or the leg or something. He was able to drag himself back in there. And then for the rest of the night underneath the camper, somewhere in some part of the camper I can't get to. You can just hear this clanking around and shifting and clicking and clacking, and he probably died down there. And so I've got a rotting mouse that we're gonna be carrying around. But three hopefully that's it. I'll tell you what. My grandpa had this machine shed with a like a room that was that was framed in well, well, just listen, it's kind of a cool story. So he he has he got some mice in his insulation and the cats weren't doing their job, and he puts he puts this regular mouse trap down and it goes off. In the next day, it's not there. Well, there was a possum that got into the garage and it had a mouse trap stuck to its tail, and you could hear it in the machine shed. Dragged that mouse trap across like the I beams when it would walk in h up in the roof of it, and it was hilarious. And it took him like, oh, five months to kill it because he could never find it. But when he killed it, finally he found the mouse trap still attached to this possum's tale and easy to reuse it after that. I don't know about that, but is this the is this the grandpa that was married to your grandma who used to make you beat rodents over the head with a bat when you guys trapped him or something like that. Yep, that was that same family. Yep. I like that. I was the I was the executioner for the animals that were still alive in the traps, and and all the questions people have had about nine fingers, this answers it for you. Hey, Mark, we better start talking about deer because we don't want any more negative reviews. Okay, we get a couple of those, that's all right. I want to talk about two more things not related to deal that really quickly. Okay, okay, because you know, I'm taking my little deer um break while I'm out west. Although I'm seeing deer and thinking about dear. But number one, I saw seven grizzlies in one day, a couple of days. That is ridiculous. Yeah, it was pretty crazy. Now that you know that they're in the area, do you ever get a little freaked out, like, uh, really, a grizzly bear could get into this camp or if they really wanted to. Well, where we're camped right now, We're not worried about bears. We were camped right now, We're down in the middle of a valley that's that's bears wouldn't be that close where we saw these bears actually in Yellowstone, about fifty miles south of us where there. So I'm not worried about that. And I've I've camped a lot in places where there's grizzlies, and I'm just not really worried about getting in the camp or anything. And when we when I backpack and you're like in a little tiny ten ten miles in there, you know, all by yourself, then you think about a little bit more. But you know, like we've talked about in the past, when you're in bear country, you just follow the basic best practices. Don't have food in your tent, don't cook next to your tent, don't do anything stupid like that. And they're gonna mind their own business as long as you mind yours. So when I first started doing stuff, I definitely was really nervous about it. But now I've I've gotten pretty comfortable and um, on this hiking trip, it was pretty cool. We headed down there. We saw one black bear on the drive down. We pull off at this trailhead. We are um when we're getting our stuff together and everything, and a guy pulls the next to us and pulls on a spotting scope, and so you guys want to see grizzly, Like sure, and there's a grizzly I don't know, five yards away off from this kind of this dead fall cluster of trees and stuff. So that was kind of how it kicked it off. Start hiking, and about three or four miles back in there, Um, I spotted this like low brown shape coming our way. And every time I saw anything that looked like that, pull out my mind. I was just check it out. Because that guy who showed us the bear and the spining scope, he also said that he saw seven grizzlies all together feeding on a dead carcass some I don't know if it was an elk or bison whatever, um, but not too far away, so we definitely knew there in the area. And um, long story short, here's a grizzly, probably a hundred yards away, walking towards us and where you know, three or four miles back off, just the two of us. And that was actually the first time I've seen a grizzly while out in the wild, you know, hiking all the other grily settings I've had have been from the road, um, but this one was just us out there, just him out there, and he was walking towards us, and so I then eventually just started kind of talking a little bit louder to make sure he knew we were in the area and we weren't gonna surprise him. And he stopped and kind of looked up at us, and we watched him, and he looked watched us, and he just sat down. He sat down like a dog and just kind of looked at us. And it was just the coolest thing, just kind of being in some small way, you know, having this like one to one connection with a big grizzly bear in the wild. Um. I don't know how to describe it, but it was. It's it's a unique kind of special thing that we don't get that often these days. So we got to watch him for like fift twenty minutes. He slowly went back and started walking away, and we gave him this distance and just kind of hung back and watched, and he walked off, and we continued down the trail past him, um, far out of his range, and then we stopped and looked back again, and he was kind of watching us. Then he walked the other way, and as I'm watching him, I caught a little bit of movement on the horizon on this other ridge, maybe a couple hundred yards away, and pull the buy nose and there is a monstrous grizzly bear another one that he I mean, like a tank like the bear we were watching. We're like, oh, that's a nice like mature bear. Looked like a good sized bear. But this one looked like something from Alaska. I mean it just looked like a tank with four legs lumbering down this ridge towards us. That was like a holy crap moment. And uh he you know, luckily that was That was a fine encounter too. He just kind of walked down the ridge a little bit then turn went the other way and we continued hiking and saw another black bear. And um, when we came walking back a little later that day, the original grizzly was napping. We could see him up on the hillside laying down like a dog. Again. Um, so just a super cool encounter. And uh, I end up seeing two different sets of grizzly sows with cubs on the dry I've backed that day too, and one of them was like fifty yards off the road. Um, so the bears are definitely out and feeding right now and packing on the pounds post hibernation. So did any of those bears look at you, like, man, that thing over there looks delicious? I don't think so. I think the only two the two bears saw us, Um, you know when we were out there hiking, and it was mostly just kind of curiosity. They're just kind of what's that? And they looked at us, and we looked at them, and you know, we didn't intrude on their space, and we just made sure that they knew we were there and we're going our own way, and um, they just did their thing. So it's pretty cool. You know. I think a lot of people assume, especially if you're not, you know, often around these animals or in these types of places. I think the average American assumes these a bloodthirsty, scary, vicious, monstrous creatures. And while they are definitely wild animals and they definitely can be dangerous, um, nine times out of ten, they just want to go about through business. And if you let them do that, and you, uh, you know, respect there the fact that they are wild animals. I think it's it's a pretty cool situation. So I'm very I'm very glad there are still places out there where, um, you know, the full suite of wildlife and predators are out there and you can still experience what it's like to you know, really be in a wild, wild ecosystem. So right, did um the correct me if I'm wrong? But isn't spring? Uh? They have their cubs in hibernation right then they come out, and aren't the mother's like really territorial. They're they're very very protective. Yeah, yeah, you're right that they do have their they do have their cubs other hybernate they come out, and yeah, that's probably the most dangerous bear is a mama bear with cubs that you've surprised and are like close. That's like probably the most dangerous situation. So definitely this time of year. You know, if you're hiking around places where there's lots of cover or lots of noise you know from a river or something. We always just make sure to be loud when we're hiking through there so that we don't surprise anything. And um, you know, to this point, you know we've been out here in grizzly country, for you know, taking trips for probably decade now, and knockna would we haven't had any kind of dicey encounter because I think we've made sure not to let that kind of situation happen, right, So yeah, Now I will say I'm about to embark on an adventure that is probably the most sketchy grizzly related thing I'll have ever done, because starting this weekend, I'm gonna start my bear hunt, my black bear hunt, and I'm not in Montana, yep. And I've switched up the destination where I'm going to do that hunt, and now I'm going to be bear hunting in territory that grizzly bear is also in habit. Originally is going to be a spot where there weren't grizzlies, but we kind of found a nice spot that we like here and I got some get some research and chat with some people, and I found a pretty good spot. I thing to go chase some black bears. But there's also the cential of running into a grizzly so um, sneaking around, being quiet with you know, grizzly bears around, and the potential surprise when I think I will be kind of a little more on edge than it usually a but that'll be the fun part, right, Yeah, I'm really pumped though, I'm really really grizzly bear with the same tag or does it have to be a black bear? No, grizzly bears are. They're still in danger species, so it is illegal to shoot one. Okay, I got you in the lower fort So no shooting grizzlies. I can only shoot a black bear. Um. You know, if it's a life threatening situation with a grizzly and it's self defense, um, you know that can happen, but you know hopefully that hopefully that won't be an issue all bear spray, worst case scenario, something comes up close use that. But I'm really excited chasing black bears and get up the mountains and hike in and glassing. And I don't know what I'm doing at all though, So I've just been like watching YouTube videos and reading articles and talking to a few people and like I was watching YouTube videos and how to properly keep out and skin out of black bear and all this stuff. So it's gonna be a big, a big new experience. But is this a backpack can't type of hunt or is this a hunt from the truck or hunt from your camper type of hunt? I'd like to backpack in there, but because my wife is here with me and the dogs, I don't think she really wants to be left alone for three or four days. So I'm gonna go in and just do day hunts and come back and meet her at the camp at night. So it will be a little more hiking probably, but we'll make it work so perfect. That's the game. PLA, thank you. I'm finally catching fish too. Yeah I saw that. Yeah, there's been you eat those or do you have to throw those back? You can eat them. I've just been throwing them back, I think. I don't know for whatever reason, um trout, I just catching release. Um it seems like that's just the thing to do. So it has been a good cat as hatch, catching some rainbows and some cutthroat. And that's my story. So I think we gotta what am I trying to say? I think we gotta shut this down though, and uh and get our our guest on here, because we gotta talk big white tail box. Amen. Alright, well, let's take a quick break for our sickest story, and then we're gonna get Joe on the line. So our sickest story today is going to be a little different than planned. The sickest story today is going to be from me actually, because since I recorded this initial interview with Dan, my plans from a bear hunt have changed. And now today, actually that's Thursday, I'm gonna be heading out on my very first black bear hunt, but not on my own now is originally planned. Instead, I'm gonna bear hunting with my friend, the ultimate public lands advocate and TV and podcast host, Randy Newburgh. Randy was gracious enough to invite me a long to hunt with him after we met up the other day, and I'm pretty excited because I don't get to learn from someone that has been a tremendously successful bear hunter. So right now, here's what I'm feeling. I'm you're really excited to go out and see some bears. I'm feeling much more confident that might actually feel a tag since Randy knows a whole lot more than I do about what about what to do when actually chasing these bears. And finally, I'm also feeling a little bit nervous because I'm afraid Randy might outhike me up and down these mountains. I mean, he lives out here in Montana all year round, so I might be about to get embarrassed here in the next few hours. I'm not sure, but this is a sick of story still in progress. So in our next episode we'll return with updates and how the hunt went, and maybe even have some audio from the film that's going to come from this hunt. So I'm excited about that. And on this adventure, I will be wearing my sick core lightweight tops and bottoms in my pants and jacket. And if you'd like to make a sick of story of your own someday, you can learn more about sitcass Technical hunting apparel at Sitka gear dot com. And now let's get back to the show and bring Joe on the line. And now with us on the phone is Joe Elsinger. Welcome the show. Joe. Hey, guys, thanks for having me. Yeah, absolutely, how are you that? I'm good? Yeah, sons finally out after about three days a raid. So yeah, we've been dealing the same thing. I'm temporarily in Montana and it's been raining and snowing for the past weeks, so I'm hoping spring, hoping spring will finally be here. But Joe, I appreciate taking the time to do this. Um. I first found out about you not too long ago, UM by way of my friend Andy May, and he's been putting together these little Q and A blog posts for Wired to Hunt, and recently he featured you and You're hunting tactics. And after reading through that, I, um, man, I just really enjoyed your perspective that you shared on that you had a lot of interesting tactics and experiences you shared, but I just like the way you approached hunting and the things that you know, the way you explain things. I think it was I don't know, I think there's a lot of value there. So immediately after reading that, I was like, all right, I need to get Joe on the podcast to dive into this stuff further. So so that's what I want to do today. I really want to get into a lot of things as far as how you hunt, um, why you do the things you do. But um, but before that, I guess, can you just give us kind of the the Joe Ellisinger, one oh one, what's your story? UM, how did you get to this point? What's the evolution of of you as a deer hunter looked like to this point. Yeah, yeah, well I guess first it's a it's a little sury, albeit on this podcast. I'm not gonna lie. I'm pretty sure I've listened to every single Wired Hot podcast. Thank you have a podcast, Junkie. Yeah, and I've listened to a lot of Dan's the Nine Finger Chronicle podcast to he does get a great job too, So who goes to both you? I love it, so I know I'm not the only guy. Um well that's all we need for today. Guys, Joe, we're done with you. That was perfect. Yeah, yeah, so yeah, I'll promiso. I live in Iowa. I lived a few other places too, and in between now and growing up, but um, I kind of live in eastern Iowa. I started a lot of I like a lot of other guys, I started hunting at a young age, um, small game deer. I worked my way up to deer. I don't think I think I shot my first year, maybe when I was twelve years old. Um, but I killed a pile of rabbits and squirrels before that, and just I mean the first thing I remember hunting when I was maybe six or seven, was I had my baby gun and I was trying to shoot the heads off grasshoppers and I beat him to the chicken. So that gives the idea. I think I was born a hunter, um, for better or worse, and I'm still that way. So I was shot a grasshopper in a long time. So uh so yeah, I mean I started both hunting when I was thirteen or fourteen, and both hunted. I haven't missed a season. Um. I've spent a lot of my time here in Iowa, but I've the last few years I've tried to branch out, kind of push my boundaries. Um. I've gone el counting a few times, tagged a couple of elk um, and I've started hunting deer up in northern Wisconsin, which is really cool. I think I've learned a ton up there. I've learned about as much up there in the last three or four years as you know, the last ten years down here in Iowa, because it's completely different, different deer numbers, they move differently. There's wolds, there's you know, it's big woods. So um yeah, any I guess anything specific you want me to touch on um, fire away. Nice. That's definitely interesting to hear about that unique perspective based on trying to hunt some different places. UM. And I'm going to be interested in hearing about some of those differences and what you did learn. UM. But I guess let's continue set the stage. Can you dive into a little more detail in regards to what your current hunting situation is, like, um in Iowa and then I guess you can. You can touch on the Wisconsin is too. And I'm kind of curious about you know, what are the types of places you're hunting. I mean these big parcels, smart parcels, public, private, etcetera, etcetera. Yeah. Yeah, So so I grew up, you know, hunting farms around where I where I lived, Um, like a lot of rural kids. UM. Yeah, I kind of grew out of that when I went to school, UM and came back and in the meantime, you know, you never keep access to the same piece of private land for very long. UM. And I've never had the opportunity to hunt any big you know, exclusive access hunting a state unfortunately. So UM, I've transitioned more to public land. And I'm really drawn to public land, UM because it's really a level playing field. You know you and everybody else out there at the same set of rules. You gotta play by anybody who goes there with the tag and played by those rules. UM. So you know kind of for the last decade, I transitioned to just about uh well, I both hunt almost all public land, and I still I hunt late season and the muzzle older as well. UM. And I hunt some private land there. Um. But for those that tune that out, I'll just say I've never shot a deer out of a food plot in my entire life. I'm not one of those kind of hunters. Um. But so I you know, I both hunt publicly and I cover a lot of publicly and I've learned, um you know, unfortunate to live in Iowa hunt Iowa, and we still have good age structure of the books four open access land, but it's nothing compared to what you see MTV. I can sure you that, um. You know. They I'll try to find a four year old or older buck um and to hunt every year UM and usually I try to find four or five or six of those. UM. But I have to cover like right now, I'm covering probably five tho acres of public land UM across about ten different parcels to find that that number of deer you know, resident box to hunt. Sure there might be a few more that drift through in the rut, but UM got work your tail off to find them, you know. And and they're not where everybody else is hunting. So I'm sure guys, guys have heard uh that song and dance. You gotta you know, um, you gotta look where everybody else is in huntings. But um, that's that's my situation right now. Um. And I mean, I just love the love the chase. I love. I love hunting down those deer, you know, that's my passion, um, and anything else for that matter, But UM, I really like the you know that just a year round chase. I'm scouting year round. Um, the day I kill a deer, the next day or you know, the next almost after, as soon as I have that deer cut up and in the freezer, I'm thinking about how to get uh, you know, next year's dear. So yeah, yeah, we we definitely can relate to that for sure. Me and as you know, Dan and I both were share in that year round obsession. UM, I want you to elaborate on the on the scouting piece because one of the things that you mentioned in that Q and A that we published earlier, UM, was this scouting journal that you kept and you kept track of all the details of how much you scouted, how many miles you walked, what you saw, all these different things. UM. Can you walk us through everything you could possibly share with us about your scouting plans and strategy and that journal and how all that helps you. Yeah, so so yeah, I did that journal. I think it was for the two I was in a fifty year a couple of years ago, but it's still very valid. UM. My strategy of vaults a little bit every year, but it's the same approach generally, UM overall. So so it really my scouting starts. If you want to look at a year in time, my scouting starts the previous season for that year, and really, you know, every year kind of blends together. I'm looking at stuff too from two years ago even. But a big part of my strategy is keying in on annual patterns UM and and I think that's extremely important for anybody hunting mature bucks, UM, because by that, you know, if you're hunting mature buck, let's say, a four year older older bock. Um. That buck has been around several years, and so if you're not new to the area, you should have some observations from the previous years and something's changed, but a lot of things stay the same of how they uh, you know, how they move across the land, what betting areas, they use, some of their preferred food sources, how they move through there during the rut and anyway the previous year. When I'm not hunting, and um, I actually really don't hunt a whole lot. I mean that sounds weird. I'm talking about bow hunting, you know. Um, I I do a lot more scouting the bow hunting. I probably do two to three times as much scouting as actual bow hunting. UM. And even if I have a tag, Um, I'm only actually hunting when I think I'm going to kill a buck. Um. And by no means am I only you know I'm not bad to hunt a percent, I'd be thrilled. I fellas bat and you know, UM, usually it's more like one in ten or one in six to be honest, in the last few years, UM, which is still pretty darne good. UM. But I don't, you know, I try to I try to get out there once or twice a week, whether the scout or to hunt. Um. I'm looking at tracks, Um, I'm looking I'm tying in previous year's observations. I'm looking at food sources. UM. You know, a big bucks pattern. Um, through the fall. I think a lot of guys have a little bit of a misconception of Um. You know, he's doing the exact same thing. It's really changing day by day and week by week. UM. Early season patterns can be a little more extended. But as you get in October, the ruts eating up food sources are switching on and off. UM. Hunting pressure is changing every week. You have season coming on and going off, and more and more interested in does so. Um. You really got to take advantage of something the instant and you see it. Um, you know, oh you know, oh you know, he's frequent in this betting area and it's you know, the late pre rut there he's uh, you know, he's probably heading this direction to nose around the dose in the area and boot the hunt. It you have the right wind, you kill him. Um. And Uh. Anyway, I I'm scouting the previous Paul, the previous winter, I mean through the winter. If they snow on the ground, you can't really see a lot of that rot sign or really any sign on the ground. But you see deer tracks everywhere, and they may or may not be in the same areas as the rest of the year. Um. But you can just learn how they move across the land. Find find a set of tracks and follow it around. And for anybody new to tracting, I highly recommend that, like, um, you know, go tracks, just see how they move across the land, because every terrain is different. You know, I hud a lot of hills and farm country in eastern Iowa. Um, and you know a little bit of big wits up there Wisconsin. But uh, um, my bread, you know, my bread and butter is is hill country, bluff country. Um. And I know that very well. But and I couldn't tell somebody who's hunting pancake flat land, um you know how deer move him there. But I can tell them how to find it out, you know. So Um, it's you learn so much. I just follow the deer around. I that when I was a kid, and that helped my understanding it to your immensely. When you're doing that and then comes splitting Yeah, when quick question, Joe. When you're doing that, you know, in the winter there's snow on the ground. Um, like, are you are you just walking and following around these tracks and just kind of taking it all in and thinking about it and just kind of out of curiosity following or are you following a set of tracks and then like writing that down and taking notes? Okay, I thought that, you know, most of the tracks all can through this little low spot in the field. Check that off in my journal. In the future, I'm going to know that at this time of the year they're coming through here. And then you're looking for specific betting areas. I mean, I mean, how detailed do you get with that? And is it kind of just all in your head or do you record it some way or what do you do with that stuff? Yeah? So yeah, I take notes. Um, I probably take more detailed notes than your average your average on or no doubt, but I try not to get too details because I mean I don't want to write page in the pages. Um. And so it's a little bit of both. I mean, sometimes sometimes I'm just following tracks for the heck of it and see where they leave. Other times, for instance, um, I killed a buck late season, not late season, late November with a bow in two thousand fifteen, and um in the spring. Oh it was it was like January, so it was it was still winter of taous and fifty and so almost a year before that. Um, I was circling around this one betting area and I caught this great, big square set of tracks coming out of that betting area. There is a fresh snow, real fresh sticky snow, and it was a northeast wind. Um and uh, I followed the end and he bedded on the down each side down wind side of a thicket, kind of on a little point um public land. This is uh, you know, three quarters of a mile in from access. It was probably almost a mile U. And anyway, um here my two thousand fifties season was. You know, Um, I was having a little hard time getting onto bucks, a little harder time than usually getting on the bucks in two thousand fifty and here comes late in November, and um that betting area. I knew, um that it was a primarily a dull betting area, but I've seen that big set of buck tracks going through there. Well, I thought, what the heck, I'm gonna hunt that betting area. It was late late rot. I figured a big buck. My circle passed there on the downwind side, sent checking for dose and it was potential for a buck even betting right in there. Anyway, long story short, I saw that book flitting through there, um, and I couldn't get a shot. And I went back three days later and set up and I killed him. Um, I was probably set up within. I was set up in forty yards where I saw the big set of tracks eleven months earlier coming out of the bedding area, and I set up there for a reason. I knew that was probably how he was going to go in and come out. So every time you see something like that, you gotta take note of it. So in that situation was a perfect example. That is a perfect example in that situation, UM, can you tell us about how you how you set up on that too, because okay, so you knew there are tracks coming out of there the winter before you went back in, did you? So you did two hunts? I'm curious, did you change your location from night one night number two or you know, when did you set up? How did you do that in the middle of the season like that? Yeah, So that so that was kind of a quirky series of events because it was late late November. Anybody who remembers that an Upper Midwest we got a huge snow store. Um, I remember the exactly It was around November twenty I think. Um. So the first time I hunted there was right on the front side of that snow store, and that big buck was in there behind the dough late dough and heat. Um. Well, usually I wear a snow camo and the ground's white, um, and by snow came, I just wear plain white and I think it blend in fantastic when the when the ground's white, and I was actually hunting from the ground because I knew so to give you a little better idea of um, it was on the top of a ridge and it was an old clear cut about twenty years old, so it's all grown up, um, but nothing big enough for a stand. And frankly, you wouldn't even want to be off the ground because the canopy is so low you can actually see fast if you're at ground level. Well you're a ground level that you know, you're prone to get timmed down by a deer. And that's exactly what happened on the first time. Because I was wearing, you know, my usual brown based camo and everything was white out. I think I was wearing rain gear actually because it was it was still snowing. UM. And a doe pegged me and she busted out of there and clear, and I just caught sight of that book. Well, I thought it was worth a second shot simply because you know, there was a dough that looked like she was coming into heat and uh that we got a foot of snow. So that actually it took I think it was two days later. Um. It took that long for the roads to get clear for me to get back there, and I hunted there again, and sure enough, here came this I set up. Basically, there was UM. When deer enter betting locations, often they hooked in from the downward side. It's kind of called a jay hook. UM. And that this is something UM that I'm a member of the Hunting Beets website and I highly recommend that place for anybody who wants to really understand white tailed deer UM. In my opinion, it's the best, the biggest collection of good beer hunters in the nation right now. As far as an online forum period and the discussion UM and Uh. Anyway, they talked about this jay hook quite often, and I've witnessed as well. Well. I set up on the downward edge of this cover, figuring they were going to come kind of around the ridge and hook into there, and sure enough, that's exactly what they did. Uh. There was a doll came first, and it was actually perfect because she urinated about thirty yards in front of me. And the second hunt, I was wearing white camos, so I was sitting in a clump of saplings, completely blending in and a foot of snow, so only half of me was really sticking up out of the ground. Uh. She urinated like thirty yards in front of me, and that bot came following her and he buried his head right in the snow. And that was that because I had a perfect open shot. He was brought side, so that is perfect. Yeah. Yeah, as soon as she was peeing in the snow in front of me, I was like, yeah, this is going to be perfect. So that Dan, What do you think about this? Yeah? Now, you mentioned you put in a lot more time scouting than you actually do hunting, and I think I heard you say some figures like one in six and one in ten. Does that mean that it only took you ten hunts throughout a specific year to to harvest your buck. Yeah? Yeah, I mean, um that that's a pretty good average. So so let's see on public land last year, I killed my buck on my second hunt toward the two thousand and two thousand fifty, I think it was twenty hunts. Um. Like I said, I struggled mostly because I was going after one buck in particular. So I ran off ten or twelve hunts after one buck in particular. I probably never should have. I never got him, but I came so darn close a couple of times. Man, that was frustrating. Two thousand fourteen, I killed my buck on my first hunt. Uh. You know, in et cetera, usually usually I like, like I said, I mean, it sounds weird, And I'm not bragging like I say that because I want people understand how much work I put into preparing. You know, I am exhaustive in regards to preparations. And I don't start hunting you know this this passing. You know, I'll hunt whenever I think I'm opportunity to kill a buck. It might be early season, it might be pre rut, it might be rut um. But until I think, okay, I can go in and kill this buck, I don't start hunting. I keep scouting. I keep I keep running trail cams. You know. Maybe we can get in a trail camstil later. But um, you knowing areas, yeah, yeah, I'm looking for bucks, and I'm looking for opportunities, you know, anywhere. You know, I think there's a high odds, you know, probability that a buck is going to somewhere, you know that's where it starts. It might be you know, bed the food patterned, it might be you know, coming through a dough betting area in the rut. You know, anything, um, anything that I can intentionally, you know, go in there and find them, I'm doing it. But until then, I don't touch it, and I stay out of there like the plague. And I've learned that the hard way, you know. So, I mean in high school, I would hunt every day I could. I would hunt sixty eight times in the season. And I started out hunting much like everybody else. You know. I would have two or four or six or eight stands pre hung at the beginning of the season, rotate through them. By the time the rut came around, I just hunted Holliday spots, you know, three or four six times. I wasn't seeing hardly anything except non residents coming through For the very first time, I was, you know, had a huge impact on on deer in the area. And about ten years ago I started hunting at more mobile kind of hand in hand with hunting more public land. And you know, if there was any secrets to my success when I started hunting mobile and when I you know, um, really focused on you know, kind of first time sits like that. Um, that's uh, I mean just night and day different I saw in the dear activity I was, you know, I was catching deer by surprise. They were not expecting to me to show up where I was showing up. And even if I blew up an area, I go somewhere else and I try it again, and I don't stop. So so I'm kind of going back. How do you locate specifically these deer that make your hit list? You know, say, okay, my goal is to is to shoot a four year old? How do you go about locating these these bucks? Yeah? Yeah, so, um, I'll little bit of so scouting. You know, I'm always looking for a really big set of tracks. Um, I think most tunters underutilized tracks. Um. I know some guys poke fun of me, like I'm I have a foot foot fetish, apparently because I just look. If I see a dead big buck, like laying the back of somebody's truck, like everybody's grabbing their antlers, I'm looking at his feet like I'm weird. You know. So what do you consider a big track? Just for people that aren't familiar with you know, how can they tell if it's a big Yeah, So a lot of guys use hand size. I use hand size too. Well, Um, that's relative to the size of your hands. And you know, I'm a fairly big dude and I have kind of flippers for hands. So a lot of guys say a four finger track, Well, four finger track for me is an alec so Um, like like I measure. Um, I've measured a few tracks, and like, I think the biggest track that I ever measured s far as with So the width of a track I think was like two and five as inches across. And that's a not split out track and not running track that's just standing you know in hard grounds that doesn't think in real deep when they think in they splay out more to um, so to give you an idea. And and buck ofs you know up in Canada that's probably not a very big buck, but here that's a that's a wopper of a buck. Most books are probably around uh you know, two and three ace to two and a half inches across that that print at its widest point and again not splayed out. That's just a standing print like you'd find a screat. You know that's a big buck. Um. And also you know I do a little shed hunting. Most shed hunting for me a second to scouting, And I think you have to you have to pick your priorities. If you love finding shed antlers, by all means, go find shed antlers, but know that you know you're gonna miss stuff scouting and vice versa. I've walked by a bunch of shet antlers, probably because I'm busy looking off in trees and it rubs and scrapes, and you know, I'm not looking explicitly for antlers. Um. And then finally, you know, I rely on cameras a lot um, And that was that was kind of perfect segue question. I guess um, because um, I ties into those late season paths or not like UH annual patterns I was talking about. I really like to watch look at like up and comer bucks, and a lot of those don't make it. You know, I'd say at least fifty three year olds disappear, probably closer to seventy five percent a three year olds disappear UM on the lance that I hunt. UM. But you know, I'm looking at all those. You know, that'd be a good buck. That'd be a good buck. And if I just get one glimpse of him that next year is a four year old or you know, maybe you even make it to five, and I have a couple of years of following him, you know, I just need one limps and I know generally how he moves the area UM, and you know, I know some things he prefers and I might be able to take advantage of UM. So my trail cameras, I've really focused on UM inventory and low impact monitoring UM. And this is kind of all freely and this is kind of a soapbox issue for me. UM. I think a lot of guys misused cameras. I think, you know, the average hunter thinks, Okay, you know, I'm going to hang my camera by my stand, check it every week, and I'll get a good buck on it, and I'll go back and I'll kill him. Well you know how often that happens? Basically never, Like I mean, the proof is in I read tons of stories from successful hunters, you know, everywhere I can find him. I'll read a story and I take note of details like that, like, Okay, how did he find it? How did you kill it? Well, you know, you might have trailcamp pictures of it, but did you intentionally kill at the location of the camera or a near the location of camera? You know, yeah, go buy a power ball ticket if you actually did. It doesn't work that way, you know, for a couple of reasons. It goes back to uh bucks. Patterns change over the course of the fall. Like I said, so there's a very good chance you're gonna be a daylight, you know, um. And secondly, just going in there and check in, you're you know, you're intruding on that area, you're leaving ground sent um, and you're a lerning him to your presence. So and I know there's some ways around that, Like I know, some guys have had good luck checking them off the backs of foo wheelers and stuff. But still I really like to focus on inventory so I know what it bucks are in the area, and then I refer to the previous years intel of how to kill them a lot and stuff like tracks where I can find tracks along field edges and all of them for cameras long field edges sometimes and see what direction they're coming. But I honestly it's pretty rare that I put a camera and two yards of where I intend to hunt. Um. In every situation is a little different, but um, I'm hunting based on my scouting in previous year's observations and those cameras. UM. In the fall, I like to park them out there. UM. One that one really thing I really like to do in the rut, I drop him in two potential setups that I probably won't get to hunt because, like I said, I don't do that much hunting. Um, you know the exactly, you know, especially during the rut. I'm not a huge fan of hunting during the rout, mostly because of hunting pressure. It's just you know, I don't like hunting and brown to other hunters. And that's all my property. All this public land is shared access, um, and if everybody takes their two weeks with publication, UM, which is all well and good, But I like hunting all by myself in October UM and and late season. UM. But anyway, drop in your camera, leave a soak all rut, don't check it, don't hunt nearby it, and then pull it. And that would give you something to do in the winter. Analyze those photos. What what patterns there are? Okay, when are the bucks coming through? What direction are they coming through? Where do you think they're coming from? Where do you think they're going to? What weather conditions are they most this most movement on? You know what types of wind uh wind and such. You can gain so much intel from that. UM And I've really focused on doing that the last few years. And I'll have time to you know, especially during the rut when you're trying to take advantage of an observation. You know, you might see a big buck chasing a dough. You need to go hunt that right now. UM. You know you don't have time to go take time off and check cameras, so UM, I don't know. I highly recommend doing that. UM. And you really learn a lot about dear behavior, especially if you have you know, several cameras, Like, I don't have a ton of cameras. I know some guys run, you know, dozens of cameras. I've got six seven cameras, um and uh but you take all you know, if I can get four or five of them out in potential rough funnels and then line up those photos, you can see localized rot flurries. You can you know, you can see when bucks passed through areas. It's just fascinating. So can you elaborate on specifically how you're setting up your cameras, I mean, like exactly, like what height, what direction, what types of trees? Um? You know, do you use any type of scent protocol when dealing with those or anything like that to try to minimize your impact, etcetera, etcetera. Yeah. Yeah, so, um, I've had the best So all right, so I've I put my cameras in public land, and to day, I have not lost a single one to theft across my fingers. I'm gonna lose one eventually, I know, I am. But uh yeah, yeah, I probably just jinx myself, you know. But yeah, I mean, and I've been you know, for around ten years or so. I could put them out in public. Um. But I hang them high, and I hang them far back, so I'm not looking for pretty pictures. All I want is to be able to tell, like, you know, generally, Okay, this looks like it's the same buck here as over there. Um, I don't need to know if it's a thirteen pointer or a or a you know at eleven. You know, I don't want to know the basic typical frame. Um. So I'm off in fifty ft back from where I think a buck is going to pass through fifty um, and I I like to hang them at the least. I reach as high as I can, and I'm six five, okay, so you know I can reach higher in most people. But I like to carry a stick in with me. Put just one stick on the tree, climb up and hang it, you know, eight ten ft off the ground, angled down and it covers a really large area and so um, you know, early season, I really like to hang them on food sources, okay, on field edges or or just off the field edge because publicly, and you've got a lot of people walk and field edges looking for a tree stands set ups, So I don't want to lose a camera there. I hang I'm just off the field edge, you know, major like ditch crossings and stuff lead bottlenecks leading into the into the food source. I'm not looking to get deer on on daylight at all, you know, if it's an hour after daylight, perfect, because I've already scouted all the betting areas behind that food source. So I went and behind. I would't be hanging a camera there. I scoutered him in the spring and the fall, the previous you know, UM and UH. I just want to know who's coming through and about when they're coming through, you know, UM, and then into October. I really can't beat those big primary escapes UM and once I'm not hanging them on the where I want to hunt, but I'm hanging them they don't get the places that will have the most bucks coming through, just to see who's there in the rock. I like rock funnels, UM, you know, ditch crossings, fence crossings, any pretty tight bottleneck UM that pushes pushes deer through. UM. I had him in a lot of squirrely spots that um are really tough to hunt. UM. But I can leave a trail camera there, so UM. I really don't take a lot of cent precaution. Um, I do a little bit um like like the really big stupid stuff. And this, this is the true story. I have smelled lavender cented hand lotion on somebody else's trail camera in the woods, like like I could only imagine like he squirted his wife. Yeah yeah, yeah right, like escorted Lavenger said his handlotion on his hands, like his wife's flotion or whatever. And I was like, oh, I'm gonna hang his camera. Well, I think you've been there several days, you know. I wasn't sure, but that that set was still there if I could smell it. A deer could smell that sucker from half a mile away, like to me, And that's like just a no brainer. Other than that, I don't spring him down when you get him above beer height you know, deer I sight height. Um, the ground, your ground sets still there. It will stade in a few days. That's why I really focus on long term deployments. If you're there checking them every week, your ground sent if you didn't get any rain, your ground sets still probably there at the end of a week with you know, with dry condition or you know, the stable weather conditions just last a long time. But I'm leaving my cameras out a month or more, so I want a long term observation of you know, natural deer movement and deer you know, I know black flash is a new cool thing to have with cameras. I've experimented with a little bit. If I just playing a plane and for red camera kind of feed off the ground, deer have no clue it's there. So yes, yeah, if you're only checking your if you're letting your trail cameras soak. Like you said, long term deployment, and your goal is a four year old most of your most of your information is coming from the previous year then right in your scarring, so correct. How how do you know when you are going into a set that there is in fact a four year old buck working that area. Well, so I'd like one glimpse, so it may be a big set of tracks. Um. You know, I do a lot of low impact scouting right before the season, and I do so I I shift my cameras. It varies, but a lot of times I shift them kind of months months. I may get them in the summer. Um, you know, I like to check my cameras in September, A little while before October on those prime food sources, see who's around, and then I'll shift them into you know, monitoring scrapes and stuff. But if you know, if I see a big set of tracks, I see him in the summer, and I know I got him the previous year as well. Uh um boom, you know I'm you know, I'm ready um or or you know I'll I'll leave a camera soak all of October on a scrape, and then I'll move it to a rough funnel in November. Well, maybe I got a big buck there in October. Um. And you know, especially in scrapes, if it uh, you know, I always check the card when I grabbed the camera, and if I got a buck there, um a buck that I'm interested in going after in the last several days or even just since the last rain, I'll go out and try to find his tracks. Sometimes you can't find his tracks in front of the camera, but a lot of times you can, especially in a scrape, I can find those big tracks. Boom. I have an idea of tracks, and tracks are pretty distinctive. It's it's pretty amazing. Like I recommend guys, um take a photo of the next big buck, like, take a photo of his track or obviously the next big bucket shoot take a photo of his tracks, do that three or four bucks, and then line up both photos. You'll be amazed at the differences. I guarantee there will be differences. Some of chip toe, some of square toes, some of longer to some are wider um. Like, I mean it, once you start looking at the at the tracks, it's it's pretty amazing. Um the differences between individual box and kind of um. You know, one of the few benefits of not hunting highly managed land where you've got a ton of four year old running around. Usually there's only one, maybe two four year olds with have overlapping whole ranges on these public areas. So you know, if you see a big set, it's even more easilier, uh, you know, to say, okay, that's this buck. You know it's not one of seven bucks. So alright, briefly now we're going to pause for our weekly white Tail Wisdom with our partners White Tailed Properties. Here's producer Spencer new Hearth. This week with White Tailed Properties, we are joined by abe A Dare, a land specialist out of southern Iowa, and Gabe is gonna be telling us about what strategy changes need to be made when targeting mature bucks. Um. You know, that's when I deal with a lot, And I've deal with a lot with mainly with clients UM in the past, whether you know clients that back ground that you know looking for advice or clients and you know I've I've had hunting, you know, in in camp or whatever. And there's two things, UM. The one that I feel like has always worked the best for me, UM when dealing with other guys is I feel like you've got to get somebody in the frame of mind where they're more concerned about making a mistake than they are about killing an animal. And it blows you down because everybody knows that when you really get you know, when you get these bigger half year older five half year old deer, you know, things go quick. You know, you start racing your mind spending and you've got to have a way to slow it down. And the best way I found to blow it down with people is to be more concerned about making a mistake. I would really get a guy to the point where he's coming back to camp with a phone picture of a deer walking off going did I make a mistake? And he's telling me did then that I got five sex to make a decision. I'm gonna shoot this deer. Boom's done, you know. And so that's the big one. I think you've really got to be more concerned and in a frame of mind about I don't want to make a mistake. And then the second one is is you gotta be ready to not kill a deer. You gotta be ready to let stuff walk in eat tag suit, you know. And so they're both really big ones. Um, the first one is probably the hardest, you know, I think get people that frame of mind. But then once you get to that point and you are better at slowing things down, you are good at judging and and being to recognize what kind of an animal you got in front of it, you know, And then you got to get into that frame of mind where I'm good if I don't harvest an animal this year. I'm good if I don't shoot a deer on this trip, you know. And so those are definitely the two things I think, you know right at the top, that the guy's got to get into when you're really starting to target you know, upper each class white tails. If you'd like to learn more and to see the properties that Gabe currently has listed for sale, visit white tail properties dot com. Backslash a dare that's a d A I R. So, Okay, if I'm understanding right, I'm gonna I'm gonna like recap what I've what I've heard so far about your bunch of overall high level philosophy. Basically, you're you're running cameras every year, collecting data. You are then checking inventory during the current season trying to determine if Buck X is still around, and if Buck X is still around based on a glimpse or a track or a picture of him on a scrape or something, then you refer back to previous year's trail camera data to help you understand exactly when possibly where to focus during the season. Now, the question, though, is is when to strike. And I think there's two factors that you've mentioned here or two hateg or as the factors to help you determine when to actually go and make that hunt, And I'm curious about how you rank them. So one would be the annual pattern. So you've got a trail camera picture of Mr Big coming through on November eleventh, and twelve maybe the year before and the year before maybe. But then the other set of factors that could influence I imagine they could influence when you would go to strike would be the um outside factors, whether um you know, moon phase or bar might press or anything like that that you may or may not take into a consideration. So I'm curious which of those is more important. So I mean, like if if in the past he showed up on the tenth and eleventh, but the tenth and eleventh shows up and at seventy degrees, are you still going to go on for your first sitting there because the annual pattern or will the weather or whatever other factor make you say, now this isn't it? Yeah? A good question. Um yeah, So it's it's the win and the where. I probably didn't focus much on the where either. I can dive into that after I'll talk about the win. UM. So yeah, I how fanatical about being in the right spot at the right time. So there's your win and where. So the win, UM, I want to see the combination of factors come together, and I think that's how I've been able to be um, you know, kind of boost my odds. Um. I want here. I want to see a box come through. Like you say that, you know the tenth level of twelve you came through last year. Well, what weather conditions do you come in through? Okay? Um, say it was on the tail end of a big cold front with a screaming northwest wind. Well this year we had that screaming northwest wind on the ninth Boom, I'm there on the ninth, you know. Or maybe it's the screaming northwest winds not there till the fourteen. I'm there on the fourteenth. So, Um, it's that approximate time, not necessarily calendar day day. You know, it's absolutely not the calendar day. It's it's a spread of several days. Um, especially depending on the time of the year. Peak rot is really fickle, as you guys know. You know, you can go from great activity to you know, dead stop the very next day. Um. But uh, you know, bucks move from point A to point B for a reason. You know, they're either you know, bed to food. You know, they're they're you know, escape routes or they're seeking those you know. It's about that simple, um. And they move certain ways for a reason. Um. They use the land to their advantage, you know. And I hunt hills and I kind of under beginning to understand how big Bucks moved through these hills to avoid getting killed to stay alive with age four and age five. Um, and they'll they'll they'll move, you know, differently, but for the same reasons in different terrains. Um. But they they will use the wind to their advantage when they're escaping from danger, however that may be. They'll send check areas that they think dangers is it's dangers, and they'll use the win to their advantage when seeking does um and and uh, they also you know, are prone. Say it's seventy five degrees out in mid November, they don't you know, they're gonna they move. They'll move a little bit, mostly at night, and otherwise they'll you know, just um, they can't sweat, but if dear can sweat, they'd be sweating. Um you know. Um, So if say that time period goes around, I know a Big Bucks in the area, I know he was cruising the previous year, but it was really cold. Now it's really hot. Well, what's a good water hole nearby? You know, um that I might be able to set up on instead. Uh, you know, so I really want to see several conditions line up. It's not just time of year, it's time of year and weather. Um. And and bucks will move differently. Makes sense paper leewards, floats and hills, um. We could you know, we can dive into bedding too. That kind of takes me into the wear. But it's regard to leeward slopes. They favor leeward slopes. Um, it's a it's kind of a wind advantage. Um. And I see Bucks using uh, windward slopes too, you know, so they're on the side of the wind hits some and usually it's because there's not an easy access around on a leeward slope. Um. Let's see what else you know? And and other things like what elevation they're traveling on. Bucks really like to travel on that military crest for guys that don't understand what that is. Um. When you have a ridge, it's flatter on top and a steeper side, it's right on the side of the ridge where the flatter area breaks to a steep slope. Um. Um. You know, they favor the military craft traveling. That being said, they don't use that exclusively. They also have to avoid hunters um, and I see this a lot. Hunting pressure has by far the most impact um on deer movement you know, uh, over just about anything else. So you know, I didn't really mention that. While scouting, I want to cover, Um, I'm looking for hunters signed too, and I'm pinpointing where the other hunters are hunting, um, both coming in from the public areas, and I uh like to hunt a lot of our the way spot. So actually I end up facing a lot of hunters coming in from adjacent private land even um because I can outwalk most other guys from the public parking lot um or you know, outswim or whatever. Um. You know, you gotta do it on public land. You gotta be where other guys are. You gotta um you know, if you want to hunt, if you want to kill deer that other other people aren't killing, you gotta hunt of where other guys are hunting and wherever that takes you. So for instance, on a you know I talked about bucks lined to move at the military crest, they also also like to bet at the military crest. Um. But you can have uh, you know, if hunting pressure is mainly a pie in hill country, UM, say the access point is on the top of the ridge. Well, very few guys go down in the bottoms because you know, if nobody wants to drag a deer up at two three foot hill or several of them to get them out. So where did the big bucks learn they can survive? They start bedding down low. You know, I've got several instances like that, and I've killed bucks download doing that. So um they go wherever the hunters aren't. So that's kind of the first thing. If I'm looking at a new property, cross off all those areas hunters probably are, and you can scout them very lightly, but usually I just walk right through them unless I see something, you know, glaringly obvious that oh maybe there's no hunters around, and I'm focusing on a lot of times it's less of the property. I'm time, there's only ten percent or less of the property. Um, a few acres here or there that it's either overlooked or other hunters aren't going, And that's where the big boys are living. You know, in daylight they're betting. So um at that that makes sense. That was good. I guess I tied into the I tied a little bit into the war you know, um, the but Bucks betting man. We could, we could cover a whole podcast of what I've seen, um betting behaviors. But yeah, um, well so around here, like like I said, the primary ingredient is security, you know. And I know that's allows the explanation because everybody wants something that they can just take and be like, oh, Buck's bed in here, because Joe says so, well, I can't say that, you know, I don't. I don't know your situation, but I do know that Big Bucks primary goals staying alive. So he's gonna bed where he can easily see here, smell something sneaking up on him, and he can get out of there preferably without the hunter or Kyo or whatever it is ever know when he's there. Um, and uh, you know, so in hells Bucks love bed nun points you know on this little secondary ridges, um at the military crest, wind coming over their back, see that all the time. Well, you throw the hunting pressure into a into a uh you know, into a situation, and that's when I start to see some funky things like I'll see Bucks bending down low on real low benches and points. I'll see him you know, when you get into more open farm country, you see him betting on the tips of draws, their little ile in the timber, or even out on terraces. Um. And every single time you see a betted buck, um, I highly recommend you go there and you sit down in the bed. And I didn't come up with that. You know, that's Dan Infalt, who runs the Hunting Beast. As the first guy heard talking about that, I absolutely agree. You know, go and sit down with that bucks betting. Feel where that winds coming from. Almost always, unless you're in real thick cover, um And and it may not be wind based betting, almost always that winds coming over the bucks back in some quarter quartering way. At least he's watching downwind. He's got good visibility down wind. You just can't you can almost all the time with a mature buck, you physically cannot get in close to him without him busting out of there, you know, And to kill him, you gotta get as close as you can, but not bust him. So you might that might be two hundred yards, that might be fifty yards, dependent on the cover, you know, and in the direction you want. Uh, you know, you know, he probably wants to head out of that bed and set up and uh, you know, if he's home when you hunt there, uh, you can get him. So it's uh. I'm I learned more and more about buck betting every single year, so I don't consider myself an expert, but UM, I mean the biggest thing you've got to take away is buck You know, bucks are you trying to stay alive. So wherever they're betting is where they know they can detect danger and they can get the hell out of dodge. So I got a question for you. Um, I've never uh and this is specifically to the farms that I hunt, and they're a mixture of uh, like those big draws with egg and all that stuff. So I have never found something that resembles a buck bed that is um, I want to say, used so much that there's white belly hair in it, you know, and stuff like that. I'm I feel that on my farms there's different betting areas for different winds. It's specifically on some of the properties that you hunt. What do some of these buck bed locations? I know you've you mentioned it, but specific what do they look like? Yeah, that's a good that's a good point, um, because I think I think a lot of guys get turned off, you know, they they get fired up thinking about buck beds and thinking about, okaymna hunt this bed and buck comes back every day for weeks on end, and I'm gonna kill him. It doesn't you know, I don't see that either. I am probably just about kind of one hand a number of beds buck beds that I found. And I mean, you know, I well, you know, every mile or every year I walked, you know, three hundred miles, two hundred miles scouting and hunting, so like a hugas amount of territory. Um. You know, I don't see very many buck beds worn to the ground. You know, bull shaped hair in there that are just getting a huge amount of youth. But most of the time in hill country, and you know, in hill country, I think betting is different than say in swamps, where there's very limited bedding areas, you know, and you have to bed in this specific spot, you know, on this group ball or you're sitting in water. Um. But in hills, a lot of times I see buck betting areas are very defined. Yet so you know, next time you see a buck bed, um look around and see you know, even a lightly use you know, one bed a buck betted here is a great big bed you betted here some time last several days. We'll look around and see if there's other lightly used beds, because three or four real lightly used beds equals a ton of use, you know, if they add you know, and that one might be you know, twenty ft over that direction, and then another one might be thirty yards in this direction. So um, that's kind of how I look at it. And they're lightly used, you know there there might be only you know, okay, the sign of that a buck betted there once in the last week, you know. Um, and uh when I see one, and quite often say on the same secondary ridge point, I'll find several lightly used beds, and then what I really like to find our one or two perennial rubs, so you know, they're the last year's rubs, and there's time marks from two years ago and three years ago on that same old tree, twisted narral tree. And man, that that just makes me, you know, the hair on my next stand out, because I know a buck has been using this location multiple you know, multiple years. There's clearly a reason. Um, And then I start looking Okay, what are the food sources in the area, what are the you know, during the rut, what direction is he probably go on? What direction are the rubs facing? Sometimes there's a rub line coming into that betting area. A lot of times there isn't necessarily a rub line, but out to three yards you might find a rub or two, and but they're facing into or out of that betting area. Well, that gives you a line of travel. You know, he was going that way, you know, on that particular time anyway, and not necessarily every time, but every every little bit a clue, and you can really piece together, um, you know, kind of you know, the spider web of activity that he's got going on, and that that betting location is a focal point um, and you can just in herols. You can pretty much take to the bank where that that is where when he was sitting there, the wind was blowing over his back, so you can look in that and then you can match up, Okay, what day was the wind there? While it was that day and uh, you know, and continue to piece things together. So I you know, I scrolled through historical weather all the time. I'm looking comparing trail camera sightings too. Um, you know, historical weather conditions all the time. I'm a spreadsheet nut. I keep a kind of spreadsheets, and especially if I'm after one specific book. I started logging when I saw him where I saw him? What weather conditions? Um, you know, I I go crazy. I'm looking at you know, barometric pressure and and moon phase and all that. So can you can you elaborate on those pieces there because we haven't really talked about the factors the you know, I'm trying to think about the right way to categorize these factors are I don't know, weather, moon pressure, humidity, anything like that. What specifically are you looking for there? What do you think is important? What's not important? Um, let's hear about that. Yeah, so all right, UM, So admittedly I am I am. I'm a married I love looking at uh data or trends. I should put it that way, um, because I'm a deer hunting married you know, I don't wear a tie for a living. Um anyway, anyway, they so I'm trying to think honestly. You know, if if you're out to look at one thing, look at look at well two things, look at stage in the rock and weather. You know, and I think you know, I've even heard you guys talk about, you know, paralysis by analysis. That's a dangerous thing. I mean, you know, you're looking at more things than you should be looking at. You know, you need to dial it down, focus on the big stuff. You know, it's easy to get distracted by little stuff. You know, I mentioned the moon. I consider the moon a secondary factor. Some guys, you know, think it's loo need to even talk about the moon. But you know, I think I do see a few trends. But frankly, I'm not even looking at it that closely these days because I'm really focusing back on weather. UM. And you know, okay, so for weather, you have wind speed and barometric pressure and temperature UM and all precipitation too. But if you just look at temperature, barometric pressure and wind speed, UM, you know that that's complicated. Complicated enough UM, the temperature, you know, everybody pretty much understands that. But you have barometric pressure and wind speed. Those are related. So when you have rapidly changing parametric pressure, that means your wind speeds rapidly changing. Sorry vice versa. When you have when you have high winds, usually that means your parametric pressure is rising or falling pretty fast. And uh, you know, hypermetric pressure usually associated with good weather low pressure, and so it's with bad weather. But not only do you have high, medium and low pressure, you have rising and falling pressure. So you know, you can have high and rising, high and falling you know. So it's it's bloody complicated. Um. So I can see how a lot of guys, you know, your eyes start glazing over and you're like, I'm not going to listen to that, but just my general observation. So obviously, you know, guys know, hey, we've got a cold front. It's gonna be good hunting. Well, I try to look, Okay, what exactly in that cold front makes good hunting? Um, cold fronts come in all shapes. Inside is big ones, little ones, you know. Um, the bigger the better, obviously, the bigger the temperature drop and the larger the high pressure behind it. And you know, if a cold front might last three days, I'm not hunting all those three days. I want to hunt once in that three days, when is the very best time for me to hunt? Well that it relates a little bit too exactly when the you know what kind of pattern I have on a deer. But I mean, as far as best activity, I love when the pressure is high, like the day after the cold front is just reaching the highest point, you know. And I've heard Mark Durry talk about that too, and I absolutely agree, Like you know, that first full day in the cold front is fantastic. Well, I also like a little later in the cold front, you can when you get us wind switch, and I've heard Mark talk about that too, the first south wind. Well, I don't know if it's a south wind per se, but just when that wind switches, I think deers start to frequent new betting areas um, and maybe enter an exit food source a little differently. Um. And you see really good deer movement then um. And you know I'm trying to I am usually hunting really tight to bedding, but I'm still looking for optimal deer movement conditions, even though you know, I'm not hunting food plots and stuff, you know, but i want every extra minute that I can have with that big buck on his feet. Um. And I firmly believe he gets up a little earlier and moves around just a little more, you know, on those optimal days. So so that's weather um, you know, I mean temperature. My thoughts on temperature. You know, seventy degrees in early October, deer can move fairly well. Still, seventy five degrees in early November kills activity unless maybe you know it might be worth while hunting the water source. Um. Otherwise you're probably only seeing anything on in dusk. Um about um. You know one thing and put turl cameras on water holes. And I've noticed a lot of use by Big Bucks right at mid day on warm days. Even they get thirsty in the middle of the day and they come in for a drink. But um, anyway, so you know temperature um. Wind speed in the hills has a huge impact on deer activity. The stronger the wind, the more likely those deer are going to seek shelter. Now, a lot of guys say, say, you know, I've heard this a lot of times. It winds flowing thirty four. Deer arn't moving. I think deer move great. They're moving differently there. You have to get out of the wind to hunt them. And sometimes you know, your occurrens can get all of squirrely when you're setting up in strong wind. Out of the wind the hills. UM but um, I love cold days with a screaming wind. You know, in October or November, deer just stack up on those sheltered leeward slopes and down low. Um. Not of some great hunts doing that. Um. And uh, you know everybody else is sitting at home saying the wind's too strong and deer at moving. But I'm seeing deer moving. They're not out in the wind. I wouldn't be either, although sometimes you have to be. It's crappy because you maybe third you up a tree and swaying and freezing to death, and down at the base of the tree, everything's nice and calm up there. Just just to have a decent wind in that kind of situation. Joe, Um, how do you how do you hunt that situation? Because that's one of the things you always hear about, is that it's safer to hunt higher up because your wind is gonna be more consistent. If you go down low, it's more apt to have that wind swirling and or get detected. So on those windy days when bucks and other deer have moved down lower where they can be sheltered, how can you still hunt them down there without getting winded? Yeah? Well, good question, um, because it's tough. So for one, so one thing I didn't while scouting, UM A lot of times I take scent checker with me. Um. It's one of the same, one of many things I learned on the on the hunting beast. Um. I use um uh those little cotton fluffy from milkweed. Um, and that is by far the best scent checking um or the not set checking jeez, confusing myself. Even wind wind checkers um. Uh. Anyway, you dropped those wind checkers um, and you can, you know, watch how they float down through the woods for quite a way, far further than just if you had a little squirt bottle of powder. I can't believe I used it. I carried her on a squirt bottle of powder trying to check the wind for twenty years before I figured that out. Um. But anyway, so while scouting, UM, say, say we got a strong wind. While scouting, will drop into a low area that I know is you know, and this is outside of the season. UM. I probably wouldn't be doing it three days before a hunter or something. UM. But I'll drop into a low area and I'll even climb a tree and see, okay, you know you can find, you can see funny things in the hills. Um. You know, a wind wind can be coming over a ridge, a real strong wind, and you can get on that leeward side. Verbals can be rising. But if it's real cold and cloudy out, you won't have a whole lot of thermal activity. You'll actually have a vertical updraft. And it's a fluid mechanics thing, all right. So um, that strong wind over the top of the ridge is actually lower pressure and uh, the wind is just moving constantly up that leeward side and you actually can hunt that leeward side down low if you need to, and that wind will be coming up in your face going up the ridge really consistent. Um, it's it's pretty amazing up until then will start really falling hard, which might happen in day like my not depends on weather conditions. But um, usually I don't go into a low area unless I tested out first, Um, you know, just to be clear, like like hunting down low and tricky. And I really like to you know, that's you know, I coper my bet so uh, I like to know. I you know, I win there in March and I dropped, you know, and I should have a wind just consistently, even though it's forty miles an hour up on the ridge top, you should be five to ten down there, and it's just gently blowing down the valley, you know. Um, and uh, you know I can usually get that, and then sometimes we'll just get crazy, squirrely winds. I have spots. I have a long list of spots, and I can't hunt because I don't have a consistent wind. And that's something I feel strongly about, Like, I will not haunt a marginal wind. I want something that's pretty darn consistent. I won't even I won't even try. Um, I've had you know, I've done that many times for the past, and I learned my lesson. You know, you push a marginal wind about nine times out of ten, it's not gonna work, you know. So, um, how I guess that's a little bit on that. Yeah, how close do you cut it? Though? Because I think with some of the things you're talking about, and maybe you haven't mentioned this specifically, but a lot of people we talked to you talk about trying to cut the corners on that. So they want they want to they don't want to use the marginal wind too often. But at the same time, they want to try to take advantage of how mature buck will use the wind. So you want that buck to think the wind sort of his favor. He's using the wind in some way, but somehow you're able to just cut it. Do you do you do you think about that way when you're setting up? Yeah? Yeah, all right, So oh let's see. So I see bucks using the wind to their advantage a lot of times around destinations. So when they're coming back into bed, they try to hook into the wind to get the wind in there their nose. When they're entering a food source, I often see them enter from the downward side or even just a low area. They slip into the lower area. While that's a site advantage they're not skylined, but it's also a lot of times when they're entering, say right at last light or right after dart, those thermals are falling and they're pooling in those lawyer areas um and also low areas and hill country in the pre rout bucks like to move through those lawer areas and they can scent check the surrounding ridges. So outside of those destinations, I honestly don't I think bucks moving across wind, moving a tail wind. You know, if if they don't think there's danger right next to them. Um, you know, I I've killed a lot of bucks with the wind blowing on their back. I've killed a lot of bucks on a cross wind. Um. It's only around those specific destinations. And you know, a lot of times I am hunting close to a bed. But say I find jay hooks to be relatively small, say less than a hundred yards. You know, he comes in and he's gonna be coming by like fifty yards down wind to the bed and then hook in. That's just an example. Every situation a little different. But I might set up a hundred and fifty yards from the bed and kill him. And a cross wind, you know, so um, I you know, every situation is different, and you guys probably probably know that. But um, I will if I need to, I'll i'll. You know, the closer I the closer I have to cut it, the more careful I am. You know, I'm usually not hunting down in the valley with a butt coming in from thirty degrees down wind, you know, almost straight in from down wind, because it's just naturally download you're gonna get a little squirrely wind. But if I can get him coming in across with you know, across, um, I'm pretty confident I can kill him, unless you know, hunting gods are against me. Yeah, unfortunately seem to be against me more often than that. So, with with all that said, when do you choose to be aggressive? Yeah? Yeah, so, um it's a loaded question. I mean it takes experience, you know, And I just to be clear, like I've screwed up so many times, like like and every single screw up you know, I mentioned that that written are view on wire time, like every single screw up valuable because you can learn something from it. So when when should I be aggressive? Well, I've learned to favor being aggressive, you know, and not every time. But if I'm going to make a move, I'm going all out. I'm not sitting in an observation set. All there are times when you know, observation sits makes sense. But if I think a buck is going to be using a betting area, I'm sitting right next to his betting area. I'm hunting it. In the evening, I'm hunting, you know, just out of sight and sound and scent of him, just just over the hill basically. UM. Usually, or if I'm hunting in the morning, I'm hunting in there. You know, I'm getting in there before he cuts home. He's either if he's coming, I'm gonna kill him. He's gonna bust me. His game over, I'm gonna move on to another one. So but you know I'll do that once. Boo, that's it. And then that's that's kind of why. UM. I stacked the deck by lining up you know, six or eight high odds. Uh. You know high odds set ups, and I hit them all. You know, I and the high at the best of the best. I'm not trying to hit one twice. I'm not worried about hunting one twice. Occasionally I'll hunt hunt one twice like this. Uh. It's kind of a perfect example, I guess to answer your question, dan, Um, I had camera sitting there in August and September on which is off the edge of um a felf field, a public land, and I got this really big bodied nine pointer coming in routinely and he was frankly, he was on the best pattern I've ever seen. He was just after dark coming into this field. But I think I got him. I don't know. It was a bunch of times over a course of a month. I slipped in camera was in an easy access point um right an edge of the field. A lot of other guys walked the field and that that deer never showed up in daylight usually didn't um. I think once or twice he did actually show up in daylight. Most of the time it was after dark. Well, I knew he was betting on private land, but the public land extend a couple hundred yards back into the woods. Um. And then I where I suspected his betting was um was there's several big knobs I could tell from Google Earth. It's been recently logged, so it was fairly thick um on a ridge a couple hundred yards beyond math Um. So I knew as soon as I and he was entering from that side of the field. Almost all the pictures were from northerly winds, and that lined up to that that those you know betting on those knobs, those were leeward slope. That was on a leeward slope for a northerly wind. So I wanted to take advantage of that pattern as soon as I could. UM it was an early season you know. If I could kill an early season book, this was it. Um and uh So I think October one, I had a north northeast wind or something, and I snuck in there set up, you know, fifty yards from the property line probably and I didn't see him, but I saw um there there was a little eight poter that often traveled with him, and that eight pointer came through. And then I had also heard chainsaw and basically an exact spot where I suspected he was betting a couple hundred yards further on on the private um. So you know, so I thought, well, maybe that chain saw disturbed him. So a week later, November or October seven, I think, um and and I should mention I got in there in the previous year too, using this food source. So it was an early season food source. That's one thing. He was coming in a consistent wind. That's a second baryo of the lining up. Um. You know, and I could hunt fairly close to where I thought his betting was. As kind of a third thing. Um, So that's what I you know, those three things lined up, and that's what I'm not looking for just one thing. It's a series of things lining up, Boom, take advantage of it. October seven, I moved in. I actually hunted a different spot, and I was hunting for Maturio was on the ground um that I hunted. Maybe I moved maybe thirty yards because I suspected that big buck had come in and the course of that week had smelled where I was, and he was not going to come with him bullshadow that tree. So I moved thirty yards and here I was yards from the fence now, and that big buck came in and I killed him, um, And he was about twenty five yards of me. I shot him right after he jumped the fence um onto the public land, and he was twenty five yards down wind to me, and he would have been fifty yards down wind of the tree I originally hunted. I am certain he was down there for a reason. He was gonna he was coming through right there to smell if a hunter had been in my first tree, um, because that's where i'd been a week ago, you know. So that's the case. You know, I hunted that twice, um, And And to be honest, it was a gut feeling. I couldn't easily not seen him that second hunt but I did. I mean, it was just and that comes with experience, you know, you gotta and an experienced only comes from screwing up thousands of times, you know, but you gotta learn from your mistakes. So um yeah, yeah, I guess that cultfully, I've answered your question. So we've talked out this idea of when to be aggressive. We talked earlier about how you're finding where these deer are. We've talked about the right conditions to strike, um, but one thing we haven't really heard about is how you're specifically setting up on them. Because you you've mentioned a number of times almost all these hunts are first time sits in a spot, so that means you're you know, you've either set up stands in the summer or spring, or you're going in there and you mentioned your mobile lot, so you're going in there and actually hanging and hunting that day of Can you tell us specifically, you know, how you're hanging and hunting these spots without you know, without spooking deer, and whether it be specific gear you're using, or things you're thinking about while you're setting up, how you're setting up anything like that. Yeah. Um, yeah, So so while scouting. I want to pick. Um. Hey, I realized I did proble must do it allows your job by explaining what I did scouting, because all these questions you're asking answering me. I was like, well, I'm scouting. We could just be the hosts. We might be yeah, yeah, that's all. You've got a lot more I think. I'm pretty sure you've got more practice doing your thing than I do doing this, So it's probably me. Yeah. Um, I'm picking trees, um and marking turees. I just got a GPS actually UM button. Before that, I was still picking trees and marking them that I want to hunt out of in the spring. Um. And also I do a lot of hunting from the ground. Um. I do a lot more hunting from the ground and a lot of people I think, um, and that's got you in a separate tangent. But I'm picking spots to set up on the ground now, um, just real quick ground hunting. It's really tricky. You've gotta have the element of surprise on your on your favor a feel things I look for. I want to see dear coming from a distance at least fifty yards away, and I don't want you know, I wouldn't set up on the ground in the middle of the dope betting area. You know, it's got to be a very safe location, you know, in terms of number a year around you. Um. But I've killed a lot of big box with a bow off the ground. Um. And I'd say mostly it's because Element a Surprise. They had no clue a human is going to be there until you know they came through and they caught my arrow. So um. And I'm not using the pop uplind. I hate pop uplines, you know. I mean they serve a purpose, but I just hate hunting out of them because I feel boxed in, you know. I it's like you sitting in a cubicle band. That's how I feel sitting in the pop up blinds. So so um, I'm building just a rough line. It doesn't even look like a blind. I'm leaning up three or four logs against a tree, just enough to break up my outline. It really does not take much and not be skylined. Things like that, and Element of Surprise can't get over that. You know, on at once works doesn't work, move on and then from hunting from a tree. Um. The last few years I've I've used. You know, I used to hang stands before the season. Now I haven't hung a stand on public land and I don't know several seasons at the very least, Um, I don't on a tree sandle. Mobile is the way to go. Um. You know, it's hard to convince somebody who's used to hunt out of a ladder stand or out of a thick stand to some kind you know all season long, UM, to try mobile. It's like it's so much work. Are you insane? You know I've got I'm sure you both of you guys have gotten that too. I know you guys you know hunt, you know you running gun? Um, But like you just it's incredible. How much more success, how much more quote unquote luck I've had hunting mobile than when I hunted fixed sufficial stands. Um And uh, so you know I'll use climbing sticks. Get up there. Um. I I've actually built a little kind of a rest on the top stick. So that's what I seek. Go sitting in my tree saddle. Um And uh. You know, I'm probably hunting out of a tree sixty of the time. But even though I'm hunting out of a tree and the majority of the time I'm killing most of my big bucks on the ground, and that's just something I kind of just realized the last year or two. I was like, wow, you know, uh, something's going on there. And frankly, I'm still kind of steady in that um. And I think it's because I'm hunting places that you really can't realistically hunt from a tree. Maybe there's a tree there, but the you know, the when I killed in he that busted me in the tree or there, or maybe there is noble tree there, you know, like the buck I talked about back. Um, you know they're the trees were you know, two to three inches in four inches in diamee, probably not even four inches in diameter. You know, I would have had a hunt fifty yards away to have a hontable tree on the edge of that cut over. And even then, uh, you know, srimming is illegal on almost all Iowa publicly hounds. Maybe there's something it is, but as far as I know, you're not supposed to cut any branches. I would have had to, you know, break the law and cut this human shooting lane, which I wasn't gonna do into this clear cut um old cutover just to be able to shoot through that canopy. Um and uh, and you know a deer to detected that anyway. So um, yeah, that's hunting where I need. You know, let the deer tell you where you need to hunt, and then you just have to commit to hunting there one way or another. And I've gotten busted on the ground, uh, you know a number of times. Um. But I've also you know, I've also busted a few bucks doing it too. So well, that makes sense. Um, And I think that what you're saying there is consistent with a lot of the best hunters and mature bucks that we talked to. So many people prioritize that first set. So many people prioritize getting into those places and taking advantage of that element of surprise, whether it be in a tree or on the ground. But I think by bye, by being mobile in that way, by not hanging stands beforehand, and and by forcing yourself to be mobile. While it has that inherent challenge and it's more work that you have to do in the moment, it kind of makes things easier for you. And the fact that you don't get lazy like me. I've got a bunch of stands pretty hung in a bunch of places. I'm always tempted to get lazy, because yeah, it could be mobile, but I've already got this great spot here that's all set up. Um, do I really want to go through all that work? Um, you're constantly battling that temptation. While in a situation like where you're talking about, where you just simply have to set up a new stand or sneak into a new spot in the ground, it's much more likely that you're going to be able to take advantage of that first time opportunity just because you've kind of set yourself up for it. So I like, I like, I like the way you're approaching that, and I've got I've got one issue. Um. The bad news here is that I would like to keep talking to you about this stuff for a long long time, because we're talking about really in some things. But we have a hard stop coming up here in a relatively short amount of time, and I want to make sure I get to at least one final set of questions that I have. UM, and Dan might have something final two, but here's my question for it. My final set of questions. It's a two parter um based on what I've heard from you today. Um, And based on the fact that you you said earlier that you've probably listened to every single episode of the Wintertime podcast, and from what I'm hearing you, you analyze things to great detail. You really look at the the details. Um, you dig it on stuff. So if I had to make a guess about you, I would imagine that after hearing me and Dan talk about how we hunt over the course of a hundred and fifty episodes, you've probably you've probably picked up some things about what we're doing and maybe have some thoughts on what we're doing right or wrong. So here's what I want to know from you, Joe. And if if you don't want to answer this, you don't have to. But yeah, here's what I like to know that. Yeah, So, based on what you've heard me and Dan say about how we hunt, I would like to know what you would recommend I change if anything in how I'm hunting, or if there's a specific thing you've heard that you think that maybe I screwed up or anything. Then and then number two, what would you say for Dan in that situation? Oh? Boy? Oh, let's see. Well, okay, so all right, So the first thing, and I don't really. It's don't really have a reason for this first thing that pops into my head regards d N. So I'm gonna start there, M yeah, yeah, yeah yeah yeah. Uh one. So there's one thing, and you're probably gonna say hell hell know of this. So run your trail cameras like you normally do all summer long, right in come September. Put a padlock on everyone in your cameras so you can't open them. Put those keys in an envelope and mail that envelope to me, and I'll mail it back to you, and I'll mail it back to you and in November. Okay, so you can get back into your cameras. But I mean, you've got so much going for you. Then you're hunting mobile because you have you know how hard it is to hunt. Convinced somebody to hunt mobile, They're like, oh, well, you know, like you've never done that before. You know, you're running a gun and you're on You've got slop bucks running down there round you know, behind every tree in southern Ile, right, Um yeah, but like don't pay attention, like I swear I've heard you say, man, I was a day late or you know a hunt light or whatever, like ten times on podcast. It's because I swear, I don't know. I think you're hunting with your cameras too much, like use them to hunt, but not like, oh there's a buck there three days ago, it's hunt there. Just ignore that, like for the time being. That put it in the bank, and you know, um pull it out and telling me. You're telling me that I should rely on last year's data than this year's data. Yep, yep. And I know you know, I listen to your podcast too. I know you're using UM uh that that that software package that helps you analyze trail cameras, and you know that's a great tool by all. You know, if you're comfortable using it, use it. UM. And you've said you've been noticing a lot of things. I mean, that's exactly what I'm talking about. So look at you know when peak rut movement is when a big buck is you know, moving honest feet in daylight, you know, and what conditions you know it's not you know, maybe it was November fifth last year, it's not necessarily going to be November five this year. But within a few days of that, with similar weather, he's probably gonna be there, you know, you know if you got the lucky there last year. You know, guys don't forget something like that, you know. So Um, one question, one question to elaborate on what you just told me. Let's say I go in and I hunt a tree stand right, that's maybe just up from a pinch point, and I got a trail camera down in that pinch point. Should if I go in there to hunt, should I go down an extra forty yards to check that camera? Or should I still just forget about it? Um? I would probably if I had to cross any deer trails whatsoever, I would probably forget about it, like any more deer trails, or I would check it. If I really didn't, I was like, you know what, I'm probably not going to come back here in hunt. Then go ahead and check it if you're if you're realistic, you know, and who knows, maybe you've got bucks running all over on camera and that will give you, you know about even then I'm like, okay, you left more set there, um, But I don't know. I I have learned a lot more, for instance, I'm sure, And so I'll hang a camera and sometimes I'll have a big buck, you know, immediately, but usually it takes three to five days after I put hang a camera to see what seems like natural movement. And I only know that because I left in a month. You know, in that first three to five days, movements really intermittent, and I swear it's because I left ground step there and you know, some deer reacting to it some day or noticing it. And then I'll stay away for a while, but then eventually you'll come back. And if I leave that sucker there for a month, that last three weeks, um, you know, and yes, and I even see that, I'll leave a camera there and I'll get another hunter walk through, um and boom, no activity for two days, and then activities start seeing. You know, okay, a deer moving this way in the morning and that way in the evening. You know, I start seeing more normal activity. So I know there are situations where people can check cameras really low impact, but I think it's a inc minority. And especially if you you know, it's really powerful if you can put a camera where you want to hunt next year, because it's you know, it's a high potentially a relatively high impact location, you know, maybe near bedding or whatever. Let it's so you're not there, it's watching you know, for a full month, two months. You can leave it there all year if you want. Um. It tells you a huge amount of information. So uh yeah there, um yeah yeah. So Mark, Um, I know you're chasing that big old buck in Michigan. UM. I mean, well, obviously your dial and and your situation a little different because as you've I've followed that story, I know you had him basically dead the rights and the muzzleloader and chose not to take him, which is I think it's pretty admirable. UM. But uh, you know you want to kill him with the bow. Um, try to kill him the very first time. UM. And by that I mean I mean, and I don't know your property. Maybe you can sit observation, but uh, I know, UM, in the past you've talked about kind of moving in, moving in. Um. You know, maybe you can sit if you consider zero impact observation sit by all means do it. But if your observation is any impact whatsoever, go for the kill. UM. So I expect to hear hear about you stick in that book about October two this fall, I hope. So that's that's the hope. I plant or not. Yeah, yeah, I guess just I challenge you not to be incremental. Um, you know, sit back and then pounces. Um. But yeah, you know, and of course you know you can and if you get burned, you can you know, box up a you know, a bunch of dog crap and send it to me. I guess I might just do that. It what happens, you know. That's that's the challenge of Hutt in one buck. You know, I've been there. I've killed a couple of bucks where it's like this buck and this is the only buck. I burned myself out on one buck too, you know, and I try to avoid it for that reason, like like and I mean, I love the chase. You know. We're all suckers, you know. We see that shot, you know, you know, and and for Michigan what you're hunting, you know, I said hunt one. You know I'm well aware of that. Um you know, so we're suckers for you know, that one awesome, magnificent deer. But um, you know, I I fight against it, man, because I've been burnt in that end of the season. You know, that's a you know, I think, Um, I chased one bucks for a while, and uh, you know, I didn't end up filling my boat tag and at the end of the year, I you know, I looked at I was like, well, that was the east of time, you know, And that's a terrible, terrible mindset and with and I probably shouldn't, but um, you know that's why I try not to. But good luck, thank you. Yeah, it's definitely one of those things that it can be the ultimate high and the ultimate low. That's for sure. If there's anything I've learned about chasing one buck, it's uh, it's a roller coaster, no doubt about that. So so that was great. I I I appreciate you taking a stab at the hosts there. And Dan, I guess i'll leave you. Do you have any final question before we let Joe go? I do not, all right, except will you come on again? Oh yeah? Oh yeah absolutely. Yeah. So just I don't know if I should do this, but Mark, and this is coming from Mark Dan as an ice breaker, I probably should. I probably should crack a couple of ginger jokes. Okay, okay, are you a ginger as well? No, no I'm not, but I'm married a ginger and I have a daughter who's a anders. So I'm surrounded by them, so you know, don't you don't need to You don't even jump across the phone line and kill me. My wife will kill me. The beard, my beard games ginger. Right, So the hair though I'd fit in, I'd fit right in if I decided to shave, but I'm getting so the beard covers that up. Are you going to give? Oh? Man? Uh, well, I've got, I've got. It's got to be a p u. Let's see. Oh so, so how does how does every redhead joke begin by the joke teller looking over their shoulder to make sure there's no gingers around? What do you? Let's see? Oh this all? Uh? What type of ginger doesn't let gingers? Sorry? What type of train doesn't let gingers ride a soul train? I know that was me? Sorry, Dad, don't kill me. I'm used to it. Yeah, yeah, that's all right. But yeah, I was trying to take of a couple of Michigan jokes to actually just to spread the law. Um. The only the only one I could take of is there was two Michigan hunters and they went into the woods to hunt deer, and it came across a set of tracks and one with a big set of tracks, and one was like, that's a big buck. We gotta follow hunt that buck down. The other one is like, there's no way that's a buck. That's got to be a cow. While they were both certain they're right, and they sat there arguing and the train hit them. Yeah, sorry, that was being smart. Yeah, I know, and of course that was Yeah, that was a blonde joke originally, but I just had to stake Michigan, you know, to be fair. So it worked, well, it works well yeah, yeah, well, Joe, you and I've heard I've heard my share of Iowa in bread knuckle jaggon dril jokes, so I could take it to everybody knows. Uh man, Well, this is fun, and I think, um, I can't think, I speak for Dan and myself here that you share a lot of really interesting, helpful things for all of us. So, like Dan said, we we should try to get you on again in the future and maybe we can talk about our progress of our two thousand seventeen season or something like that, because this has been great. So Joe, thank you so much. Yeah, no problem, thanks for having me. I mean, it's it's pretty awesome talking to you guys, so good luck, good luck we don't talk again before the season and and uh yeah, I hope you gott I hope to see some awesome field kill photos from both of you, absolutely, and we hope to see the same from you. And with that, we're going to wrap a bow on episode number one and fifty and help out that one awesome awesome stuff. I am just so ready for hunting season. I cannot wait to chase some white tails and this has just got me more pumped than ever. But that said, before we go big thanks to our partners at Sitka Gear, Yetie Cooler's, Matthew's Archery, Maven Optics, white Tail, Institute of North America, Trophy Ridge, and hunt Terra Maps. And finally, thank you all for listening. I hope you enjoyed this one as much as I did, and I hope you'll stay wired to hunt

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