00:00:02 Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your home for deer hunting news, stories and strategies, and now your host, Mark Kenyon. Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. I'm your host, Mark Kenyan. This is episode one nine and today the show we were joined by one of the most successful d I Y deer hunters in my home state of Michigan and across the country, John Eberhart, and in this episode we dive deeper than ever into his secrets for hunting tough to kill big bucks. Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, brought to you by Sick Gear. And today in the show, we've got a repeat guest, John Eberhart. And you've probably heard me say it before. You'll hear me say it again later in this interview. But John was one of the most influential people in my evolution as a deer hunter. About a decade ago, I read his book Precision Bow Hunting, and it completely turned how I hunt and how I think about hunting upside down. From that point, for my level of success has increased exponentially. So if you were not familiar with John, he's an outdoor writer, frequently published and outlets like Deer and Deer Hunting magazine, and he's the author of three books, including the aforementioned Precision Bow Hunting, Bow Hunting I Think It's Bow Hunting Pressured white Tails, and Bow Hunting white Tails of Eberhart Way and John specializes in sharing tactics and strategies for hunting mature white tail bucks in heavily pressured areas, these types of places where deer are particularly spooky and hard to hunt because of the constant presence of other hunters. If you hunt in an area like this, John's advice is golden. But even if you hunt in a less hunted area, the level of detail and focus that John puts into his hunting and tactics it can be applied just as successfully and probably probably even more so in lesser pressured regions. I've always said that if you can find success in a heavily pressured hunting area and perfect the tactics for those deer, and then apply those tactics to lesser hunted areas, you know you're just gonna be an absolute terror to those unexpecting deer. So today that's exactly what we're gonna try to do, where you're going to arm you with the strategies and tactics to finally wrap a tag around the biggest, baddest, oldest buck in your area, whether that's in Iowa or Michigan, or Georgia or Indiana or anywhere in between. And if you haven't heard our first episode of John, I would highly recommend you listen to that one too. It's episode number sixty two, I believe, and we cover a lot of great material in that discussion, and today that we try to head into new territory. We discussed some very different details and subjects and then dive into specific examples of some of John's hunts to illustrate the concepts that led to his success. So that's the plan for today. I'm excited about this one. It is a really really good episode, I think, in my possibly biased opinion. But before we get to that, we do not have my coach Dan along with us for this one. So in this little extra time we have, I want to give you a bit of homework to take care of after you listen to this one. Um. On this same day that we published the episode you're listening to right now, I also published a new episode of my other podcast, The Wild Podcast, and that episode is a particularly interesting one as well as it features Mark Dury. You know, we all know Mark Jury, the mad Scientists of Drew Outdoors, and it features Mark discussing aggressive hunting tactics for mature bucks, including an in depth analysis of his hunt and thought process while targeting a giant buck in two thousand and sixteen. And I think this conversation with Mark on the Wild podcast and the conversation you're gonna here today with John they kind of provide an interesting illustration of how different tactics and philosophies can work in different areas and circumstances. I mean, both Mark and John have had a tremendous level of success, and they both put in a ton of work into those hunting efforts. You know, I admire in respect both of these guys and have learned so much from the two of them. But I bring this up because I think it's important for for all of us hunters really to open our minds to as many different concepts and the ideas as possible. You know, whether it be from someone like Mark hunting a carefully managed farm in Iowa, or from someone like John hunting small public and private pieces in Michigan, taking all these things into taking them all in and filtering through these new ideas to find what sticks, what doesn't, and what could be applied to your own situation where you hunt. Um. You know, if you listen to both of these conversations, I think you're gonna hear some very different ideas, but you're also going to notice some underlying currents of consistency despite those very different circumstances, and that that's pretty interesting to me. I'd encourage you to to chew on those differences and similarities, and I think if you do that, you're gonna find a few things you can apply to your own hunting style and circumstances and methodology. I think it's safe to say that we all can grows hunters, no no doubt about that. And I think it's important that we not get too locked into only considering and hearing advice from people just like us. You know, new and different perspectives are so key, and that's I think that's true in life and in hunting. But when it comes to deer hunting, opening yourself to these new ideas and then properly filtering and thinking about how they may or may not apply to your own hunting. That's one of the very most important skills that you can play to improve your success in the field. So all this to say, when you finish this one, go download episode number forty one of the Wild Podcast with Mark Dury, Compare and contrast these ideas, do some thinking, and I bet you'll find some ideas from both of these cocks that can help you this upcoming season. I know we certainly have. So with that long and winding introduction out of the way, let's take a quick break to think our partners at Sick of Gear and today we've got an interesting Sick of story from our producer Spencer new Hearth as he throws things back to a turkey hunt of his from this past spring. For this week's Sitka story, I'm gonna talk about my final turkey haunt of this last spring that took place in the last week of April in South Dakota's Black Hills. Now, the Black Hills are known for a couple of things, one of them being their Merriam's turkeys, another one being there very volatile weather and the reason for that is they have a total mix of of different climates, like they have the Subarctic climate in one area like that of Alaska, and then they have a subtropic climate in another area like that of Florida, so planning a hunt there can be very difficult. I went out there scouting the day before and it was like mid seventies, beautiful weather, and the following day we got about eight inches of snow and the weather, the temperature was down in the teens. So it totally changed up what the turkeys were doing, and it totally changed up what I was doing now. On that haunt, I was really struggling to not only fine birds, but even get an idea of where they were at all. My scouting was thrown out the window because of the blizzard and the birds were now in survival mode, So rather than making your typical turkey setups and calling them in um, I had to just go after them and put a lot of miles on my boots that day, hoping to just come across flocks of birds, And that finally happened in the late afternoon when I cut the tracks that were crossing a snowy gravel road, and so the tracks were pretty small, and I followed them with hopes that it was at least a jake and when I got up on the tracks, I was bummed to find that it was a hen until that hen turned and showed me that she had a beard down South Dakota. It so you got to take any bearded turkey with a male turkey tag, And so I was really excited, childered my gun and dropped her with one concluding shot. Now, on that hunt, I was wearing Sitka's Stratus system, which worked out really well because the day before and I was scouting, it was perfect as a standalone set up, and the following day when the blizzard came, I was able to layer with it and keep on hunting. If you'd like to create a Sitka story of your own, or to learn more about Sitka's technical hunting apparel, visit sitka gear dot com. Alright here with us now on the line is John Eberhart. Thanks for joining us back on the show again. John. Thank you, Mark. I appreciate the offer to come on the show. You guys have a very popular show and definitely looking forward to it. I appreciate it. I um, you know, we were just talking a second ago before we started recording, and I've said this on the podcast several times in the past, but not to um to build you up too much, but you really are one of the most influential people on my hunting journey. UM. Your books early on, UM really kind of helped shape my focus areas and things that really took me from that guy who could maybe shoot a four corn buck to a guy that can maybe shoot him acture bucks. So I gotta thank you for that, and then I just guess I'm excited to have you on the show. Well, thank you very much, Mark, I, I really appreciate it. That's always been my goal is to help hunters be more successful because if you're a passionate deer hunter and you're successful at it, killimure books. It kind of almost changes your life, how you interact with people, how other hunters interact with you, how you deal with your family during your season. It's just the life changing experience. It definitely definitely isn't and our and our wives might say a consuming life experience as well. But yeah, so, so we had you on the podcast. I think it was two years ago now, I can't believe it's been that long ago. UM, But for those you know, we introduced you before we got you on, But just for those who aren't familiar. Can you give us like the Johnnyberhart one oh one, Like how would you introduce yourself to other deer hunters. I'd probably have to give myself a little bit of a bio, like when I'm doing seminars in the Midwest to expose Um, I'm sixty six, have been bowing fifty three years. I've got thirty bucks in the Michigan record book with a bow. Uh that's off nineteen different properties public land and knock on doors exclusively and no less don't own anything you don't not over bait and end up taking one out of state trips and I've killed nineteen bucks on those p and y bucks on those trips in those game off thirteen different properties in five different states. I love the fact that you've got all the data you quantify very well. That's awesome. Most people don't keep track of that, but that's that's it's really interesting to hear that and the numbers that are impressive, no doubt about that. Thank you. I'm curious you weren't always John Eberhardt the big buck Slayer, though, I'm sure, like, what was that evolution like for you? When you're just getting into it because I know, you know, early on, I think I remember chatting with you once and you said you you first really got an archery and then slowly made your way into hunting deer and then eventually old or dear um. But what was that like for you? Was that really challenging? And at what point did that light switch flip where you started being able to kill these these older, bigger deer. I've always been a person that likes to be challenged. I do a lot of different things like fish, I play pool, like golf. I do a lot of different things. And when I got into bow hunting, I you know, obviously back then I had no mentors, I had nobody in my family hunted. So I took it on by myself. And you know, I just started off trying to shoot anything and typically and I shot a couple of fons and I'm going back into the early sixties and shot uh, you know, then a doze. And then it got to the point where I kind of targeted subordinate year and a half old bucks and was getting pretty good at that. And it was just a succession. The better, the better I got, the more depth I became, the higher I set my goals, and it got to the point where in the mid seventies, um, I was pretty good at killing mature buck bucks in the areas that I was hunting so um And back then Michigan, I live in Michigan and it had a million gun hunters and there was no q DM, there was no you know, everybody killed anything that had legal three inch spikes, so you know, two and a half year old bucks were rare. Three and a half year olds were almost non existent. So it wasn't until probably the mid eighties into the early nineties when a lot of people started managing and passing up buck that I really started totally concentrating on three and a half and four and half and year old and older bucks and became very proficient that I didn't read anything anybody else wrote. I just did everything on my own. I still did this day. I've never read anybody's books. I don't read hunting articles, I don't watch TV shows. I don't know who most hunting personalities are. And it's just all been kind of self duck taught, and it's just been a competitive of deal with me. I just like to compete with myself and keep pushing myself to do the best I can do. That's kind of where its went. So I think something you said there is is a good point to emphasize for people. Increate me if I'm wrong here, But it sounds like you started hunting in the sixties and it wasn't until the mid eighties that you were consistently killing mature bucks. And by bringing up I just I mean to point out that it takes time, right, It's not something that can just happen you start hunting right away, you're killing mature bucks, right, It takes time to get to that point. Market totally depends on your situation nowadays with the high end leases and manage properties. You know, you know TV guys, their wives can you know, because they're hunting such exclusive properties with no competition, you know, their kids and wives to go out and start killing monster bucks immediately because they're hunting property with no competition. So I worked. I you know, I hunted in areas, public lands and knock on doors for free provision properties. I always had competition, so I was working to separate myself from the other hunters. So I was killing even in the mid mid to late seventies, I was killing the biggest bucks the area had to offer, which was typically a two and a half year old, you know the fourteen, sixteen and eight eight or ten point um. But then as time progressed and people started passing up up bucks on regular hunting properties you know ten acre acre for acre parcels and public lands, then I started killing three and a half and four and a half year olds because they existed where I was hunting in the seventies, they rarely existed because there's just so many gun hunters. They just kept everything mowed down. Um So, so I I guess I progressed to be proficient at killing mature bucks because of where I hunted. Today is different. You know, if somebody buys a big please is a big piece of property and micromanages that, you know they can go out and kill mature bucks relatively quickly because it doesn't take a lot of experience and knowledge because there's a lot of mature bucks in the area, because they don't have any competitions. So that needs to be like the TV guys for instance, most TV guys, if they had to get hunt in a pressured area, they wouldn't have a cool word to start right, Very very different circumstances, that's for sure, totally so okay, So what about this for someone that's in a similar situation to you, that just hunts private land by permission or public do you think it's easier or harder now for someone today in that situation versus you know, in the nineties, maybe twenty years ago, harder or easier to kill deer, or harder or easily already kill mature deer to kill mature deer in the same type of circumstances that you're talking about. I think it's actually easier. I think it's easier nowadays because I don't care where you're at in this country anymore. Even you know, whether you're in West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and New York where there's extreme hunting pressure, there's a there's a higher percentage of hunters now that are not happy shooting year in half hold bucks, and a lot of them will shoot two and a half year old bucks, and some of them will even pass up to an a half and kill three and a half. So there are more bucks even on public lands that are surviving to two and a half, three and a half and even maybe four and a half years old in their quarterback in the sixties and the seventies point, they just didn't heavily hunted public lands that they just didn't exist because everybody was trying to kill any legal antword buck. Yeah. What do you see in regards to pressure increasing in that time from from like the nineties till now on private and public? I mean, I feel like the narrative a lot of times that there's more and more people trying to get access on fewer and fewer properties, um and maybe the same on public Do you think have you seen that to be the case in your own hunting or what do you think? Uh? Yeah? And I also see a lot of people just giving up because there's so much emphasis now on trophy bucks and so many people now are buying up properties or leasing large parcels of properties keeping everybody off. It's it's extremely hard to get hunting permission anymore. So you know, it's pushing people to public lands. In some public lands, like in southern Michigan, for instance, where there's egg and a lot of huge pop general population, there's so much hunting pressure that people hunt there a few times, and a lot of people just if they're not that passionate about it. They just stopped out of hunting altogether. Our our gun hunting numbers in Michigan have went from a million back in the seventies to like seven thousand now. So the gun hunting, the gun hunting numbers have dwindled, and archery numbers have came up. Thought, and especially now that a lot of gun hunters are converting to the crossbows. What's the latest number you've seen there for archery hunters in Michigan About three. There's a lot of competition in the woods out there, force, isn't there absolutely? Yeah, keeps us on our toes, I guess, yeah, and uh, you know, and that's happening kind of everywhere. I think. You know, last couple of a a few years, I've struggled to getting a permit for Kansas because Kansas now allows full inclusion crossbow hunters to apply for the same archery tags as a as a bowl hunter. So they didn't raise the amount of permits available, but the number of applications coming in are a lot higher, So your odds getting drawn are like a lot smaller. Yeah. Yeah, I actually, um, I was expecting to draw my Iowa tag this year, and I got with the number of points I had. I'd been able to draw this tag in the past twice, so I thought this would be, you know, a gimme this year, but did not get it this year. So I think that you said that there's more non residents going in some of these places now than ever probably and more like you said, the crossbow influx. And I mean, I think it's a good thing that people are given, you know, archery, hunting a shot and experiencing you know how much fun it is. But it does make for some challenges too. Yeah, definitely. And I believe I was probably one of the few dates that has not allowed full inclusion crossbow yet. I don't think they have one of the very few. I may be mistaken, but I don't think they. Okay, most areas in Iowa does take three preference points to get drawn, so you get drawn every four years. Yeah, it's it's definitely one of those spots that you need to be patient, that's for sure. Yes, very very true. So before we go any further, um, and we're gonna go down all sorts of warmholes here, John, because I've got about seventy two different questions I'd like to ask you about the pepper you with everything I can possibly think of here Before we get to that, though, UM, I got wind of the fact that you've got a new project going on. Um kind of related to some of the things where we're talking about here today. Can you kind of feel us in on that real quick? Yes I can. I'm starting a new venture. It's called Eberhart's White Tailed Workshops, and I'm also scouting properties, travel scouting to scout properties and kind of what's different about what I'm doing. You know, there's a lot of guys that do land management scouting for people, tell more to hinge cut and put food plots and put wind rows and berms to funnel deer and stuff like that. But uh, you know they're they're speaking to a very limited audience of people at own and control their own property. You know, what I'm doing is whether you hunt public land or ten acres or uh you've you own forty acres or your leaf a hundred acres, doesn't matter what you're situation, or you're strictly a travel hunter, you travel out of state a lot, no matter the situation. My workshops are designed to teach people how to actually hunt in other words, Um, it's they're gonna be to day events. One's going to be in field on a piece of property. I have free permission to hunt. It's seventy acres, but it's only thirty seven acres of huntable land, the rests and crops. And I've hunted it for nine years and I'm taking five five book bucks off it. And there's two other guys that hunt the same property and they've punted it for twenty plus years and they've never taken a book buck off it. So I've got fourteen locations on this property and basically gonna walk everybody on the in field day through the locations and show them how I set up a location. Why this location may only have one shooting lane. Why this location is strictly a morning spot, this one strictly an evening spot, this one is strictly a rut spot. Why this entry route and this exit route per location, because a lot of the may have different entry and exit routes. And basically, you know, showing people how I set stuff up in and I think that would help people a lot more than going out and scouting their property, because when you scout somebody's property, you were basically telling them what they're showing them, what they may need to do on that particular given piece of property. Whereas when you look at a situation where you're looking at fourteen different locations and each location is set up for a very specific reason in time of season and time of day, you get a lot better overview of what to look for no matter where you go hunting. And that's really important because a lot of people don't just hunt one property. They hunt multiple properties, and they travel on and it's really nice to be able to go out of state and you know, be able to set up on the best the best bucks in the area and have an awesome chance of killing one in a one week period. Yeah, definitely. So these workshops, when are they starting? Where they at? How do we how do we learn more? Uh? On my website, I have a web I just revamped my website cost me a lot of money. So so it's the website is www dot d e e r heisen j o h N dot net or ww dot eber Hearts white Tail Workshops dot com or if anybody just googled my name, I'm sure that they would come up. And the website goes the website has the workshops, explanation of what the workshops are um, and then the scouting properties. It has testimonials from industry industry professionals like I've got testimonials on there from the executive director of the Pope and Young Club, uh, the editor in chief Nian Schmidt of Deer and Deer Hunting, Tom Nelson from American Archer. And these are all very good, awesome testimonials that I'm pretty proud that they gave them to me. And I got a ton of hunter testimonials from people that have read my books or watched my instructional DVDs over the years. Great, And are these coming up the summer or this fall or oh yeah, I'm sorry, yeah, the we're gonna I'm gonna have four of them and not we this is totally a me deal. The first one is going to be July. These are Saturday Sundays. Uh, second one will be July twelve thirteen, or I'm sorry, August August twelve and thirteen, and then the third one will be August nineteen and twenty, and the fourth one will be September four. So I've got four of them this year, and then I will probably have more next year and during the postseason, which would be February, February, March in April. It sounds sounds like an awesome event. And are these taking place somewhere in mid Michigan? Is that right? Yes? The yeah. I actually the thirty seven acres is in Edmore. And then the second day, which will be the seminar day, is going to be a Jay Sporting Goods which is in Claire, Michigan, which is the largest sporting goods store in the state. And they're going to be given out all the attendees a fift discount uh voluture for anything they buy over fifty dollars. And they actually have a seminar room with nice office chairs, so it'll be a very comfortable seminar. Tons of stuff. I'll have all my scouting gear and they have my There's gonna be a big portion of this will be on sunt control because I'm a huge, huge advocate of activated carbon and a total sunt control regiment. I don't pay any attention to wind direction ever, a right. I remember we talked about that last time, and that that was definitely even a shocker for me, even though I've read your work in the past, um you have, You've had a lot of confidence in your sun control. I don't get winded. I can have dear cross my entry routes have deer done wind. I have deer donet wind me all the time because I hunt my locations based on the sign at the time. I don't wait for the proper wind. I spent years and years hunting the wind for thirty five seasons, and there was certain rock phase locations. I never got to hunt that strictly because on my day's off work, I didn't have the right wind direction. And that's no longer the case. If you can beat the wind, you've made a big, big, huge difference in your hunting hunting success. Yeah yeah, okay, So so before we go too far down that road, I want to rewind a little bit um you mentioned in your Seminaris're gonna be talking about some of your scouting gear and some different things like that. And right now when we're talking right this is early July. UM. So at this time of year, John, what are you doing, if anything, to get ready for the upcoming season? Is there? Are you still doing any scouting or still doing any stand preppers? All that done post season already that is done of all my scouting and the location preparation is done by the end of April, and that's no different this year. Uh So, basically on this property that we're going to be doing these workshops on, I'm gonna totally trash amount. It's gonna definitely affect my early season hunting, but I'm willing to g that up. So to answer your question, all my locations are prepped. I'm ready for season. I'm always ready for season by the end of April. But I do what I call speed touring. In other words, I may go into season with, you know, on three different pieces of property, thirty plus locations prepared and ready to hunt, and I hunt out of the saddle, so I can hunt any one of them at any point in time. So let's say let's say ten of those locations are early season locations. In other words, they are they are located where there may be an apple tree and a lot of perimeter security cover or a white oak tree, you know, with perimeter security cover and transition security cover from a betting area to it. So just prior to season, usually after September, because I know all the big bucks are rubbed out by usually the fifth September up here in Michigan, all the big your bucks, so there's gonna be Buck signed. So after September fift I'll do a speed tour wearing my total suntlock suit and boots and you know, carbon backpack if I'm carrying anything in backpack, and I'll do a speed tour of all my early season locations, which are typically feeding locations in isolated feeding areas. And if I see that, obviously, if I prep something in postseason at an apple tree or white oak, I have no clue if it's gonna have apples or eggcorns. So during the speed tour, I see if they do actually are producing master fruit, and if they are by the September fift they're going to have some semblance of Buck signing around him in the former rubs. And typically apple trees if they're dropping apples, will have scrapes. So I do I do an early preseason speed tour, but it's not a scouting tour. I'm not repreparing any locations. I'm just checking them to see if they're going to be suitable for early season hunting locations. Okay, so can you elaborate on a little bit. So when don't you actually is it like Nmber eighteenth or something. Is there like a few daytime frame when you try and knock out all these speed tours or are you waiting on a specific set of conditions? Are you do you wait for a windy day or rainy day or anything that maybe lessons the impact you have? Is there anything as far as specifics when it comes to doing those speed tours? Man Mark, I can tell you read my book, Yes, I definitely do. I wait. Obviously there's a two week window in there because our season opens October one, and if I can look forward on the weather and see that there's going to be a day that is going to be raining, a hard rain or a really windy day, yes, those are the days that I will do those speed tours because it rain or hard winds will not only dissipate your noise, it will dissipate your any residual odor you might have left. Because a lot of times when you go in there and let's say you prep the spot you know in April and it said at an apple tree, and you know there's there's typically something you may have to do, you know, some new growth that maybe you know, encumbering your shooting lane or something that you may have to trim out so so it knocks your noise down, and if you do leave any trace elements of human odor, it will also you know, knock that down as well. Would it be safe to say that most of your early season locations are also places that are not going to require you go busting deep into the core of a property through betting areas. Absolutely, yes, I hunt within betting areas. I think anybody that doesn't hunt within betting areas if they don't own a lot of piece a lot of property, and then the deer can leave their betting area during rough phases, which is usually gun seasons, and get shot on board and property. I think people that don't hunt within their betting areas and do it smartly are making a huge mistake. But no, I do not scout within my betting areas during that speed tour. My betting areas are all set up postseason and I don't go in them until I have a bow in my hand and I'm actually physically hunting. Yeah, that's what I assumed. It seems like if you're going to do these very last minute scouting sessions. It has to be precision, it has to be low impact. Um Because to your point, anything at least, you know, from my perspective, I've always thought, you know, after at the beginning of September, I'm so so paranoid by any type of impact within those areas. UM. So you gotta be smart about it, right, Absolutely in Michigan, and I've shot bucks in Missouri and Kansas and Iowa and Ohio, and in Michigan, anytime you walk, even preseason on the property, it's like walking on eggshells. It takes such a minute amount of anything to turn them a jure buck nocturnal because there's so many hunters hunting them during your season, and they don't know you're scouting. They don't know you're just out there looking. They view your your presence as a threat to their existence, and they turn nocturnal until obviously they are testesterone testosterone levels rise and they start thinking with other body parts than their brain. And that's when your opportunities come. And that's when I hunt within the bedding areas is during the pre rot and rout phase lokay rough phase time frames. I don't hunt them until the rough phases. Yeah, that that was one of That's one of the key things that it was transformational for me as a hunter is just understanding the proper timing. Like growing up as a hunter, I just hunted whenever, wherever. And I think it was really your book Precision Bow Hunting. That was one of the first things that really locked this or knocked this into my head that you have to have certain places for certain times of the year and you don't invade into You're not pushing into your pre rut places on October one, and you're not going to be hunting necessarily where you're one hunt m on October and you need to have that timing right. And that's such a key concept I think when you're trying to tire out those older bucks, especially in high pressure areas, absolutely because a lot of people don't don't even consider, well, Okay, I'm gonna go hunting in this spot. It's October tenth, and you know what, I hunted here. I saw some doz I didn't I didn't get a shot, the big buck didn't come in. I'll go on it again. Hey, at least I saw some doughs. And then the next time they see, yeah, fewer dos. You know, they saw four the first time, now they see three, and then they on it again and they see one, and then then on it again and they see zero. What people don't understand is all buck activity during the rut phases revolves around dough activity at that location. So if you're hunting a destination location and you you know, prior to the rut phases, and you are altering dough traffic because you're hunting it, and now all of a sudden there's no dough traffic, well then you quit hunting it. Then you go back to hunt it during rud phases, you've totally altered that dough traffic away from that location during daylight hours. So obviously, if the buck traffic is revolving around the dough traffic, there's no reason for them to be there because there's no doughs there during daylight hours. It's such a simple analogy. Yeah, but to your point, so many people are guilty of not doing that because they want to hunt right, they want to go to their best spots, and they're excited at the beginning of the year and they go all gung ho into these areas and uh, little do they know that they're ruining it before they even really had a good chance there. Absolutely, and in kind of hate to knock on the TV guys again, but when you watch the TV shows, all you know they well, well we got this plan for hunting during the October wall, you know, when nobody else is killing deer. Yeah, we know how to do that. Well, they're hunting micromanaged areas where there's no other hunting competition. Those deer, you know, they were they have grown to maturity without having any hunter consequences. They don't target those bucks still are four years old, so obviously their daylight movement habits have remained somewhat intact because when they've had any hunter interactions, it hasn't been any consequences for it. So you know, those guys can kill bucks during that October lull because the mature bucks are not as fearful of human intrusions as they are in pressured areas and pressured areas, everything matters. Everything has to be detail oriented. It's that important. Yeah, Yeah, I think it's important for people when watching hunting TV. You know, hey, it's all well and good if you look at it as entertainment. It's fun, you know, you can see big deer, and that's great, but realize that in many cases these are just different circumstances than what you may or may not have, and and just have realistic expectations based on that, and then also realize how you hunt will have to be different if you don't have those same circumstances. I think more and more people are starting to figure that out. I don't know, but um, but it's an important thing to just to always remind people because to your point earlier, when people start having this expectation that every time they hunt they're supposed to see a trophy buck, if that's the expectation you go into your hunting season with and when the reality turns out to be very different from that, like you said, it can be pretty discouraging. And um, this is supposed to be fun, you know. So I think if we go in there with realistic expectations based on our circumstances, based on where we're at, go out there and try to hunt the best you can, but have a good time with it and not get two worked up about the fact that you didn't kill the two or something. And I think if we if we go about it with the mindset like that, I think people are really gonna enjoy this activity a whole lot more and not, you know, not the other way. I you couldn't have laid that out any better. Mark that was absolutely perfect, you know what. I actually look at a lot of TV guys and uh, I look at where they're from, and I don't know one that's from a state like a p A or New York, or a Michigan or a West Virginia that has any bucks in their record book in their homes. Eight. They're killing lots of bucks in Ohiowa, Oowa, and Kansas and Nebraska and the you know, the Dakota is where it's relatively simple because they're so doing many of them and there's no lightning pressure. But they've got nothing in their credential background from their home state. So to me, unless you can kill mature bucks in a pressured state, um, I don't know. Kill credentials don't don't really mean a whole lot to me. I think that's a pretty crude way of putting it. But it's a realistic way of putting it. And I love watching the TV shows. I take them with a grain of salt and like, just like you said they're they're fun to watch, But those guys, I view them as entertainers just like anything else. That's how they're making their living, their entertaining hunters. Yeah, nothing nothing wrong with that, just different, Nothing wrong with that at all. So okay, So speaking of intrusion though, right, if we're if we're worried about our intrusion and the pressure we're putting on our deer, there probably are a lot of people. I'm guilty of this myself. Actually, I still have some projects I'm doing in the woods. Um so for people like me who are not as prepared as you were and had things done in April, if we're still hanging stands right now, or maybe doing some quick scouting or something, how can we do that in as best away as possible. What types of things should be thinking about this time of a year to keep that impact low? And also, you know, I guess I guess what I'm trying to say also is how do we keep it low? Impact low? But then also what would you be doing in April that we could be doing now in July? If you know what I mean, Well, you know, July depends on the state. I know some states open in September one. Some states open mid September, you know, Michigan happens to be October one. So even even right now, you've got one July August in Michigan, you've got almost three months before seasons. So if if you went out there and did a late you know, hail Mary, set a few stands and you've got them done by the end of July, they still have two months to calm down um and go back on about their regular routines. That's a cool thing about postseason scouting. You can scout your property. You can scout properties every day from daylight till dark for a month straight. You can spook every deer in the area out of the out of the area, and it doesn't make any difference. I got six months come back, and everything will be hunky dory as normal by the time season starts. But this time of year, when you go in and you scout, you're definitely making an influx of human activity. You're going to be spooking deer. You want to do it as sent free as possible, which is impossible in this type of heat. You god, I don't even care if you were in all seltlack and you know, if you've got everything perfectly sent free, you're still going to leave some human older because you're gonna be working on stuff, you're gonna touch stuff, and you're gonna sweat, and you're gonna leave. You leave a human order. So this time of year, you can go in and prepare some stuff and odds are might not affect you in the early season. But one of the things I really hate doing is this time of year, everything is in full foliage. So when you go in and you prepare shooting lanes, you're making a major visual difference. So you're not only leaving a a human intrusion, maybe a faint scent ribbon throughout the woods and wherever you're paying a locate preparing a location, but you're also making a visual change. You know, most most locations you're cutting two, three, maybe even four shooting lanes if you're within any type of security cover, and so you're making visual changes. Whereas during post season, you know you're cutting stuff where there's no foliage on it, and then everything greens up the same as it does as it comes into spring and summer, and there is no real visual change because everything is just happening at the same, you know, as everything grows so um, but I would say, yeah, right now, you could go out and it probably maybe wouldn't affect too much. It depends on the state. In the area of public lands. I don't know public lands. I think they get pounded. And definitely would you know the place I the place I hunted opening morning, for probably twenty plus years, there was a minimum, an absolute minimum of thirty bow hunters and trees in the section, which is sixty acres on opening day. At that you say wow. But in zone three in Michigan, that's not that abnormal. That's relatively normal. And you look at states like like West Virginia, Virginia, Pennsylvania, New York, Massachusetts that that's a pretty common number people. People might not think that, but when you look at you know, you've got sixty acres, and you've got twenty acre parcels, ten acre parcels, forty acre parcels, eight acre parcels. You put two or three hundreds on each one of those. That adds up real quick. It's true, it's true. I hate to think about that in my own in my little sections. But as I sit and I start thinking about, okay, such and such probably be hunting, and so and so is likely be hunting, and this section, you're right that it adds up quick. Yeah. And and obviously opening morning, everybody wants to be in the woods. You know, they've been waiting all year for that. And that's a that's another thing, you know, I have a ton of hobbies. I I think people that just dwell one of their life on deer hunting and trying to kill them into your buck every year to actually overthink things, it's it's you do. You have to be very detail oriented and very cautious of everything you do. Uh. Once you get to a certain point, Uh, you tend not to overthink things. You just hunt smart and then things come relatively consistently. And and I don't know things nowadays. I had less hours than I ever used to come back in the seventies and eighties, and I'm I'm far more consistently successful on mature bucks. I just hunt a lot smarter. Yeah. That that definitely is to be consistent. Trait with those most successful hunters is they don't necessarily hunt harder, they hunt smarter. And if you can do that, that that really is a one of those major lege thresholds. Once you've kind of passed through that in your journey as a hunter, I feel like you start seeing significant differences. So all right, now, let's let's go back to we're doing some summer scouting, maybe and we found a location that looks that looks good. Maybe we'll just say for early season, I see a spot. This looks like a good early season spot to me. Um, you're there with me. Let's say you're walking the property with me, we say, hey, this is a good early season spot. Take me through your why why is it? Why would you think it's a good early season spot? Well, that was going to maybe be my question for you, but let's have I'll throw hypothetically. I'll throw a hypothetical situation out there, and let's just say this is a stand location that is easy to access. I'm not gonna bump any deer when I'm trying to come in for an afternoon set. I'm going to say, there is an isolated food source that's within cover. Maybe like you mentioned earlier, little apple tree, and um, the prevailing winds are likely gonna at that time, you're gonna be coming from a betting era that's not too far away. It's going to be coming towards me, so I can be now, I I worry about the wind, So that's something that would matter to me. Um. But so that's that's our high level situation. We're standing in this area, we're looking around. I'm curious to hear your thoughts on what's going through your mind when you're trying to choose that right tree? What does the right tree look like for you? What do you think about when choosing where you're standing? Needs to be set up in a general area? Um? Anything and everything related to that I'm curious about. Okay, let's pretend you just did find an apple tree, because use an apple or let's say a white oak? Which do You're obviously prefer white oakgate corns over red olk cakecorns. So either one of those two trees. Uh. If I backed my career up seventeen years before I learned how to properly care for and use snot lock, which most people that do well in sunt lock don't know how to properly care for and use it. Um. But if that if that were the case, and I did pay attention to win like I used to, I would obviously want to set up on the down wind side of the actual destination location. Uh Me, personally, I'm not the most phenomenal archer in the world. I'm a twelve or eighteen yard guy. I like shots within twenty yards, so I would set up within twenty yards of the actual destination spot. I'm not that guy that you know. If I see a scrape area, you know I set up on runway leading to it. I want to set up at the destination spot. I want that particular hunt to be the most potential possibilities possible, So I'm setting up at the destination spot. So if I'm gonna set up in an apple tree where you're gonna come in, especially doozen fauns and more than bucks, they're they're probably gonna feed at that location for five to ten minutes before before they move on and go to go someplace else. So, anytime you set up at a destination spot where deer will be lingering for a period of time, you have to set up. And because I hunt out of a sling I set up on the back side the tree, So I'm gonna be on the down wind side. If I'm paying attention to the wind, I'm gonna be on the down wind side of the actual tree, and I'm gonna be on the back side where the tree is going to be a blocker between me and the apple tree. Now that's a negative. With a tree stand or a climber or a ladder stand, a conventional stand, you can't typically do that because with a sling you can just swing around to the side of the tree when your shot opportunity comes and make the shot. So but anyway, I'm gonna be on the back side of the tree, peeking around the tree or you know, at the deer, and that way I'm not going to get picked. Anytime you're at a destination location and you're on a hang on or you're at a ladder stand, you're typically hanging to the side of the tree, whether your shot is to your left if you're right handed, so basically your body figure is sticking out to the side of the tree. So you're a protrusion, so you're easy to pick, especially if it leaves your down. But if it's an early seasonal location, the leaves are probably gonna be up and you're probably gonna have some background security cover. So that that's what I would do, and I have several locations prepared like that. You know, I'm not necessarily on the down one side because I don't pay attention to win. But anytime I'm hunting in a destination location, I always want to be on the back side of a tree where I've got it blocking me from the deer that are going to be lingering there. Because in Michigan and pressured areas, deer always looking around for people in trees. They're just always the ears or movement eyes are looking around. And anytime you get three or four deer, they're going to funds and maybe two dolls and two funds. Your odds are getting picked sticking out on the side of a tree are real high. So you know, I would suggest if you were a conventional tree stand hunter, you'd want to be up there a minimum of twenty ft maybe twenty five, so you're kind of up out of their peripheral vision. The lower you are, the more apt you are to get picked. So then how does that factor into how much trimming you do. Are you the type that does not do a lot of trimming for lanes because you want to have as much cover in the tree, or do you want to make sure you're not going to miss a shot opportunity because of a limb at a destination location. I'm gonna probably one shooting lane, and it's going to be to the actual destination location, whether it be a primary scrape area underneath white oak or at an apple tree. Now I've got two apple trees on this property that my workshops are gonna be held at where I've got single lanes cleared to the actual tree in at one of them, which is my favorite tree in the entire property until two p and y bucks. At this spot, I've raped half of the tree, and the farmer allowed me to do that. In other words, I've got a big V cut out of the center of the tree because on the back side of the tree from where I'm actually hunting, i'm hunting, I'm sitting. I'm hanging in my sling in a red oak, and it's about i'd say fourteen yards from the base of the apple tree. But on the back side of the apple tree there's a bunch of brush, and any time a mature buck comes into that apple tree, he comes through that heavy cover and he just steps out and he'll eat a few apples. On the opposite side of the tree from where I'm sitting, and then he'll turn around and he'll exit back out that security cover, and he's coming in to check for Doze, And while he's there, he's just eating a couple of apples linger like Doz and Subordinate Bucks do. Whereas when Dose and Subordinate Bucks come in, they will actually come over onto my side of the apple tree, which is much more open, and it's kind of on his side. He'll slant and they'll be totally exposed, and they'll just walk around and eating apples for you know, ten or fifteen minutes before they leave. But the mature bucks always come in through this heavy security cover, eat a few apples, you know. They'll pop out on the back side that just off that security cover, eat a few apples, and they'll turn around and go. So I had to physically clear out a huge portion of the tree so that I could shoot through the tree to the opposite side. But there's only any time I'm in a destination location. It's extremely rare that I have more than one shooting lane, you know, and it's focused right on the destination spot. Now, if I'm setting up a destination spot, let's say it like a scrape area, I will even though I'm not paying attention to wind, I'm not fearful of getting winded. I may set a tree up on the typically downwind side of the prevailing winds, which is northwest winds usually, so I'm on the southeast side of the scrape, because there's been several times when I've had dear mature bucks come down wind of the scrapes and set check it with the wind, as opposed to actually physically going to the scrapes and work in the scrapes and work in the licking branches. So I'll set up maybe twenty yards from the scrapes where I got a chip shot to the scrapes. But if the deer comes in and checks from twenty to forty yards down wind, I've also got a shot at that. Now, what about a location where you're expecting where it's not necessary destination, but a spot where you're catching travel. So let's maybe hypothetically a rut type stand site where you're hunting, maybe some kind of terrain funnel or pinch point where you're just expecting deer to be coming through, and there might be a couple of different places they're coming from. Will you open up multiple other student lanes in that case, or is it still as minimal as possible. Typically, when I'm hunting a transition zone, that's what you're talking about, from let's say, a betting to a feeding area during the early season, or from a betting area to a betting area during the road phases when bucks are sent checking for estrous does in the middle of the day. Uh. Typically, in a pinch point, I will just have a shooting lane, two shooting lanes, one each direction to the outside edge of the pinch point, as far as I can shoot to either side. There's no reason to have more than that, because the deer going through that pinch point either on my right up to my left. There's no reason to have more than two shooting lanes. Now, if I'm setting up a location within a betting area during postseason, within a betting area, I can have as many as five shooting lanes. They're like spokes on a tire because it during the rough phases when does are chasing chason estrus does. They can come from any direction and they can go buy at any time, at any and at any place. There is no rhyme nor reason, there is no routine. You know, people that sit on the edge of perimeters of betting areas and listen to bucks chasing inside betting areas while they're sitting on a perimeter know exactly what I'm talking about. When you're within the perimeter, when you're within the betting area, you have to have multiple lanes so that you don't miss opportunities because you're not going to be hunting in there more than two or three times during the course of the season during the run phases. So if an opportunity arises, you want it, you want to capitalize on it, so you have multiple, multiple shooting lanes as many as five. That makes sense. Okay, now real quick, before we get to my next question for John, we need to pause briefly to think our partners at White Tailed Properties for their ongoing support of this podcast and for this week's white Tail Wisdom segment, our producer Spencer has brought in another Michigan hunter and a White Tail Properties land special list, Tony Hansen, and Tony has a few thoughts to share here on topics very similar to that which we've been talking about with John. This week. With White Tail Properties, we are joined by Tony Hansen aid Land specialists out of Michigan, and Tony is gonna be telling us about what factors matter most on a property in high pressure areas well. To me, it's it's a variety. So even though I mean I own and kind of hunt a lot of small properties, you got to look forward a mix of things you need. You need food for sure, but you need cover probably even more. So. You know, I need to have all of the pieces that the deer needs because I don't want them traveling very far, and I don't want them to feel like they have to travel very far because you know, especially during our gun season when there's nearly a million guys out there, if a deer moves, it's it's got a real pigance of getting shot. So I try to find properties that have everything you need right there. And yes, neighborhood matters, but it doesn't matter quite as much as what you can, you know, do right there on your own property. So you want to make sure that you have food and cover and um, you know, betting areas, security places and actuaries are a big thing with me too, So I looked for a lot of variety, and that's in the property. If you'd like to learn more and to see the properties that Tony currently has listed for sale, visit white tail properties dot com backslash Hanson. That's h A N S E N. So I want to hear a little bit more about your betting area stands sites. But but before we get that, maybe we can work through it to that sequentially. Can you give me an example of a few of your ideal locations for you know, we talked a couple of examples for early seasons, like an oak tree or an apple tree, but are there any other early season locations that you would say just high level generic this and that, and then could move me through the season until we get to that rut betting area stands side. Ah. Yeah, early season it's it's not extremely uncommon to find scrape areas in September. So if I'm out doing my speed touring and uh, you know, I happen to go through a lot of times, I'll actually also look at my transition my transition funnels basically, and if there's scrape areas and in a type pinch point, you know, I'll those are spots where I'll hunt during the early season as well. So, but that's about it. Typically early season if it's not as a scrape area or white oak or apple tree, I'm typically not hunting it. I key on some you know, a key on destination areas. I don't hunt a lot, you know, maybe on the first three or four days of season, and then I really slack off on my hunting. So I don't need a lot of early season locations to to actually hunt. Now, I do have a not one other spot that's um it's on the edge of September and there's about a fifteen yard gap from the edge of the timber, and it's tall weeds. It's a buffer zone between the timber in a crop field. Now the in the edge of that timber is all red oaks, and but there's no white it's in the area, and they will they will eat red o'kakecorns if there are no whites, because if there's whites, and they'll eat those first. So during the years that that crop field is in standing, corn dear will bed in the crop fields or they'll bed back in the timber, and they'll transition back and forth just you know, because they've got security cover from one spot to the next. So that's another spot that even though there's no scrape area. The full the full tree line is red oaks, so there's no that's not really a destination area. But but typically there will be scrapes, even prior to October first, when they're dropping acorns, there will be scrapes along that timberline. And dear, I will put a motion camera, which I don't use motion cameras much in Michigan, and if I do happen to see something worth shooting, I will set up it strictly an evening spot. I can't hunt that spot in the morning. UM I will. I will hunt that spot. And I did kill a UM twenty two inch wide ten point there, wide ten point there two years ago in early season. Does water factory new yearly season strategy at all? Uh? It used to. It depends on the area. You know. If I'm hunting an area that's pretty much devoid of water and I find a water source, yeah, then it definitely factors into my into my my plan. But the properties that I'm hunting now, one of them has a lot of swamp on it, so there's water everywhere, so water is not a factor. Uh. And the other's the other spot's got a crook running through it. So you know, water is not a factor there. But there has been periods of time in my hunting life because I've probably hunted fifty to seventy different parcels of property where there hasn't been any water to speak of. You know, the area has been pretty devoid of water, and if you find a water hole, it's a phenomenal spot to hunt um. In fact, I've actually made water holes before where they didn't exist because the area had no water. As soon as you put something put water there, you know dear will come. It's they have to drink water. Do you find any difference in how dear um prefer moving water versus standing water? Do you find that they tend to prefer like a pond or a water hole over a stream or it does not matter. I find that mature deer exclusively pressured areas like to drink water wherever they have security cover. Matured bucks and pressured areas like to have security cover. I don't care what they're doing, I don't care if they're drinking, swimming party in laying on a tube. They like security cover. That is an absolute critical must. So if they have if they have a pond that has a forty yard buffer of grass. Odds are they're not going to drink water there during daylight hours. It's going to be strictly during the security of darkness. Whereas if they have a little water hole mud puddle, it's a hundred yards off that pond and it's got security cover all around it and it's got security transition covered to it. That's where they will drink their water, and that they if they're drinking it in daylight hours. So what's the fast forward now from the early season to mid to late October. I know historically you tend to not hunt as much during the quote unquote October low Um. Is that still the case or are you starting to do a little more during that time period? That's it's still the case. I still hunt some secondary spots, uh. You know, basically there's spots where I'm not impeding or doing any intrusion close to any my rugphase locations. As long as you can pick up find secondary spots where you're not interrupting any deer activity, dough activity, or otherwise that your rudphase locations, It's okay to hunt during that low period, Um, but it's very rarely productive. I think, Oh, I'm trying to remember. I've probably killed three bucks in my lifetime that made book in Michigan in you know, mid October. Okay, Now, out of thirty that's a pretty low number. The odds aren't great killed. Let me put that in perspective. I think I've killed five during the first three days that made book three during the mid October time frame, and then the other twenty two between Halloween and the fourteenth in November. So you get twenty two and to basically a two week time frame and only eight in the other month. Yeah, yeah, start start comparison, no doubt about that. And I've done the statistics in all my books, and statistically I don't make I don't care what state you're hunting in. Sixty plus percent of all trophy bucks entered in the p n Y Record Book are taken during that state's RUD phases. You know, in every state has a different RUD phase period for pretty much not every state, but when you get down south, some of them rindy summer and even January. Yeah, things get a little wonky down there. Um. Now, there are exceptions to the rule you just mentioned, which you have killed some bucks during mid October. Specifically, I want to point out your recent success in two thousand fifteen, just a few months after we talked last time in the podcast, you killed a great buck on October, and I'm really curious to hear how that happened. How were you able to make the best of that tough time period. Well, that was actually at that location where I was talking about, where I was hunting that red oak timberline and had that fifteen foot weed buffer, and then they were standing corn. So basically what I did is I parked on the road, I walked through the standing corn. Because once I walked through the standing corner, you don't really spook much for deer when you're walking in standing corn, even though deer are betting in it. If you do happen to spook, and they just go off to the sides and go out into the corn. They don't leave the corn and go in the woods. They just go out and chill out and go back to the normal thing. So basically, I walked through the cornfield and once I got through the cornfield, I've just got a like I said, a fifteen yard buffalo weeds. I just walked right to the dream and got up the tree, so I'm not really intruding on anything. And that particular day, uh, there must have been an early estrus doll in the area. That's all. That's basically all I can say is because I saw this big buck back behind the timber line, probably fifty yards. The woods is a relatively open and then there's a big area just really really tall weeds and that's where the dew that's where dear bed as well as in the corner. And I saw this big buck come out of that weedy area and kind of cut sideways and go over into these the standard pines that spruce trees that grow right down to the ground. And it was like fifty yards away, so obviously I didn't get a shot. And uh as though they're probably half an hour later, all of a sudden, I've seen this dough and followed by two phones come running out of that pine area, made a big circle, went back by the weeds, turned and came and she ran right under my tree into the cornfield, turn right under my red oak, right through the weed buffer, right into the cornfield, and the two funds stood there. They just kind of right at the tree line. They just kind of loitered, and they just kind of moved off to the side a little bit, and all of a sudden I heard this scrunt, and sure enough, here comes that big buck. And he followed her exactly on her exact route and alose to the ground. And when he got to the tree line, he was six yards from my tree. He stopped. He did not want to cross that fifteen yard open buffer of weeds, of weeds, He did not want to leave the timber, and he stopped. Now, maybe she wasn't in heat. I think if she would have been actually in heat, she may have been close to it. But I don't think she was actually in heat. I think if she had been, she would have followed her. But he stopped there, and he was broadside. And because I hunt out at a sling, he was to my right, and obviously, with a sling shots to your left, I'm right handed. I had to lift my ball up over the sling lead strip and spin around and shooting an awkward position. But I practiced that shot, and I'm probably twenty eight ft up, and so I was not worried about him picking me at six yards. His peripheral vision, he had to look straight up to see me. So I flipped my ball up over the lead strap and I made that shot, and he ran about a hundred yards and what was kind of weird, he ran out of sight and the two fonts ran after him. When he ran back into the timber, he didn't go into the weeds. He ran off sideways into the timber, and the fawns kind of took off after him, which I thought was really strange. I'd never seen that before. And about ten minutes later, you know, the two fonts came back, you know, probably looking for Mom and one of the fawns, a button buck fawn. I kept looking back, kept looking back to where the the buck, where I last saw the buck go, and finally they went and you know, into the corn after Mom. But him looking back just kind of let me know that he had expired over there. But I still didn't look for him until the next morning and he was laying right there. Wow. So, if I had to if I had to drill down from what you said, if I had to drill down, like the why behind why that worked out for your why you hunter there and correct me if I'm wrong, But would it be safe to say that you chose to hunt there that day because A it was a transition area from bed to feed. B it was low impact, like you could go in there and you weren't going to mess up anything because you had that great access to the corn. You could pop right into the tree. So it's a safe place for you to go at a time frame when you weren't really expecting great action. But you're an easy to get to place where there's the potential for that bed defeed transition? Is that at a high level? Correct? You said that perfectly? Yes, perfect spot on low impact entry. Uh, didn't affect my road face hunting locations. Now, something you mentioned at the beginning of that story intrigued me when you're talking about the fact you could you know, you can walk through standing corn and not worry too much about spooking deer. And this is something I always like debate myself when I'm hunting a property has standing corn. I'm always torn between should I access through the middle of the corn because of that, because I don't think, you know, you're less likely for something to see you off in the timber, bettered or something um Or should I walk along the edge of the field where it's quieter usually because you're not hitting against all the cornstalks, but you might spook more deer that way. And then also, I feel like you get so much travel along the edge of the corn fields. Uh, and I worry a my leaving a centrail when I'm traveling that. So is it better to access your stands right through the middle of standing corn and try to use that as a way to mask your access or is it better to quieter? Okay? Absolutely, you hit it right out, you hit the mail right and it's absolutely better to access through the corn anytime. One piece of property that I hunted for years, uh. For the first few times for me to access an evening location, I'd walk down the edge of the corn and I would always spook dear bedded in the timber to my right, you know, to the side of the corn. And when I started going coming and entering through the corn, and you know, through the corner I could get when I was relatively close from the tree. From the tree outline in the skyline above the corn, I could tell where my tree is, so I would just move over until I you know, once I exited the corn, I'm right there at my tree. And I love hunting transition zones from corn to timber or corn corn to swamp. Um. So, yes, you are absolutely correct on that. Uh, you're definitely better off going through the corn. In fact, last year, UM, I had a guy on saddle hunter dot com, which is a hunting talk for him. He invited me to come down in Ohio and bow hunt at ten point that him and his buddy had been wanting all season, and they gun hunted that buck all season, and they missed him twice during gun season and they hunted. Invited me to come down in December and I went down there and I prepped a tree and I spooked some deer when I prepped the tree, and um, which I didn't like. But I was I was gonna hunt for five days, and I had one day. The first day was set aside for scouting and prepping a couple of locations. So when I went in and prepped the locations and scouted, I just figured out there's no way I'm going to be able to hunt this property in the mornings. So I immediately excluded half of my hunting time. Now I'm down to when I'm down to down down to five evening hunts. Because the property was just knit, not laid out in a in a type of It was just wasn't laid out where I can hunt mornings without spooking deer. And I refused to do that because I know in this area there was considerable unting pressure, not like Michigan, but enough to know that if I started spooking deer with my entries in the morning, you know, my odds are getting shots the rest of my five days, they're going to be pretty slim. So I totally negated morning hunts and I ended up killing that buck on my third evening hunt in a snowstorm on I think it was December. But what I did differently than them the one guy was walking during season. He was walking there was like a five or six row buffer of pine trees, and they were white pine trees, and they were mature, so they were dead underneath. The bottom six ft were dead, so you could see through him. And he was walking down the edge of those pines from a big weed field and it kind of dropped down as soon as you left those pines down into some brush, and he was spooking deer with his entry without even I don't even think he knew it. And so what I did is I prepped a tree. I prepped one of the pine trees coming from down over the hill where the deer were coming from their bedding area up through the pines, and there was a couple of scrapes along the pines. But what I did is I walked out into the middle of the weed field. There was a little drainage ditch, and I walked that drainage ditch, so I was low. And then I got out into the middle of wheat field and I walked through the wheat field, which would be the same as walking through corn. And I walked through the weed field right to the pine tree that I had propped, So I wasn't spooking anything by walking down the edge of that field the edge of the pines, if you're understanding what I'm saying. And I got in that pine tree, and there was a blizzard bed day and I killed that buck on that third evening at fourteen yards. He actually came out of that low spot below the pines, came up and and was actually making fresh scrapes where he had had scrapes, you know, before it snowed, and that he was actually opening in them back up. It's amazing what a difference access can make. It's one of those details that huge is so so important, but gets over looked far too often. I think huge. And also when when he would when the other guy that was hunting there was when he was entering, his body was spooking deer with his entry, and even if it was a rainy or wendy day when he might not have spooked much with his entry. Then when he exited after an evening hunt, because he was primarily an evening hunter, he would exit through the wheat field or down that you know, he'd walked down the edge of that wheat field again. So when I exited, you know, because I hunted that the day before and I didn't kill anything, I saw a big six point. But when I exited, I exited down through the pines, through the bedding area. I gave it about a half hour to forty five minutes after dark before I exited. But I exited where the deer were coming from up into the wheat field. So I wasn't spooking deer with my exit or my entries. And that's a big deal. People think just because well I'm spooking deer, I'm done hunting, I'm spooking deer with my exit. That doesn't affect anything. Well, that's totally not correct. Yeah, at least if you want to hunt there again, right, because that's definitely changes things. Yes, Going back to the corn topic. Um, I feel like so many times hunters get frustrated when they have standing corn. There's you know, oh you know it was bad season, standing corn left up too late. Um. How do you feel about standing corn versus you know? I feel like in a lot of parts of the country there's corn one near beans one year and it rotates on these properties. Um, when you have that rotation and property that you're hunting near or on, how does that impact your hunting? Do you like the standing corn? Do you like the beans? Do you like it when it's cut? What are your thoughts there? I love finding when they're standing corn. I would prefer standing corn over beans or hey or wheat any day or the week in a pressured area without a doubt, because because dear, you can set up in spots. You know, I always have spots set up in transitions loans from the crop field where there's security cover. The butts right up to a crop field and goes into the timber or whatever, you know, back into a ridge with acorns or white you know, a oak trees or whatever. And when they're standing corn, that's just a natural transition from betting to betting. You know, they've got security cover all the way, so you can actually hunt those transition spots. You can't hunt those transition spots if it's anything short crop field because the deer, mature bucks are just not going to in pressure areas, be exposed out in an open area during daylight hours. It's just it's just very very rare. You know Kansas, ioway, Yeah, they will see then walk across the grass field two inches tall in the middle of the day. But in pressured areas that just doesn't happen on any consistent basis. So I would much much rather hunt standing corn. And plus my a lot of like that red old tree that I was talking about how I killed that big buck, There is no way God's green earth I would have killed that deer if that would have been a bean field, because that doll would not have ran into that bean field because there was no security cover. So horn is to me, is a huge factor. Also, if you're setting up in trees a lot of times you can have trees prepped the long crop fields and deer will actually transition down the edge of corn when during the rud phase, as if it's still standing, which it rarely is by that time of year, but if it is, you know, they'll transition down the edge of of standing corn searching, you know, scent checking for those that came in and out of the corn early in the morning or came the end of the corn in the evening. So I think standing corn is a huge advantage. Most people just don't know how to react to it. And I love hunting within standing corn. A lot of times during mid October, I'll actually hunt the corn, you know, if I want to kill a couple of dolls or something for the freezer, if I just love stock and corn. Any advice on how to pull off the corn field stock, Yeah, it's real simple. You basically you want to go, you know, uh, opposite the corn rows. You you kind of look at the yield. You go thirty forty yards in from the edge, and you just you just walk directly parallel or not parallel, perpendicular to the corn rows and you kind of get a visual. You know, some corn there's weeds in it. Some corns are some corn fields are real clean. But I try and move to the side however far I can see. So let's say I can see fifty yards down the corner, down the corn rows, I'll move fifty yards into the cornfield, and that's where i'll do my first walk Once I walk down. The first walk through. Basically what I do and how I walk walk the corn is I'll take my left foot, I'll put it at the base of a corn stock, and I have not I do not have an arrow knock. My bow is over my shoulder. I'll put my foot on the edge of the corn stock. And this has to be in a windy or a rainy day. Can't be on a calm day. It's got to be a noisy day. I'll push the corn stock to the side, you know, stick my head through, look both directions that there's nothing bettered there. I'll move into that row and do the same thing in the next row. And once you do that for a while, you know, you get relatively fast at it. Once you get through the field, you move on. If you can see fifty fifty yards down each row or thirty yards whatever, you double that distance you go double that distance and then you come back the other direction. So if you could see fifty yards, you go a hundred yards down that way. You're looking at the fifty yards you didn't see, and then fifty yards the other direction, and you just keep doing that, and you do it relatively slowly. But if it's the wind ear, it is the rainier, it is the faster you can go because the deer can't hear you. And when you see something within shooting distance, and it's not uncommon to you know, have a dough or whatever bettered walk stick your head through and have a dough five yards away from you, and you just back up knock an arrow. I usually would move maybe five yards down the row, so I don't have that short of a shot because you've got to step into the row. So there's is going to be a visual Uh yessue step into the row and take my shot. That'll be pretty intense. I've got three does in one in one hunt. Yeah, I mean, and it's not a it's not the type of deal where you're gonna kill big mature bucks. But you know, you typically I save filling my freezer until you know, December, late December but if there's corn and I need some venicine, that's what I do. That's the way of doing it. And I have killed one nice buck in a corn doing that, but that wasn't my plan. It sounds like a sounds like a fun way to go about it. Though it's a riot. I love it. It's a lot of fun in it really teaches you patients. Oh yeah, I imagine you got to be very careful with each step, each movement, each each next process. Yeah, but you'd be surprised when it's when it's a windy day and or raining, you can get away with a lot. And set control is a big issue there too, because if if you don't have a good scent control, always half of the deer are going to be downwind of you. You know, if you see deer, obviously half of the field that you're looking, you're gonna have deer downwind of you. Yeah, yeah, definitely gonna keep that aligned. Yeah, So I want to wear something beige that kind of matches the corn, so if you do step in the row for a shot, you don't stick out like a sore thumb. And I actually have some old corn corn cameo. That makes sense that makes sense. I was going to go back to uh. We were talking through some early season locations, we were talking through some mid October locations, and in the last podcast we did together, we spent a lot of time talking about how you use primary scrape areas during the rut and pre rut time period. We covered that really well. Um but but from what I understand, two other general types of areas that you focus on during that rut time period are rut staging areas and then, as you mentioned briefly earlier, betting areas. Can you elaborate on both of those typically what those look like, what you're looking for, and then how you hunt them. Rud staging areas I've kind of abandoned. I don't hunt rud staging areas anymore. I think in my first two books I wrote that I've had I know, in the first book I had a chapter on it, but I kind of abandoned that practice because, um, you know, I just hadn't had a lot of success with it. So I always look at my percentages of where my best opportunities are, and it was not at staging areas. You know, a lot of hunters at hunting lightly pressured areas. It's a Turkey common for deer to actually get out of a betting area and go and move closer to a feeding zone and bed in some sort of security cover and wait for est you know, for those and hopefully they get one in estris moving through that zone. Um, and that's a still they'll actually stage there in the evening or else they'll stage there in the morning and wait for those to come back you you know, after daylight. But I just haven't had a lot of success in Michigan doing that, so I kind of abandoned that. Okay, interesting And what was the other one betting areas? Uh? And what did you want to know about that? Well? So just I'd be interested in hearing about how you know, we talked about briefly, but when it comes to hunting betting years during the rut um you mentioned kind of alluded to that you're going right into the middle of them um for some of these hunts rather than on the edge. But can you kind of expand on that, you know, what other types of betting ears you're looking forward during the rut you know, how are you at, what are you thinking about when you're setting up there, etcetera. Etcetera. Okay, dude, Well, obviously, as I've mentioned, I only set up in betting areas during post season, so you know they I totally scrutinize all the betting areas on the property I'm hunting during postseason, and um, it's pretty rare that I don't set up a location or two in in each betting area. And what I'm typically looking for is an open area. You know, a lot of people think when I'm talking about a bedding area, it's all dense. Everything is dense. That's not the case. Anytime you go in a bedding area, there's gonna be open areas. There's gonna be convergence points, there's gonna be little openings where there's three or four runways coming through. There might even be at lost apple tree in the bedding area that maybe a couple of oak trees. Uh, there may be those pricker bushes that have that real light green leaves, and that's a preferred browse for deer that are in bedding areas. You know a lot of times it's it's it's advantageous to know what deer prefer to browse on. If there are no mass or fruit trees, or crop crops in the area, and um, you know those little pricker bushes with those nice green leaves. Deer love eating on those. So that's what I kind of key on. And and once in a blue moon, not very often, but if you find an opening in a in a betting area, a lot of times they'll be occasionally there'll be some scrape areas, and obviously I key on scrape areas. Of the bucks that I've killed over the last three years have been at primary scrape areas. You know, it might have been at an apple tree, but it's got a primary scrape area. It might have been in a white oak, but it's got a primary scrape area. It might have been in a funnel transition zone between two betting areas, or betting in a feeding area, but because it's a pinch point, there's a lot of dough traffic there, there's a scrape area there. Scrape areas are always located where there's a lot of dough activity. So plus of my bucks have been killed at scrape areos. So a lot of times you might find a scrape area within a betting area because there's a lot of doughs in the betting area. And if there if they have a convergence point in an opening or at a feeding location, there could be a scrape area. So that's kind of what I ken on. I I still key on the same thing. I key on a destination spot, hopefully a feeding spot within the betting area because of a mature buck and pressured areas. Typically, even during the rough shases, he'll come in to his betting area prior to daybreak. So I'm usually in them and set up an hour and a half before daylight. Uh So he comes in before daylight, and once he's in a secure betting area, he's pretty he feels pretty comfortable, So you know he's gonna move around, he's gonna browse, he's gonna do whatever he may even it's possibly might even bet down before daylight. But then midday during the road phasesn't that's the only time I hunt there. He's gonna get up and he's gonna start set checking that betting area for possible ester stows. And if he doesn't find anything in that particular betting area, and there's another betting area within his core zone, and it has adequate transition security cover from this betting area to that one, he's going to take that route and go check that one as well. And if there's a third or fourth, he'll do that as well. So betting areas are just key locations to hunt during the road phases. And and as always I try to set up in a destination spot it if I can't find a apple or something sort of a food source, I'll try and find wherever I can find the most convergence of runways or sign within the betting area. And a lot of times if a buck, mature buck is betting in a betting area and you're scouting it during postseason, I've seen it many many times where there will be a cluster of rubs in a real small zone, which means he's betting. That's his betting spot. He's betting within fifteen yards of these rubs. And I've seen it where a buck will be bedded right in a little cluster of like small pines or spruce trees, and all the trees around him they're just shredded to shredded to pieces. And obviously I bolted out of there whatever time it season that I you know, postseason, I did, but it's six months before I'm going a hunting, So it's not a big deal. He's gonna definitely be back in that spot. Now, when you're when you're hunting these betting areas during the rough phases, are you specifically trying to hunt close to that buck betting are or do you focus on the dough betting areas because that's where these bucks are all coming to to look for the females. I focus on that. I focus on where dot drafting is always all buck activities during the rough phases revolves revolves around do activity. Yeah, okay, that makes sense. Um, Now, I think I think most hunters know what we're talking about when we're talking about finding these betting areas. But can you just just in case someone is still at that point in their hunting fate or journey where they're trying to fare? Okay, where the heck are these dear betted? You're in a high pressure state like Michigan or Pennsylvania, where do you typically see these dear bed That the perfect answer for you, Mark, And this is really simple, and I say this at my seminars all the time. When you're scouting a property, depending on the hunting pressure in the area, you have to pretend every single person is trying to kill you, okay, but he's trying to kill me. Where on this property, of all the places I can look, might I possibly feel feel comfortable standing up and moving during daylight hours? That's what you have to look at. Everybody's trying to kill me. That's going to be a betting area fair enough that most betting areas are going to be the typically the best available security co available on the property doesn't have to be sult but it's got to be dense enough where most humans do not want to go there. That's why they are comfortable being in there. That's where people That's where the hunters pushed the deer to during preseason scouting ventures. In early season mounting, that's where the deer are pushed to not only mature bucks, but mature does as well. Because it typically if you're hunting in a pressured area, there's a lot of hunters are targeting dose. They're targeting everything, you know. It's unlike managed property where they're only targeting mature bucks. Typically, in pressured areas, a lot of the hunters are targeting any legal landward buck, and a lot of them are targeting dose. During any time of the season, So you gotta pretend everybody's trying to kill you. And where's the places on this property where I might feel comfortable with getting up and moving during daylight hours. That's the easiest way to put it. That's a healthful exercise. I definitely think that's a that's a good way to think about it when trying to figure this out for yourself. Yeah. Yeah, because it takes everything down to its simplest point in my opinion. All Right, so let's continue. We've we talked early mid rut time period. Uh. That's important timing, right, figuring out where to hunt at the right time of year. But I also know other factors, at least in my hunting are really important as to when I go into some of these spots I've prepared. Um. We've talked in the past about the fact that you like hunting and preceptation, rain and snow. Um, but we didn't really get to a couple other factors like cold fronts or bare back of pressure or the moon some of these other things that other hunters talk about. Do any of those things factor into when or how often you hunt? No, not at all. Uh, Nope, I paid zero attention to moon phase. When I have a day off to hunt, and I feel the circumstances are right, and it's the right seasonal time of season, and it's the right time of day for that particular location, I go hunted. Um. Back in the sixties, when I was in high school, I used to go shining a lot, and it was very common back then. You don't see it much anymore, but I mean, it was not uncommon to see three people shining the same field back then, and and it was there was one thing that I always paid attention to. I always paid attention to weather conditions. If it was a rainy night, I saw a lot more dear activity, and I saw a lot more buck activity. If it was a full moon, I saw very minimal buck activity. I'd see dough activity, but I wouldn't see bucks out at night. Um, at least not any two and a half year old. Back then, you two and ALFs were about as good as good as it got, so you wouldn't see any two and a half year old bucks. But if it was a full moon and it was overcast or it was raining at night, I would see the deer. So it wasn't necessarily the full moon phase that stopped them from moving being out there at night after dark. It was just that it was so bright out. So I think the full moon thing is not that big a deal. It may affect when the actual rout phase is that I do not know, and neither does anybody else. But during a when there is a full moon, I have found and there and there's no cloud cover. I have found the next day, during the day, mid day to be a really good time hunt because the nighttime movements were very minimal. The next day, daytime movements are a little bit stronger than normal during the Rod phases. And I'm not talking about early season or you know, October low. I'm talking about Rod phase. The During the Rod phases, the daytime activity was a lot better, especially during midday. And that was I want to make sure I miss it. That was the day after full moon. Yes, that was that would be the day after There was a full moon that night the previous night with no cloud cover and as far as windy, rainy, unless there's a tornado. If I've got the day off, I'm hunting. I've killed deer in thirty five mile winds when it was probably a wind chill at three below zero of hunted of killed deer. In rainy conditions, my preference is a drizzly day, just a nice steady drizzle. You don't see as many deer, but bucks tend to move better in that type of weather. Yes, I see more doze and in subordinate bucks on nice bluebird days. But as far as seeing mature bucks, I definitely see more mature bucks in inclement weather than I do in nice sunny day weathers. Because if it's sunny and it's calm out a mature buck and you know this mark as well as anybody. Every time a mature buck takes a step, they crunch leaves and they stand there and wait for a reaction. And when it's raining and the grounds weather, it's windy and and they're not concerned about their noise. Ah, they moved steadily through the woods. They don't. They don't stop and wait for a reaction to every step they takes. Yeah, I've definitely seen the same thing. It's those kind of nasty days, like you said, there's drizzles, cool, drizzly, or some rain coming on in and out. Those almost always are the days I'm seeing a mature buck. If I'm going to see a mature buck during the year eight times at ten, it's probably gonna be a day like that. Yep. But that one, I gotta tell you this one one. I may have mentioned it on the last podcast. I don't know, but I was hunting in Illinois on state land with a forty poundbo because I messed up my shoulder that year. And this was in December, so it was a late season, after gunning season, and it was this was that thirty five win day with seven degrees when I left the hotel, and that was without a windshill, thirty five winds. I was so cold. I had so many clothes. I had on five body warmers, and about a half hour before dark, I hadn't seen a thing. And I'm sitting in a big oak tree next to a locust tree. Seven seven seventeen yards from me is a locust tree with those big long beans. And I almost got out of the tree and went back at the hotel. But I sat there and I thought to myself, you know what, I know, I'm not going to kill anything in the hotel. I've only got a half hour to forty five minutes left to sit here and suffer. So I'm just gonna sit here and suffer. I saw five bucks in that last half hour, and one of them was a twelve point and I killed him. He was a monster. Twelve point, just perfect twelve point makes it all worth it. Oh, you got that right, A well earned reward, I imagine. Yes. Yeah. And the guy that I was running with, I was actually hunting with a guy. Took a guy down there with me, which was kind of rare, and he was he couldn't believe we were even hunting it now like you're nuts. I'm going you don't have to go all things being equal, let's take let's take weather out of it. Let's take precipitation, all that kind of stuff out of it. Um, if you had to just pick let's say three days during the season, if you had to pick the three very best days of this season, you had to be in a tree, what would those three days be? Halloween, which I leave is the beginning typically you know the weather based of course, uh, beginning of pre rut. I'm a big pre rut guy because dear mature bucks have a routine during pre run. Once once the peak rut starts and all the mature all the most of the doses are coming into heat, all the routines go out the window. They're chasing those on you know routines that there are no routines. So I'd say Halloween through the fifth of November that those are my favorite time and I and Opening Day. I love Opening Day because I look forward to it so much. Okay, speaking of those routines, UM, do you I've heard a couple I think as I'm thinking back through some stories and stuff, I feel like I've heard a couple of examples where you've talked about, you know, zeroing in a little bit on a specific deer. But how often do you actually pattern a specific deer over the course of a season or a few hunts? Um, Is that a big part of what you're doing or are you jumping from place to place and you know if he's showing up, it's cann me out one day and you kill them. I rarely patterned deer. I rarely look for deer. I rarely put out motion cameras, uh to see what's there. Um, I'm hunting destination locations where there's dough traffic, and I know if there's do traffic, the best bucks in the area aren't going to come through there. So I'm I'm specifically targeting destination locations and sign That's what I do now when I go out west, when I go to Kansas or Iowa, I hunt my cameras. I hang cameras at every location. And I totally hunt my cameras because I can check them every day and the deer I hate to use the word stupid, but they don't care. I can go in and intrude my spots and it doesn't seem to make any difference on the deer activity in in in pressure areas, that's just not the case. So so out there, I totally hunt my cameras on what I'm seeing on my cameras. And in Michigan, I'm totally hunting destination spots. I'm hunting destination spot out there too. I'm hunting primary scraper is for the most part, or rub lines or something or pinch points and draws. But um, in Michigan, it's it's totally destination areas. Michigan. Then last year, UM, if I if I heard you correctly a little bit earlier before we start recording, you mentioned that you killed two bucks last year in Michigan with your bow. One I think you mentioned was la October one was like the second week of November. Could you tell us the story of both of us hunts, how specifically those came together, why you were successful on those those hunts. Well, the one was a ten point and that was on Halloween. I just mentioned Halloween a minute ago. I was on Halloween evening and I had seen this buck in a different part of the property, thirty seven acre parcel. I've seen him over on the other side of the property. Oh god, second or third day of season, walking along the edge of the standing cornfield. Oh this once. Remember me telling you about the apple tree a while ago where I've got it cleaned out through the to the opposite side. Okay, Halloween night, my first set at this tree. I'm sitting in this red oak next to this apple tree. And just like I said, he came out through the heavy cover on the opposite side of the tree. He fed on the opposite side of the tree for maybe three minutes, eight three or four apples, turned around and went right back the where he came from. And because he was always facing me, I did not get a shot. He'd never turned broadside. So and that was that was probably an hour and a half before before dark, and uh, just about the time I was getting ready to think about getting out of the tree, I heard a doll coming and coming down through the swamp. She ran right through the opening. Remember me saying on the side of the tree that I'm on. The apple tree on eyeside was open and it kind of a little downhill slide, but it was wide open. She ran right through there, right through that opening. And it wasn't twenty seconds later I heard a running and you know, I didn't know it was going to be that dear, but obviously I got ready and it was that that ten point and I shot him. Um, he was going. He was falling exactly obviously, and nose to the ground following her and I came a full draw and I made a man and he stopped and I shot him. And then the second one was on a two acre parcel that I had just gotten permission from and it just happened to be a spot where there was it was the headlands of a big cattail marsh, and um, I prepped a tree there and there was some rubs and stuff in that area, probably just prior to season. When I went and speed toward it, and I sat in that tree. First time I sat in that tree, it was I think it was November ten through eleventh, and it was pretty late. It was like a quarter to ten maybe, you know. I'd seen two little bucks going to the cat Tail Marsh, and about a quarter to ten uh, out of that cat Tail Marsh came this eleven point and I did not know he was in the area at all. I've never seen him, and he was chasing some dolls around and I shot him at about I don't know, twelve twelve yards maybe, and he ended up I shot him a little too far back, and he ended up dying in some uh a little pond. Anytime you hit a deer, I hit him in the liver, and anytime he hit a deer too far back, they gave him a lot of time, and he ended up dying in that pond because they liked to soothe their wound. I think the cool water. Why do you think or why I'm curious why you set up there. You mentioned it was near cat Tail Marsh and you saw some rubs. Um was that? Was it just that that made you set up there? Or did you did you think there's some betting in the marsh or can you leverage a little bit on specifically why you dropped that tree where you did. Yeah, anytime, any time you have a dry marsh cat tail marsh, dey are going to bet in it. If you're in a pressured area and there's a dry cat tail marsh, de're gonna bet in it. So I knew there was going to be dear betting in it. And there was some timber that butted up to this cattail marsh right on the corner of this little two acre parcels. So I went in and I set up a tree postseason, and I didn't hunt it until November. And I did hunt it one other time in November, and I did not see him. I think I saw a little late pointer in a four point. But then the second time I went back and for the morning hunt, and it's primarily a morning spot um, and I was in there probably two hours before daylight. He came through the quarter at quarter ten o'clock. Now I'm making an assumption here, but I feel like if I'm like making an assumption about the average deer hunter, and maybe if I'm I'm basing that on maybe what I used to do ten years ago or something would be. You know, I've got my one property hunt and maybe I've got my best stand or my best two stands. And so when it gets to that rut, it's the first week in November something, I'm gonna be sitting there over and over and over again, because that's where I think all these deer going to be. UM. When I hear you talk about the way you're hunting, and I read your things, it sounds to me like you are bouncing from place to place often, um, and that you're not hunting the same place over and over and over again. Is that accurate? And even during the rut it sounds like you're on this property for a hunt or two and then over on this stand farther away or that property. Um. Is that accurate? Or that's very accurate. But I have to put a disclaimer in there, because if I'm hunting, let's say an apple tree that's been dropping apples for a few weeks and it's got you know, there's three or four scrapes there, it's a primary scrape, and I hunt it, you know, to Let's say I go in there in November and I hunted, and I see three or four dolls and some some fauns and a subordinate buck. Uh, And I didn't spook anything because of my entry and exit routes, I didn't spook anything. I'll hunt it again. Then the very next hunt, I'll hunt that spot again. If it's a morning spot hunt, it's the next morning. If it's a morning and an evening spot, I'll come back and hunt it that evening. And as long as I'm not seeing a difference in my visual deer sightings and the activity remains the same, i will continue to hunt that spot. As soon as I see where my intrusions are affecting the dough traffic at that spot, I'll go hunt someplace else and put that one off for a week. So it totally is depending upon my visual sightings and the active you know, the scrapes being actively hit, you know at night, because you know he may be with a dough. The buck that I'm pursuing maybe with a dough during her twenty eight to thirty two hour cycle, so you know, my kinding maybe off. You know, just because you hunted spot does mean he's gonna come through there that time. He may be doing something else someplace else, So as long as you're not interrupting the activity. It's okay to hunt a spot three or four times in a row, and you know, because then there's a good chance he's going to come through one of those times, because if he wasn't with a hot dough, she's gonna be out of her cycle, and then he may be searching for the next one and come and check out that scrape area in doing so. Yeah, to your point, atually depends on the situation, But yes, I do like to bounce around a lot so that I'm not you know, even though I'm not worried about my cent, you're still making a visual or not a visual, but you're still making an intrusion. You know, you may be spooking something with an entry or whether you're exit. I try not to, but as you well know, that's impossible not to do all the time. So stuff happens, that's for sure. Yes, absolutely, I'm kind of curious. Um, I want to want to shift a little bit for just a moment here before we wrap this up, since I've kept you a pretty long time here. But you did mention um, you know the fact that you are hunting differently when you had to you know, farther west, some of these other states like Kansas or I or or whatnot. Um, can you give us like a the Eberhart Way one on one on pulling off these d I y hunts to the less pressured Midwest? You know how you pull off these weeklong hunts. Oh yeah, I do not go out in pre scout. Uh. I've been hunting Kansas now. I've got two or three farms, the free permission farms. Again, I've never paid on any place in my life. Um, and so I kind of know the locations already. I know the areas, and primarily in Kansas, it's a lot of draws. You know, ninety five per cent of property out there is in crops or weed fields or CPR, and there's not a lot of timber. And that's what I love, you know. So anytime you see a draw, there maybe a draw every half a mile or three cords of a mile, and it just kind of meanders through the sections. And those draws have pinch points and they have rights. That's basically during the daylight hours, you know, the deer are kind of they're not up on the flats and the crops, they're down in those draws. That's where they bet because there's a lot of weeds. It's more moist down there, it's more fertile, and that's where the dear bed and that's where they transition through. So it's very simple. You just kind of walk me indus through those draws. On your first day there, leave scouting and prepping locations, and you prepare whatever locations and the tightest pinch points possible, and you just put a camera and on him accordingly, and typically will always out there. There's always scrapes and rubs. Always, there's so many mature bucks. There's always scrapes and rubs. So it's just getting access to some decent properties and walk on properties or whatever. Blowing off your first day even day and a half. That's one mistake a lot of people make because they go out there and they feel like, oh my god, I've got to hunt this evening. No, don't worry about this evening, don't stress out totally. Spend the first day scouting and prepping locations, and then haunt according to what you visually see on the locations you're prepped. I usually will set up blow off the first day and a half, set up the nine or ten eleven locations, put cameras at each and then hunt according to what I see in the cameras. Can you elaborate on the camera strategy? Are you know, are you putting these actually at the tree stand location? And how often are you checking those to make decisions? We are putting them And then when I say we, my son John and another friend of mine go out, have been going out there last few years, and we put them at the actual hunting location correct right that we have them targeted right at either the runways in the tightest part of the funnel or at the scrape areas themselves. And then we will visit those cameras every day, and it's not uncommon for us to drive to those cameras, which you would never do in Michigan, and we will check the cameras and we might even spook deer when we're driving or walking in checking cameras. And it just doesn't seem to matter because there's the rut out there because there's so many mature bucks in the buck of door ratio mature buck to mature doll ratio is so close to me, and even the rut is so competitive, it just doesn't seem to make any difference. You know, you get in a pressure area. There's so few mature bucks in and the rut is not that competitive for the dominant bucks because they just don't have much competition out there. There's a ton of competition. And even if you both the deer up, they they still continue to move, you know, the next day or even that evening through that thing area. And at that time of year two a lot of the activity. You could have a buck coming through that was half a mile or a mile away yesterday. When you check the cameras. Now when he comes through, he has no idea what was going on there yesterday, right, Yeah, And that's that's a very good point mark because it is very common out there for us to put up a camera and get the same buck on cameras two and a half miles apart in one day. Because the draws, you know, up in the crop fields, up in the flat. You know that once the deer all converged down into the draws during the daytime, which is five of the landscape at best, they travel a long waist through those draws. The draws run for miles, and so it's not uncommon whatsoever to get pictures of the same bucket, you know, a couple of miles apart. Yeah, it's pretty incredible how much they move different. Yeah, it's refracting, let me put it that way, because it's so easy. I do enjoy any trip to somewhere different than Michigan, just because you know, it is very different, and and the just the if nothing else was different, just the number of mature bucks, the target, the pool of potential targets is so much larger that you just see different behavior and it's just a lot of fun. I always encourage anyone if you hunt in a state like Michigan, Pennsylvania, New York, or the Northeast or somewhere like that, it's worth saving up some money and time to to do a trip like this to experience it, because it's just fun. It's different and it's a lot of fun. It's like being single and going into a bar. You're the first guy in a bar after the Chippendale's performed, and it's nothing but women in there, and they're all crazy. I think, I think you just got a lot of guys to buy a plane ticket out to Kansas or Iowa. Now after that analogy, well that's a good analogy. Is that very true? Very true? All right? So John, this is uh as I knew it would be. This has been really interesting. I wanna ask one final question, and that is, of everything we've talked about, or maybe things we haven't talked about, if there was like one thing that you could get the average haner to change, or if there was just one parting word of wisdom, or maybe it's the one thing that you see that separates the average honer from the best hunters. You know, what's that one thing you want everyone to walk away from this conversation with and take action on. That is really easy sent control period, end of discussion. If you can control your sun where you don't have to pay attention to the wind, that makes a monstrous difference, and it can be done. Most people think it's a scam. That is absolutely not true. It is not a scam. It can be done. I do it all the time. I do not pay attention to wind, and that makes hunting so much easier. I every time you say that, it kind of blows my mind a little bit. It's hard to believe that, but I will take your word for it. John. I know my workshops, my workshops, both on the infield day and on the sum of our day. I'm going to go over sun control with a fine tooth comb. I think I do not disagree with you at all, and the fact that everything you possibly can do to manage that sunk control, just like anything I think if we like. Maybe the moral of a lot of what we talked about here is that the details matter, right, It's it's paying attention to the little things. It's being attentive to all every little piece of the puzzle matters, and sink controls is a very important piece of that. And if you can push the odds a little bit more in your favor with that, that's gonna you know what blows me away? Mark. You know, I watched the TV shows, even the guys being sponsored by Sunlock. They got beards exposed, faces exposed. Next they wear a logo cap with their hair hanging out. You know, any one of those things they were face paint to look cool. Any one of those things totally in the gates. Everything else you've done. On the suntlock side, you can be wearing a perfectly pristine suntlock jack and pants, rubber boots. You can have a sunlocked backpack, And if you've got any one of those other flaws, you better pay attention to the wind or you're gonna get busted, or you may have sent control regiment. You were in the proper headgear with dropped out face mask, You've got your mouth covered, your next covered, everything's covered, your boots, and yet you go out there with a backpack that you've never washed. You get into it with your bare hands every day. So you've got this huge human scent wick in the tree with you. And then if you get win, did you blame it on your suntlock suit when in reality, if your backpacks, it's all of it's all a matter of degree. If you don't do it correctly, you better pay attention to the wind. And if you get busted because you didn't do it correctly, don't blame it on the suit. Blame it on yourself. It's your fault. Right. Yeah, there's a lot of again, the little things, even your your bow release or your poll rope, anything like that. So I've been busted years ago because of my bowl rope. So that's that's a great point. Well, John, If people want to check out these workshops or if they want to pick up your books or your DVDs. Can you just remind us again what that website was that we should that we can go to. Yeah, you can google my name Johnny berharton and I'm sure it'll pop up. Or the easiest one would be www dot d E E R dash, the little hyphen j O h n dot net perfect deer John Deer hyphen John dot net. Or you can you can be you can call me on my phone number at nine six four four six zero six seven. I'd be more than happy to talk to you about it. That's a dangerous move you did there, John, That's I don't know. I'm impressed that you're willing to share the phone number. That's good. Well, that's awesome. Well, John, I can't thank you enough. Um, this is always an interesting chat with you, and this definitely lived up to that. So I appreciate it, and I hope you have another great season this year. Good hunting everybody out there, absolutely and that is going to be it. I hope you enjoyed this one as much as I did. And like I said in the intro, take a listen after this to the Mark Drewy episode I mentioned. Obviously, these two guys hunting very differently and are in very different places and circumstances, but it offers an interesting study in contrast and a good example for us to look at. And I just think it's good stuff all across the board. We can learn different things from each and I think that it is pretty cool. So I also want to remind you all that I will be at the two thousand seventeen Quality Deer Management Association National Convention later this month, and I really really would like to see a bunch of you there. I'm speaking and recording a live podcast on July one, and we're gonna be doing some live Q and A from audience members, So it would be super cool if some of you were there to ask your questions and to be in the podcast. So head over to q d m A dot com as soon as possible to learn more and a register for the event. Again, that's July one, it's down in New Orleans. It's gonna be a good time. I would love to see you there. And finally, I want to offer a big thank you too. Sick a gear YETI Coolers. Matthews Archery, Maven Optics, White Tail Institute of North America, Trophy Ridge and hunt Terra maps and of course thank you to all of you listening. I appreciate your time, I appreciate your support. I hope you enjoyed this one and until next time, stay wired to the port to be compet

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