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 number one, st and Tan the show. We're joined again by outdoor writer and Illinois bow hunter Don Higgins, and we're discussing in detail his plans and tactics this year for targeting to potential two class bucks. Okay, so real quick, before we get into the show, I want to put a little disclaimer in here, or maybe we'll call it an explainer, I don't know, but here's the thing, as you're gonna hearing a little bit. A big part of our discussion today is about one man's goal and plans for trying to kill a two buck this year. And before we get in this conversation and which we do talk a lot about big antlers and high scoring bucks, I just want to preface this whole deal by offering a bit of opinion. My opinion, and it's that I think we should all be careful to remember the inches aren't everything. You know, it is easy to get caught up in the whole antler craze and scoring bocks. But if you go too far down that path, or if you go there too soon, I think there's a real risk of lessening your enjoyment of the hunt, or devaluing or disrespecting in some ways the animals that you hunt. We're losing sight of some of the other very important aspects of hunting. Now. I'm not trying to say there's anything wrong with scoring deer or getting excited about the score of a buck, or setting your own personal goals for deer hunting by using score in some way. That's all well and good, and I do that sometimes too. I'm more so caught shooting everyone, just not to get too caught up in what everyone else is doing, or what other people are targeting, or what other people are shooting. And I also don't want us to forget the other aspects of deer and hunting outside of antlers. Yes, big antlers are beautiful, they are rare, they are just playing cool. I dig them just as much as the next guy. But we need to be careful not to go too far sometimes on that front. Now, as we get into today's conversation, you're gonna hear us dig into these very thoughts and more detail with Don, and I think he does a really nice job of explaining his own unique perspective on this too. But I just want to make sure these ideas are mentioned right at the top as well, not an hour later, because I just want you to keep this in the back of your mind as we continue through this conversation. Anglers are great and fun and a cool way to set personal goals. But meet and challenge and experience and camaraderie and new places and new memories. Those are great and fun and very very important as well. So with all that said, uh, I will kick it back to our regularly scheduled programming now, and we do have a pretty long intro today, f y I somewhere around thirty minutes, so if you're new to the show, you are welcome to skip that and move right into our interview with Don and Deer running tactics and all the good stuff we'll be talking about. But be warned if you do that, you'll be missing out on some very interesting news. So here goes all right, Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, brought to you by sit K Gear and today we are joined by Don Higgins and outdoor writer and Avid Illinois bow hunter and a three time past podcast guest here. So today Don's going to discuss with us two pretty interesting topics. First, we're gonna talk a little bit about e h D, which is a disease that many of us fear in the late summer and early fall and starting to pop up across the country. And Don his got his his irons in the fire related to that a little bit, So we're gonna chat about that with Don. And then secondly, Don has got a potential two hundred class Buck and his sites for this year, So we're going to dive deep into the story of that Buck, his plans, his tactics, his strategies, everything he's hoping to do, planning on doing this season after that Buck, that's what we want to break down, try to hopefully pick his whole game plan apart and see what we can learn from that. So I'm looking forward to that. I think it's gonna be really interesting. But before we bring down on Dan Johnson, Mr co hosting, Mr host, I'm doing good and I don't know if you remember, but last week and last week's episode, I kicked off the episode by telling you it's some big news to share ye right right, I have bigger news to share today. Oh, like, is it like good news or bad news? Depends on your perspective, based on how you talk about this thing over the past few years. Some might say bad. But I'm serious. I'm joining the club. Ship We're gonna have a baby, no ship. Yeah, holy shit. Yea, this would be something that I might might have been prepared for. But no, this is the first time her hearing of this. Yeah. I had to make sure you got the full effect. Oh wow, yeah, man, congratulations, man um, thank you buddy. Yeah, where babies come from? Now now we know where they come from. It was a big surprise, but we figured it out. That's awesome. Yeah, pretty pretty crazy. I hate it and love it at the same time. So I so I hear. Yeah, it's gonna be Uh she's a little over three months long, so it's going to be a February baby. That's good timing. Yeah, yeah, I thought so it'll it'll you know, be a little bit of shed hunting impact maybe, but I can I can handle that. Yeah. So here's the question, like, have you known for a while or did she just spring it on you? Yeah, I've known since May. Okay, all right, So we've known, we've just been keeping it quiet. You know. They say to wait till after like the past the first trimester, to make sure that things are going okay, So so far, so good, and um yeah we're we're we're ready to talk about it now. So wow, that's awesome, dude. Now on a serious note here, I bitch about my kids and you know, complaining them, but it's all for good fun. I mean, you're going to absolutely love whatever it is. Like, do you know if it's going to be a boy or a girl. We don't know yet. We are probably gonna find out, but they're not gonna do an ultrasound until later in September, so probably want to get back from all my hunting trips. We'll we'll be able to go do that. I'll tell you what, man, it's a blast. I mean, yeah, it's stressful at times, but having having a kid changes your life for the better. I feel. Yeah, it's funny, you know, like you said, you jokingly complain about a lot, but at the same time, like when I get to hear about you, you know, shooting your bow with Mac or taking ava fishing or doing all these different things like that, just like gets me so excited to to somebodybe able to do that. So I just can't wait to share these things that I love so much with with whatever this little rug rat turns out to be. So yeah, it's nuts, it's it's it's crazy, but um but yeah it was cool. We um. Oh. We had a doctor's appointment back before we left for our western trip at some point in this summer, right and we went in there. I think it was our first doctor's appointment, and they said, you know, we're gonna check for heart sounds, but it's so early, we're most likely not going to hear anything, so that don't worry, um, but we'll just check just in case Ace you're here. So I was like, we're not gonna hear anything, but you know, like early on, like all these nerves like you're afraid. I don't know, there's like nerves like is it is this real? Is how things going? Okay? So they put this like thing on Kylie's belly and we're moving around and all I could hear were just like these weird like gurgling stomach sounds and stuff, and I'm like, Okay, yeah, we're not gonna hear anything and then like she did like thirty seconds just moving it around and adjusting something on the little device, and all of a sudden like I don't know where, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't don't, And that was like it was really really cool. Like I it was like, wow, there is a little living thing growing there. That was pretty wild. It's it's just all very it's wild. Lots of change. I heard the first with with my daughter h It didn't really hit me when I heard her heart beat for the first time, but the first ultrasound where I could hear it and see it and see that it was, you know, this little human is growing inside my wife. I was just like, I don't know, it's life changing for me. It was. It was it was literally I have to now become a better person type of thing, you know. So yeah, congrats, Like it's like I could sit here and talk to you about you know. It's like I'm I know Don has a two in on his line, but I almost feel like we should make this parenting episode. Well that's why I told you we had to get on early today because I knew you'd want to. We want to talk about this, right right, Oh man, that's nuts. Yeah, so it's it's yeah, it's gonna be my last hunting season without a child, so it's good that I'm going big this year, right, that's right. But yeah, so now you're not going to have exclusive rights to complaining about kids and talking to on the podcast. It's kind of funny. My boss, uh, my boss uh says to me today, he goes, I said, I feel like every year I'm I'm hunting less and less and less. He's like, don't worry. In eighteen years, you'll be freed up again. And I'm just like, he's right, But that's almost like an insult. That's a long time. It's like it's like a prison sentence. Don't worry, you'll be out someday. Oh man. The key is, you just gotta get him into it earlier, right as soon as as soon as they start going to the true with you, then you're set right and then I can tell the way I'm taking I'm taking so and so with me. We'll be back at dark exactly exactly. I'm just gonna I'm gonna, hopefully by age two or less, little little Kenyan is going to be in the woods that they hopefully. So check this out right, kind of mixing it up with how you're currently living out west. You know, you've got that camper, you got that, um uh, this lifestyle which I'm sure you're going to involve your child in. All right, you're gonna get you know probably. I mean you can still go do that with with a kid, maybe not the long overnight hikes and Grizzly Bear country. But but my wife comes up to me the other day and she's like, man, I really want to raise our you know, have our kids outside more, and I think we should like live kind of like and you know, more of an outdoor lifestyle. And she so she wants to start looking at campers, right, So I have like four pamphlets on my desk here of like a variety of campers with you know that would sleep five people. So I cannot imagine. I cannot imagine how fast you jumped on that plat within seconds of her saying it. And you're like, yep, all right, I'm shopping, let's go. No. No, she brought that up and I think this weekend and because we went to the Iowa State Fair last weekend and they at the Iowa State Fair they had a whole bunch of trailers you could look at, travel trailers, you could look at So we've gone to two dealers we looked at the travel trailers. So it was like, in in one week, we've already done a lot of shopping. Yeah exactly, and I'm just like, let's do it because I'm all about that stuff. I know, and we we've even talked about the same thing, like how you know, what's how do you help make this more comfortable and appealing to the rest of your family and stuff? And that's awesome that she's so she brought this to you. Yeah, yeah, so maybe I'm wearing on her. I don't know if it's one of those things where okay, this ought to shut him up, or if she actually likes it. Either way, don't don't ask questions, Dan, just go exactly not smile. Best advice my dad evergame. That's awesome though. Well, one of these summers we'll have to you have to bring the whole family on out and we can we can meet up out here. Yeah. So wait, when is so? When's the D date? I think it's it's somewhere early to mid February. They haven't been given us an official due date yet, but like you know, doing the math, that's when it should be somewhere on there. So our kids are literally gonna be like four or five months apart only. Yeah, it's true. Yeah, you're most recent one, the one coming up here. That's right. Oh boy, we we there. There could be some competition that could be our competition actually, or instead of a trail camera, bet we do a child that who's going to kill the first? Dear? You know? A child? Bet where? Okay, you have to babysit my kids, I'll meet the wife, go out. I have to take care of your kid while you and the wife go out, all right, yeah, and so so if you lose, you have to drive six hours to come baby high stakes. I like it, that's right, right it. I don't know, dude, that's awesome. It's just I'm sure your wife is all excited and she's already talking about names, and you know, if it's gonna be a boy or if it's gonna be a girl. You know, women do all that stuff. Guys really don't care too much. But I've been I've been thinking about it all too. You know. It's a it's yeah, just just lots and loss to think about. You know, I don't know, I don't know how to plan for this. I don't know how to do this, but figuring out as we go, and uh, you know, I think we're Kylie's you know, had a lot of the same challenges that a lot of women I think have, Like early trimester, she was sick for a while and now she's just like super fatigued. Um. So, like we've we've still done some backpacking trips. We're doing been doing hikes and stuff, but we've been trying to keep it pretty chill. Like we did a backpacking trip this past weekend in Yellowstone, but I picked one specifically that would be like almost no elevation game. We just stayed in like a river valley the whole time. Um, So she can do that stuff, but she's been struggle in a high elevation. We've had two different nights where we tried to just camp um above eight thousand feet, which isn't that high out here, but both times, like in the middle of the night, she was like getting like, uh struggles, like breathing and stuff. It's like right away, like as soon as you started feeling I was like all right, we don't. Let's just let's just turn around and go down the hill. Um. So we did that. But you know, talking to doctors and everything, they said, everything should be fine on here. Just listen to your body. So that's what that's what we've been doing. And so far, so good. Um. But yeah, it's been it's been a little different. But to your point earlier, we're definitely still planning on, you know, continuing to live the lifestyle we are and just incorporate, you know, incorporate the little one into it. And and yeah, it's gonna it's gonna be a little bit different. Um. But I'm now obviously I've never parented before, so I have no idea. But from an outside perspective looking in, I feel like you don't have to let the child completely change your life. You can incorporate a child into your life and making a part of that. And so that's what we're hoping to do, is is to you know, this isn't the end of our life in anyway. This is just the beginning, getting a new phase and bringing in an awesome and an awesome new uh friend into the mix, getting company exactly, which will be good because I'm tired of talking to Kylie all the time. So it's like, after okay, how many years have you guys been married? Uh, this will be four years I think coming up this September, right, So like after a certain period of time, there's not really much to talk to your wife about anyway, So you need a kid so that the conversation stays fresh. So I got I got about eighteen years of easy riding ahead of me now, and then after that then I got to think about new conversation starters. That's right. Well, at that age, your wife won't care about you anyway, so just just just leave me alone. Yeah, as long as the bills are paid, it's all good, exactly exactly. So yeah, man, we'll have a lot of interesting things to share is this whole process goes through. But we'll definitely need to talk more in future episodes or are off air to get some parenting advice and all that. Right, Um, I gotta I got a quick question for you. Run this. Run this by your wife. Though. If I shoot, for some reason, shoot a two inch buck and I'm talking measured out, not net, but gross. If I shoot a gross two buck this year, can I name your child? You know it's it's fine by me. Um, but you're right, you have to run it by Kylie Dallas Fort Kenyon. That's got a nice ring to it. Oh gosh. Yeah, it's gonna be an interesting, interesting journey out of us, that's for sure. All right, So as we often do, right, uh, we we've talked enough about kids first off. Congratulations, Yes, enough about kicks. Now. I saw some videos online, right, Uh, went on a little scouting mission recently, and I dude, I'm assuming that for Montana what you saw was a really good night of glassing. Yeah. They were nice bucks, um, you know, I mean in more than just I mean, I saw so many deer, so many deers, so many bucks. Like in one little clip, I've got like fifteen different bucks in one shot, and like three or four or five of them are all like pretty darn nice um right, So yeah, it was fun, tons of deer, some nice bucks. There was one buck already hard warned that I saw, yeah, completely shut of velvet. So that was really surprising to see. So question, then, with Montana having such a high population of deer, you know, I mean it sounds to me like out there in certain pockets and spots I mean I've I've talked with guys who are saying, you know, it's easy to see fifty two a hundred deer in and now a big off alpha field, right, definitely. So with that, is there also a higher age class. Yeah, it's it's it's much better now. I don't know how it would compared to Iowa, but compared to Michigan, much much better age structure because I think there's just there's so little pressure on these deer compared to back in the Midwest. In the East, white tails are here just they're not people aren't very interested in them. So most of these deers starn't getting hunted at all. All the hunting is being done up in the mountains for muleis and elk and all that good stuff. Um, the white tails are just kind of like the vermin of the West that kind of bump around in the river bottoms and stuff and people just pass them on by. So so yeah, I mean you see lots of old bucks, okay, so that there's an age structure there that you know, they just don't have the because for me, it's almost like it's it's stagger. There's a lot so one year olds there's even I mean there's then there's just a little bit less two years old, two year olds, there's a little bit less three year olds, there's a you know, there's just a handful of four year olds, and then from there it gets very rare, right, you may have two or three I'm and I'm talking about my farm. So you know, like this year, I think I have five, maybe five deer that are going to be so far you know, this is based off my last trail camera check, like five, five or six deer that are four year old or older. Right when I have probably ten fifteen deer that are in the one two and you know, one and two year olds, and maybe fifteen that are in the three year old range. So out there is there a is it even like there's ten ten one year olds, ten two year olds, ten three year olds, ten four year olds, or does it also kind of get staggered off as you get to the older age classes? You know, I it's hard to say. I just haven't been able to study it close enough, you know, and you looked at pictures and seeing deer for years and years. Um, I would guess it's still declines a little bit simply because there are there are still mortality factors that make it, you know, difficult, more difficult for bucks to make it to six than it is to make it to one. But I think it's it's more even then a lot of places, not practically but more so at least, um dramatically more still than Michigan or Pennsylvania or Georgia or South Carolina. Um. But but maybe not too much different than Iowa or Kansas. UM. But just the number of the sheer number of deer makes it so you just see a lot more of these. But I mean it just seems like I see just in driving around or when I was out hunting, there's a lot of deer that looked like they could be you know, four or five six years old, um from first glance. So now I mean when it comes to like you know, antlers, you're not seeing a bunch like one sixties or anything. UM. But I mean, you know, lots of nice bucks, especially for a Michigan guy. Like maybe like when I see au or in thirty class buck or a hundred forty class buck, I'm pumped about that um or any mature buck really. So I mean, you see, you see a nice number of those types of deer. So last night, I mean, just a whole bunch of really good looking bucks that just got me pretty fired up. So that was fun. What was the biggest one you thought you saw? There was probably like high one thirties, maybe somewhere around there. There's a ten point, there was maybe maybe one forty um, and then like tons of eight pointers. There's a lot of big eight pointers that were probably like hundred thirty class eight pointers, um, but like a lot of them. Um. Like in one field, like there was two big off off the fields, and there's a road in the middle, like a main highway in the middle, and these deer were coming off the hills, coming into one field, crossing the road, crossing the highway basically and going into other fields. So on either side of me, like the herd was kind of split up. I would say on the left side there was probably five bucks that would be in that class, and on the right side there was probably another four or five bucks in that class. Um, plus god ungodly number of doughs and fawns and young bucks and stuff. So it's just fun. It's just fun to see deer like that, right, So what other species are you are you fine like seeing I mean, are you seeing mule deer or moose or elk or antelope while you're out doing these drives as well? So depends on where you're at. Where I'm at right now, I'm down in a big river valley, so just muley's a lope and white tails. But there's definitely other places where I've been where I have seen moose while out moose and elk while doing these drives. I'm sure I could see some elk if I went a little bit up into the mountains a little bit more, not even in the mountains, still in the hills a little bit um, because they definitely are down in the valleys right now too. Um. But yeah, this is my first deer drive while I've been out here, so I'm gonna go out here in the next few nights. And unfortunately these aren't deer I could hunt. This isn't we're camping. We're camping in a a different place than where I'm going to be able to hunt. Where I'm hunting is still kind of far away. But this is just for fun. This is just for fun. Yeah, perfect. So that said, from from everything I've seen and and know about these two other areas I'll be hunting the one that I hunted last year and the other spot that's new. It should be pretty comfortable to this. So. Um, speaking of bucks, Yeah, I uh, I got my Ohio trail camera pictures checked. Finally. I know you sent me a couple of them, and I'm that that one. Did you post a picture of that one yet that you sent me? I posted a picture of one of them, the really big like eight pointer. Okay, yeah, the picture that you sent me. I think it's the same buck. Look like the one I told you. He looks like he's thirty inches wide. Like he just looks really really wide. I that to me is like I don't care really about too much about numbers, like, oh that's a booner or whatnot, but that buck is huge and just looks cool character wise. Oh yeah, he's a he's a stud. There's a He's probably the best buck that we have on camera. Um. And I actually looked through pictures we have him last year too. Um. But he was a buck that we never really saw during the season. We never actually saw him in person, but we did get pictures of him a couple of times during the season. A lot in the summer, um, so he could be around. There's another buck. Um that's a nice ten pointer, a little smaller than this one, but still pretty nice. He was on camera a lot last year. Um, but none of the bucks like that we knew that we had named in that we've seen in past years. I don't have any of those bucks back. Um, but I've got mm hmm, like four or five different for sure, nice mature bucks. Um, you know, from like onet to one sixty or somewhere around there. Um. So so yeah, some good ones. Uh. There's a really really big seven pointer actually, um not you know, nothing to matter, it's not gonna score all that well, but supermature and it's a cool looking buck. So that's cool. Um. And you just never know what shows up throughout the season. So so long story short, it's a nice bucks. It's good to see there will be some good prospects this year. Not I didn't see my booner that the booner before thirty. I don't think there's one of those on camera yet. But they're there, always a chance in that neighborhood. So that's right. I when when you sent me that, I was starting to think about your property and because earlier this year and even into late last year, you guys didn't have too much for you know, bucks that would stand out, right, and you didn't have too many of an older age class on that farm. Well, we we have pictures of them, we just weren't seeing them, Okay, So nocturnal, Yeah, a lot of nocturnal activity. Um. Now when I went back, and the thing is, you know, we just didn't get down there very often. So we hunted it opening weekend last year, and then we didn't go back down until the rut, and then we hunted for like our week during the rut, and then I filled my tags. I didn't go back the whole season. Josh just went back I think just one time. Um. So we weren't checking cameras all that often. Um. But now that we've you know, I've looked through all the pictures and stuff. There's still a lot of nice old bucks that are coming through there. But but yes, most of it was dark. Um. And you know, like we've talked about the past, it's just like you have a lot of really really slow days and then ever once in a while though, you have a giant come through. Right. Is there a is there a dough group that calls that property home. There is there's at least two there's two pretty good dope betting areas where there's always a family group on that property. So so yeah, there's at least that No, Okay, cool, Well, at least you got some perspective or some whatever that work is prospects, prospects. There we go. I'm an idiot. We've got we've got prospects. So and yeah, like I talked about last week, you know, I think I'm just gonna take it easy there, waited it out and see what I can see. Um, and who knows, you never know what can show up done. But you know, even though I you know, last year or last week I kiddingly talked to I want to shoot a booner this year. Um, if one of these really big mature bucks comes by, you know, it's it's pretty darn hard to pass on a deer like that because that's that's a great buck. And they don't they don't come by easily. So right, so yeah, if I'll send you these other pictus a couple other picks. I just Josh has been uploading them up to like up into the cloud, and I've just been paging through them today, so I just got finally got to look at a lot of these, So I'll send you a few more, and I'll post some stuff online too for people to see. We got to name these bucks, though, because these aren't bucks that I've um, you know, we've not really seriously followed them in the past, so we haven't named them. We don't really know him too well, but but I do have some pictures I can look back at now and start to try to figure them out a little bit. So the fun will begin owner City too. Maybe do you cringe every time I opened my mouth, like just a tiny bit in my heart like skips. I'm like, oh gosh, what now? Why do I keep this guy around? Uh? Man, you make me laugh? Mr Johnson, I will give you that. Well. We we need to we need to shut this sucker down real quick because we gotta get Don on the line with us here. So, um, no more baby talk, no more Ohio buck talk. It's time to talk to Don about some giant Illinois bucks. So let's take a break for our siest story and then we'll get Don Higgins on the line. For this week's sit of story. We're joined by Montana wild Zach Boughton, who tells us about a memorable high country mule deer hunt where you tagged out in the last week of the season. One of my favorite hunting moments was a couple of falls ago, last week of season. We're trying to find big mature mule deer buck, and we went back to a spot, but I just kind of had a gut feeling was going to produce. Had never seen a big buck in the area, and got there early temperatures were dipping down just below zero, and we just slowly started climbing the mountain, trying to hike slow so you don't get too sweaty. Definitely glad we had the right layers for that day and got up on the mountain and and made a decision to keep going. I had thought about going back down the mountain. I hadn't seen a lot of game. And next thing you know, we come through the timber look up on the hillside and here is just a big four point mule deer buck, exactly what I was looking for. Got down. The buck had no clue I was there, put it behind his shoulder and squeeze the trigger, and that was the end. Of it and walking up on that buck was probably four or five years worth of time spent in the mountains to try to find that buck, and it was super reward and that's probably one of my favorite moments from the last couple of years. Super demanding hunt and spent a lot of time on the mountain looking for a buck of a certain size and maturity that we honestly had never laid eyes on before I filled my tag on Zack's hut. He was wearing Scause timberline pants and traverse hoodie. If you'd like to create a sick of story of your own, or to learn more about sit because technical hunting apparel, visit sicky gear dot com. All right, we are back now with Don Higgins. Welcome back to the show down. Well thanks for having me again. It's always a pleasure, absolutely we h you might be our first four time guests, so you are in what you are in rare company because I think you're the only one there. So we we have enjoyed chatting with you in the past, that's for sure. I live at the bottom of the barrel, so if you're always faith in the bottom of the barrel, you're gonna find me, you should. You should at least get him a gift basket for being a four timer. That's the least we could do, right, well, well done, other than scraping the bottom of the barrel. In life, How are things going for you this summer? Fantastic. I've waited thirteen years to have another two to hunt, and I may actually have to this year to go after one of the box is definitely over two. The other one. I haven't got a real good picture of him yet, although I do have several pictures, but he's always at a distance, and I know he's bigger than last year, and last year he's in the one eighties, so you know there's a good chance that he could hit two hundred as well. And then the real world widlife products has just exploded in the last year or so, so you know things are going fantastic there as well. That's yeah, I'd say that's pretty good to that's and that's that is one of the things we want to talk to you about today, because you mentioned that to me earlier, this little earlier this summer, and my my game plan here done in a little bit, is to try to grill you in as much detail as possible to understand how exactly you're gonna hunt those deer, that deer or both of them. Um, but you mentioned that, you mentioned uh, real life, real I'm gonna get my words on next year. You mentioned something that I want to make sure we touch on because with your company, you have some things going on related to some concerns that people are talking about right now related to e h D. And there have been reports of e h D popping up already this summer that I've seen in Kentucky, in Pennsylvania, and and Dan, you've been hearing about some stuff in southern Iowa, right, you have some rumblings. I I talked with a guy earlier today and there's no e h D on his farm as of now, but he had it real bad the last time there was an outbreak. Yeah, So so what are you hearing on that front and down around by you? Any reports of h G. Well, I've only heard a couple here in Illinois, but Kentucky seems to be getting hit pretty hard at the And you know, the h D typically starts in the southern states, and I know for a fact they were having it, uh, you know light down in Texas, Oklahoma, in June, and it's just it's slowly moved north as a summers who are on so it's around I'm sure that you know, we've we've got probably what two months before we have a at least a month and a half before we have a frost probably to imagine that. So I'm sure we haven't heard the worst of them. It's just getting fired up here in the Midwest, right right. It does seem that usually it's it's a little bit later in the summer early fall when you start hearing about the worst of it. Um is he h D something done that you can for people that aren't familiar with the disease, that you can speak to a little bit of the basics about. You know, if if someone hasn't already heard about exactly what this is, could you fill them in. Yeah, I'm certainly no expert on the h D. But the h D is a virus that's usually fatal. The white tails I have spread abiding midge nap um. It's worse than on hot dry years and drought years. The midge and at breeds in the mud along the shores of water, especially stagnant water, you know, along pond banks and such and in dry years, as these water sources dry up, um the deer concentrated around the remaining water and and it's just the perfect breeding grounds for the midge gnat that carries this virus. So that's why it's worse on those years. It's almost always fatal, but not a d percent of the time. But the thing it is a lot of the deer that that do survive or are left in pretty poor shape and later succumbed to other issues such as pneumonia or things like that. So in two thousand twelve, when we had the worst drought that I can remember in my fifty plus years, we had a terrible e h D outbreak in the Midwest. Uh, in my area locally, it's just about wiped up here. We literally had less than of what we had the year before as far as a deer heard. And it's made to come back in the five years since, but it's still is not to the level at well for that HD outbreak. So the worst thing we need now another setback before the herd is fully recovered around here. Yeah, that's for sure. Yeah, I feel like so many people across the Midwest experienced that tough two thousand twelve. I know by me in Michigan, it was really bad. I know some properties where people found, you know, thirty dead deer and their properties. Um, some of my really good friends there, their places were just decimated and they're still, like you said, still kind of recovering. Now. UM. I know some spots not too far from you, Dan in south central Iowa allowed those places down there got hit really hard. I mean, to your point done, I don't think anyone wants to have another setback like that. So fingers crossed. I don't know I checked this last week. I haven't checked since last week, but um, you know you can go online and you can see the drought monitor map for the whole country and where the worst drought is and stuff. And I did see that there's some very serious drought in south central Iowa and then um Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota, Montana. That section of the country there's some very significant drought. Um. It's not quite as bad to the to the northeast or the southeast as it has been in some past years, but there's definitely some pockets where you could see that happening. So I know there's a lot of people concerned, especially now, you know, I saw some people posting videos from Iowa with some bucks that looked like they might have it that we're just kind of walking around in the middle of the road, um, in bad shape, And you definitely don't want to see that, right Yeah, because once it hits, you know, it's here here in the area, and until the frost killed that Midge Matt, it can just totally wipe out the herds and small localized areas, right it. And so I mean, after two twelve, I feel like so many people were talking about h D because of what a significant impact it made. Um, everyone's been talking how how can we you know, what can we do about it? You know, how can we his hunters try to prevent it? Um? And up until this point, I haven't really heard of anything that can really be done to to try to deal with it, I know. Um. You know, Mark Drewy talked to me earlier this summer about the fact that he was concerned about h D up by him, and so his idea, him and I think Grant Woods had talked about it. An idea they had was to try to, you know, to try to deal with the implications of drought they put out a bunch of water tanks like all over the properties, water everywhere to try to reduce that you know, congregating effect that you mentioned where all the deer go to the few limited places of water, and then that's also where these midges are breeding. So one idea he had just try to put put out supplemental water sources everywhere to try to minimize that. I don't really know how that's worked out for him since, but that was one idea i'd heard of. UM. But I know that you with your company, you've been kind of looking into and possibly have something that can help with us too. UM. I'm curious to learn more about it because I don't know much about it yet. UM. I'd love to hear what you guys have been working on and how you think it may may be able to help. Yeah, it's a product we call Expect Healthy Deer Technology, and we at Real World did not come up with with this product. In fact, it's kind of an interesting story. We had a seed testomer in Iowa that's been loyal to our brand for several years, and then two years ago or maybe a little longer than three years ago, maybe we came out with a deer mineral, and uh, you know, we did an email blast promoting this deer menteral, and and this customer from Iowa contacts this and says, Hey, I love your seed and I'm going to continue buy your seat, but I'm not going to buy your mineral because I've been getting this dear mineral I really like from this livestock nutritionist in Missouri. And he said, you really need to meet this guy because he came up with something to combat the h D and you really need to meet him. And I just kind of blew it off. And this customer kept calling, you know, every couple of months or so. You have you met the guy? He hat, I gave you his number, Did you call him? How? We haven't? And you know, I was very skeptical and just kind of blew it off at nothing. And he was talking to the nutritionists as well, to tell him him, you need to meet these guys from real world, and I bet they can market your product for you. And he was just blowing the guy off to you know, and finally, out of more out of into our customer, we met with the nutritionist and you know, he gave us the spell about what he had done actually in two thousand and twelve, his area in northern Missouri was hit really hard with the h D and that fall, you know, he was hunting and seeing almost no dear, and he was just contemplating if he was sitting in a stand with nothing else to do because there was no deer walking by, he was contemplating how he could leverage his knowledge of livestock tricition that possibly combat the h D and white tails. And he started experimenting, and he had a buddy down the road that raised his captive there, and he would experiment with some of his concoctions on that Guy's heard and expanded a little bit by the time we finally met with him, and and through a series of meetings, we ended up getting the marketing rights to it. Um he pretty much had the formula perfection to that point, and but we told him when we signed the marketing agreement that we was not taking it to market just based on his word. Not that we didn't trust him, but you know, we wasn't gonna put our reputation on the line until we had done some testing of our own, and so we set up some Captive heard some tests, and Captive Heard last year in ten different states, you know, from Oklahoma, Nebraska, Kansas, up through Missouri, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, through the Midwest and into the South a little bit. And uh, we tested about it was on about thousand captive deer in those ten states and various herds, and not a single deer was lost to h D. UH last following those herds that was getting it. And but the thing of it was, you know, we wasn't sure if they would have been lost even if they were not fed the product, because we didn't know if they heard, you know, I'd been infected. Last year wasn't a real bad year for h D. So this year we really expanded the testing and I mean we've got it. Uh, there's probably ten thousand captive deer right now on the products. Now. We went down to my partner and I flew to Dallas, Texas back in April at a big deer farmers or deer breeders event down there to talk with people and gets product. The Texas Deer Breeders Kill Off got on board with us UH to help us test it. And to make a long story short, you know, I was extremely skeptical at first and in fact, there was nobody more skeptical than I was, so so skeptical that I didn't even contact the the nutritionists who developed it for months and months after hearing them. But I'm telling you what, the reports we're getting this summer just totally blot away even my expectations or hopes for the product it were. It's being fed right now, and the herds that already had e h D, they were already, you know, dragging dead deer out of the pens before they ever started on this product. And the phone is literally ringing off the hook now from captive deer leaders that that are wanting to get their hands on this stuff. And you know, we probably shipped two semi loads of this stuff and it's used like a hundred pounds of it in a ton of deer feed, so it's pretty concentrated. And we've sent like two semi loads this stuff just to Texas. And we've also got a note home. We got all the way across the south of Florida. There's a test being done at the University of Florida on it UM and it's just kind of snowballed. We did that. We commissioned a test at the University of Minnesota earlier in the year and one of the leading virologists in the country. UH test product in the lab and found that there was two ingredients in the product that killed the live v HD virus within two hours in the lab. Now how that translates into live dear, we don't know, but but I can tell you I was a little bit. I was pretty excited about that, and that's what really got people's attention. But that is nothing compared to what's happening these deer fans uh Um. Last week, for example, that I had a guy from Alabama call and he was so excited. He said, you guys don't understand what you've got here. You better you better buy a bigger male to make this stuff, because you've just cured cancer and white tales. And I want to stress that's his word, is not mine, Um, But we are extremely excited about what we're here, and just in the past three or four weeks, and and actually, if you have talked to me a month ago, I was still somewhat skeptical, but my skepticism over the past two or three years has been slowly replaced with optimism. And right now my skepticism is very, very low because the reports just keep coming in daily. And it's not just from one person in one state. I mean, it's across the entire South basically from Oklahoma, Texas, Alabama, Florida, Georgia. Those states have been dealing with the h D for the past two months. Well we're just now starting to see it the Midwest, and uh not, I'm telling you we got a game changer here. I think we're going to know a whole lot more. Uh you know, later in the fall, after the h D season is over, everyone that's every captive deer breeder that's feeding the product now is going to be surveyed, uh you know, to see exactly how many deer they did lose the h D when they started feeding the product and when the deer died in relation to you know, how many days after they started feeding in things. But uh, it's it's just looking fantastic at the moment, Huh. I mean, it's it's certainly interesting. And I mean I obviously by no means and with all due respect, um, but just given the fact I don't know a whole a lot about it, this is by no means an endorsement in any way but it's interesting to hear about because I know so many of us are concerned about e h D. And if, if you know, if what you guys are studying this summer continues to show such positive results, I think that is very exciting for everyone. UM. Now here's a question. I don't know if I don't know if this is something you can answer yet or not. Um, but if this is applied to a wild deer herd, you know, as an average deer hunter have enough property I can hunt and I'm concerned about h D. And if it turns out that the studies continue to show this does seem to have an impact, do you have any idea of what kind of scale I need to have as far as or how long? How long do would I need to be feeding this to the deer? What type of scale I mean does this need to be? I mean, am I dumping out hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of pounds of this? Or I don't know those questions you can answer yet? Are are we still kind of figuring things out? Well? The real challenge is going to be you know, I think at this point I personally am convinced that it works. Now to what degree it works. I don't know. I don't know if we can we save fifty of the deer that what otherwise died. Can we save of the deer that but otherwise died p h D. I don't know what the percentages, but I am absolutely convinced we can save deer. The challenge is going to be, like you mentioned with a wild deer that you know, they've they've got to consume the products, and we really don't have the answers to how much they need to consume and how often they need to consume it because the tests we're seeing this year is kind of this summer and the captive heard it just kind of blown our thoughts out of the water. You know, we thought that they were going to need to be on it for thirty to forty five days ahead of the h D season to load up their systems, but we're not seeing that in the captive deer. I mean, guys are losing deer the h D and they're they're starting to hurt on it, and the deaf losses are are stopping a whole lot quicker than what we expected. So I mean there's a whole lot more unknowns and moans. But the one thing we do know is that it's working to some degree. So have you guys done an official test where you put a deer with c w D tested positive? Excuse me e h D. Excuse me, a deer with e h D isolated him, put that, put the mineral in the pen with him, and then fed him a certain amount of days, and then he was cured the next like however many days later. Well, I don't think we're ready to say we've done that, but we've got reports from some of these guys that are, you know, have the captive herds, that the deer are absolutely coming down with d h D, absolutely not going off seed, not anything, and pulling out of it within a matter of two or three days. If the guys that are saying, you know, if I would have seen that last year, and my dear fan, I would have known one that I was going to be burying that deer the next day. The next day, I'm going out there and I can't tell that the deer was sick except for some drooling, you know, out of its mouth and stuff. And within three days you can't even tell that there was ever sick and never stopped eating or anything. And again, I'm just sharing some stories, and I don't want anybody to take this as I'm saying this is what's gonna happen. There's a whole lot that we don't know, but but I can tell you that it's working to some degree. Yeah, yeah, I think that. I think it's I think it's it's it's interesting, and I think to your point, there's a lot of unknown still, but help me as intrigued, help me as intrigued. So I would love to follow, continue to follow the reports and what results you guys get back. And I think, you know, as your tests start to come through and and more is better understood, I think it's, uh, it's gonna be something very interesting. So so keep us posted on that done. And I appreciate you sharing some of these kind of early results and thoughts on it so far. I know a lot of people will be interested to hear about this and and hopeful that there is something that's going to be, you know, proven to be super helpful in the future. So I got my fingers crossed for you. Yeah, we're absolutely gonna put out the test results. Uh, you know, I don't know how long it's gonna take to get all the surveys in and you know, winning h D season is going to end, but we're hoping by the end of the year we're gonna be able to put out a report that says, in two thousand seventeen, this product was fed to you know, X number of captive deery and next number of states, and an X number of herbs, X number of animals were lost to e H d UM and then share some of the level stories from the various captive deer farmers that that set it um. You know, I never would have even if I would have heard the stories that I've heard in the last two or three weeks, I would just blowing them off, because I'm telling you, at the beginning, I was as skeptical as anyone. And I understand people's skepticism. I mean, I've heard it, and there's not hardly a day goes by that I don't get an email or something on Facebook from somebody saying, no way, it's snake oil. This man. I understand that a hundred percent because it just seems too good to be true. But right now it certainly appears that's the way it's aheaded m Well, so is this treated treated like an antibiotic where they they you know, get it in their system and it creates a h an immunity to to that or is it does it kill it? Well, we're not sure. It's not an antibiotic. It's all natural. So there's no FDA regulations or anything. Uh. Anybody can buy it. Anybody can feed it, UH, at least on in states towards legal um. It can be fed in mineral or in feed. We're even looking at some other options of how to get it into the deer. But again, there's just so many unknowns that I hate making statements because I don't want to be held to him later if something proves out different. But you know, I can just tell you it's working to some degree. And and then then and then there was that the University of Minnesota test that did show that it did kill certain ingredients in the product, did kill the virus in the lab. Correct that that's true, right, Yeah, And that's correct. And you know it was developed basically to to work in three ways. First of all, to repel the midge, and that to keep the deer from getting in the first place. And that's not always possible, but if you can prevent some of the differ from ever getting the virus. Uh, then you don't have to worry about treatment or curing it or whatever. And then uh, it enhances the immune system to the point that you know, the deer is able to fight it off. And there's there's also products in there that they help with the heat dissipation so that the animal, you know, they get the h D they fever real but that's why they die in the water. They get such a high fever they go lay in the water to cool off. That's wally end up dying. And there's there's properties in the in this product that will help with heat dissipation to keep the animal cool. And you know, we're not sure to be honest, you know which one of these modes of action is the most effective, but all we know is working. H. Well, I'm interested and uh let's let's definitely check in down the line, and uh, we'll definitely be interested in some updates on what you do see throughout the rest of the summer and hopefully hopefully there'll be some good news for deer herds across the country. I certainly would like to know a solution, So that said, though done, UM E h D is kind of a downer. I think for most of us, nobody wants to hear about the h d um, But most of the most people do want to hear about really big bucks, especially two inches. So you say you've got to potential two inches on the radar this year? Is that right? Yeah? I do. Uh. And both bucks I have a long history with. One of them is seven and a half this year and the other one six and a half. But they're two totally different animals. One of them, if they're both alive October one, when season opens, my odds are killing one of them are about are over probably over. My odds are killing the other one are probably less than five. Um. Just one of them is a real home body. He's got a small core area where he lives. It's on a property only I'm allowed to hunt. He's visible quite regular. I've seen him three times in the past month and really have a been a lot of time looking for him, get his trail camera pictures. Pretty regular. He's where he's at, he's living where he's been since he was two and a half years old, and doesn't travel far. A lot of daylight movement on that buck. Last year I passed him five times as a five and a half year old. Got video footage of Baldo's um and you know, he's actually the biggest buck I ever let walk. Last year, I thought he would probably score in the low one eighties when I was passed him. But in this spring I found his sheds and he actually scored right at one. And the only I don't want anybody to think that that I'm passing one D nine in bucks. If this would have been an older buck, um, you know, I still felt this buck could get bigger, which he did this year. But he was also living on a property that only I can hunt, and I knew he was a homebody, not ranging for and that's why I let him do. If I buck would have been on another property, he's got shot for sure. So I kind of to throw those disclaimers into here to not mislead anyone to think I'm passing up hunter ninety ins deer all the time, because that just at the case. Uh the other buck, and I call that buck the first buck Smokey by the way, and then the second buck is Trump. And some people have followed my Facebook blog post about Trump haven't written one this summer. Yep, Well, last year I was getting his pictures. They were always at night, but I would get them pretty regular. Now this summer's he's still there. I've got two or three I think it was three times. I've got his photo of three different days, but they were always at a distance. He was never close to the camera. He's become real camera should I have this summer the site where I was getting his his photo about once a week or twice a week last year. I've not got a single picture of him there this year, but he's, you know, just across the field. That's where I've got his picture three times, so I didn't know he's in the same area. Last I figured he was probably about a hundred eighty and low one eighties buck, and I know he's put on more points this year. I've been able to count from the three pictures that I've got it, I've been able to count at least eighteen points. Um long times. Not as white as smokey, but a real long times. Um. He very well could be pushing two hundred inches too. But like I said, he's gonna be a very very tough buck to get. If if I kill that buck, it's gonna be luck ten percent skill. So hope I got luck on my side. Yeah. If you could pick which dear would you rather kill this year? Oh, I guess Trump because he's gonna be so difficult and smokey. I think you'd survive another year where he's at so but Smokey right now is probably two inches and what's his what's the inches? Is that just a massive typical frame or does he have some non typical junk or what's what says? Look, he's a five by five typical frame. He's got four G two really deep forts on both G twos and one of his brows has a little split on so he's got thirteen points in all. But you know his sheds last year he had four times over twelve inches as long at time with fourteen and as I gave him a twenty three inch inside spread. Uh man, And if you want, I can send you a video clip that maybe you could post on your site with this blog. Let me passing him last year, and he he looks every bit that big when he comes by too. But uh, he's just a big frame, pretty much typical with him four G twos. Uh, it's vagin old buck. When I've been waiting a long time to find. Yeah, bet Dan, Dan, what would you do if a ninety class buck walked by you and I told you couldn't shoot him? Kick your ass out of the tree standing ship? Yeah? That sounds about right. So it's okay, here's kind of what I wanted to do. And Dan, you're gonna have to help me think about how we can ask these questions and everything. But I kind of want to like walk you through a hypothetical season done. So I'm gonna like say, Okay, let's say it's this time frame, what are you thinking about? What are you doing? And then I'm gonna say, okay, what if he survives that and he makes to the next part of the season, what are you thinking about? What are you doing? I kind of want to walk you through a hypothetical year hunting these two bucks, and I'm just trying to understand like how your strategies would change, you know, what the plan is you currently have in place, etcetera, etcetera. That's kind of my idea for this. UM. So, so I guess to start though, um, can you lay out what your summer or what your offseason scouting has been like for these two deer? Um, you know, whether it's being the summer or in the postseason, or you know, what have you done up to this point this year to prepare for this hunt? That's what I want to know about. First. Well, I spent a lot of time in the spring um looking for She had antlers from both bucks, and I found both sheds from Smoky, but I didn't find either from Trump, And it just kind of fits with their personalities. One's been very difficult, one's been very easy. Um, especially in Trump's area this spring. Has spent a lot of time trying to gain access. He covers a wide uh you know home range. Uh. Last fall I got his picture two pictures, seventeen hours apart, three miles apart. So in seventeen hours he traveled at least three miles. So I spent a lot of time in that range just trying to pick up a little pieces. It's it's open farm country pretty much, with just little wood lots here and there, fence rows here and there. Just looking at every possible option and someting new stands. And he's pretty much proven to me that I'm gonna have to throw him. But he's not used to the only two daylight pictures I got to him were in Both of them were in mid January, and both of them were in the middle of the day. I think one was like twelve fifteen, you know, right afternoon. Noah was like one thirty afternoon. Those are the only two daylight pictures I got everybody, But they were both from the same location. I did put a tree stand at that location, obviously, but I've been looking at it just I'm gonna have to throw him a curved ball. I'm gonna do something weird, and I believe he's probably already aware of every stand I've got in his range. So I've got some new stands that I'm just gonna stay out of having away from until the time is right. Let slip in and try to hunt him. There is that buck? Is that buck? Then not living off? Is his core area not your farm? And he just kind of cried there every once in a while. Yeah, his core area is is not my farm. It's not a place I have exclusive from it. And four he's his real worlds. Yes, Yeah, tough tough to hunt a buck like that. So you've you've hundled newstand when you do, I guess I'm not trying to say, do you do any serious like on the ground postseason scouting, like trying to better understand how dear using these properties where they might be vetted, where they might be traveling through, or do you already have such a good solid understanding of these spots, um based on history and based on kind of habitat, you know, improvements, maybe you're making, Um, what's that look like for you? Well, Smokey, where he lives, I know his area like back to my hand, and he does every buck has ever done, it's been on that property. He's staying in the same spot he's bet I mean exactly the same place and the just every mature bucket that lives on that property over the years has done the same thing. So that's why I'm so confident and killing him and just you know the fact that he don't leave Trump. On the other hand, he's led me in the new new areas I've never hunted before. So you know, when I found him last summer, I knew he just first from that area in the fall, because I had his trail camera pictures since two thousand and twelve, and and I would quit getting his picture of about the first week October. So I knew about the first week October when the crops would come out, he was moving somewhere, but I didn't know where. So most of the last season, you know, I spent moving trail cameras trying to figure out his home range. And as I found him, you know, he was leading me into new areas I've never hunted before, which meant that I had to get permission from new landowners and and just basically was starting from scratched with him. But it's gonna be a real challenge even even lay eyes on that buck. Yeah, okay, So let's take a quick break here before we go any further for a word from our partners at White Tailed Properties and and today's producer, Spencer new Hearth has got a guest for our segment here today. He was going to talk with us about a very different hunting situation than what we've been to discussing so far this week with white Tail Properties. We are drawn by Blake Farah, a land specialist out of Texas, and Blake gives me telling us about what white tail hunters should know before planning at Texas hunt. You know, I think the probably one of the biggest misconception I guess about hunting in Texas is that they've seen one or two hunts on TV and they assume that's the entire state of Texas. And I would tell you that, Uh, you know, one of the great one of the greatest things about hunting in Texas the massive amount of diversity that you have depending on your geographical location in the state, So you can have any different experience as far as white tail hunting goes all across the state. It kind of functions as four or five separate states entirely according to habitat, location, topography, terrain. Uh, you know, all of those things that you would kind of classify the Midwest or you know, even farther out west doing some elk hunts or something like that. And Texas has such a big diversity of things is that you can really find really whatever experience you're looking for, and just driving two or three hours in any given direction, you can have completely different types of hunting. I'd say the main regions of Texas can kind of break down into what everybody knows is South Texas is kind of South San Antonio, characterized by the classic South Texas brush country, big wide, tall white tails, very mature you can have great age structure because the ranches are huge. You've also got kind of the Panhandle where it's more of the kind of the Kansas Oklahoma strain of white Tail, a little bit more of the river break country, big draws, big cuts, wide open country. You've also got West Texas with huge canyons, um a lot more of the spot and stock type country out there. And then you've also got East Texas where you've got huge timber and you've got large timber stands and you could actually have and grow some crops and have some tillable and uh, you know, just a huge diversity across the state. If you'd like to learn more or to see the properties that Blake currently has listed for sale, visit white Tail properties dot com. Backslash farah, that's f A R R A R. Okay, So you've got you've got some salad intel basically multiple years of both of these bucks. I guess I'm wondering as I'm thinking this through. Let's let's let's talk one buck at a time. Let's start with Smokey. So Smokey again, you know his habits very well in this area. You've he's a home body he's been there for a long time, you've passed him. Um. Okay, let's say it's the early season October one, opening day in Illinois or that first part of the season. At least walk us through what you are and are not going to be doing at that time of year. Are you gonna be hunting him at that time of year? If so, can you tell us where, how, how often? Um, all that kind of stuff. Just at that point in the season. Let's say he's alive. Yeah, I've got two places, two stands where I feel I've got a really good shot at him. And I don't think it matters what time of the season it is. Um. What I'm gonna do is hunt those two stands when the winds are right. And uh, I'm gonna pay a lot of attention to weather fronts, um. You know, when the deer movement would be picked picked up from normal. Um. And if if we got the right weather front and the right wind direction, I'm going to be in one of the two stands, And I honestly think I'll have it killed before the end of October. Um. Just because of my past history with the other bucks in the area that have done the same thing, I mean, he's doing the same thing that I've watched other bucks due in the same location, and I would not be a bit surprised if I don't shoot in the first hunt, but you know, maybe not. It might take a couple of weeks, but I think by the end of October, if he's still a pH D don't get him. I'll have that buck on the ground. And I'm I normally don't go out on the wind like that and make that kind of prediction. But just based on what I know about this buck and what I know about the property where he's at, I think I can get him killed. Can you describe the property, like the situation like you mentioned that every mature buck on this place does the same thing. Um, can you describe you know? So what is he doing where? What's the area he's bettered in? How does he moving out of there? Like? What's the pattern you seem to have on this deer already? Well, there's a there's two different kinds of cover that come together the ideal spot where I think this buck is gonna get shot. You've got wooded cover that that meets with with tall prairie grass, and then you've got a food plot and it's I call it all three of them come together. And he likes the bed in that tall prairie grass. So there's there's like a funnel between the prairie grass and the wooded cover, and right where that funnels that is also the corner of the food plot. And it's just a killer location where you could kill every buck on the property at that that spot. And you know, since told me the only one allowed to be there, I've got pretty much control over it. And then I just I stay away. I make sure that they're comfortable using that. And he's already proven that he's fine with moving in the daylight. I've seen him three evenings and so I think I went out to look for him four different evenings, and three of the evenings I've seen him, So you know he's visible. Um, he's not in there is nocturnal as smoke he is. And the stand set up is just killer. Can you elaborate a little bit on the stand set up again? Uh, you know, not only just the specific location, but also I mean, is this like is this a box blind? Is a hang on in the air. I'm curious about like all the specific details of what's making this so good. It's actually a box line, an elevated blind there that that covers that funnel between the the tall paragraphs and the wooded cover. And also when when the deer come out, if if they're better than either one, either the wooded cover or the the tall grass, they're going to come out into this food plot and this corner of the food pot, or into the food pot that's covered. But this box line is just like the natural hub of deer coming from you know, just about every direction. But yet it's still I've got a fantastic access into that box line, whether west or northwest wind, and that that wind allows me to slip in undetected. But it's also bowling my sentence a direction that there's almost never gonna be there. So even though they're coming from both sides, I mean, they're hardly ever behind me. So they're coming. So they're coming from your north or south and you're accessing from the east. Is exactly exactly yea. And what's what about the access route? Is it just the fact that it's, you know, just an area most deer aren't fedded, or are you sneaking in through a ditch or do you have some kind of like screening cover or some like special thing you've put together to to improve your access there. It's across the wide open agg field and kind of the roll of the lamb. The terrain features pretty much keeps me hidden until I'm right there at the barne. Okay, excellent. I mean a deer would literally have to be standing on the edge of that cover looking out to seeing me coming into that mine. Mhm. You mentioned you're waiting for the right wind and then the right weather front. Um. I can make assumptions about the weather front you're looking for, but can you tell me exactly what that what those conditions are you'd be waiting for, well cool for in October, you know, those October and cold fronts are absolutely fantastic to get those bucks on their feet, you know, a little bit earlier than they would on other days. Um. And also those cold fronts usually, uh, the northwest wind or the west wind that I need is not typical here that time of year, with the more south southwest, which is absolutely wrong for this stand. So the cold front usually gives me the wind I need as well as the conditions for the deer to be on his feet. Yeah, yeah, that that's a good situation to have. Now, what about what about Trump? Will you hunt him at all in the early season? And if so, what's what's the plan for that? Or if you're not gonna hut him in the early season, are you going to be monitoring him at all or in some way keeping track of what's going on there? Yeah, I've dedicated so many trail cameras that bucket's ridiculous. So I think half my trail cameras are trying to catch him and put together the pieces of the puzzle. And you know, by the way, whenever, you know, last summer, he caught my eye, and so I went back to I used Reconic software to keep track of all my trail camera pictures. So I started looking back through previous years, and you know, it's like, what buck is this? You know, he exploded last year. I looked through all my my trail cam from that same location from the previous year, and I picked him out. And then I went back to the previous year. Well, and once I've got his once I know what he looked like the year before, then I can look at all my other trail camera locations and look for for him again and see you know which one of those locations he was at, but I'll make a long story short. I had his picture since two thousand twelve as I put the pieces together. But the problem was I only had him at that one location. He wasn't visiting any other property where I was hunting or head cameras. So you know last year I was, I was putting the pieces of the puzzle together. So the thing I noticed as I was going through these old photos is that you know, he where he ranges in the summer, he leaves in early October, but but he's there the first week ten days or so of October. So I figured I've got a chance there the first week and a half or so of October, so the days the wind is not right to hunting Smokey, I've got mobible stands at this location where I can hunt Trump, So you'll be hunting Trump hard. But then when the time comes and I probably should still be happy, and I'm gonna slip and try to slip an arrow and Smoky at another location. A tough balancing act. Yeah yeah, but that's why I lived for So, like I said, I shot my shot a two hundred and fourteen inch buck back in two thousand and four, and I spent the last thirteen years looking for another one. I want to do it on video next time. And I spent thirteen years, and I don't know how many miles trail cameras, probably hundreds of thousands of trail camera pictures, just searching for another two d inch bluck. And I found a couple of one nineties. And there was one I was hunting a couple of years ago and I just got onto the buck and he was killed about a week later, and he scored like one some mates at the Illinois Deer Classic that winter. But I found a couple in the one nineties that got killed before I really had a chance to hunt them hard. This year, I've definitely got at least one. Yeah, So are you are you dedicating your season to these two deer? I mean, is it? Is it tag soup or two? Pretty much? Yeah? I mean there there may be another buck coming that I don't know about now that I might might change my mind. But if you're asking me that question today, I would say, yeah, there's no other buck that I've got a photo of that I would put my tag on. And I am gonna I am trying to get a tag in Iowa. So when I go Iowa, if I get a a tag in Iowa, applied for one of the media tacks. I was unsuccessful in the first draw in the drawings, so I applied for a media attack, which the deadline to that was today, So I'll be finding out pretty quick from heading to Iowa. I've got a pretty hot tip for a good property over there, and that my factory. The things a little as well. But is it Is it Dan Johnson's place? Because I think you should hunt there. Yeah, she's gonna tell him, though. One of the neighbors gave me permission to park and walk across the line. There you go. The So what does what does the number two hundred mean for you? What is it? What is a two buck? By killing one or both of these this year? What does what does two mean? Well? For me, you know, way back when I shot the first one, I just wanted to kill a world class buck. And but I wanted to do it, you know, on certain terms. I didn't want to shoot one on a deer drive he's running by with his tongue hanging out or anything like that. I just wanted to shoot a world class buck as he's going about his business, not having any idea that I was anywhere around doing what big bucks do when they think nobody's looking. And I was fortunate enough to do that. And as time's gone gone on, you know, I realized how rare that was, and I knew it was the buck of a lifetime my showing. But as time's gone and I look across to the hunting industry, some great hunters, some fantastic hunters, and and how many of them have killed multiple two hundreds? And there's there's not very many, especially when you start talking legit two hundreds. I mean, there's guys claiming that they have that if they was ever their bucks were ever submitted for official scoring, they wouldn't be two hundred. And then but there's guys that have. You know, you mentioned Mark Drewy earlier. He has, h Adam Hayes has. There's those guys that have, And I just I would like to kill at least one more to put myself in that elite group of company of guys that have killed multiple two hundreds. It's uh, like you said, rare company, no doubt about that. And um and and and I can only I have not shot anything close to that big, but I could assume that. You mean, when I think about why do I like to tarte it older deer or you know, when we talk about antlers. Sometimes antlers aren't everything. Obviously there's a lot of other things more important, but we are naturally I think a lot of hunters fascinated by them, and I think it's just I think when you talk about these bigger deer because of how rare they are, there's something special there. It's not because, oh, these antlers are so big, they're gonna look great on my wall. But there's also just the fact that that that type of animals such a rare, special animal out there's so few like that. It is the ultimate challenge, it is. It is that ultimate kind of I don't know, measuring stick for you as a hunter. I feel like, oftentimes, at least for me, like I'm not competing against other hunters to kill bigger deer or anything. I'm competing against myself and like just trying to become a better hunter every year, and looking at antlers and score, that's one way to quantify, you know, how how great of a challenge it was to try to find a deer like that to be able to learn that specific rare deer um. I mean, I gotta believe some of that stuff is similar to what you're feeling too, is that right? Yeah? And you know I mentioned the guys that have killed two hundred inches, dear, there's a lot of fantastic deer hunters, I mean top knocks deer hunters that have never killed one, not not a single one. And that doesn't make them any less of a deer hunter. I mean they know less than a guy that has you hild the hit it on the nail on the head when you said how rare they are smoky. For example, even though he's got a rack over two, he can though smarter than a lot of the three year old bucks really or four year old bucks that I've had the privilege of hunting over the years. And in fact, killing him is going to be relatively easy compared to some of the other bucks that I've hunted, And I founded a lot of bucks that you know, did score a hundred fifty inches that that I never got that got away from me. So the two doesn't prove that you're a better hunter. It's just it's just a very rare animal, And that's the difficult thing. It's finding a two in bluck, not killing them, just finding a two inch block is what's rare. Yeah. So so back to Trump. Um, you mentioned you've got like a week or so window there where he seems to be active on that property, and you said you've got several stand locations that you'll hunt him when the wind's not right for Smoky, can you describe what those setups would be, the early season set up for first Trump would be what one or several of those look like. Yeah, they're basically just a little pockets that cover out in the middle of wide open act fields and h you know, if somebody would see the stand, they would think what that guy's gotta be to the heck would sit here if you're going to shoot it here? And but that's where he lives. That's where he spends his summer and until most of the crops are out, he stays out in those kind of areas. Um. And so I just basically when or went to every area and that in his home range in that three mile straight where I know he ranges the two extremes where I've got this picture from one end to the other and any little pocket of cover where I thought this would hide the box, This hide the box that I thought I could slip in and get a stand and be able to climb in that stand without busting any buckets. Better there, I put a stand there, and there's gonna be a lot a lot of days that I hunt for trump and I don't see a single deer. That is a tricky situation. Now, I know what you mean to some of those spots. Um. I've got some friends and hunts kind of areas like that. In northern Ohio there's huge jumping egg fields and these tiny little blocks of timber in the middle of them, and the challenge always seems to be like just even getting in there without spooking the deer to hunt them. Um, are you gonna are these stands that you're accessing through standing corn or something? Or is it just because they're big enough pockets that you can get in there without spooking How do you manage that to get in there without spooking him if he's in there. Yeah, it's gonna be standing corn, and I'm gonna need days where it's fairly windy where the window covered my noise as I slipped the in Okay, Yeah, that makes sense. Okay, So so I want to move on to like mid delayed October. Now we're gonna pretend that you haven't killed either one of these bucks yet. But before I guess Dan any early season questions for his plan before we move on, I guess, so this last year was kind of warm. We had a warm early season with like one cold front that came through. Uh. And obviously the the bucks don't start getting on their feet. Their movement is more dictated, you know, daylight movement is more dictated towards uh, the movement uh. And then I'm talking on the law of averages. Their movement is based on whether or not the does start, you know, coming into heat and are ready to breed um. And I guess it's kind of leading up to the next question, that is, you know, we have a warm, a warm early season of warm October with you know maybe no uh no, uh cold fronts that come through. Are you still gonna go and hunt some of these properties or are you gonna late like do a lot of laying off two and just you know, even if that cold front doesn't come to the first week in November. Well with with Trump I've gotten that stands out that I'm gonna be hunt him somewhere with Smoky Early. I'm gonna if the wind's right, I'm gonna be hunt him out of basically two locations. Um. And both of them are very similar, they just take different wind directions. Um. But as we get closer to the rut than uh, you know, I'm gonna be again. I'm gonna have probably twelve fifteen trail cameras dedicated just to Trump if I don't get him this year, or maybe I can put a cup and more pieces of the puzzle together and be a step poster for next year. Um. But with Smokey, I've got a lot of different stands in his area that are more rut type stands. Um. So you know I've probably got just off the top of my head, probably eight or ten other stands that once November starts rolling around, then I'll start hitting some of the other stands that are right there close to his his bad have a real good chance to kill him. So so would you say then, just to just to make sure I understand, if you don't get the cold fronds in the early season like you want, you'll you'll keep hunting Trump regardless, But you lay off Smokey on those spots until either the rut or you do get the coal front. Is that accurate? Yeah? And if if I just get the wind the other stand that I've got smoke I described the first one that the second spot is also another elevator blind. Uh, but it requires a southeast wind, um, And then that's one that I could probably get. It's the stand side is not quite as good as the first one, but it's still a location where I've got a legitimate shot at him. And I know, honey, you know a time or two, um, even if the weather is hot, because it's a it's a spot where I can observe a lot of the property as well, and you know, maybe pick up on something he's doing that that wasn't expected. But Okay, now, I'm I can make an assumption here. But let's say let's look at the opposite of that situation. Let's say early actour passes and you did get cold fronts, You had several good cold fronts come through. You went to those couple stands for Smokey with the good conditions, with the good wind, but you didn't get a shot. M Maybe you saw him, maybe you didn't, but you weren't able to kill him. Now it's you know, later in October, let's say October twenty to thirty one, somewhere in that time from the last third of the of the month. You mentioned you've got some other rut stands. Um, you've got a lot of different spots for Trump. Um when it comes to Smokey, if it's late October, you still haven't killed him, what's the specific strategy there? Are you still hunting the same early season stands because you're working off of that kind of bed defeed patterns still or or what Yeah, I will, but I'll move into some of those other stands as well. Um, what will those look like? It's yeah, it's it's hard to say. Most of those are like right on the edge of betting cover, and I'll be hunting the down wind the edge of dope betting areas. But sometimes you know, these bucks will move into those dope betting areas too during the rut, al right before the rut, and start betting there as well. So as the season wears on, we get close to the red, if I haven't got him, I'll start hitting some of these other stands on the edge of betting areas and hitting that bed defeeding pattern. Uh okay, primarily in the afternoons. I just I don't hunt in mornings in October, and in fact, I don't hunt in mornings for the first couple until about November five is when I really start hunting morning. And the reason for is I don't want to burn myself out. You start getting up early thirty days in a row and I don't care here you are. You start getting burned out, and I want to go as long as I can hunting every single morning, so I don't want to start too early. I usually start about November five, and from that point on, I'm hunting every single morning, And especially when you're getting there towards the end of November rom Thanksgiving weekend, that's a fantastic time for killing big bucks. Um. The thing about Smokey is is I, if I give him my almost feel like it's gonna be a mid day type deal. Just based on the trail camera pictures I've gotten, I think that he knows the game as well as I do, probably a whole lot better. Um that, just based on my trail camera pictures, I never got a single trail camera pictures even on her desk. The two I got was midday or the middle of nine, So I think I'm gonna have to spend the all day and stands for him Trump. If I don't have Trump by the end of October, I'm gonna be checking my trail cameras about daily because I want to thank something's happened to if I haven't laid eyes on him. Speaking of trail cameras, um, I know in one of our past episodes with you, you talked about, you know the importance of annual patterns that you're analyzing through trail camera photos. How much of that is gonna How much of that factors into these two bucks too, because it sounds like you've you've had observations of of Smokey, it's been more trail cameras with Trump, how much of an annual pattern from a trail camera kind of studies tendpoint is going to factor into all this? Well a lot on Smoky you know, he's not changing. He's one of those bucks that just lives in the same area all year round. And as you know, I've run these trail cameras for years and years on multiple properties, And what I see is about fifty of the bucks will have a summer range and a fall winter range, and they'll shift. It may only be they may only shift the range a mile or so, but but they do shift a little bit. And the other pretty much stay at the same spot year round. And and that that range, when they stay, it varies in size, and Smokey just happens to be one of those bucks that steams stays in the same area year round, but it's a very small area, which makes him pretty easy Trump. On the other hand, you know, I'm looking at trail camera pictures hard now where he was at last year on a certain date this year, I'm going to be there on that day. Even if I got this picture night, I gotta assume that still, you know, fairly close. But you know I mentioned those, uh. I got several pictures of him during the rut, the same spot where I got his daylight pictures in in January, but he was coming to at night every time I'm going to be spending time, and I know he spends time in the rut there and I know there's several does to stay in that area, so I've got pictures of him working scrapes. Last year he broke a time, so I assumed he was fighting to do that. Um, so I assume he's taking toward in the rut. So during the rut, I'm gonna be spending a lot of time in that area, um where he was in the rut last year. You know, the hot dog can change the game and in in thirty seconds, be having the worst season of your life. And here comes a hot dough in that bucket was off turnal up to that point. All of a sudden, he's on his feet. Daylight. You gotta be there. It's only capitalized. So my my hopes are that I killed Smoky right out of the gate, leaves me one buck tag and I can just focus solely on Trump and not have to worry. Should I'll be over there hunting Smokey because I know I got a better chance to kill him. It would be kind of that's gonna be kind of frustrating. It may happen that way, but you know, if I've only got one tag and one buck, I can focus on my energy on that, and uh, it makes a little bit easier now when you're hunting, you know, one specific buck on either these two areas. Um, how aggressive or not would you get with things like calls or decoys or rattling, you know, because those sometimes can be kind of a high risk, high reward type proposition. So, since you've got such a tight homebody with Smokey, is that something where you would you'd rather not risk spooking him in any way and just know that he's gonna hopefully stick close to home and those during those time frames and you can kill him eventually. Or would you get a aggressive with some type of calling or something like that. I probably won't get aggressive with him at all. I want him just to go about his business like he has all along. Um. You know, I'm sure he's smelled my you know ground oder many times is as he's walked through his area and I've been there, you know, getting stands ready or planting food pots or whatever. Um. I don't want to do anything to put him on high alert. And he knows that I'm part of the landscape there, really, um. And I think that's that's something that I've really not heard a lot of guys talk about. But I believe the deer on on this property no my odor over others, because I've just seen you know, both those and the mature bucks not so much, but younger bucks for sure. And even like three and three and four year olds. You got video footage of the getting down window me and sticking their nose in there. They definitely smelled me. And they don't bolt. They just turned around and walk back into cover. And it's and I just gotta believe that they know my owder versus other people's owders. It's kind of like the farmer that's no threat to him. You know that they smell him day after day after day, and you know, he's out taking care of his crops and his cows and whatever, and they're always coming across his older and he's never doing anything in danger them, so they just kind of become accustomed to it. And I think that's kind of the situation with Smokey. I think he knows I'm there and he just doesn't feel threatened by me exactly. And you know, I've got the wooded cover on this propery end as well as the taller graphses are sanctuary areas. They don't stomp into them. But on the outside, it's my sense there all the time. Men the deer just seemed to accept that box. Now, that doesn't mean they're gonna walk across open country or anything, so caution to the wind. There's still a cautious animal, but some of them are a whole lot more cautious than others. Now Trump, on the other hand, I probably I'm want to get one good hunt out of each stand, and if I don't get him, it's gonna be over it because I that's one shark bock. If I killed Trump, it's probably gonna be the greatest accomplishment of hunting career, no matter what scores. Wow. Well, it's time for our final break of the episode, and this time is for our partners at the white Tail Institute of North America, and with fall food plot planning season upon us, we are hearing today about some of the best food plot forge options the white Tail Institute has to offer for this fall. This week with white Tail Institute, we're talking to consultant John Cooner about their special blend of Imperial white Tail Fusion, which is super popular with deer and even more popular with hunters based on the product's outstanding reviews. Decon is sort of an unusual product for us because it's in part one of our oldest products that we have kept updating and in part because we have ended up changing it so much that we ended up changing the name. By continuing to improve it, the main parts are still the same as Imperial white tail clover is the main forage component UH. Doctor Dr Hannah, our plant Genetics has finished breeding our newest clover variety of a couple of years ago, and so that has been added added to uh to fusion in place of the clover we've had before. That. Also, we've increased the amount of the chickery that we put in there. UH. The protein level is a little bit higher uh than it was. It gives up to the product we had before was called chickery plus. And with all those changes and the fact that that we found chickery plus fusing because it led folks to believe it was more chickery than clover, we said we might as well go ahead. It's it's time to change the name now because we've made those other uh continue improvements to it. Impure white tail clover is number one food plot planning in the world. It's made for a good boisture holding bottomland soil UH. And it's just it. It is our number one flagship products into that there has been a small amount, say ten percent, maybe a little more of the chickory UH infusion and that brings the total protein UH provided up to about If you'd like more info on White Tail Institute's forage products, check out white Tail Institute dot com, where they also carry some of the top supplements, attractants, and herbicides available. Yeah. Either way, I uh, either buck will be pretty incredible, but I can I can definitely see why the challenge is there. Um, now, Dan on the rut side, what else do you want to know about Don's rut thoughts, plans, strategies there? Well, I mean it sounds like you know his goal is to get the job done before correct me if I'm wrong. Wrong, But your job is to get the job done before the rut hits. Right, I'm smoky for sure, smoky for sure? Okay um? And And because that seems to be a uh you're the only person that has the access to hunt that right, there's food plots he doesn't other than maybe chasing a dough, he doesn't have any other reason to leave right right, okay um? So then what happens when the rut hit? Let's say, for example, the rut hits chaos and sues and hey, they stopped showing up on trail camera. B Uh, maybe you see him, but he's on a different property, or he's chasing a dough outside of your plan. Well, I should probably back up a little bit. You know. I mentioned that Trump shifts his home ran in early October from his summer range his fall winter range. I'm not gonna unless I've killed Smokey. I'm not gonna be going after Trump hard like the second half and once the October while'll start said the second half October to the first of November, I'm gonna lay off of him because I just don't have enough stands the hunt and I don't want to burn him out before the rug. So if I don't have Smokey killed by saying filled the fifteenth middle of October, the second half October, I'm gonna be going after him hard day after every day, just to try to get him killed before the rudd hits, because I don't want to take that chance on him hooking up with a hot dough and going to another property and getting shot. He's just I mean, I've hit too long to hunt a buck like that to not go after him hard. And I'll probably do that right up into early October or early November until I getting killed or something happens to him. Okay, even if it means leaving Trump alone. I mean I will early the first ten days or so, when I know Trump's on his summer range. Yeah, I'm gonna hunt both bucks. But once I feel Trump has made that shift to his fall winter range, I'm gonna lay off at him until the rut and go after Smoky hard until I get him on the ground for for something else happens to him. Now, what about um, we talked about trail cameras for an annual pattern standpoint, but you did also mention the fact that if if Trump, if Trump is still alive or you think he's alive, and we're later in October, you said you you'd be checking the trail cameras often to try to figure out where he's at. Now, I mean, what's your trail camera strategy in season gonna look like, um, are you moving? There're gonna keep these cameras in the same places that you always do. Are those like easy to access spots or would you get aggressive with your cameras and move around and keep looking for him, or keep trying to narrow things out. Well, I'm not going to be moving cameras. Instead of doing that, I'm just gonna take how many cameras I need and uh and leave them in the spot all seasons. Some of them are going to be in more difficult to access spots and they won't get checked ear as often. Maybe they're close to a tree stand and I don't want to put any pressure on that stand, So the only time that I checked those cameras is when I'm going in to hunt that stand. And then there's gonna be some that, you know, they're more more open type areas where I only expect to get nine time pictures, and I'll check those more often just to kind of get a handle make sure he's still alive, make sure he's still using the same patterns he has in years passed. Okay, here's something I'm wondering about in this situation. Let's say on both of these bucks, you still haven't killed them in the early season or in October or into the rut. It's not you kind of allude to this with Trump, But at any point do you start worrying about amount of pressure that you're putting on them. Like, let's let's talk about Smokey, because this is the situation where you said you would be hitting it hard in October because you want to kill him before the run. But let's say you hit it hard all through October, you still haven't killed him. Um, but you know he's maybe still in the area at any point. Do you say, I've put so much pressure on this deer. I need to I'm just making it worse. I need to pull out and leave it alone for a few weeks and then hope maybe they'll give him daylight active again. I mean, how how many hunts can you get away with in that area without having some kind of impact? Well, where he at, Like I said, I probably got to at least him stands, So I mean there it might be a situation where two or three stands. I feel I put too much pressure on those, and and I back away from those two or three, But that doesn't mean I'm gonna back away from the other you know seven or eight that's left. Um. For example, in in Smokey's area, I've got, uh three stands that require an easterly wind. We don't get many easterly winds. But I'm telling you, we get an easterly wind in early November, I can sit there and and see six eight blocks every high and whenever. If we get an easterly wind in early November, I know exactly what I'm gonna be. I just can't believe that thats gonna gonna live in into November. To be honest, I hope he doesn't. Now I'm gonna I'm gonna this is blasphemy and I'm sorry to say this, um, but let's say you still haven't killed Smokey or Trump in October or in November during the rough phases, and we've made it all the way to the late season. I know you're gonna be a little bit bumped. I know you're gonna be a little bit down at this point. And that's the case. But what's the late season strategy for these two deer if they still are alive but you have not killed them yet? Well, if if I don't kill him, and I know there's still a lot, that's that's right. I mean, it's actually a little bit disheartening to go out and shoot your target buck on the first day, and the fun is kind of a chess game. And the longer you get to play, the better it is, as far as I'm concerned, So I wouldn't mind it all shooting either woman Bucks on the last day off season. But um, if if they make it to the late season, my odds they kill him Trump or about zero that um in his home area, there's no food plots by that time. I'll probably have burned out every stand in his area. If if Trump makes it to the late season, his odd the maintenance the next year very very good. Uh Smokey. On the other hands, you know I've got food plots on that property he's on. Um. Some of the best video footage I got in passing him last year. You know, I didn't pass it. Passed him five times, but the first time was I think November sixt so I didn't even see that buck nothing. I was trying, but I didn't even see him until I remember sixteen from stand and then I end up passing five times. But some of the best footage was late season. Most of the passes were and I think that was there was twice in November and the other three times were in December and January. And I've seen him other times. He was just out of range, and I didn't count that, but you know that he'll be on those food sources. Um, as long as I keep plugging away and keep watching the wind on every high there will still be a chance. It's a similar, similar strategy than to what you had in the early season, right, hunting some of those food related stands again, waiting for the right conditions. And and if I remember correctly, you don't hunt morrings in December either. And you're very particular about the days of going right right, Okay, you want those cold fronts again. The cold of the weather, the better he gets those mature bucks on their feet before dark and afternoon. Um. If if I had one can only pick one time in the year to hime, it would be the late season and afternoons. And uh, you can take the most nonclneal buck there is. Now. If I had, if I had a property in in Trump's area where I could plant food plot, I would really be looking forward to the late season, because that's one time when you can get anock colonel buck like Trump on his feet. If you get temperatures down around zero, that buck's gonna be on his feet looking for food before the sun sets. And uh, you know, I even ironically I tried to lease a small property in Trump's area just for the purpose of planning a food plot, and the landowner wouldn't go for it. But that's how much I believe in the late season, and that I think I would have doubled my odd to kill him Trump if I could have had a small food plot in his region or his range. Yeah, power of food. How much do you think that the harvest of egg fields and the surrounding area is going to affect any of these deer? Ah? Well, well, for with Trump, for for sure, you know, he's a He's an open farm country buck. He covers a lot of a lot of area, and as most of it's opened, the crops are still standing. I mean, it's definitely gonna be to his favor. Um. The ideal situation is that most of the crops got harvested and there was like one or two corn fields that weren't in range. Um. But I know where I'd be keying on, man down the wind edge of those corn fields got you. So let's think about this. If you get to the end of this season and you have not killed eur other of these two bucks, what would you say would be the biggest reason for that. Like, if you had to exploit hypothetically, you're looking back on this season and I said, you didn't kill smoke your Trump, What do you think? What what happened? Why would you say that or what happened there? If you had a hypothetical guess what the reason would be, or what the challenge would have been, or whatever could possibly go wrong, what would you think it might be? Well, there's no doubt. The only thing that's gonna stop me from killing Smokey is if if he dies another way, if some other hunter gets him or h D gets him or something like that. Uh, that's the only way I won't kill him, because if he's alive, I'll get a shot at him. There's just no doubt. Now Trump, on the other hand, I will It's a total opposite. I will be shocked if I do get a shot at him, right, So I won't be a bit surprised at the season the ends and I don't have him. Do you think you killed your last two Hunding in two thousand four? I think you said right. And now you've said for thirteen years, you've been dreaming of this, You've been trying to find another buck. You've been working towards this, this very rare animal, you finally found one. How do you think you're gonna handle that moment? Are you concerned at all about that own of truth? I know you've killed a lot of big, mature bucks like this is second nature tuning out. But when you have this, this next chance, do you anticipate it's going to be just going about your business or do you think this is gonna be a little bit different. It's definitely gonna be different. Uh. I thought long, I've been waiting for this moment for thirteen years, and I've played in my mind a thousand times. And when I shoot that buck, even if I watched that buck fall, I'm gonna slip out and I'm gonna call my dad. And my dad walked up finding and I want my dad to be the first one to grab his aithers. That's cool. Yeah, you know, my dad wasn't a deer hunter, but whenever I was a kid, I was just crazy about the outdoors. And he always took time from his job. He would save vacation days from his job just to take me deer I mean, and he never really got me anything about deer. And he didn't talk to teach me about scrapes or rugs or anything like that. But what he did teach me was that whatever we was gonna do, he was gonna do it right. And there's a story I tell that. You know, back whenever I was a kid, it was hard to get a gun tag in Illinois to shoot there because they were very limited back then. And you know, you would put in a drawing in the spring, and then in the summer you'd find out if you've got a tag that year. Well, I went to school and you know, I was talking to some of my buddies at school that also hunted deer, and this one kid told me, you know, him and his dad they put in applications for everybody in the family, the mom and the sisters, everybody, and they always had a tag to use every season because somebody in the family get a tagged. And I came home that night at supper and told my dad knew that. I said, now, I got a great idea. I know how we can definitely get deer tags for sure. This year. We'll just put in applications for mom and little brother and everybody, and somebody would get a tag and we can go deer hunt. And my dad let into me and let me know that if I didn't want to play by the rules, I wasn't gonna be deer hunting at all. And I'm so grateful to have a father that that taught me that how we did things was more important than the in result. And uh, you know, if I've just been blessed in the hunting industry to have so many doors open to me as an outdoor writer and such um and I attributed all to my dad teaching me that we're gonna do things right. And when I shoot that next two hundred, I'm calling him and I'm not gonna let him know how big the bucky is there anything. He has no idea. Right now, I'm about to shoot a two hundred. I think I'm gonna shoot a two hundred this year, But I'm just gonna call him up and tell him that I need his help and the deer out and he'll always he's always there for me. He'll be there within minutes. And I'm just gonna even if I see the deer fall, I'm not walking up to it. I'm letting him walk up to it first, letting him be the first one to grab it by the rack. That'll be a special moment, I imagine. Yeah, okay, now this is kind of related to the story you just shared there, but maybe you can elaborate or maybe there's something else. But so the the opposite of my other my other question that that that first question was if you didn't kill those bucks, what was what was the reason why you weren't able to kill him? Now on the flip side, let's say you do kill these two Bucks, and you're sitting at the end of the season and you're looking back on at other than just the tactical side of things. So other than the fact that you know, Smokey is on that property really strong, and you've got lots of great habitat, and other than you know, you have an annual pattern on Trump, Let's say, other than the tactical things, is there anything intangible that you would look back on say, yeah, it's because of X or Y that was really the key to me killing those bucks. Maybe it's something like persistence or patients or you're I don't know, is there anything like that that you would say is probably going to be your key to the success that you hopefully have well, if I feel like I said, if I killed Tryumph, it will be a whole lot of lucky. It's really passion. And I know a lot of guys that are going to be listening to this podcast are gonna understand the passion. Um, there's a lot that was very passionate. I think that I've probably taken a passion to the level that most deer hunters aren't gonna understand, but there's a few that will. Um. You know, I just unfilled tags don't bother me anymore, and they really never did. I'd set a goal and it didn't matter what the goal was. I wasn't gonna shoot a buck less than that, and if it took me five years to get done, we'll so be it. That was I was just so passionate about reaching that goal that that I wasn't about to lower the bar. I would do whatever it takes it takes to reach that goal, and then I would leave the bar there until I would consistently do it, and then I would raise it again, and I wouldn't lower again. I would just keep plugging away until I got good enough to do that. And I think it's my willingness to to accept empty seasons. I don't feel like I need to shoot a buck every year. Um, I want to, but I've got no desire to shoot the bucks below my goal. And uh, you know, I just find satisfaction in being out there anymore that the drive to kill is. I guess, as strong as ever, but as different as I can. It doesn't cost me sleep if I don't. In other words, I mean, I'm fine with with an empty season, so you know, I just go for broke. Yeah, I think something you said there is worth reiterating because I feel like this whole discussion we've had with you, it's not really you know, how to kill a buck or how Don Higgins is going to kill a two deer. It's really about how to achieve a goal. It's about how you can reach your own personal goal. You your personal goal for you, Don Higgins is you would like to kill a two deer. But you know this, everything we've talked about is just as applicable if your goal is to kill your first four year old buck, you know. I mean, it's all about setting what the right goal is for you and your situation and your circumstances and what's going to make you happy and feel fulfilled. Um. And you know, I think it's important. And you mentioned this earlier, right, the inches, The inches don't really matter for you personally, Like it's it's a great way to to to to achieve something that's rare and to challenge yourself. But you know, it's all about setting personal goals and and working towards those and and growing as a hunter and having that experience. And I think having those goal is a really great way to force you to grow, to force you to confront a challenge and learn how to overcome it become better because of it. Um. But I don't know that's I guess my my thoughts on this is as we're kind of wrapping this up, as I'm thinking about all these things, I don't want anyone listening to think like, oh, well I need to be shooting hundred bucker two inch buck to be a great hunter or something like that, or because Don's able to pas deer, I should be able to do that too. I mean, we're all on a different boat, we all have different things, um. But there's something really powerful I think about setting a tough goal for yourself and working for it. Um. I think positive things come from that. All the time. Um, I don't know, uh in my ranting or if that makes sense, you're absolutely right. Yeah, you're absolutely right. More absolutely I you know, people think that because you know, I've got a lofty goals as far as deer hunting, that I looked down on people who maybe shoot deer whatever. And that's absolutely not the case at all. I turned fifty four years old tomorrow, and in that time, you know, I've had goals that were you know, I started out any deer at dough, I was gonna shoot it, and it's taken you know, all this time. I started hunting when I was thirteens. You know, I've got over forty years in the deerwoods now, and all I did to get to this point. And by the way, I never dreamed that I would let a one fifty inch back walk, let alone a one n So you know, reality. I tell people also that dream big because God's reality is so much bigger than you can ever imagine. Um. But when you set your goal, just don't compromise your goal. It might take you years to achieve it, but don't compromise it. If you compromise it, then you never reach your goal. So you know, just just set the bar at a certain level and keep plugging away until you're able to consistently reach that. Don't raise the bar the first time you reach it. You know, if you if your goals a hundred and you shoot one and it's your first hundred thirty, well don't raise the bar to one forty. Next year, shoot a few want and get really countable of shooting that size box and then raise the bar. And and once you achieve the next level, you know, do that a few times before you raise the bar. But but except that, there's gonna be some empty seasons along the way. I mean, anything worthwhile didn't come easy. So you just you know, stick with your goals and plugging away. Yeah, what are your thoughts on all this, Dan? Because I know you you personally have had, you know, some some tough goals for yourself. And some years you you've eight Tex soups. Some years you've you know, you've adjusted goals, like last year you decided to try shoot a four year old. I mean, where's your head at on this whole topic? Now? As you've gone through some different things over the years. I mean, I was obsessed with a buck for several years and I learned a lot from that, dear. I don't know if I necessarily would do it again to go after a specific buck Um at this point in my life, because although going after that that two d insure when I went after him, and I almost you know, I almost accomplished my goal. You know, I learned a lot. But I passed a lot of deer that I should have probably shot to get comfortable with that moment of truth, because I was so focused on this other particular bucks. So I was passing you know, one forties and one fifty class dear that I probably should have shot in those years. Um. And I I don't want I don't want to ever get into position where you know, and and and my circumstances are different than other people's circumstances. So what I say is what I want to do, and what don saying is what he wants to do. But I'm never gonna I'm never going to let um anything outside of the love of hunting dictate what animals I'm going to shoot. M hmm, right on, Yeah, I think I think it's and you know, some people are some people are flying with shooting the first year it comes along, well that that's their business. That's not not that's not my business to tell him. You know, if you want to be shooting the bigger box or whatever, Uh, you gotta do what makes you happy. We're all individuals and we've got different hunting areas and different amounts of time to devote to it, different family obligations and job obligations. What works for me may not for the next guy, and probably won't. It's just you know, I have no other hobbies. I haven't fished in over twenty five years. I've never turkey hunt in my life. For me, it's all white tails. That's what I live for. There's no other hobby. So obviously, at my age, after doing it for so long, your goals are going to be a little higher than the average person. But that doesn't make me any better than the other guy. God didn't make me any better than the next guy. It's just made me different. Yeah, yeah, I do. I do have a question for you, though, and I don't want this to come off as as rude. Um, but a deer for anybody, you know, especially someone in the hunting industry, can elevate their career. Um, what do you think would happen to your career if you were to a you know, if you were able to harvest one or both of these animals this year. Oh, that's a tough question. That's the toughest one I've had yet today. I'm not sure really. Uh. You know, I've seen my consulting business really start to grow here in the last couple of years, and I think it would probably accelerate that just a little bit. Um As far as writing right now, I'm writing about the many articles I want to I'm not one of those guys that wants to put out two or three articles a month or a dozen or whatever. If I could write one or two a month, you know, maybe fifteen the eighteen article a year, I'd be happy with that. And that's what I'm doing. So I don't think it's gonna, you know, change anything there. Uh. It might help draw a little bit of attention to real world and help that business grew a little bit. Uh. I plan on getting these hunts on video, so and I'm you know, not affiliated at this time with any web show or TV show or anything like that, so it might open a door that way, But I don't know. I know, it's not going to change me as a person. I'm gonna be the same guy next year as I am you know today, um, still passionately chasing whitetail, still looking for the biggest one I can find, and always being a student. You know, I'm no expert. I just uh, I've got a lot of years of being a student, so I'll just continue down that path. Yeah, yeah, no, Okay, here's this makes me wonder what happens if you kill both of these bucks you kills in the same year. You've now killed three bucks. Do you have the two buck bug out of your system? Will you be like, okay, you know what, I'm just gonna I'm gonna stick to my you know, all mature bucks, but I'm not gonna be so obsessed with trying to find this next two hondy? Or is it all right? What's the next run up the letter? Now? I want to kill a two ten or wanna? I don't know? Is there a next step after this? If you were to achieve these goals? Yeah, well, you guys say the hard questions for last that you know, I think I will probably always you know, if I kill two, then I'm gonna want three. If I kill three and wenna want forward, it's not I I don't know that till you're there. It's hard to say I want to because very few bow hunters have killed two legitimate two and uh but after that, you know, does the third one make it any better? Does a third one prove anything? Uh? The older i'd get, you know, the less I hunt for any other reason than my own self satisfaction. UM, it's not about opening doors in the hunting industry or anything like that. Uh. There's one point in my life where that that probably was a factor in uh, you know, trying to shoot the biggest buck I could find to sell more articles or get a sponsorship from another company. But that's no longer in the case I'm certain of. UM, I don't know, you know what kind of doors it might open for. Maybe it'll it'll allow me to gain people's here a little bit better, and uh, you know, from all the things I believe in. UM. I think there's been been some celebrities are hunters have had the the published attention that I wish they would have a little different message. I'm not gonna beat my chest and say look at me, I shot three two hundreds. I just as soon use any attention to h for something good. You know, maybe ethical hunting practices or or or who knows. You know, I've spoken a lot of churches. Um. I'm a Christian. I believe in using whatever means possible to promote that. So maybe maybe the open doors there. Yeah, who knows? Yeah, ah, something you just mentioned there, um, And I think I really like your mindset and all that. Um. Something you mentioned when it comes to promoting UM. Some you know, the ethics of hunting and doing things the right way. You talked about that earlier, your dad's influence on you about going things, going through things the right way, doing things the right way. UM. I think they'd be a perfect place for us to leave leave things off here on the podcast. Do you have any final words for our audience as far as the importance of ethics or how we go about what we do as hunters, anything you've learned on that front that you want to share, or any reminders that would be good for us to hear here too. To end this conversation, Yeah, you know, when I first started doing seminars, I would always end with the same I would start the seminar with the same slide as I would end it with the same slide, and it was a picture of my first buck. And on the final slide, we would go right back to that picture me with my first bucket. I would ask you, everybody in the audience to take a look at that picture and ask themselves, what do you see when you see this picture? Do you see some lucky kid with his first buck or do you see you know this picture? You've got to remember us from the nineties seventies. And I'd say, do you you see some kids wearing a funny hat? Or or what do you see when you see this picture? And I'd wait a few seconds and give the audience time to get other the thoughts, and and I would say, no, matter what you see in this picture, you'll never see what I see because when I look at that picture, I see my dad. And my Dad's not in the picture at all. But my dad made it possible. And everything that I've done in the hunting industry I attribute to my dad. So he taught me to do things dry. So my final message, I guess for this podcast would be, you know a lot of us hunters are our mentors or two younger hunters, whether it be our sons or whatever. And I've seen over the years observing other hunters. If the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, if a young hunter. You know, if I'm in a seminar or a trade show or something and a young hunter comes up to me and I talked to that kid for five minutes, I can tell you what kind of hunter his mentor was, whether it be his father or grandfather, whoever. If that guy with a whack on stock hum, if it's brown it down, gang banger type hunter, that kid is going to reflect those same values. But if that kid was taught to hunt by someone with high ethical and moral values, that that child is going to reflect the same thing. So you know, I just hope this season is as fellow deer hunters take out these young kids, whether it be their own kids or others, to the woods, to just remember, you're setting an example, and that young child you take to the woods is gonna end up just like you. So so set the right example well and let them know you know that there's a right way and a wrong way to do things, and make sure they always see you doing the right things. Because the example you said and can live long past you. I guarantee you when my dad was taken vacation days from his job forty years ago to take me to the deer woods. He had no idea what it was going to lead to. And uh, you know the kid you take to the woods, you don't have any idea what that kid's gonna be twenty five years down my mind. But that's a perfect opportunity if you teach them so many lessons that are way more valuable than anything you can teach them about deer. Yeah, I think that is a terrific way to cap this conversation off. So thank you done so much for sharing all of this and talking through this whole hypothetical season and indulging our questions. Um, I hope it was a helpful exercise for our listeners. I think kind of getting your mindset. It was definitely helpful for me to see how you would think through all these things. So we appreciate don And if people want to learn more about the products you talked about earlier to day, or if they want to follow along with with what's happening for you throughout the season, is there anywhere online they can they can find that stuff. Yeah, they they can find information on the e h D product at Real World Wildlife Products dot com or they can follow me on Facebook, Don Higgins slash Higgins Outdoors um for my website Higgins Outdoors dot com. But you know, I appreciate that you guys having me on again. It's probably this podcast is probably different than anyone you've ever done, but and we covered some interesting things. And I just want to thank you guys for you know, the example you guys that for others in the industry, young hunters. I'm sure to look up to you guys as well, and I appreciate what you do. Thank you so much for saying that. Don absolutely right back at you. And uh and finally think most importantly, good luck this season. You've got quite the season ahead of you and we've got all of our fingers until it's crossed for you. Well, thank you and I'll keep you posted. It sounds good and that will do it. Another episode is in the books. And here's what I've got to ask you for before we go. First, if you haven't yet, I've said this million times so you might be sick of hearing me say this, but a rating or review on iTunes would be amazing. It is. It is a huge help and We've already had over seven of you leave a review and I appreciate that so much. But every week, let's be honest, there's tens of thousands of you downloading these episodes, so I know there's a lot more of your folks who haven't done a review yet. So no pressure, but you know, help brother out. Also hit us up over at wired to Hunt dot com and the Wired to Hunt social media platforms to stay up to date on everything else we've got going on. Um, you know my upcoming Alaska, Montana and North Dakota hunts. There's gonna be a lot of cool stuff I'll be putting out there and that will be shared over on the website and Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etcetera. That said, well, wrap things up here where they big. Thank you to our partners at Sitka gear Yedie Cooler's, Matthew's Archery, Maven Optics, Whitetail Institute, North America, Trophy Ridge and huntra Maps, And finally, of course, thank you all for listening. Thank you for your attention and your support. It is just so greatly appreciated. Until next time, stay Wired to Hunt,

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