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 episode number one seventy nine, and today we're joined by Tim Woods, a white tail outfitter, a land specialist for white tail properties, a blood tracking dog handler, and an all around super serious deer hunter. And we're discussing the white tail rut, advice for tracking wounded deer, and much more. All Right, welcome to another episode of the Wired to Hunt podcast, brought to you by Sick of Gear and Tay the show. We are joined by Tim Woods. He's an outfitter for hunt Master's Lodge. He's a land specialist for white tail properties. He's filmed in the past for Dreary Outdoors and now white Tail Edge, and he is just an all around very serious white tail hunter. And today we're gonna be catching up with Tim to discuss all things related to hunting, the white tail rut and tracking wounded deer. Because he's got a couple I believe, blood tracking dogs. He takes all across this area helping people recover deer. So I think he's gonna have some interesting things to share on that front as well. But before all that, we need to take a few minutes here for our weekly pregame show with Yours truly and Dan Johnson of the Nine Ginger Chronicles. So how are you? Man? I wonder how many people are actually gonna type the Nine Ginger Chronicles into a search You're pretty soon? I hope a lot, And I hope your face pops up. I wouldn't doubt it. What's the new? Dude? Dude? Who cares? Wait? Look before, I don't want to talk about me right now. I want to talk about you. What's holy Field? Holy Field? Holy Field? Holy Field? What's up? Alright? The holy Field updates? Uh? Shorten and short and bitter sweet. Um. So my plan was to start hunting him on Tuesday. Tuesday has huge cold front come through. Temperatures were like twentyres cooler than they were over the weekend, but had pretty heavy rains and heavy wind. So I spent the day debating whether or not I should still go out, and in the end I decided, you know what, I'm gonna go for it because I hope that that wind's gonna die down. A little bit, and the the rain dies down a little bit. It couldn't have been really good. And I had what I thought was a safe place to hunt in his general area. So I headed in there, got up in the tree, and within like twenty minutes, I was like, you know what, this is way worse than the forecast said. The gusts were really really strong. It had to be gusts maybe, And I noticed that it was starting to get dangerously close to swirling towards a bad place. Um. And I just sat there debating for it twenty minutes and just decided to know it is not worth screwing things up on a night like this for the future. So I pulled everything out and snuck back out and headed out for the night. So that was night number one. Didn't get to hunt at all. Really, yeah, Night number two was tonight. The winds were supposed to die down again, still nice and cool, um. So I headed in and with the wind direction, we had the best spot I could hunt. The safest place I could hunt in this general area was my red neck um box blind. This this elevated box blind. So I thought, all right, I don't hunt that blind, So I sneak in there, I climb in and as soon as I climb in, I hear something and I look up at the ceiling and all of a sudden, I see there's bees all over the place inside of this blind. So I panic and I scurry out of that um. And then I'm like, well, what in the heck am I going to do tonight? Because that was like the one place I thought I could safely hunt UM. And I you know, I had all my stuff with me for a box blind hunt, so I had a tripod for my camera. I didn't have a tree stand harness or anything, so I had to go all the way back to my house and swap out my gear get all the stuff for a tree stand hunt. And then I had to wait like an hour and a half before the wind was supposed to shift a little bit, which I thought then would allow me to hunt one of my tree stands. The wind did sort of shift. UM, So I snuck in there and just got in there late, got into one of my favorite stands, the stand that I that I've had these multiple shot opportunities that Holy Field for in the past. But long story short, I did not see him. Um. I saw some doze, saw a couple of year and a half old bucks. I saw one two and a half year old buck that's been all over the place and he chased some does out in the field. Um, and that was it. It was. It was a pretty uneventful night compared to what I was expecting, given how good the conditions were. So kind of disappointing, but it is what it is. Uh, it's it's disappointing on a macro level or a micro level, but on a macro level, like I have a feeling that all these you know, all these little steps lead to lead to something. I agree, as long as I don't die. Oh man, is your next sponsor going to be like a cigarette company? No, I'm the exact opposite. I'm drinking some warm apple cider and it went down her own pipe. Wow, excuse me. This episode we listened to Mark Cough for five minutes. All right, hopefully that's it. But yes, to your point, hopefully this is just one step. Hopefully I didn't um make too many mistakes. It was one of It was unfortunate that I had the issue yesterday and then tonight had to come in and out twice. But you know, sometimes when things are going wrong. All of a sudden, you get surprised with something going really well. Right, So I've got I've got some win directions that should allow me to hunt him at least again tomorrow, um and then maybe later in the week or on the weekend. So I'll be keeping after him. Hopefully things pick up here soon. But yeah, what about you. Last time we talked, you were saying that you were going to kill that October lull buck to prove everybody wrong to do it. Well, I only got to hunt one day out of that whole quote unquote period of October. Little period, but um man, I was in the right spot. I'll tell you that. It just that the um the and I think I told you this in a in a text message or an email. Think of a triangle right with a flat part on the bottom and the point that goes straight up. So the point on the top was the is a betting area, okay, And then there's two trails that come out of the betting area. Then they go down different parts of the ridge. And I was set up on the right hand side, and we had one what looked like a shooter go down the left hand side, and then another buck that I couldn't tell what he was. Uh work work is you know. All I saw was the tips of the antlers. I couldn't tell if it was mature, and he was kind of in some real tall crp um tons of does. And then last night, to get out of the wind, I went back to a stand that I set earlier in the year. Um and dude again, money doze all over. UM heard grunting in the woods and it almost sounds like some light chasing, but I never did see the deer that was making that noise. And then as I'm just randomly glassing, I see some antlers pop up and down, and all I could see was the face of this buck and parts of his antlers, but not the whole head at one time. So and I couldn't hardly see the body at all because he was in some really thick stuff, but the face looked really, really old. He was about eight yards away and um, he was raking a tree. And then he dropped down behind me and then went into a corn field. And then by that time it was dark out, So I did I tried. I put myself in the best possible stands uh with the information that I had. Uh and uh you know, I didn't get it done, so I guess, uh, the October little does exist because I didn't kill it here. That's that's gotta be it. It's encouraging though that at least you were seeing some seeing some action. Man, I'll tell you what, this has been maybe my slowest start to a white tail season in recent memory. I still have not seen a shooter buck yet all year. Um, so that's hopefully unshamed soon. Yeah, but you've only hunted in Michigan, right, uh and in Montana and Montana. Yeah, okay, so I'll take that back. I'll take that back. I saw one shooter while I was in Montana, way off from the distance. Okay. So obviously, in a way, this is still kind of early, and I think I, like I mentioned before, October of last year was the first time I had any daylight pictures of a shooter on camera. So obviously, depending on where your camera's at, that's an indicator of when these big boys and mature bucks are going to be on their feet. However, man, I got a big, big buck on trail camera consistently right now, about two hours after sunset, after dark coming through. So my my thought is and that's what I'm talking about. One particul kular trail camera and uh and I sent you the picture of him. Dude, he's uh, he's he's he's not big big, he's like big big, big, big big. And he's a main He's a main frame eight with a split G two. That's all he is, right. But he's just gigantic, big old body on him. I mean he's mature for sure. And uh um, I think that if everything goes like it did the past couple of years, like I have history with this area, and it's like I know what the bucks are gonna be doing, and I think that this buck is going to start showing up in daylight hours somewhere between the November one in November five time frame. So I'm gonna be in that area hopefully towards the end of that area is when my vacation starts that that time frame. But the other thing is I pulled another trail camera card before I went and hunted, uh last night, and man, I got it another and nothing gigantic in the Antler department. But what I think are two more four year old consistently on camera in daylight already. So yeah, So and it's in a standing cornfield. Can you get up there and hunt those guys sooner? I I, And this is where it sucks. I cannot hunt until let me check my while you're doing that. While you're doing that, this is this is just for the audience. This isn't for you. Um. But I just want everyone listening to know that I can be held accountable to my obligations because I did send Dan his babysitting check to guarantee him some hunting opportunities. So so now I'm going to take your words from last weekend. Dan, I'm gonna throw it back at you. No excuses, no excuses. You gotta hunt these bucks. Oh yeah, and I will. I'm going to. Uh. I just hope that the between now and the next time that these bucks uh, that I get down there to hunt the um, the corn in that area hasn't been picked, because I think that if that corn gets picked, then those deer gone to a different farm. So when's the next hunt this weekend? Or no, this weekend is a wedding yank uh. So the next time I will be able to hunt is November three. Oh, so it's it's basically that time from when you gotta get after that other one. Yeah, yep. So, And you know the first thing I do when I start my vacation every year is I pull cards on most of them, depending on if they're intrusive or not. I'm gonna pull my cards. I'm gonna look at them and see what's on there. Um. I'm kind of hoping for a little more rain so that corn stays in that field just a little bit longer and um, and then hopefully by the time I check my other two cameras in the area where that big boys coming through the goal would hopefully to pop in there and then wait for a south southwest wind. And that's when that's when I think he likes to to visit that area, is on a southwest wind. Well, I'll tell you what it's Uh, it's gonna happen soon. And this is it. We're next week. Even right now, I think it's gonna be pretty good in a lot of places with this cold front. And I think next week it's it's game time. It's the Super Bowl. Time to grind. And your your vacation is that third through the following Sunday. You got that whole week off and weekends is that right. Well, this is where it gets good for me. I have let's see, I will start hunting November three, and I took vacation all the way to November, uh, which is Thanksgiving, so I don't have to be back to work till November. So I I technically have I technically have three weeks to hunt. But I think the wife said I can have two weeks this year. That's that's good. So that that should that should allow me to get after it and start the process that I like to do, and that's you know, hunt a buck until he doesn't until he stopped showing up, and then move to another one. Hopefully you just hunt that buck till he stopped showing up because he's dead. Yeah, that wouldn't that be nice as the sole Let's make that happen, dude. Yeah. And it's almost like I look at my phone at night. I look at my phone even when I kind of wake up when I have to go feed my son, and I hit this little button on my phone and it should will show all the messages, and I'm just like waiting for you to text me just like got him or something like that with a with a picture of a bloody arrow and then I'll pee myself. Man, I can't wait to send that text message and then I'll pee myself. So ah, man, I'm I don't know. I thought I thought i'd see him tonight. But here's what we need to do, right, Yeah, here's what we need to do. We need to both kill you, kill holy Field, now kill a decent buck this year, and then we'll celebrate the next time. I think we're gonna next time we see each other is at the A T A Show and we'll we'll celebrate with some bruskies. I think that's a good plan, all right, man, Well, we're gonna have to shut this intro down because we need to give Tim a call um and I know you've got to You've got to bounce. So I'm gonna run solo for here from here on out. But let's plan on talking again next week, and heaven at least I'll have some good stories for you, and then you can tell me about your plan about your vacation which will be starting that week, which I'm excited to hear all about. So let's toss it over real quick to Spencer to hear our sick story, and then we'll give timocall. For this week's sit of story, we're joined by Nick Kravitz, who tells us about a turkey hunt that ended at two yards. So it was this spring and I decided that I wanted to try to get my first turkey with the bow. And I had already got one in Florida, one in Tennessee, and I was actually it was, I believe as Sunday. I'm not sure, but anyway, nonetheless, I went to New York, which is a neighboring state to me where I'm currently living in Pennsylvania, and I went out there with the bow with my cousin Tanner, and uh, right off the bat we heard birds gobbling off the roost and we're actually running a little bit late. I had seen this bird fly down from like a hundred and twenty five yards, so I real quick set out my decoys right beside me, about ten yards away, and I kind of leaned up against a tree looking to this path that I thought for sure it was gonna come up. And uh so I called a few times. He was coming in coming in every time I called, and I realized my face mask wasn't up, so I put it up, and I called him more time, and he was to the right of me ten yards and this turkey walks right behind me at two yards, right into my decoys, and immediately as he put his head behind his tail fan and full strut shot and I got my first turkey with the bow. So it was pretty awesome. On Nick's hunt. He was wearing sick Is Equinox system. If you'd like to create a sick Of story of your own, or to learn more about sick Is Technical hunting apparel, visit sitky gear dot com. All right now with us on the line is Tim Woods. Welcome to show. Tim, Thanks sir, thanks for having me. Yeah, of course, And and we're just we're just talking a second ago before I started recording, walking through, just making sure I had all my information right as far as all the different things you are doing these days, because it sounds like you are just a very very busy guy. All things related to white tails too. So it's a good thing, but you've got to be a little bit worn out with all these different things going on. Huh yeah, a little bit. I mean towards the towards the end of the year. Uh you know, I I'm to the point where I'm ready to be done for a little bit, and then uh, and then the fire gets going again, and you know, once the snow starts them mount or you know, get the shed hunting a little bit, and then you know that that fire gets blazing again and you're right back after it. So you know, it does get a little redundant, you know, every once in a while. But for the most part, it's the labor of love. Yeah, yeah, at least at least everything you're involved. And it sounds like is uh is closely related to our to our love of white tails. Um and I briefly introduced you before we brought you on, but can you kind of walk us through a little bit of your background and and what you all the different things you're doing today without today I'm you know, basically uh, you know, working for an outfit or here in west central Ohio. We've got four counties that most of our properties are in, Logan, Champagne, Union and Shelby County for the kind of the county that we focus on, um, you know, and then uh, you know, we got you know, we don't do we don't hunt every week like a lot of outfits, you know, for a lot of people may think we do um, you know, we're not. Uh you know, we're I guess it'd be uh, you know, less and more. You know obviously when it comes to trying to kill big deer, Um, we don't hunt a lot. You know, we just had one the big deer on their feet and uh, you know, like I said, we we know with Ohio you've got a four months long deer season, but you know we might only hunt. I think we're hunting like nine total weeks out of the year with guys in camp. So we're not just you know, it's not just a like a puppet mill. We're just running guys in and out like crazy, you know. So we're uh, you know, we uh you know, we you know, we have a lot invested in our properties and you know we're trying to kill older class year so uh and the guys that hunt with us too. You know, we've had the same guys for you know, going on ten years, so it's more like uh more almost more like a club really, you know, the same guys year after year coming out with us. So you know, it's not so much like outfitting, you know, you know, we look forward to seeing the guys again, you know, after not seeing him for a whole year, and they come and it's just just like you know, being at home, you know here as far as the camp atmosphere, but uh no, do do the outfit and stuff. And then uh, I've got some recovery dogs to uh some blood havings every dogs that I dabbled into, uh, you know a few years ago, I you know, outfit and you you always you know, you always have a you know, a deer that you you know, the way that Hunter explained it, you know, with the shot and everything. You You're like, man, I know that dear's dead and I just can't find it. So I took them amongst myself and uh and got a pop and trained it myself and through the help of you know, social media, some other guys that you know, just off the tips and stuff that they did with their dogs in the past. And you know, it turned out, you know that I got got lucky, really lucky with one of my dogs. And she's just she's phenomenal. You know, her name says she's four years old and she's like ninety two recoveries right now, so she's, uh, she's legit. Yeah, she'd probably be she'd probably be really good if she didn't have to be tied to me. But here here in Ohio, we have a leash law. You know, they would consider hunting with the dog didn't have him on the LEAs, so you know, if we have to have a leash, And like I said, if she didn't have to be tied to me, she would probably be uh that much better. But and then uh, then with white tail ledge of this film A when I can you know the show that I'm doing with Ben Rising, Um, you know he really needs no introduction. Ben's Ben's uh, he's a big deer killing machine. That's what he just eats, breathes and sleeps it. You know, the guys that that's just what he does. Um, you know, and I love it when he kills a big deer. You know, he's uh, you know, he works hard at it. So he deserves every big one that he kills, that's for sure. And uh yeah, just just trying to help him as far as the footage goes, and take care of sponsors on that end, and and raising two kids my wife force full time. I've got a thirteen year old daughter and loving old boy. They're into every sport possible. So so we're we're a busy team over here in Ohio. It sounds like it. And then and then now you're still working with white tail properties as well too, Absolutely, yeah, white tail properties. I'm the landsprucial as the white tail properties here. I've got, actually, I've got a fairly big territory over here in west central Ohio. I've covered nine counties. Uh, there's pretty much if you just look on a map, like a county map, I go from like Tomorrow, Uh, Delaware, Union, Logan, Shelby, Champagne, Ah, what is the Green and Madison counties counties. Um, I've got a fairly large territory over here that I'm that I'm covering. And there's some some phenomenal deers, some really nice, you know, recreational type properties on this side of the state that uh, you know, granted, this side of the state. Uh, the land is not cheap, you know, and like they always say, they're not making any more of it, but it's uh, there's some really really good deer over here. It's some really good properties. They are spitting out some monsters. I've heard a lot of good things about that area. It's not quite as well known as maybe you know just east of Columbus, or maybe you know down in the far south. But I keep on hearing good things about that that you know west central. I've been I've been interested in trying to head out that way one of these days too. I've hunted south of you quite a bit. Um. And speaking of that, Tim, I don't know if you remember this. You probably don't because you get so many calls, but you were actually um involved in one of the most um trying times of my deer hunting career a handful of years ago. UM I shot at the time was my largest buck ever. UM. This would have been two thousand fourteen. I guess it was down in southern Ohio. And uh I was not able to find him. So that next day I was trying to find someone of the tracking dog and you and me talked on the phone for a while. You had something going on. You couldn't actually help me out, UM because of your I think, yeah, I think, I remember, I think I had I think I had hunters in camp and it was just so hard for me to get away. UM. And and Casey, the guy that the partners was with the bloodhound deer trackers. I remember him. He told me about it, and it was you guys ended up finding that dear, didn't you not? Well, we we didn't find him until the following February. Unfortunately. I had a different guy come down with his dog that day and we tracked for a good long ways but but never could connect the dots. And then yeah, the next February, and maybe maybe it was early March, late February, early March, we went back shed hunting and ended up finding him right right and kind of the core of the property. And we walked by that area a thousand times looking and um, either we somehow missed him or he didn't come back till the next day or something. Um. But but and that happens a lot of times, a lot of times, if you know, you know, I can't remember where that was that deer hit and the liver intestine or liver got Yeah, I think it was intestines. Yeah, See, especially with it with intestines, it's just sometimes they can take you know, thirty six sometimes for the things to die, you know, they can they can be sick for a long time and just you know and just walk around. And so yeah, I've been It could have been one of those scenarios. But yeah, that's that's a bad deal when that's part of you know, it's gonna happen. Yeah, and uh, you know, and I remember, I remember that was a that was a really big deer. Yeah, yeah, it's a it's a bad deal when that happens. But I just remember had a good phone call with you, and you were really helpful at least walking through different thoughts on it and stuff, and and uh, you know, one of these days, well, hopefully I'm not in need of a blood tracking dog, but if I ever do, I will try giving you a call again and see if it happens to work out. But I want to talk about blood tracking dogs. I want to talk about what you're doing with the outfitting side of things that. Honestly, there's a lot of different things I want to talk about. Um, So I guess first, I'm curious. I always feel like outfitters must have a really interesting perspective if because of the fact that you're not just kind of hunting for yourself in some way, you're involved with many many other people's hunts, and you're hearing about how things are going, probably and you're you're kind of tracking and planning and things. I'm curious, I guess I guess Number one, how involved are you with that? I mean, are you actually helping individual guys out with where they're headed and everything, or is there somebody else on the team that does that? And then number two, if you are involved in that, what have you been seeing so far this year for your clients and your hunters? Well? Pretty much? UM. You know, if if I'm not doing something with the real estate with like heal properties, I'm on on the properties that we're outfitting on UM. I'm babysitting them. I'm taking care of them. I mean, I want to say I'm on them. I'm not walking around on them, you know what I mean. I'm just I'm just maintaining them, you know, checking the camera that's planting the food plots, do all the stand prep and so forth. Pretty pretty much everything for me to see on the properties that we outfit on UM. And then you know, and basically when my guys come in to camp, you know, they roll on the camp and you know, I'm showing pictures of deer, potential deer that are of age that we want to try and target. UM. While they're here. Um and obviously you're gonna have some deer pop up, you know, during the rout this time of year that you know, let's say cornfield gets cut a half a mile away and all of a sudden that deers. You know, that deers in your timber. But a lot of a lot of times when the guys rolling camp, basically all I mean, I literally I take them right to the to the stands. You know, either either I get them to the tax in the morning and you know when I slip them in there and get them in the set, or in the evenings. A lot of times I drive them right to the stand you know, for hunting, you know, hunting the field edge or something just to eliminate foot traffic. But basically, you know, basically I'm the one that's killing the deer, you know, so to speak. But those those are the guys. They're just pulling the trigger on the deer, you know, and that's why they're coming. You know, they don't live here. They're you know, they're only getting you know, when I tell guys when they come into camp, I said, uh, you know, you're not here for a long time. You're here for a good time. Know so and that, and you know and and and they trust us, you know what I mean, that's what they're paying for. Um. You know, we try to provide a good hut and uh you know, and put trying to you know, do our best to put a mature animal in front of them in the six days that you're here. That's gotta be That's gonna be a lot of fun at least for me. Like as much as I enjoy pulling the sugar and actually killing, you know, a deer that I've been after, I think I just love the chess match leading up to it even more just you know, thinking about where should I be, what's going on, what are these deer doing? What's the intel tell me? And you get to do that times, you know times, I don't know how many different guys you're you're taking a hunting, I mean times ten, whatever it is. I mean, that's am I right. Is that just a blast for you? No? No, I mean you're thought on. I mean that absolutely. That that's the fun part for me, especially you know, you know, as as I've evolved, um and starting to get my kids in the hunting and stuff and you know, and doing this outfit thing um any with white tailed properties, you know, setting up farms and health and landowners and so forth. Um, I get more more enjoyment out of the process of planning the food plots and you know, digging the water holes and setting up the cameras and and manipulating a big mature deer to do what you wanted to do in the daylight. You know. For me, that's the ultimate, you know, And it doesn't even have to be me that that shoots a deer, you know, I just I just know that you know, if if some if I had some influence on it, you know, if I helped the person do it, or like if it's on one of our farms, and you know, and I planted the food plot that the deer got shot in, or or I did you know a hinge cut that made the deer change of travel patterns and so forth. That you know, when the guy shoots a deer that, you know, I get just as much reward out of it, you know as they do when they when they shoot it. Yeah. Yea. So how things been going so far? Have you have you already had hunters in camp yet or is that yet to happen? We? Uh, what we did here to how how it comes in the flash. Saturday in September, we had, uh, we just do a small fourman camp. Uh, and we had we were pretty successful. We were two for four and we had one one deer gets shot in the shoulder. Um, so you know, realistically we should have been seven. But the four guys we had in camp um killed two nice DearS. You know they weren't uh they were both of them are four year olds. Both of them are in that one fifty class. They were nice to year and uh. Actually today is the uh the way that typically what we do is we hut from Monday to Saturday. Couldn't it just makes sense for you know, for a week we do six minutes, six day camps here. But you know, last year we were looking at the calendar in a way, the calendar was going to fall and this our first camp was kind of gonna get robbed of some really good late October days. Um. So what we did is we moved we moved the camps back almost a half a week. So actually our first camp doesn't start till tomorrow morning. As far as far as our rut camps, just just you know, just the way the moon is gonna you know, the moons. You know, it's falling in the evenings right now, and you know, it just got a lot of deer up on their feet. And you know, we got lucky with this cold front come through, and you know, temperatures dropped thirty some of degrees in the last few days. So this first camp should be rocking a roll and then big deer up on their feet and they're checking. Yeah, yeah, I would, I would say, So that's that's what I've been looking forward to as well up here in Michigan. Um, can you tell me a little bit about your elaborate a little bit on what you said there about the moon? Why do you think that the moon has lined up pretty good for us in these coming days? Yeah, especially especially in the evenings. I mean granted, you know, you know, with the cooler temperatures, you know in the morning, some deer are gonna be up on our feet. But um, you know a lot of guys, you know, they're paying attention to that moon, and you know, and it's getting pretty popular now with you know, with different TV shows and social media and stuff, just paddling away at the moon. And I'll try to explain to guys like you know, if you're out out in the evening and then you're mowing your yard or you're out doing short or whatever, and evening and you look up and you see the moon is setting, is on the way down right, you know, as the sun sets and you look up and you see the moon, you know it's waxing. It's you know it's coming to pull and you can see that moon. It's it's it's it's falling. When deer typically are feeding in the evenings, it's it's a pretty good time to be out in you know, it's just when the moon's overhead and you can see it in the evening, when you know, when that sun goes down, you should be in the tree stand, especially right now. You know we've you know, when you when you get a cold front like we've had. Like I said, the other day it was seventy nine degrees and today it's forty nine degrees and you got you know that and then go on side with the falling moons. I mean, that doesn't get any better than that. Late October, October October, you better be in a tree stand. Yeah, So what kind of setups are you gonna have your hunters on with these conditions, are you are you already putting them in kind of your typical rut sets or are you still hunting you know, more of those patterns that maybe you're still that these bucks are still holding onto a little bit pre rut. Yeah. Yeah, basically, what what I'll start doing, you know, because I'll have you know, I think we've got five guys going out in the morning. And what we'll do probably in the morning is I mean, we're not just gonna smash in there deep in Noeptember. We're just gonna kind of sit back and just kind of take the temperature and see see how many bucks are underfeet in the morning, and you know, and and see what happens. Maybe get someone some scrape lines or you know, in between some food plots. You know, for these bucks, this is the time or hear they're gonna start checking for that first dough to pop um. But you know, I really like the evenings, uh, the last few days of October Um. They've just been you know, you know, periodically they've just been better for us, you know, throughout the years, the Latin and the evenings in October Um and it's just a testament to the food plots. Um. You know, we just congregate them dos and these little kill plots and a lot of guys are you know, they they're playing these kill plots all over the country. Now you know, just a little half the three cool acred plots that just congregate the dough before they end up out the big destination field. It and that's you know, we've gotten really good at you know, put parts in these plots in the right spot. Were just kind of feeding these doves forward and these bucks know that. You know, these doughs are gonna be feeding in the little green plots before they head out into the grain field. So and that's that's typically what what we'll do this time of years late you know, late October one part in November as well, you know, hunt these doughs, um, not so much hunting the bucks on their late summer patterns, you know, kind of early fall patterns. UM. And we're gonna start keying in on some doughs and some dope betting areas and uh, being in the food plots that the doves like to be in, because these bucks are gonna start checking them pretty hard. Now do you do you have speaking on the food plots. I know, a lot of guys um this year, at least from what I've heard and seeing a little bit myself, there's been a tremendous mass crop across a lot of the country, especially with white oaks um and people have been seeing the deer hitting those so hard that they're not getting the usual activity they might on their food plots. Is that something you've seen at all or or anticipated all happening. Sure? And uh, you know some farms that you know that we do have, you know, heavy acorn crop on um dear. You know, they obviously are not getting to the green plots or the destination plot until after dark. You know, they're just stays up in there on them nuts. And you know they just you know, they walk ten feet and they got a full belly. They got to lay down and threw their cut. You know, sometimes if you get a wood, it's just that full, it's like walking on marvels. But uh, and you gotta you know, you take that into account to I mean, if you're going into a wood that uh, the deer aren't gonna get to you and get to you in time, then you might have to present this a little bit further and and try and get into in in there where you need to be. But uh, yeah, I know I hate heavy, heavy acorn years because it just spreads the deer out so far and they're all over the place. But yeah, you know, it's just it's something that you know, every every couple of years, you get it. You gotta deal with it. But you know, luckily we've got a few farms but don't have an acorn tree autom you know, so that helps. Yeah, speaking of UM having to get in there a little ways or getting people in and off of these food plots and stuff, you mentioned that usually you're you're taking in your hunters um, And this is one of the things I'm always curious about because I've started, um getting a pick up sometimes when I'm hunting on an edge of the field. I've I've convinced my wife somehow to come out and drive out and pick me up in an a t V. Or I've kind of convinced myself that when I checked my trial cameras in the middle of the day, it's safer to do with my a TV than just walking in there. Have you found the same kind of thing. Do you feel like we're not making as big as an impact when you're using a vehicle, and how much can you get away with when you're doing that. Absolutely, I will not I will not check a camera or set a camera unless I can drive to it on a foreweather or you know, or a side by side. Um. You know, I'm just a freak about putting my feet on deer dirt. Um. And it's just something I don't know if it's because I grew up hunting, you know, hunting some high pressure deer and I wasn't able to get away with anything those deer. So now I'm just kind of you know, it's just kind of stuck with me as you know, growing up and matured into you know, chasing big mature deer. Um. But I think I think you can get away with a lot, especially you know, as long as they can hear the truck coming. You know, they just think it's a piece of farm equipment. You know, they've been around, it's their whole life. And the same with a foreweather or a tractor or whatever. Um. You know, they'll let you drive right by, but if you stop, you know, if you see it there and you stopped in that vehicle or the forward or whatever. Then don't get up and leave. But as long as you keep the wheels moving, you're not gonna bother them one bit. And and and that's what we do with outfit and um if Scott like said in the evening, if guys are on the field, I just I literally drive them right to the tree. I mean, I'll take the forewhead, I'll drive them right to the base of the tree. They step off the foreward and they put the foot on the step and they climb up in the stands, so they're not walking around and you know and disturbing any of the deer girt. I don't have to worry about a a big mature dough that you know, tracks my hunter to the tree and now his hunt's ruling, because that f it's like it's gun picked them out. So do you how many times this is something like I'm always internally debating with myself. So so I tell myself that, yes, getting picked up from the tree after an evening hunt is going to have a lower impact on these deer. But is it no impact or you know, after three or four times of that happening, do they start feeling negative in some way changing their behavior? Do you think there's any kind of risk with them changing their behavior when you're doing that pickup? Or could you could I keep on hunting and get picked up, you know, three or four or five, six, seven times, and and not see these deer changes their patterns, assuming everything else is right, assuming I'm not you know, having these deer win to me, assuming I'm not doing crazy stuff. Sure, and I I typically, um, I'm a I'm a two or three set guy. I mean even you know, even though we're outsitting, you know, I've got three sets. You know, I typically don't sit a set more than two or three times, you know, even throughout the whole year. Um, you know, so I you know I'm gonna I might bump the deer one time, and I'm definitely not gonna bump them again the next night. Um, you know, I just I just think they're bumping them too many times, especially if you're gonna do a back to back on consecutive evenings, so that you're really, you know, your your chances of getting that big deer out there in the daylight or slim to none. Um, you know, unless he's with a hot dog or something that you know he's gonna go wherever she goes. But I think the later in the year you get obviously, um, the the more you're gonna bump them, the less you're gonna be able to get away with, especially late season if you you know, I stay, say, if you've got two or three acres of standing corn or beans or something that you left and you have somebody come in there with a you know, with a piece of equipment or an a TV or forward or whatever and bumped the deer off it. Um, I think you know, you're probably gonna be able to do that maybe two or three times throughout the late season. Um. So I think the bet, your best bet is to try and try and get to a spot um where the deer kind of feeding feeding past you. And you know, I don't like, you know, personally, I don't like sitting on the final destination feed field where the deer are gonna be parked there for the night and they're gonna go lay over in the fence row and they're gonna chew the cut and they're gonna get up the pizza more. UM, I don't I don't like parking my guys in those spots. If I'm gonna be going in and out of those fields a lot. So UM, I get you know, I guess every farm is different, you know, and how it's laid out. You know, some people are well, that's the only way I can go into the property is is to go through this field to get to where I gotta hunt them. And uh, you know some people that you know, that's just what you gotta do. Um, But I would I would say with those guys that are there, maybe not fit complete where it's completely dark in the evening and then when you get out, you got all this deer between you and your vehicle. Maybe if nothing's coming or you know, you know, you know, I've got like five minutes left and I haven't seen anything. But take advantage of that five minutes and slip out as quiet as you can't with no headlight and just book it to the truck and live to fight another day. Yeah, yeah, definitely. What about I don't know anything any other tricks you have for getting good entry or exit, because I think that I'm sure this is something that's important to you. Give them what we've been talking about already. Absolutely anything else that we're thinking about doing on that front. I'm big. I'm big on ditches. I love ditches, you know, because all the ditches typically are going to get come out to a road somewhere. Um, and a lot of my guys are out with me, you know, they know they're gonna wear rubber boots because they're gonna have them walking in water, and you know, and the stand all it might only be, you know, and the lazy way to get to the stands only seventy five yards, but my guys might have to walk two hundred yards to get to the tree stand. Because they're walking, they're walking down the ditch, you know, and typically unless the deers drinking out of the ditch, they're not gonna spend a whole lot of time in it as far as you know, looking for the scent, you know, smelling the scent and stuff. You know. That's why I'm big. And I'm not walking on deer dirt. So like in the mornings and a lot of my stuff, our access and stuff, guys are walking in the ditches. I'm not walking on what I call deer dirt. You know, I'm not walking on the leaves. I'm not disturbing the ground. Um, we're not rubbing up against anything that a deer might smell um, we're walking in the ditches. And a lot of my sands are in spots that, uh, you know, they're relatively close to ditches, whether it be a ditch funnel or just up up the bank off the ditch, you know, and just just areas where deer might not get behind this and a deer is not gonna cut our track. Yeah. So, like I said, I'm I'm big. I'm big on ditches as far getting in and out of farms, and a lot of people are. You know, it's it's just common sense, you know, to me, you know, it's just it's just something that you should do. If if you surprise the ditch to get in and out of your properties, you need to do it. Yeah. Do you ever have to go in there and like clear them out with the chainsaw or something or these things. Yeah. Yeah, it's it's a it's a once a year process where you know, once you once you get the initial it's open and clear. You know, when you get the falling down trees and the log jams and stuff. Once you get all those initially open, then the next year it's just a breeze. You know, you just walk through it. And you get you know, the little things are in the way, and you make sure you can still see your taxes that way you can get in and now there. And you know, just like I said that, you know, the first year, it's gonna it's gonna be a pain in the butt. You know, you're gonna probably have to have a chainsaw to cut some some root balls up or you know, or just washouts and you know, big log jams. Um. But what you know, it's gonna be worth it, you know, in the long run to go through it and do that work for sure. So speaking of things like ditches, um, terrain features, are are you using any features, you know, any type of terrain or topography feature to actually help you get these guys on deer? You know, choosing stand locations. It sounds like you're using it to get into out of hunts. But are you also finding ways of these things funnel deer movement? All sure? Absolutely? Um. You know here where we're at here in Logan County where the majority of our properties are, Um, we've got we've got a little bit of terraine feature here. You know, we look a lot like southern Iowa really um. And you know, and I used. You know, if I get in the timber um, I use you know, just narrow narrows points on ridges. I'm not so much hunting, you know, the wide open flat. I'm gonna hunt the narrowest part of that, you know, that ridge, so you know that way, if you know, the ridge itself is kind of funneling the deer down to you know, kind of an hour glass shape. Um, and ditch funnels, you know, for you know, you know I'm talking about when I say ditch, all right, I think, I mean, I've heard a couple of different things, but I've heard some people you know, yeah, at ahead of a ditch, yeah, because it's kind of going uphill and it's basically just a deep wash out and you know, in the in the side of the woods and it goes up and once it gets to the top of the hill, it stops and it's just flat right there. And I utilize those a lot. I mean, I'm they're like, say, back to walking the ditch all the way up in there with the wind in your face, and you just pop up and as soon as you get to the flat spot, you hope there's a really good tree there, because it's a you know, because that's that's what I call it ditch funnel, because it just makes a narrow point in the terrain where you know where the deer gonna come around that and they just you know, naturally come around that flat spot on the hill and in the evenings. You know, I've noticed too on some of our some of our farms there, Um, we might have a sixty seventy acre field and you're like, man, you're to pop out anywhere. It seems like a lot of our bigger deer like to pop out on the highest spot in that field so they can they can see the whole field as soon as they step out into it. You know, they're not gonna pop out, you know, even you know, and I've see I've sat back in the glass and and I'm like, the wind is not in this deer's favor for him to pop out in the middle of this field. But they do it anyway. I don't know, if they just let their guard down a little bit because they want to be able to visually see the whole field when they step out into it so they know which way to go, or you know, if they want to see if they're just looking for dose or what But I know a few of our farms where you know, it's just just stick a fork in them, they're gonna step out on that high spot every single year. Interesting speaking of that kind of question, you know, I find myself in a similar situation sometimes where you're trying to anticipate, you know, I think a buck is going to come out in this general region. But then you start wondering, Okay, how do you find the spot within the spot? Um? Sure? What about how a dear may or may not use wind to choose where it's headed or where it beds? Is that something you pay attention to and have kind of kind of come to some conclusions? Sure? Absolutely? I mean especially you know, when you know, hunting for myself, if I'm hunting, trying to hunt a particular dear, um there, Uh, you know, I try to put myself Okay, if I'm a deer and you know, I know I'm being hunted, how am I gonna? How am I gonna go about my day when my nose is my number one sense? So how am I? You know? And I'm not just gonna barge right into my bedroom with the wind at my back. I'm gonna you know, I'm gonna circle my bedroom. I'm gonna jok my bedroom, get down wind and then I'm gonna send check it and then I'll come in there and I'll bed down. Uh, same thing with it. You know. As far as you know going to a food source, UM, I'm gonna come out on the up wind side of that, you know, the down wind side of that food source, Um, to the best of my ability. Um, whether you know, terrain wise or whatever. And you know, I'm not gonna pop out. You know, I'm gonna pop out with that winds in my face. I can send check which way I'm walking, you know. As far as to get to that food and uh, you know, I'm gonna smell anything any it's kind of danger or anything that's in that, you know, before I get to that food source, so I don't get shot. You know. To me, that's that's what I'm thinking. I'm a big deer and you know, and I think that helps me. Um, you know, as far as trying to figure out how big deer is going you know, gonna gonna work a food source, how he's gonna smell you know, he's gonna scent check some those and never even have to step out into food source. Um. You know, sometimes a lot of the a lot of really good sense or maybe forty fifty yards just just in the timber um where the deer has got he sent checking this, you know, a corn field or a bean field or a food plot. He never even really has to step out in it because you know, he just sent checking it and he's just moving along to the next one. And you know, if I've had a lot of luck, you know, shooting some big deer, you know, just off of food sources that way with some of my clients. Mhm. That's always the tough thing though, I feel like, is you're setting up when you know the deer is trying to move through their using the wind to his advantage. So somehow you need to be able to get there but maintain some ability to be just outside of his handage. Right, It's like cutting that corner that seems to be That's yeah, that's that's the hard part is find you know, getting your wind to blow in the spot where it's not not educating any deer and it's it's good for him and it's good for you. That's uh, that's that's what you know. I think that's separates the men from the boys when it comes to killing big deer, being able to being able to find that right tree, you know, the killing tree. Yeah. How much do you worry about send control? Do you are? You? Are you one of the send control you know? Uh? Are you religious about send control? Or are you religious about just always playing the wind and you you don't worry about the other stuff as much? Or both? I'm both. I'm I'm both on that. I'm I'm a scent freak, honest, I'll be honest with marked. I have not taken what I call a stinky shower, and probably ten years I have old s Huh, no negative on the old spice. I have used. Uh, I've used the the sent away. So for the last ten years, three d six or five days a year, my wife's steving on board. Yeah, we uh all or even in my daily daily clothes, Uh, even the kids. I mean we just washed it all together. We just were We used the free and clear longer detergent. There's no ties or you know, none of the none of the stinky stuff goes on none of our clothes, none of our towels. Um and just just kind of just what we've done for the last ten years probably um and I say ten years, it may may be longer now, but uh yeah, I'm I'm, I'm a scent freak. And you know I do I do anything, uh you know, with all the technology and stuff, with all the ozone machines and the scent crusher and uh you know, I if if if you have the financial means to use that stuff and to and to buy that stuff, you know I would. I've got a scant crusher bag. Um. Anytime I know the woods with my wife and my kids or myself, you know, I I sent crushed all my stuff for for thirty minutes before I go, and uh you know, and I'm I'm I'm a freak about it, and I will not you know, even even when it comes to checking cameras. Um, Um, you know, I checked the wind before I go check the camera. If the wind is not good, then I just don't check that camera. Even on the ten thousand natures that we have. You know, I've you know, I've got some cameras that I haven't been able to check for a while now because the wind's not right. So I'm not gonna go. I'm just just a cent freak about everything when it comes with the wind, because that's how they dear they survived. That's the number one cent to the wind. If you if you tip them off or give them a reason to smell anymore than they have to, you're in trouble. All right, Well, good stuff here from Tim so far. But let's take a moment here to hear from our partners at White Tail Properties and then we'll get right back to this conversation with Tim Woods. This week with white Tail Properties, we are joined by Billy O'Connor, a land specialist out of Kansas, and Billy is going to be telling us about what to consider when buying a property with a friend. Um, you know, buying a property the friend is a great idea. You know, it helps you get more land for less and it also helps with the cost and investment of time that kind of need for improvements. Plus it's just fun to kind of share in the experience of owning land with someone who is passionate about the outdoors as you are. But um, you do need the process a little bit to make sure that you kind of cover all scenarios kind of going down the road when buying with a friend, you first want to talk through ideally what each partner wants out of the experience. You know, is this for an investment. Is it to raise mature whitetail by let him get to a certain age class. Is it a place you want to bring friends and family to hunt as well? Assuming you both want to manage for deer. Usually friends have the same goal and approach to management, but often one person will want to hunt other things such as quail and small game, and the other partner may not necessarily want to do that, So you kind of want to talk all that through. UM. If you are not a state buyer, you do need keep in mind that the state of Kansas, you're allowed want to land an attack per eighty acres, So if you both want land under tags, you need to make sure the properties of hundred six acres or more. I'd suggest you by the property under an LLC UM. That way, everything could kind of be explained in the by laws. In the event that something does come down the road where you guys do need to split it or sell it, you know, things such as a divorce, or someone has more kids than they anticipated and or a death in the family and someone needs to sell um, those type of things. You can kind of go over and get that out of the way from the get go. If you'd like to learn more, and you see the properties that Billy currently has listed for sale, visit white tail properties dot com. Backslash O'Connor that's O C O N N O R. Yeah, yeah, I hear you. I think I do. I do many of the same things you're mentioning there. Um, so what about this situation. This is one of those scenarios I'm always I always struggle with, and I just had it last night. Actually, Um, you go in, you get set up, things are looking great. You get towards the end of the evening, let's say, though, and your wind shifts in some way or it swirls in a bit, and you realize, oh crap, Now not everything is ruined, but now I do know that this section that I really wish my wind wasn't gonna be blown into it's now blown in there. Do you say, well, it is what it is, hopefully something will come out from the other two thirds, or do you bail immediately regardless of the fact that it's the last hour or whatever. Me me personally, UM, I would bail. Um. I mean, that's that's just how I am. But you know I can look at it as as a as a guy that you know, Hey, you know, I'm I worked six days a week. You know, my only time I get the hunt it's on Sundays. If that was my only time that I got the hunt, I would stay. Yeah, um, you know, and and just hope for the best. But me personally, um, you know, granted I've been blessed that you know, I don't have to punch a time clocks. Um, you know I can if if I have a good evening and I don't have hunters in camp, I can go hot. Um. But me personally, I would bail. I would, you know, And I actually did. I had a guy come in early. Um, he come in a day early because he's got to leave a day early. And he was sitting last night and when I took him in there, the wind was west southwest, and it was predicted for the hour by hour it was gonna go west southwest and it was gonna go to west. And about the last forty five minutes he texted me. He said to Tim, it's going it's like dead south does does busting me? I texted him back, I said, as anything in the field. He said no, I said, get down and walked to the walk to where I dropped you off. Granted I didn't want to foot traffic, but he was forty five minutes away, and I didn't want to take the chance. And that next forty five minutes of our wind blowing right down through the middle of this where all the deer we're gonna be popping out. So you know, it's kind of a give and take. I just told him, I said, just get down and walk fifty yards off the edge of the field, because the whole edge of the field is just floated with scrapes. I said, walk fifty yards off the edge of the timber, and walked away. I dropped you off. Um, you know, And and and he did, you know, and he's like he's like double a good move, you know, because the wind was just wrong and there's no sense, you know, Like I said, for me, personally, I just cannot sit in a tree stand with the wind being wrong, just just just just like it's like kissing your sister, you know what I mean, It's not right. Yeah, yeah, I hear you. I hear you, speaking of of your of your client and that example, you know, he he heard what he had to say or the text and he had it right out. I'm curious. You had a lot of different hunters coming through the years. Is there anything you've found that separates the people that end up filling a tag versus those that don't. Um, I don't know. Do you see any consistencies? And I don't realize that this is this is a unique because I'm asking specifically, but I do. I do, And it's it's the guy that, uh that rolls into camp and and wants to have a good time and he doesn't care where you put him. If I told the guy, hey, I'm gonna take you over here Walmart and I'm gonna put you in a telephone pole and Walmart parking lot and if he if he would be okay with that. Those are the guys that kill, honest the fact, Mark, I mean interesting, The guys that come in here and they you know, oh man, I gotta kill on this and that those are the ones that have a terrible week. It's the guys that come in here and have a great attitude about it. They're here, you know, they pay for their hunt. You know, they're just they're just happy to be here. They don't have to be at work. They're not you know, they're not at the office or whatever it is that they do on a daily basis. They're just here to have a good time for six days. And those are the guys that typically kill a good deer. So do you think that's just because that attitude then translates into the field in some way. So the guy that's happy to be there is optimistic and is paying attention the whole time he's out there in the woods because he's just excited about it, and then that just results in him being a little bit more ready for the opportunity, versus maybe the guy who's stressing out too much and he gets negative, and then he's out in the tree and he's convinced himself, Oh, it's not gonna happen. It's not gonna happen, And then it's a self fulfilling prophecy. Yeah that, and you know, and the and the guys that are just happy to be here, You can put them in a tree anywhere and they will sit daylight the dark. The guys that have to kill, they'll they'll text you every half hour, every forty five minutes. What's everybody seeing? What are the deer doing? Are they moving? Do you think I should sit here? What time you think should I move? What's for lunch? Command? What's your thoughts? You know? Those are the texts that I get throughout the day, you know, communicate with my honors and the guys that you don't hear from. You know, I'll check in with some guys that I haven't heard from in a while, you know, it's been a few hours. Just make sure everything's good, you know, and I'll text him. Have you've seen anything? Nope, I haven't seen nothing. You're good, Yep, I'm good? See it dark. Those are the guys that kill, you know, but the guy you know, like I said, the guy that you know, what do you see? Oh? I had a you know, the bucks are chasing all over the place. I haven't you know, I haven't had a shot opportunity. Why won't they stop and give me a shot? I don't understand. You know. Those are the guys that don't kill. Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. So and like I said, they just they just won't. You know. You just gotta trust trust the outfit ter, you know, and you're paying them for you know, for them to do a job. And you know, if they tell you you need to sit in that stand, sit in that stand. Yeah, let them do the job, right, Yeah, let him do the job. Don't don't guide the guys. Yeah, So let's flip that question then to the other side. So you I know, you know, you hang out with guys like Ben Rising and a lot of the people Joel Snow, I think a lot of other folks that are very successful, mature buck hunters just doing it themselves. What do you see as the consistent factors that link those types of people the very best d I y hunters that you know, they live in the areas where they are big deer. Yeah. Up, they live in the areas, you know, because they're you know, they're not everywhere, but and you know, and that's you know, I I moved here from northeast Ohio. I was born and raised in the little towns called West Parmington, and uh, you know, growing up we had some good deer and then it just become so populated and everybody and their brother hunted, which is good for the sport, but our age structure, you know, I went to put our deer numbers were you know, they were gone because there were just too many of us out there. You know, we were just you know, harvesting too many deer. So I ended up moving down here, and uh, you know, and everything that I learned from up there, and I brought it down here. And you know, I started killing one seventies you know where up home you're killing or one thirty. You know that's a good deer. But you know, I said, they moved out here to where there actually are big deer. I started killing big deer. But even if you don't if you don't have it, you can't kill it. Very true, which which is the root of all my problems here in Michigan. I think, um, but I'll sell you a farm down here, far away. Don't tempt me because I'm constantly thinking about it. I'm constantly thinking about it. Um. But even where you're at, or even where Ben's at, there's guys that aren't killing bucks. They're going out there every year and they shoot a hundred ten inch buck if they're lucky. There's some people that just aren't able to close the deal on these big, mature bucks, even if they are out there. What what makes you or Ben different? We pay pay attention to the details. Um, and you know, don't skip it. Don't skip any detail, you know, cross crush your teas and dutch your eyes. Um. And when you do get a chance of a big deer, you got to capitalize on it because you might not get another one for the rest of the year. Um. You know. As far as what makes it different, I don't know. I mean, you know, I put my pants on the same way everybody else, does you know? I don't, you know, I don't. I don't know. I haven't been in the woods enough with somebody that doesn't know what they're doing, you know, for I guess for them to say, you know, well what you know, I would never think to do that so forth. UM, I don't know if you know what sets us apart. Um, you know, I don't. I don't really think I'm any different than anybody else. I just, you know, live in an area where there are big deer, and Ben lives in an area where they're big gear. Um. I think you've got access to some good ground, as do I. Um, you know, and it's I really don't think I'm any different than anybody else. Um I did. Maybe we just worked a little bit harder than than than the average guy. Yeah, and I think there's something what you said there about that attention to detail. That's always one of those things. But with everybody I talked to, every one of these people we have in the podcast, that's that's very successful. That's definitely a comment trait. It's not not cutting corners. Paying tentioned to every little thing. Um, that's that is a core, kind of core, consistent principle to almost every successful deer hunter I've talked to. So that's always interesting. Yeah, you gotta you gotta pay attention to details. You can't be lazy. Um, you know, you get out of it what's put into it, you know, and if you want to, if you want to halfway do something, you're gonna get halfway results. Yeah. Yeah, So let's talk about something that, um, every deer hunter right now is thinking about, which is the rut, which is not gonna you know, we're knocking on the door of the rut right now. Um, it's coming for a lot of us. I think you know, if if you read a magazine these days, or if you listen to a podcast, or if you watch TV shows, you have been just hammered over the head with the basics of how to hunt the rut, right, I mean, I think most deer hunters know pinch points, funnels, um, you know, be where the does are. Sure. Is there anything above and beyond that though, that you think leads to hunt success during the run? Or is there anything that you have your clients do or put your clients in, anything in some unique fashion during the rut that helps you guys be successful? Um? I think for us, it's just paying attention to the deer um, you know, and and don't try not to overthink it too much, you know. I mean, you can, you know, you can have the best situation in the best scenario, and somehows screw it up. I mean, like for us, you know, we just you know, we we scout a lot from the roads. We do. We do a lot of glasses, um, we run a lot of cameras and just pay attention to pay attention to the deer um, you know, and put the pieces of the puzzle together. Okay, you got a picture of this deer here, Um, is he bet in here or is he you know in between? You know, what's he doing? Um? Don't just say, oh, I got a picture of the deer in the soup plot, I need to say this tup plot. You know, the picking you might have got a nighttime picture. He's obviously on his feet somewhere. Um. And then with the rut coming, the deer you can be on their feet in the day right now. Um. You know this is this is the time of year that everybody's saving their vacation for you know, the next you know, from now till Thanksgiving, a lot of guys are gonna be in the woods. Um. You just pay attention to the deer. Um. If you're not seeing seeing what you want to see, you know, maybe you're you're obviously not where you need to be. Um. And every farm is different, um, you know. And and that's the the unique thing about you know, land and farms and stuff that you know, they're all a little bit different. They all got their little quarks about them that make them good or make them bad. Um. I guess you know nothing really, you know, we just don't don't overthink it too much and play the wind number one thing. Let the wind dictate where you're gonna be, because it's you know, if if you try and split the hair with the wind on you know, on the deer, You're gonna lose of the time, um, and that's what us we don't we know. We're trying not to overthink it too much and just play the wind. What what could you, um, could you maybe elaborate for us a bit um on what kinds of spots you specifically are having people front this time of year. So I know that wind is going to dictate how you would pick a certain place. UM, but could you maybe lay out in detail maybe an example of the spot, Like right now, I'm going to try and be uh between bed and or feed in bed, Like if I'm going in the morning, UM, I'm gonna try and have an access to where I'm not walking through or I'm not entering where I want to hunt where by going through a destination feed field. So I don't want to domino the tear back, I don't want to shove the deier back to where I want to try and catch them in between bed defeat makes sense, or or feed to bed. So I'm gonna try and have the kind of a side door entrance or back door entrance where I can slip somebody in and and be between where the deer feeding and where they want to go to bed. You know, whether it be on a you know, on an oak flat or an oak ridge, or a funnel or you know, our ditch funnel where I'm catching the deer naturally traveling back, traveling back to bed in the mornings. UM. And then and this time this time of year, like the next for the next about the next week. In the evenings, UM. If I don't you know, if I don't have guys that are wanting to sit all day, UM, I'll typically move them to uh, to a funnel or somewhere close to uh a food plot or you know, or you know, our an oak flat or something in the evenings, catching the deer before they head out into the big fields and you know, and kind of gets scattered, you know, once a deer get once a big deer gets out in a big field and then starts running those around, it's really tough to you know, to get it, to get a deer locked in UM. You know, we will utilize decourse to um. You know this time of years that you know they're just walking around pro um, so you know, calling calling into deers. You know, it's fun to do, especially to see him, you know, react to it and uh you know, come in posture into decoy and you can stick one inside and when it comes to decoy, it's pretty fun to do. Yeah, what's your typical decoys that up look like for us? Like you know, the uh, it's it's kind of backed off of an area, you know, because where we're at here, a lot of our farms we have high deer and now as we have lots of dose and dose hate decoys. Um. So typically, you know, a typical decoy set for us, um. You know, if you can, you can imagine, say you've gotta you know, perfectly square food plot and it's been a acre food plot and a lot of the deer like to come out, and it's you know, say the southwest corner of the food plot and they are a lot of the deer come out right there. Well, I'm not gonna set up right there with the decoy right on top of the does. I'm gonna set up on the far northeast corner of that food plot, you know, with the you know what a west wind or a southwest wind or a south wind that way, when the does come out, they can see that decoy from a little ways away and they have tolerated over there and uh, you know, and then then if a buck comes out where the does come out and he sees the decoy and you give him a grunt grunt a couple of times or a snort, weeds and so forth, and he can't take it anymore. He's gonna march across that field to you. Um, I guess that would be a typical decoy set for us, which you know, it's kind of off of the deer movement, so speak in the deer sign. Um. It's just not you know, really, it's not smashed in on the typical inside corner. You know there where a lot of deal will pile out. I'm not gonna I'm not gonna move in here on that inside corner and put the decoy twenty yards away that way. As soon as he does pop out, they're freaking out and they're blowing and topping all over the place. I'm gonna give him a little bit of room defeat. And that makes sense. Now do you do you usually like using a buck decoy or a dough decoy or what situation would you use either or? Um, this time of year, I would just use use a buck decoy, um, you know, because they're you know, even on on a lot of the cameras and stuff, and I'm checking, you know, I've had a lot of cameras on scrapes and maybe get multiple bucks. In these pictures, they're all postured up at each other, so they're uh, they're getting to the point where they're not uh, they're not liking each other like they did a couple of weeks ago. Um. So you know, I'm I'd like using a buck decoy. I've had a lot more success over a buck decoy, um one. And I guess once you get later in the year, um, you could you know, you could do the dough decoy as well with the buck decoy. Um, and didn't even you know, even later into November. You know you can just you know, just use a dough by itself. Um. But I haven't, you know, personally, as far as guiding, I've never had much luck with just the dough decoy. You know, I know a lot of guys that have killed some deer over just a dough decoy. But um, you know, my hunt, my guys have a lot more fun and we've had a lot more success with just the buck decoy. No, I feel like I've seen or heard the same thing too. Um, now here's something that just popped into my mind. That's totally kind of a a from the rut. But you mentioned your scrapes on your sorry, your trail cameras on your scrapes and what you're seeing there. I got me thinking, you must check so many trail cameras over ten thousand years. I cannot imagine how many cameras you run, Um, how much you see? So I got two questions. For number one, I'd like to understand, Um, you know how you're using these cameras, you know it is. Is it just to get inventory or is it actually helping you hunt in some way? I'd love to understand that. I guess an answer me that, and then I'll throw my apart too. Actually, I guess yeah. And you know this time of year, um, we've got a got a lot of crops coming off, corn starting to come off, and and typically a lot you know, once our corner comes off, we recruit a lot of deer, and we recruit a lot of older deer, you know, a lot of the bigger deer. For some reason, our big deer just love being out in that corn by themselves in the summertime, and once their home gets taken away, they come they come back to us. Um. And it's typically the same box on the same farms year after year. Um. You know, we can you know, we have history with these deer, and you know, and I put these I put cameras on the scrapes, um, and that way I know they're back home. Um, and it lets me know, uh, you know, are they you know, on the on this food plotter they come to this food plot the evenings, um. And then I can you know, and then I can go, okay, now he you know, just from what I know in the past, the deer has probably bet at here, he's coming to the food plot you know, this direction, and then I can kind of key in on that particular deer with my guys, uh you know, and try to pull a rug out from underneaththing that way. But as far as far as numbers of cameras, I couldn't even tell you how many cameras I have. UM. I know, I checked probably to day. Uh yeah. And and that's just you know, pulling into a farm and I'd say I've got three cameras on this farm, um, you know, And I got the wind right, and I'll just take the quaw and I'll just buzz around. I'll check, you know, swap the cards out in these cameras. I'll come back to the truck, pop them in the laptop, you know, and click the room and see if I you know, see if I can get any uh, you know, most recent information of what's happening on that farm. You know. Now I got some guys going to the camp. H So, so then that kind of ties in nicely to what my next question was, which is, given how many cameras you're looking through and like the just the vast amount of data that you're looking through every year, year after year after year, have you learned anything like like big trends that you've seen because you've looked at so many pictures. I mean, have you found any any like big picture patterns Like, yes, like I've seen every year that X happens or this factor always gets the buck on their feet? All right? Is there anything you've you've identified by way of looking through all the pictures over the years and maybe even you know, talking to hunters about their experiences year after year after year, have you gotten any big picture of learnings in that in some kind of fashion like that. Um, I guess it's something that we've all known, is that it's all about the weather. Those temperatures. Um, you know I've been you can you know, like like we've had you know, it was it was almost in the eighties for a few days a few days ago, and the cameras were a little slow. Um, you know when I clicked through those dates, Um, things were slow, just deal, just worm moving. And then you know you get a twenty degree temperature drop and it's like a light switch went off. You're like, well, where you know where all these deer come from? Um? And it's just this, you know, this time of year, we want the rust to happen so bad. You know, we've been waiting on it all year long. We've been checking our cameras and we're getting pictures of these big deer and we can't wait for this for the rest of get here. And you know, it's it's all about the temperatures. You know, if you've got to if it's the temperatures are warm them, you know we're still gonna have a rut, but it's just gonna be at night. So you know, if you've got cold temperatures then you're gonna see the activity when you're sitting in the tree standards, groundline or whatever. So Um, that's that's the big thing that I can take away that, you know, no matter, no matter what we do, the rut is going to be pretty much the same time every year. Um. And if the temperatures are cold, we're gonna see it and we're gonna you know, guys are gonna get to see it. They're gonna get to see the chasing in the bucks, fighting and stuff like that. But if it's warm, everything's gonna happen at night. What do you do during the rut when you do have those warm temperatures? How do you make the best of that situation? Um, we're sitting on the water holes, strategically place water holes for guys when the temperatures are hot. Um, and you just just do your best. You try, you can try and stay positive. Um. And you know that's one thing you can't control, you know, And that's you know, and and it doesn't matter with anything in life, I guess, you know, control the controllable and one thing we can control the weather. Yeah, that's the truth with you know, you know, when things are tough, you just you know, you know, just say, maybe it's hunting. You know, it's not life or death, it's just hunting. It could be worse, it could be a lot worse. Yeah, So what else when it comes to the rut, when you get whether it be your guys coming into camp or or anybody else. We've talked a little bit about the right places that be, We've talked a little bit about how to handle the conditions, talked a little about decoying. What else does someone need to be doing to have a successful hunt during the rut? Or should be thinking about her or whatever? Um, pay attention to the deer. Like I said, if you're if you're not seeing what you want to see or what you think you should be seeing, Um, you're doing something wrong. Um you need to movie. You need to either get a little bit more aggressive, or maybe you got too aggressive, Maybe you need to back out. Maybe you smashed in a little bit too far. Um, pay attention to the d tales. Um. You know, if you're running cameras, you know this time you get to check those cameras a lot because you know you might be coming up on it, you know, the next three or four days. Some of these bigger deer, you canna get locked down, you know. And and if you're hunting one of those big deer and he gets locked down and it's you know, you could be in for a long rut. So you know, I'd say if you know, if I was, you know, I haven't got to hunt the run so long. Um, but I get to hunted vicariously through our guys. But you know, I guess it's for me. I would just pay attention to what the deer doing. And uh, like I said, if you if you slip in and you hunt a morning and you're expecting to see a good movement and you don't, well, I mean you did something wrong. You know, something something happened there. Uh where you where you didn't play your cards right or you didn't you weren't paying attention to what you should have been paying attention to. And learn from it. You know, just because you don't see nothing doesn't mean you can't learn. Yeah, I feel like that's one of the big lessons I learned, was just like, never assume that what happened just happened by chance. Like there's always a why, there's always a reason why something happens. So I'm constantly trying to trying to force myself to ask that question and try to answer. So, so I didn't see any deer tonight, Well why why did that happen? Or maybe I did see a mature buck crossing this little ditch over in this such and such area, Well why did he? Why did he cross there? Why was he heading that direction? I feel like if you take everything that you observe and experience in the white Tail woods and apply the question of why to it, you you by default becoming better deer hunter. I think by asking and trying to answer those questions, maybe absolutely absolutely no stone unturned, so you can you can never learn enough about these you know, I get you know, guys, you know, friends and stuff will will text me and you know, they'll they'll call me and be like, why did this dear do this? And I'm like, there, as soon as you figure out let me know, yeah, you know, you know, let me know, as soon as you figure out why that deer will do that, you know, on this night when it's eighty five degrees and he's standing in the scrape to you know, eleven o'clock in the middle of the day and you're texting me why and sending me the picture, and I'm like, uh, I have no idea why he will be doing that? You know, you know, is there a dough pop in there? Or did he did somebody bump them and he just took a walk, you know? Or is you know as he actually you know a deer that will get up and walk in the middle of the day when is the eighty five degrees? You know? It's about these careers. Yeah, yeah, they they are wild animals, that's for sure. They're They're always going to keep us on your toes. So what about this so fascinating? Oh yeah, yeah, I uh, I've yet to tire of them. So let's say we're hunting the rut. We've done all these things. We've kept a positive attitude, we've been hunting hard, we've been focusing on dose and pinch points and etcetera, etcetera. We're paying attention, and everything worked out and we got a shot. We hit a deer. Um, I've got I guess two situations I want to lay out here. UM. One would be we have a we have a deer that, Um, I guess Okay, let's let's let's say this. We hit a deer is there anything that you've learned given how many deer trails you've been on with all the tracking you do with your bloodhounds, is there anything you've learned from tracking with a hound that has helped you become a better blood tracker, just you know, on without a dog, or that you could tell someone that could help them when they're tracking without a dog. Guess that's my first question. Um. Typically if you if you make a moral hit on a deer, there's they're straight line. Is um you know, whether it be you know, say you get a high entry hit, high entry and no exit. Um, it's can be a little bit for you get a little bit of blood. But typically those deer are straight lining. You know, they're they're on a mission. They're going somewhere and they're going there straight in a hurry. Um you know that that would be you know as far as with the dogs a lot of times, Um, you know, if you know, if we're if I dropsy in on the track and uh and she takes a good line and she starts going you know in that in that one direction, Um she's going straight. Then you know I know typically um, you know we're locked in you know we're doing what we're supposed to be doing, so that that would be the biggest thing you're not taking away with the hounds. You know a lot of times, you know, if you didn't have a hound, you'd be kind of zig zagging around trying to find blood so forced and you know a lot of times, if you'll just get on that trail and you'll take that trail that that deal was on that you shot, and just walk it out a little bit, you'll, you know, you know, eventually you'll probably pick up some sign and pick up some blood, or you know, see a track with the deal was running and so forth. So these gear when they're hit, you know, mortally hit, their straight lining m interesting. So let's I guess, I guess maybe let's take a step back. Maybe I got ahead of myself there. Um, what's your basic process? Um, without a dog, let's just say right now, because we'll talk about dogs in a second. But for for you pre dog, or for someone who doesn't have a dog, how would you recommend or how do you personally go through the moments after you see the arrowheaded deer? Take me through the process from that moment all the way you know, through a hypothetical track job, how you're doing it, what you're looking for? Um, how long you would wait, etcetera, etcetera. Sure, Um, most owners know, you know, as soon as they let that let that arrow go, or you know whatever they're shooting at a dude, they know, you know, their first instinct is oh I smoked him, or oh man, that was a bad shot. You know what I mean? Um, you know, so typically that right there. Lets you know, do I need to give this deer some time? Or you know, can I wait? You know, do I wait forty five minutes or an hour? Uh? And get down and go look? Um, and you know what the dog dogs in doing this outfit thing? Um, you know, being that I'm not there with the guy. Um, you know saying saying, don't have the dogs. You know we're gonna run through the scenario not having a doll. Say, you shoot the deer, you feel like you made a great shot, the deer runs off, You're gonna hear it fall down. You didn't see it falled down, but you just heard it. You know, it's just hauling the mail. Um, I'm gonna wait, you know, I'm gonna wait a while. I'm gonna get down, I'm gonna go inspect the arrow. Um. You know, I'm just you know, see what kind of blood I got? See you know, see if it's um good lung blood, arterial blood or is it dark gritty? Is it dark blood? You know, does it have any you know, gut matter on it? You know? What where did I hit the deer um? And for the most part, a lot of you know, a lot of these guys are you know, they're pretty well educated anymore as far as archree out. Most of the guys know about where they hit the deer um, you know. And and you can that that arrow is gonna tell you a lot. And then you know, for me, I would wait, Um, you know, I'm a I'm an eight hour guy, you know, you know, and unless you see the deer fall over, you know, you see the you know, deer runs a hundred yards you're here and fall over, you see it fall over, you know, then then get down and you know he'll get your gear by all means. But if you you know, if you made uh, you know, you you think, you know, you're pretty sure you made a good shot. But maybe maybe it's maybe maybe it got liver, or maybe it didn't well, then at least wait eight hours before you do anything. You know, before you before you start tracking, you before you go in there and start you know, even if you went fifty yards, that might be fifty yards too far and you bump the deer and it's gone. Um. You worked all years for that, for that shot, you know, and then you're gonna screw it up by not being patient enough. Um. So that's that's the biggest thing that I've you know, I've actually had to learn, you know parts and that's what the dogs have taught me. Um as well. It's just deep be patient. Um. You know, if it's dead now, it will be dead later. The last thing you want to do is bumped a deer. And uh, you know, once you bumped a deer, your chances of finding there is that much. You know, there's you know they were you know there they were good before, but now they're you know, they're really bad now because you're bumped the deer. He might even be off your property. He might you know, he might run a country mall before he beds down again. You know who knows. But uh, I'm a I'm an eight hour guy. To be honest with your markets. If one of my guys shoots the deer in the morning, I'm not you know, say, shoots at eight o'clock, I'm not going in there until four o'clock in the afternoon. If he shoots it at night, then I'm just gonna wait till the next morning. Then we'll go in there in the daylight and see what we got to work with. Mhm. Now, have you found there to be any You mentioned one thing already, that being the lots of times a mortally hit deer is gonna just be line it somewhere. Have you found there to be any other patterns to a deer? You know, there's these commonly held beliefs. I can name a couple like people say that a wounded mortally would buck won't run uphill, or lots of times the morley wounded or gut shot deer hill head to water. Have you found any of those things to be truer or anything else? Sure? Absolutely, I mean a lot of you know, and you know what, I've had scenarios where you know where you know the guy you know hundred they know it's a gut shot deer, and they called me and I go there with the dogs, you know, say point four hours later, you know, we give the deer ample time. Um, and you know, and then we say, okay, you know, there's a pawen down here. There's a creek out here, it's got water in it. You know, that's probably where he went. And we'll I'll drop sit in on it and we'll start going that way. And all of a sudden, sist turns and she goes up the hill down a deep ravine and up ravine and all this and that, and then we find the deer a hundred eighty degrees hundred eighty degrees away from the pond. You know. So you know a lot of times you can throw that theory out the window. I don't know why. Why wouldn't you know? Because when the deer get shot in the gut, you know, they get septic, they get a fever, and they want to go to water to cool off. And that's where a lot of a lot of people find them, you know, whether their liver hit, you know, gut shot and shot in the intestine, whatever. You know, for the most part, you're gonna find them in the water because that's where they that's where they want to be, you know, that's what they're they're trying, they're trying their dangnist to get to that water, so they cool off because they have fever. Um. But you know, as far as you know the rule of thumb for the most part, if you do shoot a geer and the guts and you do not have a dog, um, and you can't track it, so you have you know, you have no blood, UM, I would definitely I would definitely be walking walking the ditches or looking in nearby palms for sure. M h um. Now what about in a situation with a dog? Um, Let's well, I guess what when when should somebody call a dog? I guess maybe that's the better question. What should I call someone right away if I've got a shot that I don't feel is ideal? Yeah, as soon as you make the shot. I mean, you know anybody that that's that's artery. And there's a lot of us out there that have you know, to have recovery dolls anymore. Um, we're pretty easy to find on social media, you know, whatever states you're hunting in, um and and and just having it in your phone even if you don't call him, just put it in your phone. Deer tracker guy or a bloodhound guy. And and if you you make a shot as soon as you get back to the truck, and you know, man, that's that's that's not a good shot. Call the tracker. You know, all of us are gonna we want to help you find the deer. Whether we can get to you or not, we want to help you find the deer. Um, So call the tracker. UM, we're gonna bring him kind of give you an interview process. We're gonna ask you how high you were ground live? So forth's quoting to pouring away. Um, we're gonna run into the gauntlet of questions and you know, and and that's gonna help you, you know, play back the whole scenario in your mind. Um, the tracker is gonna be able to say, okay, well I think you hit him here you know we're here and so forth, Um, we canna tell you whether whether you should go, you know, whether you should wait, whether they can come and help you, whether they can uh you know, maybe get a buddy that lives closer to you, you know, that has the dog, um referring to somebody else they can track for them. Um, So that would be the first thing I could, you know, I would say that if you made a marginal shot, try and get all of somebody with a dog, whether they don't even have to live in you know, the state. I mean, I bet I can vouch for a lot of the guys that have dogs that you know, we just want to help people find their deer um. So if you can get ahold of anybody to h to run that, you know, run the process through them, let them help you start the process. And uh and and hopefully you know, and if if you can get a dog out there, you know, day but you know, not that not all trackers are you know, for the most part, you know, nobody doing it full time tracking. So a lot of a lot of the guys have you know, day jobs, you know, or you know, working evenings or afternoons or whatever. So finding finding somebody that's got the time to you know, drop everything they're doing and bringing their dogs is it is hard, but uh, you know, but but if you get a dog, there's more power to you. You know, That's that's the best thing to do, is get let the dog run the track first before you go in there with your buddies and start good searching around and and and try and you know, and you're just walking all over the track and you're disturbing the area where the deers ran. And now now then you bring the dog in and drop the dog down. How the dogs tracking your buddies. It's you know, it's trying to trying to track where the dew was, and you know you've you've stepped on blood and didn't know it. You stepped on you know, some vials and gut matter and didn't know it, and you're tracking it, you're carrying it with your feet, and you're going the wrong direction. You know, there's there's a lot of different a lot of things that can go wrong when you when you come in there and you start grid searching with buddies or start blood trailing with buddies, and then all of a sudden you want to back out and you want to call the dogs. So call the dog first. Uh, take that route if at all possible, before you go in there with your buddy even start tracking. Yeah, it's got me thinking about another situation. UM, and this could be this could be whether you have a dog or not. I guess I'm curious about what the rights, what the right answer is. UM. Let's say you shoot a deer, and then you got rain that's coming in soon afterwards. Um, and maybe the shots kind of marginal um, but maybe you know it's kind of one of those in between our shots. But rains coming in. What do you do then? Do you push it because you want to get your do you go in sooner than usual because you want to make sure you have some kind of blood? Or do you say, all right, I'm just going to assume there's not gonna be any blood, so I want to make sure he at least doesn't get pushed farther away so I have a better chance when I am just kind of body searching the next day. How do you approach that situation? Um? You know, now now that I've got the dogs, Before I had the dogs, I would have went in and looks, because you know that's that's the way we blood trail, you know, it is with our eyes. We need to deal a seed. Which way that deer went? Um? So before I had the hound, I probably would have chanced it. And when it went in there before the rain and and hopefully we're covering the deer. But now that I have the dogs, UM, providing you're not you don't get a monsoon and it just you know, just a big gully washer. Actually a little bit of moisture and rain is good for the dogs. It actually holds that scent tighter and holds that scent right, you know, right there where it needs to be. UM. So a little bit of rain on on the blood and on the track itself, it's not bad for dogs, you know, I mean, if that makes sense to it, because it's kind of just it just holds the scent right there as far as you know, say, say it's dry, you know, when you shoot the deer and then it starts raining. It just it just it's like a sponge, you know, the it just holds it right there where it needs to be versus de scent just kind of blowing all over the place and back force. You know, what a wounded deer gives off is that interdigital scent gland you know, in their hooves. Um, when it's shot and it's mortally hit, it's given off that scent. That waxy deposit is what it's given off. And that's you know, that's what canines and predators and stuff, that's how they tracked the deer their wounded um, you know, And that's the same thing that we train our dogs on. It's not so much blood, it's that waxy deposit that that deer gives off, you know, how their interdigital scent gland in their hooves. Yeah, speaking of understanding you know how you're training your dog. Anything you could recommend to someone out there who who hasn't interested in getting their own tracking dog, maybe a resource or organizations or anything like that, or where should people go to start learning about how to do this? Um there, there's a lot of stuff on the internet, how to say, get books John Janie, I've got numerous books that he's that he's written on recovering you know, deer recovery. Um in case you Morrigan, you know the guy that I'm partners with the blood out of deer track because he's, uh, he's a wealth of knowledge himself. I mean he kind of started himself on it and learned through trial and error, um on. You know, did a lot of stuff wrong, and then he did a lot of stuff right and uh and you know, and ended up getting a bloodhound. He started out with some other other breeds and ended up with a bloodhound and uh, you know, and he's had nothing but success. You know using using the bigger dogs. UM, I would say, figure out what what you want out of the dog? You know, if you're looking to get into it, Um, are you going to use it just for yourself and you know and maybe a couple of buddies, or are you actually gonna you know, provide a service for the local hunters in your area? Um, and you know, and figure out what kind of dog is it? You know, is just gonna be a you know, full fledged working dog or you know, or just dog going to sleep on the couch with me and you know, and maybe every wants a while, we're gonna track a little bit. Um. You know, I guess you know, figure out, you know what kind of dog you want. Um. You know there's some great breeds out there. You know a lot of guys are using uh slobaki and copas those that's a great breed. Bloodhounds are great breeds. Are a little bit bigger dogs. Um. Um, wire hair docks and the short hair docks. Ands. You know, there's you know a lot of guys to recover you know, hundreds of deer a year with you know, using those small dogs. UM. You know I have two bloodhounds, have we had about a ninety five pounds red female and about a sixty five pound black and tan female. And uh, you know that's that's just a dog I like for the terrain that I'm in over here. Um, We've got a lot of deep ditches and you know, just they just work better for me here, you know, in this hilly country over here, so um, you know, and some of the some of the flat ground, you know, some of the other stuff for some people are you know, maybe you don't want to you know, neither long legged dogs. Um. But as far as breeders, you know, i'd you know, I'm not, Uh, I'm not, you know, I was fortunate enough for you know, Casey got me my first pup, and I did a little bit of legwork on my own to find the next pups. Um, just through social media. You know, there's you know, there's you know, if you want, if you know, if you want to find the dog, uh, you know, to recover dear, you know you'll find one. You know, they're they're out there. Um, you know, go and uh, you know, put your hands on the pups and and see the kind of environment that the dogs are in and see where their parents come from. See what their parents are doing. And the grand you know, the grandparents of the you know of them. See what kind of bloodline they're you know, they are they working dogs or they show dogs or um. You definitely want to stick with the working line of dogs. You know. That's the thing. Uh, you know, the bloodhouse they've kind of got a bad rep you know lately, with you know, being more of a show dog versus a working line, and uh, you know, and and we're trying to trying to reverse that a little bit. You know, we haven't we haven't bread and of our of our working dog yet, but uh, you know that's something that we're probably gonna do here in the future and hopefully, you know, put out some good working bloodhouse. I'll tell you what it really does. Every time I talk to anyone who has a dog like this and is able to do this kind of thing, he really is intriguing. It gets tempting that it's got to be really nice just to have that tool in your in your toolbox whenever the situation arises. Sure, yeah, I mean Sis. You know, Sis is my older dog, and she's she's made us look like rock stars. You know, be honest with some of the some of the deer that she usually telling for us over the years. Um, you know great, you know, like you know what I'll tell guys, You're like, oh man, we gotta go in there and try and recover that Deer's gonna rain in the morning. And I'll tell no, don't worry about it. The rain is not gonna bottle the dog, you know, and knockout wood. You know, we go two hundred fifty three under the yards and sisters standing over the over the deer, and you know, she makes us look like a rock star. Um. But if it's a lot of work, you know, especially in the early you know that first the adolescent years of having a pup. You know, it's about repetition. Um. And and you gotta get out there and you gotta work them. Um. You know, like I said earlier, you know, if you if uh you know, you know, if you want you know, full time results, can't can't put it in part time work. Um. And you know what says I had I did. You know her first two years was just you know, a lot a lot of work. It's a lot that she did a lot of work in the in the harness and uh, you know, and it was a learning process for me too, as far as learning how to read her, you know, when she was locked in and uh and learning how to read it once she was you know, out to lunch so speaking, and not doing what she was supposed to do. But now she's four years old, you know, I do I do some artificial tracks with her in the off season, you know, just to keep the uh, keep the drive there. You know, we do play a lot of games tuggle war and so forth like that, you know, with deer highs and deer hoofs and of stuff and uh. And now you know, now it's you know, when I pull that hunter us out now and you know, and I put my bibs on, she knows the time to go to work, and you know, she knows what time it is. That's that's pretty cool. That's really cool. And I like, I like that phrase you head there that you shouldn't expect full time results if you're only putting in part time work. And I feel like that's, uh, that's a pretty good thing to keep in mind, even just as a deer hunter, right, you shouldn't be out there expecting the world if you're only putting in part time work. So that's a good thing for all of us to think keep in mind, especially in the off season when when we get back to work as far as preparing our hunting properties. But we're in the midst of it right now, and we're kind of reaping what we've sewed. Hopefully we've all already put in the work, and hopefully we're just enjoying the benefits of it now. But I guess, you know, we we gotta wrap things up, Tim, But if you could leave, if you could, if you could leave our listeners with any final reminder or word of wisdom or or piece of advice as we're heading into this. You know, this is kind of like the super Bowl of all of our white tail seasons right coming into the rude. Ever, a lot of people, like all of your goals and hopes and dreams for the hunting season might be riding on the next couple of weeks. Is there anything that we haven't talked about yet, Tim, that you that you think we need to make sure to touch on. Um? Yeah, I think we've covered a lot, you know, And one thing, um is, you know, envy, Uh, you know, I don't know, are greedy? You know? You know some guys are you know, you see it all the time, you know on social media. Um, just because somebody killed a big geer, that doesn't mean they're a bad person. You know. Maybe they did all the work in the offseason. You know, maybe they did all the work that you wish you would have did. And that's why you're mad at that person, because they they did what you you know, what you should have did. And you're mad because they killed the big deer. Um. And don't don't smash you know, other hunters just because they're successful. Um, be happy for him. You know, it makes you feel better as a person when you're happy for somebody. Um, you know that was successful. Um. You know, we're all in this together. Um to you know, to grow our sport, to make it better than it was before we come into it. And you know, and that's my ultimate goal and that that should be all of our goals, you know, as sportsman, you know, as outdoorsman, is to leave it better than we found it. And you know, take your kids hut and have fun with your kids. Don't make it so serious with your kids when you do get a chance to take them out and would be safe, you know, obviously everybody wear a harness. You know, you got responsibilities at home, you know, don't be don't be selfish and clamp them up in a free stand without a harness on. Yeah, yeah, absolutely so. If people want to see all the different things, if people want to connect with you, whether it be on the white tail property side or see your videos of the white tail edge, or book a hunt or learn more about it. Um, where can they go online to find all this stuff? Tim? Um? You can go to uh Whitehall property dot com and UH you can click on the agents and tim would will pop up. Click on the air. My contact information is on there, my email address, my my cell phone number, my cell phone numbers not three, seven, eight, four or four, one, five, zero or two. Um. You know I typically answered to you know, even for numbers that I don't know, just because I'm in the real estate business, and you know, I'll talk to anybody about anything. Um. You know, UM, if you want to you to hold me, there's ways people find out how you to hold me. I'm not that hard to find, all right, very good? And then I guess I'm assuming then that's a good number to reach you at. If there's someone needs some blood track and too. Huh sure, yep, and uh you know, and keep in mind that you know this. Uh it's hard for me to get you know, I do get a lot of calls and uh and you know I can tell you that things are really starting to heat up because I've got you know, I've gotten probably I think it's five calls in the last two days for so dear recoveries. So things are getting right. Yeah, that's the that's another to reach me at or you can text me. Uh and uh, you know, I'll talk about your dear hit, talk about selling a piece of property, talk about anything awesome. Well, Uh, I've enjoyed getting to talk to you here tonight, Tim, and I appreciate you making the time to uh to have this conversation right here in the busy part of the season. So thank you for that, Tim, absolutely Thanks for having me. Mark had fun, absolutely well. I wish you luck and your future hunts and for all your all your hunters coming into camp here soon and um man, let's stay in touch stand forth. We'll do that and that is a rap. So before we go, though, big thank you to our partners at Sitka Gear. Yetie Cooler's Matthew's Archery, Maven Optics, the White Tailed Institute of North America, Trophy Ridge and hunt ra Maps. And finally, of course, I really appreciate taking some time out of your day to listen to this episode, to listen to our radio episodes that come out each week as well, um Man, I really appreciate you guys being a part of this community. And if you're hitting out the woods, if you're going out soon, if you're hunting, which I certainly hope you are because things are getting good, Wishing you all the best of luck. I hope you have a great hunt, hope you have a safe hunt, and until next time, stay Wired to Hunt.

Save this episode