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Speaker 1: What is going on?
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Speaker 2: We’re back with another episode of Back forty. I’m your host Jake Hoefer. In this week, we’re diving into this whitetail dilemma of a serious tear hunter that sometimes people fall into the traps where you do all these different things, you work really hard, but you’re not necessarily seeing the results that you’re hoping to see.
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Speaker 1: And so is this a behavioral thing? Is this doing too much?
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Speaker 2: Is this not realizing as the harder you work, your goals also evolved. And we have a panel of experts to dive into this specific dilemma.
00:00:32
Speaker 1: Or question at some point.
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Speaker 2: And so we have the same panel from the last episode of Back forty and we’re going to be updating panels based off of the changing season of a whitetail calendar and so kicking things off, we have Terry Peer with Chasing Giants. He’s been hunting for a very long time and just like anything, goals change, expectations change, and strategies change. In this episode, we also have Thomas Milsna with the Untamed Ambition out of Wisconsin.
00:00:57
Speaker 1: We have Jared Van.
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Speaker 2: He’s out of mis with the Habitat podcast, and we have Kyle a team radical out of Illinois. So I hope you guys really enjoy this conversation this topic, and I think if it hasn’t came across your mind yet, it might by the end of this episode of Subliminally Anything in life, it often feels like the harder you work, the more return you might likely see. And sometimes white tail hunting is very unfavorable. There’s a lot of different factors that go into you achieving whatever goal you set out, and sometimes you can do everything you want, do everything you can, and the goal doesn’t necessarily match up with reality. And we’re diving into that episode here right now. The Back forty podcast is presented by Multrie. Let’s kick it off. Let’s go ahead and roll right into this episode with Terry Pierre. All right, Terry, I have another scenario dilemma solve the white tail world problem here for everyone. So I’m going to pose a scenario where you know, there’s a group of guys out there that are listening to hunting podcasts in April. They have a notebook next to their keyboard and mouse, and they’re writing down projects and ideas and how they’re going to have the best year ever and over the last maybe three or four years, they’re reflecting and saying, Man, I’m the harder I work at this, the less success I’m really having versus when I would go out and hang a couple of stands, hang a couple of cameras, and to show up when the time felt right. So what can you tell this person or this demographic of man, I hear you a loud and clear You’re doing everything right, You’re doing everything to the tee.
00:02:34
Speaker 1: But what is the potential missing link here?
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Speaker 2: And this is a ball of wax, can of worms, Pandora’s box, but I’m passing it to you.
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Speaker 3: Well, it’s a fascinating conversation because you don’t know this. But I have two buddies that have gotten so frustrated with land management that they’ve decided next year they are not using trail cameras, they’re not doing any habitat projects. They’re going back to old school and just going out and hunting and whatever they like that comes out they shoot because of the frustration that they’ve they’ve put into bad experience. Just like you know, the harder they try, the worse the results get. And I feel my heart breaks for people anytime they put that kind of money and effort into something and it just doesn’t pan out.
00:03:18
Speaker 4: So that you’re right, there’s a lot of different things there.
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Speaker 3: But I also think that if somebody’s really diving in, say I’m gonna work harder, I’m gonna up my game, there’s probably another goal that’s raising with that, so they expect a return on that investment of time and money. So the harder I try, the results aren’t there. What are the results you’re looking for and are they attainable? Man, people don’t understand this, But when you hang around a guy like Don Higgins and you know he shoots these world class dear, you’re even I’m allowed to hunt his property, right, But when you’re hanging around people that have a different situation than you, it’s really hard not.
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Speaker 4: To set your expectations to what they are.
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Speaker 3: And it’s like, Okay, I don’t have the same property that Don has, I don’t have access to the things that Non has. But why is my goal the same as what Don has? It’s not achievable. So that frustration level. I can come here to Kentucky on a fifth My wife’s the fifth generation on a family farm that has a least group of guys that shoot everything on the northwest corner that blow their scent in to my sanctuary, and I expect the same results that Don does on that. So yeah, I can go in and put all this work in there. But it might be a neighbor. It might be that I’m hunting it too hard, it might be that my plan’s overcomplicated and too much intrusion. All of those things play factors into it. But at the end of the day, is my expectations that I’m trying.
00:04:52
Speaker 4: To get realistic.
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Speaker 3: And I don’t want to tell anybody to lower their standards by any means, But it’s the same time, if you’re wanting your goals have to be attainable. And I feel like the hunting community with the amount of resources, with so many good folks out there right now, is you have more resources than you’ve ever had to learn to.
00:05:19
Speaker 4: Study under people.
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Speaker 3: But being able to duplicate that is extremely tough, especially with you know, you’re in real estate and there’s some properties you can walk on as an agent and say this thing has a ceiling that’s.
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Speaker 4: Here, and then there’s other ones that you have a.
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Speaker 3: Ceiling that’s a whole lot higher than that, and you know, I use the analogy of golf with a lot of a lot.
00:05:42
Speaker 4: Of times with hunting.
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Speaker 3: You know, you can have two guys that are on the same foursome and they get to the same tea box with the same weather seconds apart. They can compare their situation in their game, and in hunting there is no compare, and you can give everyone’s on different properties, everyone’s different situations.
00:06:04
Speaker 4: Everyone These are wild animals walking around.
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Speaker 3: And my heart just breaks for people like my buddies who have gone back and said we’re done with all of this. We’re going back and enjoying it. Not because I don’t align with it, it’s just they’ve they’ve been frustrated by the passion of white tail hunting so bad that they’re they’re just stepping back away from it. So my encouragement to everybody that’s dealing with this, I try so hard, but I’m not getting the results. Well, what are your results and are they attainable? Start there, make your goals realistic to your journey. Don’t try to go from you know, being able to shoot the bucks that are in my garage that I’m still very proud of early in my career. You know, one twenty to one thirty inch deear. They’re probably all three year olds, you know. I mean, let’s just face it, it was that point in time in my hunting career and trying to be something you’re not by chasing the A list unicorns that are on YouTube right progress through your journey, make attainable realistic goals every year and shoot for that and be disciplined with that.
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Speaker 4: Don’t settle. So what is your goal? Is it attainable?
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Speaker 3: The second thing that I would just really really focus on is surround yourself with people. My business mentor used to always say, you should never put your kid on a travel baseball team where he’s the best player or the worst player in business you can ever be around. You know, you got to surround yourself with people that you’re you’re trying to chase, and you got to pull people with you. So when you’re learning anything in life, whether it’s land management or whatever, chase those people that are a little bit ahead of you in their journey.
00:07:49
Speaker 4: Maybe they have agronomy background, or maybe.
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Speaker 3: They’ve killed really big bucks, or maybe they’re you know, like a Bobby Worthington. You know, you know, just the knowledge there the wins will Brothers man, I’ve just been so blessed to be able to be with these guys so much over the years, but then also have people that you’re bringing up behind you kind of be that middle of the pack through your journey. And what’s going to happen is you’re going to really learn as a sponge from those people that’ll learn teach you how to set your goals, but not only how to achieve those goals, and guess what, you’re also doing that for other folks. And the best way to be blessed is be a blessing to someone else and you know, helping that next generation or that person that wants to learn. One of the things that comes to mind is we published a video on Chasing Giants TV of a young man who just got into bow hunting, was i think in his second or third season and shot a two hundred inch buck on public out of a tree saddle on film with a compound bow, and it’s like, you.
00:08:50
Speaker 4: Talk about the ultimate that doesn’t.
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Speaker 1: Happen right, Well, yeah right, it’s crazy, right.
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Speaker 3: So he knew what he had accomplished, but at the the story of him going through this just world class. Once in a lifetime bug is the people that helped him getting there. You know, he surrounded people with himself. But then he referenced bringing his kids along and getting them into hunting. So, man’s it’s such a frustrating and rewarding sport.
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Speaker 4: At the same time.
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Speaker 3: You know, don’t make yourself Just be realistic, you know, learn, be gracious, be humble, don’t try to be somebody or not. Don’t try to get something out of a property that can’t be done. You can’t shoot a two hundred inch buck if there’s not a two hundred inch buck there.
00:09:39
Speaker 4: There’s a lot of people.
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Speaker 3: In this world that could shoot two hundred inch bucks if they were on the property they were hunting. But you know, we’re trying to do something that’s so difficult, and man, it’s just it’s a tough, tough sport, flood of emotions because we spend so much time, passion, energy, money into chase seeing it that when it doesn’t work out.
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Speaker 4: What’s the reason? Is it the neighbor, is it the weather?
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Speaker 1: There’s a million things. By a car, did it?
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Speaker 5: You know, Like, I mean, look, look how many people in Ohio’s target buck was killed by EHD last year and just heart wrenching and how long does it take to recover from that?
00:10:23
Speaker 4: What’s my plan? B?
00:10:26
Speaker 3: And it’s just it’s man, But when the things hit you got to remember you’re setting out in God’s creation, watching this.
00:10:37
Speaker 4: Scenery unfold every morning.
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Speaker 3: And you think, man, as complicated as God’s creation is, right, how all these micro organisms work to intertwine in an ecosystem, that something like a white tail could be thrive from South Texas to Canada and all of these things working together for the greater good of nature.
00:11:02
Speaker 4: And then God made salvation as simple as what it was.
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Speaker 3: Man, I’ll go sit in the tree stand and think about that every single day. And I know this isn’t a religious podcast, but man, what an awesome story book that unfolds with you at every sit Try to focus on that God’s creation is so powerful and his love for us is so simple through salvation that this thing unfolds from you every day. Don’t let the ups and downs of did I tag something this year after spending all this money on this lease or buying this new tractor. Man, enjoy the ride because when it all pays off, and it will, it will pay off, maybe not every year like Don Higgins, but it will. It will pay off at some point, and you’re going to enjoy the ride. But set those expectations to where you can truly achieve them in a you know, don’t try to jump from seventh grade to varsity.
00:12:00
Speaker 4: You know baseball, right, you.
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Speaker 3: Gotta you gotta go through eighth grade, freshman JV. Work your way up where it’s attainable, and learn. Don’t don’t pretend like you know everything. You know, be vulnerable, even if you’re even if you’re a content creator. All these guys that want to be content creators out there, that vulnerability is what draws the views.
00:12:19
Speaker 4: People don’t realize that, you know.
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Speaker 3: You go and look at a lot of the real big YouTube channels that are not in the hunting industry.
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Speaker 4: The ones that are growing so so well.
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Speaker 3: Right now are the people that are trying new stuff and showing the failure and learning from it and adapting from it.
00:12:39
Speaker 4: You know, those are the things that are getting a.
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Speaker 3: Lot of views, not the people who are claiming they know everything, because none of us are that way, right. I think I think society is kind of seeing through the you know, the jaded, uh kind of hypocritical side of the hunting industry.
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Speaker 4: That way, the vulnerability is really where the engagement comes from.
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Speaker 2: Right now, one thing that I’ve always thought about is for white to hunting specifically, it’s probably the least transactional game specie.
00:13:09
Speaker 1: Period.
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Speaker 2: Like there’s guys out there their life goals to shoot two hundred in each year, and you know, they have everything else that they’ve accomplished, they checked off every box, but they’re still after the mysterious two hundred inch white tail, and it’s like, no matter how much effort, time, money, all these different things, it’s not as simple as that’s what I want, and that’s what I’m going to get a free ranging while two hundred this year because they’re so rare and so crazy, and that is my opinion. You know, I’ve recognized that over the years.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, look at my season last year, right had I had a goal to shoot above a one eighty with a bow and guess what? I found one of them And it was on a permission property that I couldn’t do a single thing for and had pictures of him in August, had pictures of him in early October.
00:13:57
Speaker 4: He did, he wasn’t there in September. It’s really weird. But guess what. I got a picture of him on October twenty third.
00:14:05
Speaker 3: I hunted from October twenty fourth to Thanksgiving every single day, saw all kinds of deer, had a great time.
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Speaker 4: Never saw that deer on his spoof one time, never got a picture.
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Speaker 3: I don’t know if he’s still love don’t know, but I’m willing to I’m willing to go all in on that at this point, with where I’m at, some people don’t need to be going that serious at this They need to learn how to hunt.
00:14:27
Speaker 4: They need to learn woodsmanship.
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Speaker 3: I don’t know what this year’s goal is going to be, but I got to make sure I’m not trying to be Don Higgins. I’m not trying to be Lee, I’m not trying to be Bobby Worthy. I’m trying to be me with the cards that I have access to to play the game. And I did pick up a new property down in the southern tip of Illinois that has great potential, but don’t know what’s there yet.
00:14:51
Speaker 4: First time.
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Speaker 3: I’ve only been on the farm twice, So you know, I’m going to have to set this year’s goal to raise my bar with to com pish what I want. But it’s attainable. It actually has something that’s achievable with it. And if that means eating the tag sandwich one more year, I guess that’s okay.
00:15:09
Speaker 4: I’m gotten pretty used to.
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Speaker 1: That on and off.
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Speaker 4: I mean, we all have right, Yes, I think it’s it’s just it’s just got to be attainable, buddy. We try to be something that we’re not. We try to.
00:15:22
Speaker 3: It’s a delicate balance of trying to learn from those folks that I’ve been able to mentor underneath of, but not try to be them because the reason they’ve got there is they’re probably thirty years ahead of you and their farms already developed in a.
00:15:35
Speaker 4: Way that yours isn’t.
00:15:37
Speaker 3: So you know, you got to learn from those folks, but don’t try to be those folks.
00:15:43
Speaker 1: I love it well, Terry.
00:15:45
Speaker 2: If people want to hunt you down and say I agree or man, I don’t know, I need to.
00:15:51
Speaker 1: I want to. You know, I’m stubborn and I want.
00:15:54
Speaker 2: I want the cream of the crop, even though I’m probably not kaream of the crop.
00:15:58
Speaker 1: Where can I reach out to tell you that?
00:16:00
Speaker 4: Yeah?
00:16:00
Speaker 3: I mean, the best way to follow our content is on Chasing Giants. We have a podcast weekly podcast and a YouTube channel. We got a lot of fingers out in different resources all the way from religious podcasts like Chasing Assurance that I do with my dad.
00:16:14
Speaker 4: But everything is kind of underneath of Chasing Giants YouTube channel.
00:16:18
Speaker 3: So if you go out and find that, you’re gonna find our hunting podcast, habitat videos, hunting videos. I think we already have nine hunt videos I believe that are in post production that will start in May of this year. I might even see a Turkey Hunt on there every once.
00:16:34
Speaker 4: In a while when we got our buddies Joe Miles or Al Foster and Joe Johnson in town.
00:16:40
Speaker 3: But yeah, head out to Chasing Giants and you can kind of disperse out for what content you want from there.
00:16:45
Speaker 1: Awesome, Thank you so much, Terry, Thanks for having me all right. There you have it.
00:16:48
Speaker 2: I think Terry does a really good job of laying out this complex topic in a simple way, and it’s more of a reflection of what that looks like. Now let’s get into this commonversation with Thomas Milsne and what his take is on this topic. Here we go, all right, Thomas, welcome back to back forty. This is a phenomenon that is likely a lot of people can relate to the harder I try. It feels like the worst idea hunting is getting so I can lump that into hunting harder, doing more habitat projects, just the whole gampit. I’m putting more and more effort, but I feel like I’m getting less and less reward for what I’m doing.
00:17:33
Speaker 1: What do you say to me.
00:17:35
Speaker 6: Well, there’s there’s two perspectives there. The hunting pressure is a big one, right, So if we address that one first in season season the season, you you know, you get a glimpse of an opportunity there and you go hard, right, So it’s not a lack of effort like you’re saying, or a lack of ambition.
00:17:54
Speaker 7: But it might be a lack of strategy.
00:17:56
Speaker 6: So you know, the tell tale or a cliche situation where you have good experience in that one spy of your property last year, so you go, you know, last November, so you go barreling into their early October opener of the season. Right, pressure limits Potential pressure is always the bottom hole in the bucket. So if you’re putting too much pressure on the property from an access standpoint, whether you’re hunting, or you’re on habitat side of things.
00:18:20
Speaker 7: If you’re out there.
00:18:21
Speaker 6: A lot throughout the year, every weekend, you’re out there trying to do something, you’re increasing the amount of human activity and pressure on the property, which oftentimes will push a mature buck off the property, or at the very least make it so he doesn’t move a whole lot during the daytime because he’s trying to avoid that conflict.
00:18:37
Speaker 1: Right, So that’d be one.
00:18:39
Speaker 7: Side of it.
00:18:40
Speaker 6: The other thing, which is probably the more likely scenario, if you’re doing habitat improvements, right, you’ve got your food plot program dialed in at least as far as you’re aware, things are going well. You’re doing habitat improvements for the most part. You know, things you’re hearing on podcasts, things you’re catching off of YouTube, things you’re catching off of outdoor celebrities saying, you know, I’m sitting behind this buck because of this X y Z thing that I did or product that I bought.
00:19:08
Speaker 8: Right, I would almost I.
00:19:11
Speaker 6: Don’t want to guarantee, but my speculation would be in most of those situations, if you take a step back and objectively look at how your property has changed and how.
00:19:20
Speaker 7: Your herd dynamics have changed. Having more deer on.
00:19:23
Speaker 6: Your property is not necessarily a good thing, and what happens more often than not, especially if you focus on quote unquote low hanging fruits like food plots, and you focus on that level of habitat which food plots are half of the habitat equation. Right, food plus cover equals habitat. If you increase the amount of food without increasing the amount of cover, you will increase the amount of doze on your property. And when you do that, you increase the amount of social pressure on your property, and you will push bucks away time and time and time again. The other mistake that I’ve seen people make, and I’ve made it myself, is the location of that food plot.
00:20:10
Speaker 7: Right, You’ve got a spot.
00:20:12
Speaker 6: Maybe you did some scouting last fall, you were following those bread crumbs moving in on that buck got really close, didn’t happened, And in your mind you’re like, well, there’s a nice.
00:20:21
Speaker 7: Little clearing here in the woods.
00:20:23
Speaker 6: I’m going to turn that into a food plot, create more consistent pull in that spot. When you do that, you reshuffle the deck with betting structure on your property.
00:20:30
Speaker 7: If that buck was betted on.
00:20:32
Speaker 6: That point on that ridgeline and you drop that food plot in there. Now, you just turn that buck betting area into a dough betting area, because they always want to bed close to that consistent food source, and that might have pushed that buck off the property or set them up in a position where he’s betting where he doesn’t want to address that food plot or just doesn’t want to show up there during daylight hours. So that’s something I think is really really important. Habitat balance is so incredibly important and has not talked about often enough. When your food outweighs your food and cover or true habitat, you will pull in and hold more antlerless deer, or younger deer on your property. The property I was just on the other day, the whole day, every scenario we came across walking on that property, he said the same thing or started the conversation the same way. This spot used to be really good. These deeri used to do this. They used to do that, They used to do this, they used to do that. Okay, next spot, this spot used to be really good. The deer used to do this. They used to do that. Right, And things are changing all the time, but oftentimes we don’t observe those changes because it’s this frog in the pot of boiling water, right, slow change, We don’t really notice them.
00:21:38
Speaker 7: And then he said, you know, I.
00:21:39
Speaker 6: Just don’t understand why we get mature bucks. We’re not wholly mature bucks. And to me, I was, you know, and obviously my situation is different. That’s why I do what I do, right. But ultimately he’s, like I said to him, I’m like, it’s very obvious.
00:21:53
Speaker 7: It’s very apparent.
00:21:54
Speaker 6: The only food on your property is cultivated food sources, the food plots. So your balance is off holding so many dos in these areas where the bucks were at this point where if you look at you know, I can look at the timber component there and speculate, you know, based on stumps, based on the current, the stage of succession with the stand speculate that the property was logged probably thirty or forty years ago, and since that time, you know, it peaks and then it slowly goes downhill. So I say, you’ll think back to twenty years ago when this property was at its prime.
00:22:24
Speaker 7: What did it look like? Oh yeah, it was a lot thicker.
00:22:26
Speaker 6: Okay, that kind of solves or answers that question, right, But it’s thick now in some areas.
00:22:33
Speaker 7: With invasives, but there’s no food value there.
00:22:35
Speaker 6: So having really good habitat that’s balanced to where your cultivated food sources are a small percentage, and really drawing deer into huntable locations creates a better hunting system versus having cover and having food, which just promotes higher herd numbers, but not necessarily quality within that herd. You know, it’s not really truly increasing the carrying capacity of the property. It’s just holding deer in there certain times of the year. So I see that a lot guys putting a lot of time into food plots and maybe small habitat projects, you.
00:23:07
Speaker 7: Know, manipulating movement here.
00:23:09
Speaker 6: There a couple betting area cuts something like that, but nothing that’s really truly moving the needle as far as like improving the native forage production, which provides an element to cover and an element of food at the same time. And then you have deer like the does and fonts and young bucks that are a lot more tolerant of pressures. They don’t need as much cover. They bed in areas in groups, so they have strength in numbers, not isolation. They will flock to a property like that, and ultimately you’ll push the bucks off the property, and then it’s just you know, it’s kind of a red herring in a lot of situations because you think that you’re doing better and then you’ll even see glimpses of bucks moving through the property.
00:23:44
Speaker 7: But it’s just not super consistent.
00:23:47
Speaker 2: So for someone that has done some projects, it sounds like, if you’re in this category, you may need to address the overall health of the habitat and it may be thick, but how do we make it thick with benefit?
00:24:00
Speaker 6: What I’m hearing correct? Yeah, cover with food always be thinking. Cover with food topography is the greatest form of cover.
00:24:06
Speaker 7: No food value. Thick stand of seaters pretty dang good cover.
00:24:09
Speaker 6: You know, depending on the climactic conditions, it might be good, might be bad any given day.
00:24:14
Speaker 7: But no food value.
00:24:16
Speaker 6: Thick stand of invasives, honeysuckle, buckthorn, pure switch grass. Right, those things provide good cover, no food value, and they can throw your habitat out of balance very very quickly, and that can go against you. It can just you know, it can shrink down the amount of movement on any given day. It can change the dynamic of that herd structure so dramatically that ultimately it increases the amount of pressure on those bucks because when we’re not there the herd, the does are putting pressure on those bucks a ton of it.
00:24:49
Speaker 9: You know.
00:24:49
Speaker 6: That’s why they typically avoid it until it’s rough timeframe. But if you watch those doughs on any food plot most year, they’re pushing the young bucks around, They’re pushing the old bucks around, stuff like that. So it’s really really important to maintain a balanced habitat structure and focus on food plots as an attraction base pinch to draw de your into certain areas.
00:25:09
Speaker 2: How does someone address if they’re like, man, my habitat’s good. I’ve done these different things, but you know, I used to have two five year olds that I you know, like all relative to what part of the country and what your goals are, but just the general hunting of sidings of bucks that get me excited is going down.
00:25:24
Speaker 1: What are potential shortcomings of that well?
00:25:28
Speaker 6: As far as how to address that. You know, again, every situation is can be different, So how do you analyze that? I think that’s the bigger question, right, how do you assess the situation to figure out the next steps forward. I would do an honest assessment of your herd numbers, you know, trail camera surveys, the thermal drone things can be great, you know, depending on the time of the year it has. A thermal herd analysis in January, February, March does not mean a whole lot to you in October November timeframe, so keep that in mind.
00:25:59
Speaker 8: But getting a a.
00:26:01
Speaker 6: Semi accurate assessment of what your herd numbers truly are, and a lot of it can be done with visual sightings and trail cameras, Like what is your buck to dough ratio? If your buck to door ratio is way out of whack where you’ve got three or four dos to every buck, that’s a problem in and of itself, right. The other thing would be, you know, how good is your habitat actually, because there’s a lot of I guess it’s all on a scale of relativity, So how good is your habitat compared to your neighbor’s habitat? And then what is the pressure on that We talked about that before, where pressure is all relative too, So you can have really good habitat, but you’re still putting a lot of pressure on, right, and your neighbor might have poor habitat, so to speak, but there’s no pressure there, So that buck is he’s spending his time, his daylight hours on the neighbor’s property. And then that buck’s showing up on your property to take advantage of the food and mating opportunities. But more often than not it’s either inconsistent or it’s after dark. So I think the big thing is, you know, address it from a relative scale, look around and see what else is out there, and then you know, analyze that objectively as far as like how much pressure are we putting on the property? Can we get to and from food sources? Can we get to and from food? You know, pinch points where we’re hunting in general without bumping deer from betting, without bumping deer from food, because at that point, you’re your success rate is going to just slowly diminish throughout the whole season. Right, And then those bucks, there’s a there’s a concept in ecology.
00:27:25
Speaker 7: Referred to as landscape of fear.
00:27:27
Speaker 6: So through time, those bucks will just start to understand like, oh, as I get older and more wiser, and the same with the dose, they’ll start to understand it too, but ultimately they learn on the landscape where the perceived threats are. We see this a lot, right, like how many does step out in that food plot and look at that ladder stand in the corner now, because they know that there’s a potential threat there, right, And the bucks they just don’t tolerate it the same way. So once they perceive a consistent threat, they show up there in the dark when there’s added cover. Darkness is a form of cover, right, or they just don’t show up there very consistently at all. And when they reach a certain age and this is pretty consist and I see.
00:28:00
Speaker 7: This a lot.
00:28:01
Speaker 6: Is you know, we’re getting deer up to four years of age, and we pass them up and then we never see him as a five year old. Where do they go? Well, there’s a lot of things that kill deer. But there’s also a lot of reasons why five year old bucks mature bucks in general don’t feel the same level of security or see the same level of attraction on a property anymore because of the types of pressure and the type of food sources available to them.
00:28:22
Speaker 2: As you can see, it’s say ever sliding scale and strategy is constantly shifting and really enjoyed Thomas’s perspective on this topic. Let’s go ahead and roll into the next expert, Jared Vanhas Here we go, all right, Next up we have.
00:28:37
Speaker 1: Jared, and I’m gonna run a scenario by you.
00:28:40
Speaker 2: Every year, I feel like I try harder, I try harder, I plant more food plots, I hang more trees, stands, I do all these different things in the off season, and unfortunately it feels like instead of things getting better, things like things are getting worse. What am I doing wrong for everyone out there? That feels like, Man, I just I try so hard, I do all these different things, but I feel feel like I’m having less opportunity.
00:29:02
Speaker 1: What could that be?
00:29:04
Speaker 10: Yeah, there’s a few things there.
00:29:06
Speaker 11: I think if you started a podcast, you have less time in the woods and you’re dealing, feel less pressured. But all joking aside, I think you know cutting down.
00:29:15
Speaker 10: On the pressure.
00:29:16
Speaker 11: Pressure is so big here in Michigan, and I hunt all over the place. But if you can, if you can control your pressure like we do and try to do here in Michigan, that’s only going to help you in whatever state you’re in. I think people are over hunting their stands. I think they’re hunting too close to the plots. I think the blind locations are probably not perfect. Maybe that’s where it was when you bought the farm or got the farm. You got to kind of separate your hunting area from seeing the deer. I could deer viewing area. And I think that when you try hard, you get aggressive, you get I like to think I get desperate and then I make mistakes.
00:29:54
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, what about the off season implements? Right, so everyone says you gotta do this to you, you got to do this, But oh but you also can’t go into your farm and do these things. You’ve got to keep pressure low. Where is the balance in your mind of I got to do all these things, but I also am supposed to stay out. So how how do you prioritize projects and pressure And how much does that really matter?
00:30:15
Speaker 11: I think it matters a ton, But I think it’s a timing thing. I think the pressure obviously is during season or a month or two before season.
00:30:25
Speaker 10: Earlier you can lay off the better.
00:30:27
Speaker 11: I’m usually doing seventeen different things at once, Like I held the Habitat Day this year at my farm in August, you know, right before season started walking everywhere, getting humans sent everywhere.
00:30:40
Speaker 10: The bucks were there in season, it was, it was fine. But my point is it’s.
00:30:45
Speaker 11: More important to get the projects done, to get the security cover in there, to get that blind hidden and in the right spot, your access dialed in than it is to stay out all year. For instance, I think that if you stay out all year, but your farm is a wide open woods and you have a food plot out there in the middle kind of be like an open field almost in my eyes, and open woods, you’re not gonna be able to fix that by hunting, hunting more or less really as much as the projects you could be doing the other nine months of the year.
00:31:19
Speaker 1: Mm hmm.
00:31:20
Speaker 2: I think that’s a great a great point of What about for the people that just like to go out and tinker? Can they still go out and tinker?
00:31:28
Speaker 10: I think you can. I think you can with the right timing.
00:31:32
Speaker 11: Or I would find other spots to go tinker, you know, find a small permission farm, find some public land and tinker there. I’m just the bucks we’re trying to here in Michigan. You know, a three year old, four year old or older are I have made it through a couple of seasons. You know, there’s ten acre parcels everywhere with two or three guys on it.
00:31:52
Speaker 10: It’s tough.
00:31:53
Speaker 11: So I think that if you want a tinker, you don’t want to do it where you want to hunt, or if you do, you again, I would just put it July August, cut it off September one as a minimum, and then be very strategic about your hunting versus I’ll go out every day and eventually I’m gonna get one. You know, I’ve flipped that switch and learn from Mark a long time ago, right like less is more, and it truly is. There can be a spot where you go too little and you don’t capitalize on the opportunities. I’ve done that as well, but I think that more is never better in terms of pressure on your spot.
00:32:33
Speaker 2: You had mentioned blind placement and also hiding your blind. Talk a little bit about placement, and then I really want you to drive home hiding your blind. What are some different ways and what does that look like? Because there’s people that brush in blinds, like I’m thinking of ground blind where they’re really really really brushed in. Obviously, an elevated blind a little bit more challenging. How placement first and then let’s dive into how to disguise it.
00:32:58
Speaker 10: Yeah, no, good question.
00:33:00
Speaker 11: And Jake, I think all out of all the farms I’ve been on and helped people with consultant on, the biggest thing I see is either wide open timber or blinds on the edge of a food plot. Like in the food plot, it is easier to put them there. You have a tractor, you’re driving it in. You can’t get in the woods with your attractor.
00:33:20
Speaker 10: I get it.
00:33:21
Speaker 11: But when you climb down to that ladder and there’s a deer in the food plot, you’re you know, you kind of screwed. So what I mean by location, I don’t have any blinds that are literally on a plot. I did put one close to one last year due to lack of time, and I got burned for it. You know that dope first dope crest of the hill and looked right over there like silly. So what I try to do is I’ll try to put them in between food plots. So I think the whole key is to have a plan with your property, not just multiple food plots multiple blinds. Right, you have to have a whole system understand where the deer coming from and going to obviously, but what is your property lack the neighbors I’ll have, and what can you have that they don’t. Once you have that figured out, then you get your plots and your blinds in place. I like to hunt transitions with the blinds. I like to set them up in the woods where I can get to with my access very carefully. And one key thing is I don’t plant any of my access trails. I’ll plant all my other trails through the woods that connect the food plots I use. I’m a tractor in summertime, or my ATV or whatever, but anything that I walk on personally, I don’t plant. So imagine where you park your truck. You have maybe a plot in the back corner. You have to get around the edge of it and then up into your blind. I’m not going into my plot one time. Nothing from my plot should be able to see me as I’m either getting there or climbing to my blind So I like to back those those blinds off quite a bit. I like to get in between maybe some hingecut batting area or a betting area that I made.
00:34:53
Speaker 10: And the plot and then hiding it getting to the fun part. My perfect example or a best way you can see this. I helped under friend’s farm many years ago. He had a ton of like twenty foot norways all lining his food plot. What we did is we came in from the back. I don’t have those norways, unfortunately, I would do the same thing. Came in from the back.
00:35:15
Speaker 11: We shoved that blind into those norways as as far as we could towards that plot. He’s still about twenty twenty five yards off, and we went up and we cut windows through the norways where you could see. And so if you’re a deer and you’re coming out back to your example of the blind that’s fully brushed in, all you’re seeing is a little hole. That’s what I’m talking about. And yeah, it might seem a little extreme, and not everybody with their situation has to do that. But if you have the time and you have the opportunity to do that, you’re not going to hurt yourself by hiding it to where people can’t even see.
00:35:50
Speaker 4: It.
00:35:50
Speaker 11: Sounds a little aggressive, but that’s the idea to get into your brain before you go in there, Like, can I walk out and just look up at that blind? If you can, I think it’s way too obvious.
00:36:00
Speaker 2: What about for someone that doesn’t have maybe conifers in the area, maybe you could plant. Maybe you could plant some If this is a location that you think is gonna be great for a long time, maybe transplant some What about planning an annual screen in front of it, or maybe cutting I don’t know, some sort of I’m gonna get in trouble cutting some sort of oak tree that’s gonna hold his leavest for a couple of years and stack it in front of it. Like, what are some ideas to help for someone that’s like, yeah, now that you say that, Jared, every time I get down, I hear from and I see Lestier every time I go.
00:36:33
Speaker 10: Yeah, you’ve been paying attention in the habitat world, Jake, good job. I think.
00:36:38
Speaker 11: I think what I have to do, since I don’t have those, is what I’ll drop trees on fell trees in front of the blind, build a brush pile, or if you’re clearing a blind in the woods, like I’m going to do, I push all that into a wall and then the blind will be just peaking over that wall. Things I’ve planted, you could plant miscanthus lo people go back and forth on that. But I’ve planted some in front of the eyeblinds and that actually grows up really nice in front of the blinds. You could do switch grass. The idea is, whether you’re planting trees, cutting down trees, building piles, you’re hiding your access to that blind. You’re hiding yourself climbing into that blind, and you’re trying to hide the blind as much as you can. So, yeah, all the things you mentioned, even hingecutting. I’ve hinge cut a bunch of maples in front of a blind. They stay alive, they start to grow up. You have to trim every now and then. But I mean anything you can do to really put some cover between you and that location you’re hunting. That could be a scrape, it could be a food put, it could be a fields wherever you want to go. I just think it’s super important.
00:37:42
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that that is a great piece of advice.
00:37:45
Speaker 2: As some other things to add into that, like like a locust tree or a heade tree, you kind of branch is going to come back with vigor and it’s just going to keep getting thicker, you know, the more you do that. And so I think just getting creative and do you think typically the reason why people feel like they do more, They do more, but they have less success. Is it typically the main in the mirror or is it like, what are some other common common thing themes there.
00:38:09
Speaker 1: I could go on and on on my opinions, but I want yours.
00:38:13
Speaker 11: No, I think, and it’s the men in the mirror. Sure, it could be your neighbors. You could have some some fun neighbors sarcastically. You could have a bad location, access could be bad getting in there where your win’s wrung. You could have shot the first couple of deer that come into that stand that year, and then you’re spending that night, you know, dragging them out, trailing them all over and getting your son all over the place before it even gets good. I think any of those, I mean, you just got to really think, do I want what do I want to shoot here?
00:38:45
Speaker 10: What’s my target? What’s my goal?
00:38:47
Speaker 11: And am I doing the right things that are getting me closer or am I doing the things that are separating me further from that goal? So I think you’re right there. I think sent I think hunting less. You know the pressure, and we always talk about that. I have two maybe three hunting spots on forty acres and I think I hunted there last year just to get my kids out with me, even maybe five or six times the year. So that’s the type of pressure I’m talking about, and that sucks when you put the money in time into a place. I mean, if you start going more than that, the bucks start to disappear.
00:39:25
Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely.
00:39:34
Speaker 2: Now some of the when people call consultant, it’s not because hey, man, I’ve been on a heat for the last five years. I’ve killed every target buck and things are great, but I want to pay you to come pat me on the back for a day. When you go or when you’re someone calls you because they have a problem to fix what typically is the lowest hole in the bucket, or maybe like or maybe what is the elfant in the room, the awkward conversation that you often find yourself, you know, walking into when you show up.
00:40:06
Speaker 11: I have had some of those guys who call me and just want the pad on the back or more. I shouldn’t say like that. It’s more of an affirmation of what they’re doing is correct. Sure, And I’m always like, you’re doing a great job.
00:40:16
Speaker 10: Keep it up. You’re gonna make me look great. I appreciate it right.
00:40:18
Speaker 11: Just But but what the biggest hole in the buck or the elephant in the room is that I’ve been on in Michigan, Ohio, Louisiana where all the places I’ve been, I think timber harvest needs to be completed on I’ll say ninety eight percent of what I’ve been on TSI timber harvest sunlight to the forest floor. That’s number one. Number two I think is blind location, stand location. And I don’t know if they’re telling me the truth about how often they hunted either, So maybe a pair of those two together is two and three. And then I think lack of quality food. You know, I might have some grain, some ridgrain I threw out there, maybe some clover that’s on year six and it’s doing okay. Like make this, you know, the buffalo wild wings wherever you like to eat, Like make that the spot where your neighbors don’t have better.
00:41:16
Speaker 10: Food than you.
00:41:17
Speaker 11: So basically those are maybe two or three things, but I think it’s a whole system. And then you really have to have it work as a system and not so much of a hunting spot, because if you aren’t going to be there in daylight, what’s the point of all this, right.
00:41:35
Speaker 1: It would make for a long, very frustrating season.
00:41:40
Speaker 2: Absolutely, have you been to a farm where it’s been too thick because everyone says, oh, things need to be thicker, you need to have you know, all these different things. And then have you been on a wonder like, holy cow, we need to dial this back a little bit so they actually want to be here instead of just a hornet’s nest of whatever is growing.
00:41:56
Speaker 11: Yeah, and but there’s not been a lot of them. The one that I would on that I’m that’s coming to my mind as in northern Michigan.
00:42:03
Speaker 3: Uh.
00:42:03
Speaker 10: And the reason it was too thick is because it was clear cut.
00:42:06
Speaker 3: You know.
00:42:07
Speaker 11: The guy the guy picked it up after it was clear cut, probably got a good price on it. And all the aspen and young maple were just you know, making the walls the deer. We’re getting through there still, But I think if you were able to go in there and carve pathways through where you want them to go, they’re going to take the path at least resistance.
00:42:26
Speaker 10: So, yes, I have been on those.
00:42:29
Speaker 11: Even even down south you have the oh my goodness, I’m black out on the name of that, that real viny stuff. That all these guys, thank you, cause it’s very high in proaching. But man, does that make a wall that you cannot get through? So in those in those cases, we recommend going through there and at least making some some paths and navigable areas for these tier But I mean that’s I’ve.
00:42:53
Speaker 10: Not seen that very often. It’s only a couple, Okay, all.
00:42:57
Speaker 1: Right, anything else come to mind?
00:42:58
Speaker 2: For someone that wants to have the best season ever and they’ve been licking their wounds here since season closed.
00:43:05
Speaker 11: Yeah, just just reflect back on maybe what you’ve done in the past, write that down and see do some research, do some habitat work, figure out what you could do to make your hunting better. Because this stuff works, Man, this habitat stuff, it works. And I’m not the only ones saying that. Look on YouTube, you know it’s all over the place. But if you can start to maybe dial back your pressure, increase your your property value for for der habitat, make them want to be there, make them want to be there more often. Don’t have them there after dark through the morning and think you’re you know, your midnight truck and my pictures are are are great, they’re cool, But at the end of the day, if it’s not in daylight, I’m not even showing up. So like I would, I would just focus on thinking up that place, getting high quality food in, and controlling your pressure and your wind.
00:43:55
Speaker 1: All right.
00:43:56
Speaker 2: One of my key takeaways here is sometimes we work harder so we work further from our goals based off of our own actions, which I understand if everyone has different levels of enjoyment to deer hunting and everything else. But this is for the folks that are just constantly trying to continue to evolve and grow. And I feel like that’s really just the human condition of wanting to improve on something that you work really hard towards. And so let’s go and roll into this specific dilemma, this question, this pondering piece with Kyle, with team radically, Kyle, you’ve had a lot of success over the years, consistent success too. I feel like oftentimes people go in peaks and valleys in their deer hunting journey where it feels like they can’t do anything wrong and there’s time for it feels like they can do everything wrong. So this is for someone that feels like, man, I’m trying all these different things. I’m listening to the podcast. I’m doing everything by the book. I’m trying really hard, doing the offseason prep, hanging the cameras, hanging the stands, doing the food plots. But it feels like the harder I work, the less success I have outlier or what am I potentially doing wrong?
00:45:03
Speaker 8: Oh that’s loaded. Uh yeah, there’s there’s a lot of things that you could be doing wrong.
00:45:07
Speaker 9: And I think the biggest one I contribute to is adapting to the situation. So many times we have success out of one tree stand, one spot, and we just we just rely on that, you know, we go back to that, I know I needed this wind direction and it’s gonna work, and I’m gonna get him right here, you know, and we get complacent and we just think, man, it worked two years ago or for the last three years, it all worked this year, And that doesn’t That’s not always the case, you know, I’ll rewind. Just a couple of years ago. I was kind of in the same same slump. My target Buck was coming into the where I was hunting after hours of shooting light and he was hitting the scrape that I had there in this pinch down area right where I killed, you know, and it’s historically been a fantastic spot, but I could not get that buck to come through there in daylight. I knew which direction this year was coming from. I knew I needed to change it up, do something different, and I did something I’ve never done in my life. I had a buddy actually come with me, and it’s quite it was too far of a walk to walk it. So what I ended up doing is I put my e bike on the back of my side by side. My buddy drove me to the tree that I wanted to be in. I took my e bike off of my side by side, laid it at the base of the tree, hung the set while the side by side was running the entire time he left, And two hours later I killed my target buck right there at eight yards.
00:46:35
Speaker 8: And what happened is to several things. One that I’ve noticed is, you.
00:46:39
Speaker 9: Know, they become they’re not scared of like a side by side or a motor motorized vehicle.
00:46:44
Speaker 8: They might run a little bit, but they’re not going to be super spooked.
00:46:47
Speaker 9: Whereas if I just walked in or just e biked only in with the stand on my back, they absolutely would have took off, you know, most likely and so that’s been adapting to the situation, right, adapting to what I was seeing on my intel on the trail cameras, knowing that he’s coming further from the east. But that means I’m thinking he’s in daylight somewhere over there to the east, because it’s just after daylight when he’s getting to where I want him. And so a situation like that was was huge. And you know, maybe it’s a food plot and you’ve had great success. I’ve got another scenario. We’ve killed five or six mature bucks out of this one tree over the last ten years, one hundred and sixty inch average on these five bucks.
00:47:28
Speaker 2: But the deer has caught up. Okay, maybe I don’t want to run that spot. I see if I hunt that spot sometimes.
00:47:36
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, no, it’s fantastic.
00:47:39
Speaker 8: But now it’s burnt up. It’s burnt up.
00:47:40
Speaker 9: I mean I burnt it out straight up. The deer actually take a whole different route whenever they come. Instead of coming out into this nice little kill plot, they actually go around it and cut through, got through the actual timber to come into the to the actual destination plot.
00:47:55
Speaker 8: So I burnt it out. I mean, over time shooting those bucks.
00:47:58
Speaker 9: It educated all the other deer that were with them, in my opinion, and you know, they just pass it on from generation to generation now, So adapting to the situation, like just because it’s worked once or twice doesn’t mean it’s going to work again. Always always be mentally sharp and yeah, being willing to adapt to the situation. And you’re gonna watch social media. You’re gonna see everybody and their brother It looks like shooting a mature buck and killing these world class white tails.
00:48:24
Speaker 8: But you I know how it feels. Trust me, I get it.
00:48:27
Speaker 9: But you got to stay mentally sharp and be willing to adapt and try something different, and even if it’s out of your comfort zone, just you got to try, you know, to never give up. And I’m a firm believer in results or excuses. Can’t have both.
00:48:45
Speaker 1: I think that’s a great way to put that.
00:48:47
Speaker 2: And I think sometimes, you know, the root of this question, as I framed it, was sometimes doing things harder or doing the same thing that has been you know, marginal success. But I’m just going to do more of what has kind of worked in the past and do that more and more and more. And you’re saying maybe completely rethink the strategy or to your point, the tree that was magical is no longer magical, and that likely could be the case for a lot of different Everyone has the favorite spot, but it might not be It shouldn’t be your favorite anymore. And I think, would you say their job for this summer, for scouting everything else is to look at things objectively or outside the box, or maybe rethink the strategy and really tune into the fundamentals.
00:49:28
Speaker 1: But maybe try some French strategy.
00:49:32
Speaker 8: Yeah, I mean think outside the box.
00:49:33
Speaker 9: Just you know it might someone who months told me, I know it’s so simple, but they’re like, you can’t learn a thing with your mouth open, and I’m like, that’s valid. You know, always be listening because, like you not on your podcast here, you might just get a little tidbit that will, you know, change the way that you hunt forever or for that next season, one of the two, maybe both, whatever, but don’t be don’t be afraid to change it up. You know, if it’s not working, they’re busting you on your access or exit or you know. Another big one I didn’t mention Jake is I had this spot that was it’s literally one of the best spots I have. It’s it’s that transition area. It’s where I killed that buck I called Uno. I chased for six years, and one of the problems I was having was getting in of a morning. You know, I would walk in quiet. It’s not a very far walk. They shouldn’t be there, I wouldn’t think, But it’s a transition area. And so what was happening is a deer we’re coming from their betting to the food. But at the same time, there was deer in the food going to their bedding, you know, right, so that transition area. So right at daylight, you know, before daylight, there’s deer that’s inside of that transition area. And so what I did was, you know, because it worked all the years past, it worked, but now it wasn’t working, and I was getting mad, and so what I decided to do is I started going in right at gray light. You know, it was actually daylight. It was well into shooting hours, legal shooting hours. I don’t know if I was seven am, whatever it is, But right at gray light, I’d sneak in and I would bust a single deer because what had happened is the deer that came from the betting that was going to the food is already in the food.
00:51:14
Speaker 8: The deer that were in the food that was going to betting, they’re already in their bed.
00:51:17
Speaker 9: And then you know, as soon as I got set up, boom, there was deer standing out of their beds coming through to get to the food vice versa from the food going to the bed or you know, searching for a dough whatever it may be. That was a huge game changer for me. So little tidbits like that, just changing it up, be willing to adapt to the situation. Yeah, and if something’s not working, change it, change it, don’t There’s there’s no other, no other, nothing else to talk about there in my opinion.
00:51:45
Speaker 8: Like you need to change, you need to be willing to change.
00:51:48
Speaker 9: And yeah, you can work your tail off putting in food plots, tree stand maintenance, whatever it may be. But it goes back to getting complacent, like I’ve got that standing there, I’m just gonna le it there and eventually I’ll get my shot. Right, No, I mean you only got you only got you know, however, many days of November and then you’ve only got so many days to hunt, period, right, whether it’s other commitments, whatever it may be so you need to be aggressive, patient but aggressive at the same time, if that makes sense.
00:52:18
Speaker 2: Yeah, it’s one of the easiest things to say and one of the hardest things to do when you get caught up in the season, for sure.
00:52:23
Speaker 1: And that’s uh like all the and.
00:52:25
Speaker 9: Especially with social media, it’s really easy, Yeah, to think that you are you are the worst, you are the world’s worst hunter. Literally everyone you know has shot a big mature buck. But you I get it, I know how it feels. But trust yourself, trust the process, but be willing to adapt to the situation.
00:52:45
Speaker 2: Yeah. Something that has always been a theme of uh like a lot of the greats and and uh and I mean that sincerely is you know like and they all say some variation of this sentence. I learned at one point, the less I hunted, the more success I had. And I feel like that is such a hard thing to fully Like, we can hear that, we can think that, you know, like, oh, yeah, I’m gonna hunt less. But to your point, there’s fomo, there’s guilt when you don’t hunt when you have time, like to your point, you only have so many days. And even it’s a it’s I don’t know October seventeenth, and it’s sixty five degrees and you really have a rewn reason to go, and you feel guilty if you don’t go right, And a lot of people will say, well, you should go. You can’t kill him from the couch. But I think you have to realize what your goals are. And I think it’s somewhat fool should not listen to the people that have been doing it for forty years and they’ve they figured that out because they were that guy.
00:53:32
Speaker 1: Where do you fall on that?
00:53:33
Speaker 8: Yeah, yeah, no, one hundred percent. Hunting less is more, There’s no question.
00:53:38
Speaker 9: I mean now I can hunt literally almost every day if I wanted to, I do knock and a lot of different factors there right the time of the season, season, the wind direction, whatever it may be.
00:53:51
Speaker 8: But I do hunt a lot.
00:53:53
Speaker 9: With that said, I don’t go in and hunt my best stands just all the time. You know, I don’t just burn them out late season’s a different animal.
00:54:03
Speaker 4: I’m not.
00:54:03
Speaker 9: I hunted that same stand literally or stand or blind those two spots literally every single time, thirteen times in a row, whatever it was.
00:54:11
Speaker 8: But I was very smart about it.
00:54:14
Speaker 9: But with that said, yes, I’ll do a lot of observation sets where I’m sitting off the X, I’m not on the X, and I’m just I’m observing. I’m seeing what the deer are doing. You know, what kind of demeanor they have, what kind of attitude are they? You know, are they in the chase and phase or are they just still feeding.
00:54:32
Speaker 8: On the acorns.
00:54:34
Speaker 9: A lot of that will will be very beneficial to you, because it’s not gonna be the same everywhere.
00:54:39
Speaker 8: You know, just three minutes down the road it might look like it’s full on rut.
00:54:42
Speaker 9: And here I’ve got a year and a half olds, you know, and two year olds that are literally just chewing on acorns with five do’s passed by and could care less. So it is important to be out there or at least let your trail cameras do the work for you in some of those scenarios. But also don’t rely. I think too many people rely on trail cameras way too much. And that’s a whole other topic. But and that’s easy to do. Get caught up in, right, is just only pay attention to your trail cameras. But yeah, you’re one hundredercent right. Hunting Less is more, for sure, especially in your really good spots. You need to keep those for the prime dates the wind that you know is going to be ideal. But I also think on the same sense too, is too many people want the perfect wind jake. You know, they want that you know, the deer is going to be on the north side of them, and then they got a north wind and it’s just they’re going to be completely upwind of them. And I think that is a huge mistake that most or a lot of hunters make.
00:55:44
Speaker 8: They want the perfect wind.
00:55:46
Speaker 9: I always like to give them a little bit of the wind, but don’t give them all of it, obviously, but that that cross wind, you know, And that’s why I really like edges. And that doesn’t mean just edges of food plots, but it could be a bluff, it could be a creep. I think it could be lots of different things of different terrain to utilize. But that’s why I like those edges from my wind directions. Yeah, but yeah, that’s that’s huge, is the wind. I mean, they want that perfect wind. And I can’t recall hardly any bucks that have ever killed that have been straight upwind. They’re always you know, they’re not there, but they’re halfway close to you know, that crosswind.
00:56:29
Speaker 8: So that’s just something taken consideration too.
00:56:33
Speaker 1: I guess as far as.
00:56:36
Speaker 2: Throughout the summer months, what’s one action that someone can take to ensure they’re going to have a better season than last one?
00:56:43
Speaker 1: One specific thing. There’s a bunch of things that they could do, but one thing that sticks out to you.
00:56:48
Speaker 4: Yep.
00:56:48
Speaker 8: So I’ll give you two quick here, yep.
00:56:51
Speaker 9: But what one is a lot of times I would say seventy to eighty percent of the bucks that I see in summer velvet eight of them at some point they’re going to be there in late season as well. So that’s something to keep in the back of your mind right down, whatever you need to do.
00:57:09
Speaker 8: But also during the.
00:57:10
Speaker 9: Summer months, I’m specifically looking for specific bucks, my target bucks, and and that’s that’s really it. And trying to get the list of which bucks I want to hunt, where I need to hunt, whether that’s okay, well this buck is way over here and I’ve not got anything of camera on him.
00:57:28
Speaker 8: He is a giant. I want to hunt him.
00:57:29
Speaker 9: Then I might be going knock on doors trying to figure out where he’s going to be at during the fall. So that’s really how I use the summer months as far as for velvet for scouting. But those are the two big things that are takeaways for me for the velvet scouting.
00:57:45
Speaker 1: I love it all right out. Where can people find you?
00:57:49
Speaker 9: Yeah, you can check us out on YouTube, Team Radical, check us out on Instagram, Team Underscore Radical, and facebooking funds Team Radical Outdoors. We’ve got lots of videos, a lot it’s good content and we’d love to have you guys follow along with us.
00:58:04
Speaker 1: All right, there, you guys have it.
00:58:05
Speaker 2: I hope you enjoyed this mini series with this group of experts on the Back forty podcast. We’re going to have a new panel coming up here on the next episode of Back forty. Hopefully this discussion this episode had some thought provoking thoughts for yourself and how you’re planning up this upcoming season from a strategy standpoint, from a goal perspective, from all the different things that go into a white tail season. And I really thought this topic for me most reflective was are your goals reality and are your actions working you towards your goals or further away? And you’re the stained busy and there’s nothing wrong with that, but I think these are the thought provoking questions that we all should have at times.
00:58:46
Speaker 1: So hope you guys enjoyed this episode. We’ll see you next time, Say yea
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