00:00:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your guide to the whitetail woods, presented by First Light, creating proven versatile hunting apparel for the stand, saddle or blind. First Light Go Farther, Stay Longer, and now your host, Mark Kenyon.
00:00:19
Speaker 2: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. This week on the show, I’m joined by Kip Adams of the National Dear Association for another episode of our what would You Do series, in which we are running him through some of the toughest hunting circumstances and situations I could throw at him. Really all right, welcome back to the Wired to Hunt podcast, brought to you by First Light and their Camel for Conservation initiative. And today we’re wrapping up are what would you Do series. If you’ve been listening, you know the gist, you know the format, But if you’re new, what this entails is a guest comes on the episode and I run them through a series of different specific hypothetical hunting scenarios. I might propose, Hey, it’s this date and you’re in this place and this happens, what would you do? And then that’s what we do, through many different topics, many different regions, different ideas, different challenges, different curve balls, to see how these people process these types of scenarios in the field, how they think them through, how they take action, how they get from point A to point B. And today’s guest is Kip Adams from the National Deer Association. And this is a really interesting one to wrap up on because he’s got a perspective that is unique compared to everybody else that we’ve talked to this year in our series, but also compared to almost all of the other what would you do episodes we’ve done over the course of the last five or six years. He’s a Kip is not just a great deer hunter, he is also a incredibly experienced, well read, and diversely experienced wildlife biologist and land manager. He works as the Director of Conservation or geez I think actually chief conservation Officer now for the National Deer Association. He’s worked on probably hundreds of different properties across the nation, working with people on their hunting plans, their land management strategies, habitat improvement projects, and much larger deer and conservation related issues. But then he also has been able to take all that insight, all that information and then applied it to his own hunting world and life, where he owns and manages a property in Pennsylvania that he’s been hunting and working on for I think decades now and killing mature bucks consistently with a whole bunch of other folks, family and friends the hunter too, and also managing for healthy habitat and a healthy deer herd across the board. So he’s able to check a whole lot of boxes with this diverse set of expertise that is really unique that I think gives us in his answers a level of depth that most people don’t have. So we’re going to run k through a few management related questions, but a lot of hunting questions. But what he brings is this scientific perspective that I think colors things in a unique and really helpful way. So that’s the plan for today’s episode. It’s a great one. I think it’s perfect for those of us who are kicking off our hunting seasons soon. Kip’s going to give us all something to think about as opening Day and the coming weeks unfold in what should be a very very exciting few months here to come. So that is our game plan. My couple, I guess housekeep items for you today would be number one. The Wired Hunt hats are still available. The brand new Wired Hunt shirts are still available as well over at the med Eater store. Excuse me. We also have a lot going on with podcasts in the met Eater and Wired Hunt world. Of course, there’s this show, the flagship Wired Hunt Show. We also have the Foundations episodes the ton Peterson which hopefully you’re listening to every Tuesday. Those are Tony’s quick kind of monologues on some different deer hunting issue, kind of like a foundational, really important deer hunting issue every week. Great place to learn, great place to up your hunting game. Our Back forty podcast is still ongoing. That comes out every Wednesday with Jake Hoefer talking to a panel of eight different expert guests tackling some tough situations as well some interesting questions. So tune into that one for a diverse set of insights on specific questions. I’m loving what I’m hearing there so far. And then of course across the rest of the media to network, you know, depending on what you’re interested, and we’ve got something for you. Cal in the Field is Cal’s we can review podcasts. There’s just great conservation and hunting and fishing related news there to stay up to data on what’s happening across the world. Of course, the Mediator podcast, the media or trivia podcast, that’s all a lot of fun and very interesting. Clay’s podcast Bear Grease, the Backwoods University podcast, which is on the Bear Grease feed is brand new and that’s really interesting. The American West podcast with Dan Floores was kicked off this summer and that is fascinating learning about the history of the American West and much of what’s gone there gone on there with wildlife. So man, there’s so much to tune into right now. We’re pumping it out at a record pace, and I hope you are checking out all of these different shows we have. Of course on YouTube, we’ve got just an endless array of new videos too that are going to ramp up as the season progresses, so lots to check out, and of course hopefully there’s lots for you to be doing out there in the field too. So if your season is kicking off like mine will be. Let me see here. It’s twoth It’s August twenty fifth when I’m recording this. By the time you listen to the next podcast, I will be on my first hunt the year, which is very exciting. Maybe you will be too, So if you are best of luck out there, and without any further ado, let’s get to my chat with mister Kip Adams of the National Deer Association, which I should have mentioned at the top is truly the premiere conservation organization or whitetail deer across the nation. If you are not aware of what the Deer Association is doing, please go to Deer Association dot com. After you listen to my chat with Kip. Here we go, all right. Joining me back on the show a many time returning guest is Kip Adams. Welcome back, Kip, Hey, thanks Mark, good to be here, Good to see you, and I always appreciate you taking time to chat. It’s been a lot of years now. We’re on a shared zoom call the other day and it was mentioned that you had been with the National Deer Association or the qtmay or is it twenty three years now? Is that right?
00:06:51
Speaker 3: Twenty three years last week? Yes, it has gone fast. It’s been a great ride, and well you know how quickly time fliers. But I don’t feel anywhere near old enough to have been anywhere for that long, let alone one place that long brought up here. Yeah, it’s a twenty three year or so. Pretty pretty crazy.
00:07:11
Speaker 2: Yeah, that’s incredible. You’ve you’ve been kind of an icon of our community in that role you’ve played there. And and so I’ll say for everyone, thank you for what you’ve done there for more than two two decades now. You’ve certainly helped a lot of folks, taught me a lot along the way. And all that said, though, kid, today I want to unfortunately run you through the ringer. I’m gonna toss you into a but a bunch of challenging situations. We’re gonna run you through the gauntlet of sorts to see how you would handle this stuff. And I think you know, we’ve we’ve talked to a lot of really good deer hunters, but you are a really good deer hunter. Plus, you are someone who has a tremendous amount of experience from a deer biology perspective, from a land managed perspective, from a you know, a thirty thousand foot overview. You’ve worked with and learned from managers and state you know, managing agencies and biologists from all over the country, so I’m very curious to see how all of that colors how you hunt and how you make hunting decisions. So that’s that’s kind of what I’m most interested in as we as we kick this one off, Kip, So you know the basic gist of this format. I’ve kind of given you the rundown. So are you ready just to just jump into this and see where things go?
00:08:30
Speaker 3: Yeah, I’m all set. That’s gonna be fun. Let’s let’s go.
00:08:33
Speaker 2: Okay, So this first question, let’s imagine that you just picked up a brand new hunting lease. All right, very exciting. You’re gonna be hunting a new spot. You just picked up this lease. It’s in Virginia, and you’ve never hunted here before. The problem is, you just signed the contract right now. It’s late August, hunting season opens very soon, and you’ve it’s a long term lease, so you know you’re gonna hunting this place for you know, three, four or five years. You have this great runway ahead of you, but you know nothing about the property, you know nothing about the neighborhood, and the hunting season is just weeks away. What do you do in the next few weeks? To start developing a plan because you have no idea what dr are out here. You don’t know how many bucks there are, how many dos there are, how many you should shoot, what kind of hunting or management plan you should have, and the deadline is very quickly approaching. What do you do with this short term turnaround that you have before the season momens? To just wrap your head around the plan?
00:09:38
Speaker 3: All right, Well, the first thing I’m going to do is, as I’m a huge fan of on X, I use on X every day, I’m going to go to on X and take a look airily at what’s going on there, just to give myself a good feel for what is in the neighborhood. And so many people that we work with look at their property and if I’m visiting a property, you know, they’ll ask me like, hey, what should I plant here? Or what would you do there? And the first thing I always do is I want to see what is in your property or on it, but I want to look at the whole neighborhood. That’s where it all will start for me. So I want to look at it from the air and just see, all right, not only what is there, but what does it look like? On the neighbors and a couple of properties removed, just to wrap my head around, all, right, what am I getting myself into? Is it mostly forested? Is it all forested? Is there some ag land? Is it a mix of open? What do we have relative to the neighbors? So, for example, I’ve been on properties that were mostly wooded in a sea of open areas. So I mean that was like all the cover, most of the best cover was there. So that would be my first step, and I would. I’m lucky in that I have worked with a lot of great wildlife biologists and a lot of really good deer and habitat researchers, and so I’ve tried to learn from all of those because as you mentioned, I’ve been with QDMA or NDA now for twenty three years. I have been managing or conduct and research on deer for over thirty years. But I am first and foremost of deer hunting. So that’s where it all begins and that’s what it all ends for me. So with all of the new research that I keep up with, I am always thinking about that from a hunter’s perspective, how can I use this to, you know, to get myself closer to deer involved or people that I’m mentoring, how can we get closer? So I would go to Onyx. I would look airily and say, all right, where am I starting, you know, just so that I get to feel for what type of environment am I in. There’s parts of Virginia that are solid forests. There’s parts of Virginia that are all national forests. I hope this lease is not in the national forest. Nothing against the national forest, but you know so much that is just all over mature hardwoods and it’s just a monoculture of that everywhere, you know, very low quality habitat from a deer perspective. So anyway, I want to see what am I starting at, so that I know forested open mix the more importantly, mark what is in that neighborhood, Like am I hunting similar features as what the neighbors are or do I have something very different that I can key in it. So that’s my starting point.
00:12:08
Speaker 2: Okay, So so one follow up, what about One of the things I was thinking about is I was considering this situation would be just determining like what should I even think about shooting, Like not even knowing what’s out there, not having started, you know, really developing, whether it be an inventory or lack of a better term inventory, you being someone who’s pretty well, very very well informed and making those decisions the right way. I’m wondering, you know, is there anything Is it too late to get a survey of the population. Is it too late to really get get your head wrapped around you know, what’s out there so you can make harvest decisions in a better way. Or is that first year at this point you know you’re just gonna be learning as you go.
00:12:52
Speaker 3: I think there’s gonna be a lot of well, I think there’s always some learning as you go, but there is still time to collect some great data on you know what, dear, I’d be on the property. I’ve done a summer camera survey on our farm in northern Pennsylvania every year for over twenty years now, and in fact we’re in the middle of it right now. That survey always ends Labor Day weekend, so that is a great way to get a good idea of numbers of bucks on the property. Now, granted, some of these deer are going to leave and they’re they’re ready bound. Now is when they start shifting from that summer to following, but others will come on. So it gives me a snapshot in time of numbers of bucks on the property. From that, then I can get an smate the number of dos, which then helps me calculate the target dough harvest, like do we need to be shooting any dose? And if yes, is it a few or is it a lot? That also gives me a good idea of age structure the bucks that are there, because I want to go into season with realistic expectations, you know, and I would love to kill, you know, one hundred and eighty inch deer, but you know what, I’m my farm in Pennsylvania. That’s not going to happen. If I go in every season that is a goal. I Am not going to have any fun and hunting is about having fun. So I think the more local knowledge I have, it allows me to develop more realistic expectations, which then allows me to have more fund So that’s very important. So from that perspective, I would look at every year the Deer Association produces an annual Deer report. I would look at that for Virginia and see, hey, what is the annual buck harvest, annual doe harvest, and change structure of the buck harvest to give me a feel er. You know, is this state shooting mostly younger deer or is it most of the older deer? Now this is the state wide look. But then I would go to the Virginia dn RS or what DW are they are now Division of wallaf Resources their website to see what additional information do they have relative to the deer herd in the area where I’m going to be. Some states have awesome data on the website harvest numbers, age structures, et cetera, by county or by township or by DMU. So I would learn what I could from the website with that. It might be the part part of the state that this lease is in, you know, it has a great age structure relative to the rest of the state, or it might be the other end inspective. But I would learn everything I could from that. Then I would make a phone call to the state Wilife Agency, say, but I would make sure I did my homework first. No state, dearbile just wants to receive a call from me, you or anybody else saying hey, where should I go hunting? Or what’s it like? However, if he or she gets a call from a hunter saying I’m going to be hunting in your state this year. I have done my homework. I see that on average, you harvest you know, two bucks per square mile. You have pretty good age structure to show the look. I’ve scoured your website, I’ve read your resources. Hey, here are some things I can’t find. Is there anything in addition you can help me with. They are much more likely than to be good friends and share information to let you know, So that would be a great way to get some local intel or you know, you may be able to work with somebody in that area. Now, one thing that say, I know nobody in the area where we are through well through NDA. We work closely with white Tail Properties. Wait Tail Properties has like four hundred land specialists throughout the US. I promise you I could call or look at the white Tail property’s website, find a land specialist in that area, call him or her and get awesome local information on Hey, what’s the scoop on the local dere are you know? They you know, will be able to tell hey, people in this area, if it’s brown, it’s down, they’re shooting everything, or ooh, that area you’re in. They are far more likely to wait until dear or older. So that would be a great opportunity to meet somebody locally, get the lay of the land, you know, from somebody who knows deer and deer hunting. So those would be my steps. Look at our DAR report, scholar, the state agency website, talk to the state Wileife agency, so I can get a local biologist, and then talk to somebody local.
00:16:58
Speaker 2: Strong, strong suggestion. Here’s another one we’re going to put you on. Well, well, let’s play it out. Let’s play it out this Virginia scenario a little bit further. Let’s say you start your process and you have one spot you can plant a food plot. So you plan a food plot in August. At some point, you go back out on September seventh to go see it for the first time since you planted. And let’s say you planted a green plot, a diverse blend of various grains and Nebraskas of clover, some stuff like that. You go back September seventh and it is in bad shape. It is dry, it is weedy, there is very little of the kind of growth you were hoping for. What do you do to salvage this situation. It’s your only plot, it’s your only food. You were hanging a lot of hopes on this thing.
00:17:53
Speaker 3: What now, Well, one thing that I would definitely take that opportunity to learn a little bit about numbers of deer in the area, because when I planted that, I would have also put an exclusion cage on it, so that when I go back September seventh, say it’s been dry or whatever, and boyd there’s not much growing, I could at least look at what’s growing inside that exclusion case. An exclusion cage, you know, you know, a three to four foot diameter you know, wire structure staked down so that deer candy what’s inside? This gives me a great idea on what was the germination of that seed like? And then what is the pressure, you know, grazing pressure from deer, who who’s eating it? So I putting exclusion cage on every one of my food plots just for that, just so I know, hey, how hard are they hit us? So when I went back and looked at that, even if outside maybe it’s been really dry, kind of like it’s been here in northern Pennsylvania this summer, it is super dry. Many of my food plots, you know, would look horrible just no rain. But every one of those has an exclusion cage on it, and even in the ones that are really tiny er, I’m doing good. I can still measure the difference inside and exclusion cage as out because there’s no pressure at all inside, So that mark would let me know, Okay, one, yeah, we need some rain. I don’t have much food here. But is the food any taller inside that cage or not? If it’s not, that’s a good sign that deer aren’t, you know, just eating everything right to the ground. If it is considerably taller inside, that lets me know. One, there is not enough food in this neighborhood for the numbers of deer that are here. That will let me know, Okay, you know what, I am absolutely going to take at least one dough this year. That’ll be my first step in trying to figure out how many I should take, because there should be enough food in that area for deer, regardless of food plots. Food pots should be there like as a supplement, so you know, if I’m looking in that food inside that exclusion cage is a lot taller, you know, Regardless of how many deer are there. There are more deer than there is food avail, so that that’s good information for me to know. And I’m used that to either you know, as I’m figuring out how many dos I will shoot, but also probably what I can expect from a buck standpoint, you know, a buck quality standpoint, like nutritional standpoint, So that would be good to know. Say, I get there, man, it’s really dry. Okay, I’m still happy that I have something that’s in open area because even if there’s not a lot of food in it, just the fact that it’s open and different from wooded areas, that’s still an attraction point for deer. So that’s helpful to me. I also probably would be doing a little drive through the neighborhood that day and just looking at other either ag fields and or food plots that I could see from the road to see like, okay, how does my stuff compare to the neighbors? So to the neighbors, is that stuff growing really good? You know? Or yeah they’re in tough shape as well, Because that kind of you know, lets me know the playing field when it comes time from an attraction end. Now, I would have also looked at on X flipped on the soil quality layer to know where that food plot is. Am I giving myself the best chance to grow good food there?
00:21:06
Speaker 1: Or not?
00:21:07
Speaker 3: Very simple to look and see, like, hey, ooh, the quality of soil here is you know, much higher than surrounding areas or you know, some properties. I have been on people at food plots because that’s the only open area. But if you look at the soil profiles, you realize it’s some of the worst soil on the whole property, Like that would be the last place to pick for them, So that I would understand. Am I giving myself a good chance to grow something good here if conditions are right or not? So that will go in to let me know how either Okay, I’m kind of in an average situation if this isn’t growing good, or now I’m in a bad situation. Man, everybody else seems the neighbors have way better food. Plus that will change my perspective hunting wise, and where I’m picking, you know, two hangstands that first year or or what I expect from the first year on the lease.
00:21:57
Speaker 2: Is there any scenario in which you would try to make a last minute hail mary attempt to resurrect that food plot to either replant it or supplement it or do anything else.
00:22:11
Speaker 3: Yep. If it is say you say that the green plot, say you know that I whatever I plant, it doesn’t matter. Say I get there and it’s and is just not at all what I was hoping. It’s full of all kinds of other weeds that aren’t nutritious to deer that I know will that time of the year, September seventh, around Labor day, if Virginia is far enough south, I still would have time to either spray that plot and then broadcast winter wheat or winter rye or or brask or something else that I could still get decent growth out of that. Would you know, I could hunt through the fallen into the winter. I would pick something that is an annual plant, something that is going to grow very very fast, put on as much tonnage as possible. I’d have planted as late as Labor day in northern Pennsylvania before you know, you don’t get a lot of growth out, but you get some. Virginia would be a place that early September. If this thing is really really bad, yes, you still have time for you know, one more planning fingers crossed. You know, rain is coming, or maybe rain is about right there, so you get farther north than that, you still you still could do it. You could throw it, you know, as you said, a hail Mary, even in Pennsylvania around September seventh, just recognizing you’re not going to get a lot.
00:23:33
Speaker 2: Now.
00:23:33
Speaker 3: If I’m looking at that plot and what I had planned has germinated, it’s just competing with some weeds and you know needs rain, then I’m not going to replant it. I may spread that to remove that competition from the weeds, to give the things I have there every chance, you know, to out compete it. You know, as soon as we get some good rain. But all is not lost early September at that latitude, there’s still a chance to end up with something decent.
00:23:59
Speaker 2: To Okay, that’s good news, good news. Here’s another hypothetical. Let’s say you own a one hundred acre farm and you have been hunting this farm for a number of years, but you’ve done it kind of by feel. I guess you’ve been that person who’s always been targeting a buck. You should a doe here and there, but maybe you’ve not been serious about it. That said You’ve been listening to this podcast for years now, and you heard mister Kip Adams come on the show last winter and say, hey, you really got to take the dough harvest thing more seriously. You heard it a year before when Nick Pinzoto came on and said the same thing. You’ve heard it from your state DNR. You’ve read about it in the magazine articles. You’re realizing, Oh, wow, maybe I need to take this whole ant lilas harvest thing a little bit more seriously. You’ve noticed there’s tons of deer on my farm, you know, every year, especially in the late season. I’m just seeing a pile of deer out there, more and more deer every year. I probably do need to do something about it. So this year you’ve made it a goal that you are going to take more does. You’re going to kill more does this year. But you also have two really great target bucks on your farm this year that you’re very excited about that they’ve just reached that let’s say five year old mark that you’ve been hoping they would get to, and you’re just thrilled about that. You’re sitting here the night before opening day thinking to yourself, well, I really want to kill does this year. I really want to kill these bucks and I don’t want to spook these bucks while doing that. What do you do to be able to achieve both of those goals somehow? Moving to this season?
00:25:50
Speaker 3: Would I would shoot I would shoot Dose as early as possible if given the chance. I’m not going to pass a chance on one of those bucks to do that, but I would shoot Dose early in the season, and I would try to If I’m going to shoot multiple doughs, I would try to do that from different stands, so I’m not shooting them all from the same spot, and I wouldn’t necessarily shoot them from my best stand that I thought I had chances to kill that bucket. And the reason I say those is oftentimes, with the exception of early early season like first or second day, which can be very good times to kill mature bucks, you know, they’re still pretty particular. If you can hunt in September Pennsylvania, we are essentially the beginning of October. We’ve kind of missed that nice window in that September window to kill those mature bucks. So often the best time to kill him is once we get into late October or early November. I love it. Our Pennsylvania farm, if we have most of our dough harvest done in early to mid October, we never get there, but we try because what that allows us to do is spread doors harvest around throughout property. Have it early such that when our rut comes, you know, I tell you guys, like, have your dough harvest done so all you have to do is focus on bucks for the rest of the year. It’s such a good feeling to know, like I am solely focused here. I don’t have to worry about, you know, trying to be a good steward and shoot my does later. I’ve already got, you know, those doughs in the freezer, which that means now I don’t need well, Pennsylvania is at one buck state. But some hunters get so nervous, like oh I just got to get a dear in the freezer, so they shoot a younger buck. Don’t do that, shoot a dough sorry. Anyway, I would shoot was early, I wouldn’t necessarily kill it. From my stand to, I think I have the best chance at killing a mature bucket, and I would try to spread the dough harvest out, you know, across the property a little bit. If you have one hundred acres, you definitely have an opportunity to be able to do that.
00:27:51
Speaker 2: Yep, Okay, that makes sense to me. That’s uh, it’s it’s something that I personally have have struggled with myself doing the early doll harvest. But I know I need to. I need to get get working sooner because the late, the late stress trying to kill a dough or kill a bunch of doughs late is always trying in December when somehow you can see doughs all the time and have a thousand shot opportunities when you’re trying to kill a buck, But then as soon as you’re trying to kill a dough, they somehow become incredibly elusive.
00:28:21
Speaker 3: So I agree, And you know what I want to tell hunters is to make themselves feel feel good about it, or to know because some people just aren’t entirely sure. Yes, Mark said, I should kill a dough or camp or who everybody? You know what, there’s a very simple way, actually two simple ways of one. We talked about the exclusion cages. Look look at that. You can tell that food outside of those should absolutely be as high as it is inside. If it’s not you need to shoot more does. That’s very simple. Everybody can look at that. Also, if when you shoot a dough because deer lay fat on external to meat, when you skin that deer, there are to be a big thick layer of fat own the animal’s body that you see. If that thick layer of fat is not there, there’s not enough food for the deer neighborhood. You need to shoot more does or even if you feel dressing that the kidneys should be totally encased in fat. If you have a hard time finding the kidneys because it just looks like fat lobs, that is awesome. If you can see the kidneys, you know very easily there’s not enough food for the deer in a neighborhood. So those are really simple ways to let yourself feel good about. Okay, you know those deer, they will make use of that. Oh, you know that food if it’s available, which makes their heavier, which is great, which means bucks have bigger antlers, which is great. All the things we want. So you don’t have to be a you know, a scientist or certainly not a rocket scientist to determine is there enough food here or not? So you know, look at the exclusion cage, look at the fat on deer. It’s very simple. Anybody can determine that. And if you’re not seeing that, shoot another dough.
00:29:54
Speaker 2: Get to work. Okay, it’s the night before opening day. We’ll say you’re you’re at home in Pennsylvania. H right, opening day coming up, and you’ve got a big old buck that you are there’s one day you’re very, very excited to hunt this year, and as you mentioned that first day or two. Okay, let me change this a little bit. I’m going to take you to a stay with a September opener. Okay, so so hit pause here. We’re going to Maryland, Maryland. All right, We’re going to Maryland with a September opener, and there’s a big old buck that you would like to hunt on this particular property that you can have access to. Leading up to opening day, you have had daylight photos of this buck. This buck’s been out and about. You know what it’s bead to feed pattern is. You’ve got it pretty dial. You think like, all right, opening day should be great. But the day arrives and you have two very warm days to open the season, so above average temperatures for the first two days of the season. Does that impact how you approach those first two days of the first handful of days, and if so, how it does it?
00:31:10
Speaker 3: It does not affect it very much. It does a little bit mentally for me because I grew up in northern Pennsylvania, deer season is supposed to be cold, So when it’s hot, we just feel like, yeah, it’s you know, it’s hot for us. You know, deer aren’t moving either. There are literally millions of data points with radio color deer that show that temperature a little bit above average is not impacting them at all. They are still moving just like they would if it was colder. The biggest difference in the temperature stuff is what we feel, you know, as as hunters. Perfect example, when I was in graduate school at the University of New Hampshire, their bot season always started September fifteenth. I vividly remember September fifteenth, sitting in a tree stand in central New Hampshire ninety some degrees, sweating profusely and you know, bugs all over me, not having any fun at all, to thinking it’s opening day like I am going, and then they’re thinking there’s no way deer moving. So I wasn’t as intent on the stand as I should have been. My mind wasn’t in it the way it should have been because it didn’t feel cold to me. I don’t kill a deer, you know, I blame it on the heat. Well, you know, then you fast forward even look like those deer were moving. They might have moved slightly later in the day, but they are still They’re not waiting until after dark. You know, they are getting up all day long, you know, multiple times a day, to urinate, to defecate, to get a snacked. They’re up and move it. So the warm part of that market will play on my psyche because I like it to the hot when it’s colder, but it’s not impacting deer. And this actually I’ve learned this when I worked for the State of Florida. You know, it never got cold there, Like the whole deer season was warm. So you know, deer are still moving. They have to get up and move. So I do believe that there are there are there are certain days, and you know this and serious hunters us, there are certain days. It just feels different in the woods. It’s electricity in the air, whether in the GPS. Studies suggest that it’s not just temperature, it’s not just barometric pressure. But I think there’s some combination of things that we just haven’t been able to adequately measure yet, because there are certain days that just feel different, but overall they do will show man. Even when it’s warmer, deer are still move. So I tell people, like, don’t stay home just because it’s warm. I you know, I have to sometimes remind myself of that. I personally don’t enjoy it as much because I grew up hunting when it was cold. But I at least now I will not stay home because it’s warm, because I know those deer are going to move. I just have to make sure that I am mentally strong enough to keep myself focused even though there’s not a little chill in there.
00:33:56
Speaker 2: So let me let me let me add a little bit more detail here, because your perspective on this is really interesting to me, because, as you know, everybody has very strong feelings about temperature impacts on deer, but the science continues to come back showing negligible correlation. But I know you as a hunter, as you just alluded to, like, there is something that you and I know and Matt and other people who are very dialed on the science still are like, well, there are certain days, so so imagine this. Imagine you have three days to hunt. You have the first three days of the season to hunt there, right, and as I just described, your first two days are hot. Third day temperatures drop twenty degrees Okay, and you have You’ve got two places you could hunt. One of them is like the absolute best place to kill this deer. You think it’s like close to it’s right in between his bedding and feeding areas, and there’s a super hot food source. It’s like that quintessential early season it’s spot to kill a boobut, but it’s high impact, so you know, like if you go in there and hunt it and it doesn’t work out, it’s gonna be really hard to get out of there without him knowing it. The second place you could hunt is like maybe it could work, Like there’s a chance maybe he happens to come out this way. But it’s like a very safe place to hunt. So you could hunt this and it’s very easy to get out after the evening hunt. He’s not gonna smell you, he’s not gonna see or hear you. It’s safe, but just lower odds of reward. So those are your two possible locations you could hunt. You have three days to do it. Two days are hot, one day is much colder. How do you split your decision? How do you split your pressure? Given that I am going to I am going to hot, Well, let me let me storry. Let me throw on one more thing just for the audience. I want you to or I want the audience to remember something you mentioned a few minutes ago, which is that that first day or that first two two days can oftentimes be your very best chance to kill a deer before they change their behavior. So that mine sorry, go ahead, kid, So.
00:36:08
Speaker 3: With that, I am going regardless of the temperature. So the temperature is not going to be a factor here. If the wind is right, I say, it’s the same road I am hunting, the stand that is safer to get in and out. And the reason that I say that is the worst thing that we can do as hunters is spook deer from where we’re trying to hunt them. And as soon as we spook them from there, they remember that other deer, you know, they share information that stand is never as good again. And I have we have seen this on our Pennsylvania farm. We have stands here that are put in very good places, partly because we have awesome entry and exit routes where we don’t spook deer going there or coming from there. So what that means is I will pick that spot to say spout to get in and out because deer travel so much, and deer select many different areas to bed and so you can do everything right. The wind is perfect, I’m in my stand. You can do everything right. But if that deer doesn’t happen to be in that area, you don’t have a chance to see it. However, if you’re at that high risk spot, there might be a dough to five or other small box or whatever that are, and if you spook them from that stand, you really reduced your chances to kill that buck you’re trying to from that. What we have done in our place over the last several years, and it has really worked out well, is pick stands that are in good spots that we aren’t spooking dear from, or at least spooking very very few dear from. Because that way mark rather than making those stands good once or twice a year, we can go back to them literally five to ten times a year. And what that does is we only hunt when the conditions are right. But if I can hunt a stand, say eight times, the odds are much greater in my favor. With that buck that I’m trying to kill is in that area that night, not two hundred yards away on the neighbors or a quarter mile away here. So part of it is the odds. You know, you can have the best stand in the world, but you’re not guaranteed that that deer is going to be right there. But if you can go back to that again and again and again every time you can, you have increased the odds that now through his travel, he is not only on the property of access to hunt, but on that portion of the property. We have permanent stands on our farm that we have killed multi that have been there literally a decade, and we have killed multiple four plus year old bucks out of four to eight year old bucks. Same stand not moved all tower blind there that we can get in year after year after year because we spook so few deer get it in or out. We also have stands used to have stands like the first place at the high risk in the past. That man it is literally in the best spot, and we have killed some deer out of them, but we have spooked way more deer, not the ones who are trying to kill, then the ones that we have killed out. And as soon as you do that, then quality of that stand really drops. So back to your question, I will pick the spot. I don’t care about the temperature. I’m going to prefer it to be colder. But I am going to take the stand that I can get in and out without spooking things, because on a three day hunt, I might be able to hunt that three times, you know, in just up my odds each time of being able to have the deer that I’m looking for not only in the neighborhood, but right there where I have a chance to be able to shoot him from that stand. So I’m a huge fan mark of the entry in the exit, and I will even give up views of food plots or oak plots or whatever. I used to like to be right on the edge where I could see it all and be able to shoot. I have changed my mindset tremendous event I am back off those now, even though I do the majority of bow hunting, I am back off those will give up shots in certain places of views to be able to get there and out without being without spooking deer without seeing them. So anyway, that has worked out so much better for us over the past five to ten years that I would never go back to the other one with the exception of it’s the last day of season and I know I won’t be back in the higher risk stand. It’s just way better in a much better spot. If I know that I will not be able to hunt this deer again for a long time, that is the only time I would do that. And on our farm, that is the only time that I will sit a stand if the wind is questionable at all all year, we are disciplined. We won’t do it last night a season is the only time I would sit if I think the chances are in my favor that a certain years comment if the wind isn’t exactly right, Okay, I should say, if the wind isn’t acceptable to.
00:41:06
Speaker 2: Be there, Yeah, all right. I’ve got one more scenario that’s that’s kind of related to this, this this earlier discussion around whether or you know movement related factors. Maybe not my last question, but my last for this moment. Another one of these hunter isms that everyone likes to point to would be the October lull, right everybody, Not everybody, but many folks have talked about the impact of mid October. So let’s say it’s October sixteenth, and you’re hunting your home farm in Pennsylvania and you have a target buck that you’ve been following around. There’s there’s the one big seven year old on your guys’s place that you’ve been watching for years, and this is the year you think you can take them. And mid October major coal and pushing through. Your buck is still that large. He has been showing up on camera after dark the entire season. You’ve had no daylight settings while hunting, yet you’ve had no daylight photos of him yet during the season. There is a thirty degree temperature drop coming up on October sixteenth. What does this do if in any way change your hunting strategy for him? If on October sixteenth, big cold front pushes through, but he’s been dark to this point, I.
00:42:31
Speaker 3: Was seeing the cold front is going to make me very happy because, as I said, I like it to be cold to hunt. The data with regard to do your move into cold fronts, as we said, doesn’t hold up. I mean, the GPS data will show when that cold front comes through that had no impact on his movements leading up to it or his movements after. However, when you get that big of a change, I personally feel there is some in there. Whether it’s thirty degrees colder or thirty degrees warmer, big wide swings tend to for whatever reason, uh, you know, get deer moving a little bit. So I’m gonna love the cold front because mentally I like to hunt cold. If it’s not getting cold, I’m still going to be there. And I will say this, there’s so much data now with that October lull all over the White Tails range north, south, east, and west that show across October or if you’re in the southeast, you know, we think of October to north as you know, it’s that pre rut leading up to the rough that same time period like in Louisiana, which tends to be December or January or other say, every single GPS cost star shows deer move more all the way through that October supposed you know lull thing, but you know what March, so I know they are moving more every single day through there. I also know as a hunter there are times I really struggle to find there in October, and I all so would swear they can’t be moving, you know, like I just can’t. So I know what the data says that keeps me going as a hunter to know that, hey, I know they’re moving, I just have to do a better job figuring out here. And even on our home farm, man, there’s times in October that we struggle to find deer. You know, our cameras show us now they’re still moving in that so I know that they are. But I hear like I sympathize with hunters who can struggle, particularly in mid October when deer are hard to find. My professional opinion is what’s happened is you know by now do you know they’re being hunted? And they do such a good job reacting to human presence, whether you see them or not, just knowing that you were there. But that, more than anything else, is what’s going on. They’re just reacting to now more there are more hunters in the woods, there’s more ATVs in the woods, there’s people around, so you know they’re just on high alert. So my part of that is, Man, that buck I’ve seen that lets me know it Okay, you’re like, I’m still in the game. This is good. I’m still going to try. He’s got I know that we’re not to the rut yet, so you know, he still is going to want to be eating as much as possible. I would still think my best chance to kill him is as he is headed to a food source. I used to hunt food sources a lot more than I do today, and the reason for that is I used to set up almost exclusively on food, whether that be a food plot or in an oak flat where there’s a bunch of acorns or near an apple orchs or whatever it was. And I still do that occasionally today, but I am much more so likely to be positioned between where I think or know they’re bedding and where they’re going and get them in between the two. And I’m not being cliche with us. The reason I say this is one there I am more likely to see them during shooting hours. You know, they often are going to be at that food plot, but oftentimes it’s not till after dark. That’s a big thing. But what I found marked to be even more sucessful for me is as they as I try to intercept them on the way wherever I am in between those two areas, there’s almost never a deer near me at dark. You know they are over at the food plot or they are over else. So what that allows me to do is get out of my stand without spooking anybody and get out of the woods, which means then I can come back and be able to hunt that spot. And I’m convinced this is why we are able to hunt those stands that I mentioned effectively year after year, because there are areas where, in many cases you know deer move through, you know, lots of shooting light, which is great. They give you a good look and they’re gone, so you can get out of a stand at night and never spook anything. I think that, more than anything else, is what has really changed the game for us, particularly with regard to to killing mature bucks. And we’ve been very lucky and shot a bunch of them on our farm over the last decade, and that, as much as anything, is what has made that happen. We often don’t see as many deer because we don’t see that huge group flood the field or whatever at dark, but we are more effective at killing the ones are trying to kill because we are better at I guess being a little stealthy in and out.
00:47:14
Speaker 2: Yeah, And like you said earlier, there’s a lot a lot in regards to discipline here with some of these decisions. So here’s here’s one that I’m curious on your take on. Let’s imagine you’re out hunting on October twenty fourth, and let’s say you’re still at least you can tell me if this is wrong. But on October twenty fourth, I’m still considering food sources and bedding and how they’re moving back and forth between the two. But when you’re on stand that evening, you see a dough getting chased by a group of bucks, like four different come piling through, just like chasing, like hardcore chasing. There’s you know, a year and a half old, a year and a half old, a three year old, and then a mature buck is in the tail. There’s four different bucks, all hot on the still they go just busting past you. It’s October twenty fourth. You had been planning to continue to hunt kind of a bed to food type pattern for the rest of your weekend hunt. Now you see that. Does that change anything for your next couple hunts?
00:48:28
Speaker 3: But it probably not. And the reason I say that is if we’re in Virginia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, or somewhere in the north where you know the rut is gonna peak in early to mid November, I often think of Halloween is flipping the switch from you know, the rut standpoint, so still late October like that, Probably what has happened is that dough is in heat. And if you look at the rut maps, you know it’s a very steep bell curve where most deer are bred of a short time. But there’s still a lot of deer. You know, they get bread in October, even some back into September. So it’s probably a dough that just came in heat early obviously has attracted the attention of those bucks. And as you’re starting that, in my mind, I’m thinking, okay, late on Earth October twenty fourth, I see this. I’m thinking some young bucks are just chasing her around, you know, this kind of bird dogging her and harrassing her. So you said, oh no, no, there’s actually a three year old and if I okay, they’re not messing with her because she’s not in heat or almost in here. So what I would do in that situation is I would look at that as kind of an outlier, and I absolutely would be calling to those bucks. I like to call a bunch anyway. I’m very, very active in that. I think it’s a lot of fun. I grew up with a turkey call in my mouth, so I love the calling anyway, and I call way more today while I’m deer hunting than I have in the past. You know, I’m not nearly as nervous about spooking deer. Deer are communicating all the time, you know, verbally, so I am absolutely trying to call all that deer into me to you know, to make something hap her, put myself in play. I’m not entirely changing my my strategy yet because it’s still about a week early for when most of that is coming. But I would take advantage of that as an outlier of hey, this is my good fortune. I see this. And actually an example was last fall my daughter and I were in North Dakota. She had a deer tag. I did not, but we saw a buck in there. We could see it long ways away. We watched the buck chasing does five hundred plus yards away in and out of this brush, and uh so I started calling to him, and my daughter looked at me, like, come on, dad. I tought her it was eighteen at the time. She’s hunting a lot like she She’s like, do you really think, I said, do you want to just sit here and do nothing? Like the chances that we’re gonna call him to us? Yeah, he’s got four or five dos there, but look, we’re gonna I’m we’re gonna play the game. So we call he mess with them, and they weren’t and he they were probably close, but mess a little bit, and all of a sudden, he’s four hundred yards away, still kind of there. I continued to call, and I was calling in such that you know, I actually was challenging him a little bit, just letting him know, like a girl with a very sharp end on it, like man, just let him know, Hey, I see you, and uh. He would look at us and kind of be through bush. About an hour later, he’s three hundred yards away, and h make a long story short, another hour later, he’s one hundred and twenty yards standing in front of us, ticked off at whereas and my daughter killed him right four year old buck.
00:51:37
Speaker 2: Wow.
00:51:37
Speaker 3: And so as we leave, she says, so like like Dad, she said, like, I am super happy. That was awesome, And I know that deer wasn’t here by chance, like I know it was because we and she was using we I know it’s because we called him in and then she smiled. I know, but I said, you know, you’re absolutely right, you know, like if we if we are timid and nothing, I mean, I guess it’s possible mark that deer comes with. But I’m gonna say from a Honting end in your union experience, there is maybe a one percent chance that deer ends up where he did. He came a long way, and he came there because of you know, the calling that we did, so example you gave. I absolutely am calling to those deer, you know, to try to put myself in a position. How are they gonna come? You know, like who knows, maybe maybe not, but you know, in the process of all that may lee. You know that dough may end up coming back by or whatever. So I’m gonna try anyway, But I am not shifting my strategy based on you know, one outlier, you know, a little bit early before the run.
00:52:42
Speaker 2: In that scenario October twenty fourth, Buck’s chasing a doll what’s the call that you would try to employ.
00:52:49
Speaker 3: I would be grunting at that bucket, particularly lead buck. So if I thought I would be doing anywhere from a challenge grunt at him to let him know all the way up to a snort wize and so you know, I’m not being real timid with just little tending grunts, you know, or just social grunts or whatever. So I would have grown. And so often when I’m hunting now I’m I’ve grunt. Some people won’t grunt when they’re not seeing deer. I am grinning all the time. In the fall, I have called a lot of deer and I did not know here there you know that came out to check what was going on. So in those cases, you know, I’m often just going like, ah, well, if I see a buck that I want to call to, I will do that, but at the end, make it very sharp. That’s more of the challenging like a man to let him know I’m talking to you. I’m not just genuinely communicating like I am talking to you, and I’ve done that. Whether I see a buck or no, I absolutely will do it. You know, if it’s a buck that I want to get closer to me, so that and up to a snort wheeze. It’s a bit early for a snort weeze, I went, and I love the snort wheeze. As we get into November, probably I’m not snoring weason, you know, the twenty fourth of October. But I definitely would be challenged running to that deer. But if it, you know, I wouldn’t be opposed. I guess to storm reason as well. You know you’re not going to scare it away, so I mean you’re not. It’s not like I do that. It’s like, oh, everything’s ruined. So anyway, I think more people should be more aggressive from the calling.
00:54:19
Speaker 2: That does your calling your comfort with aggressive calling? Does that extend to rattling as well? Or do you have a different take on that now?
00:54:26
Speaker 3: You know I’d love to rattle, and I rattle very little anymore. I used to rattle a lot more than I do now. And I’ve called some really nice bucks in and had fun with that, I found though at least I do most of my honting in Pennsylvania, but I’ve rattled in North Dakota, Kentucky, Illinois, all over the place. I don’t call as many deer in that way, and I end up sometimes I think, making more noise on my darn rattling antlers when I’m putting them down on a stand or carrying or carrying out or whatever. So you know, I used to carry a lot more stuff to the stand than I do now. I try to go minimal just to not have all of that, and rattling antlers are one of the things that I’ve kind of to let go of.
00:55:13
Speaker 2: Now.
00:55:13
Speaker 3: If I’m going to South Texas, I’m I’m taking rattling And absolutely I never go deer hunting without a grunt tube. I often grunt with my mouth any but I always have a grunt tube. There was a long time and I carried you know, antler’s off fall. I don’t do that anymore, but more so just from because I don’t want to carry them, so I don’t. I have friends that had that rattle in a lot of deer over here and have fun with it. I think it’s a lot of fun, but it’s also a lot of movement, you know, all of this, and so I probably well, I shouldn’t say I know that I have spooked, and I’ve seen deer that I have spooked, either in the course of the rattling or done is setting the antlers down on a tree stand or whatever. So I’m so careful about movement, and there’s very little movement associated with grunting, a lot more so with rattling, So I’m not nearly as much rattler as I used to be.
00:56:01
Speaker 2: Okay, we’re head and south. Let’s say you are gonna go hunt in Georgia with your buddy Lindsay Thomas Jr. And I don’t know what his family property looks like there, So let’s just say that you guys are on a property that has a big central core of cover and that is like all of the cover. There’s a big chunk of this bedding in the middle, and then it’s surrounded on all Let’s say it’s a square, and on all four sides there’s a different food source. Okay, to your north is a chunk of hardwoods with some oaks in there. To your south are some green fields, like some food plots. They plant some clover or maybe some cereal grains. It’s like a mixture of that kind of stuff. To your east is a neighboring property owner with corn planted. And to your west you have some kind of native region generation old field kind of stuff going on. Okay, those are the four different food sources surrounding your square of cover. And I can repeat that for you if you want at some point. But on this particular evening hunt you’re going on, Lindsey tells you, Hey, this place is great. There’s a lot of great deer. The challenge is you just never know what they’re going to come out to feed on. They’ve got these four options, four different directions. It’s very tricky to pick where to hunt on any given night. There seems to be no rhyme or reason, he says. And on this particular night, you have a light and variable wind, so there’s not going to be a really strong stiff breeze to be considering. So it’s late October, you’re hunting this place in Georgia with a light and variable wind. You’re trying to choose where to sit for your evening hunt. And I’ll repeat your food sources. To your north, you have your hardwoods with oaks. To your south, you have your green food plots. To your east, you have the cornfield. Into your west, you have the old field region kind of thing going on. Where would you hunt why how would you come to that decision?
00:58:13
Speaker 3: Okay? And in what month is it?
00:58:15
Speaker 2: This is the end of October.
00:58:17
Speaker 3: End of October, okay. The first thing I would do is I would be assessing wind. Can do like I would pick based on where the wind is. You’ve already said wind is not a factor. Can have any of those, so you know that I can pick one spot or I have a stamp for every wind with those the next thing I would do, And first of all, I like the idea of the cover being central hunting from the outside, like hunting deer coming out of that into food. That is a really, really good setup. I like that a lot. What I would do I think that there are if oaks are falling with acorns hitting the ground, there are very few things that attract dear more than acorns, particularly white oak acorns. If I can hunt white oak acorns, corn green, whatever it is, or really successful vegetation, odds are and there’s lots of deer food studies to show this. Acorns are likely your best bet. You know they are going to be just super attractive. Deer love them, and that time of the year you are at the end of when they can really put on much fat to get ready for winter, so they are going to be doing everything possible to add as much fat as they possibly can, So acorns will be an awesome, awesome selection. However, I would pick where I’m going to be as much as anything based on what does the cover around that food source look like. And by that what I mean is for a long time we had food plots, or we had open oak stands where you know, we’re hunting with a corns or whatever, where you had that and then you had woods. Today, every single food plot I have and almost every single stand I have in the woods, those food sources have some type of cover immediately adjacent to them. So for example, the food plot it was a square. Rather than plant that whole thing, I plant a smaller portion of it and have early successional vegetation all the way around where awesome oak stands. Rather than being all open through the woods. We have done work in the woods so that we have young forests so that it’s thick cover right adjacent to where there. And the reason for this mark is as you’re where deer are going to go find the food, you know, but they might eat after dark. So if I can only have one food or cover. I’m taking cover every single time because that still keeps me in the ball game. And when I mentioned this, about every single one of our stands has early successional vegetation around it because that facilitates daytime movement of deer into that food source. You know, they might be in the food plot after dark, but they’re going to be you know, in the area right near it before dark. If they feel secure in three to five feet of early successful vegetation makes them feel very secure. We are hunting from an elevated position, we can see the deer very clearly, so it puts us at a tremendous advantage. Having that cover right around food is an absolute game changer, absolutely, and we have shot some of the best bumps on us over the last few years with that exact scenario. Case in point, my son, this is three hunting seasons ago, now overlooking a food plot that had been there for a long time. That year I had taken the outside acre of it and made it into early successful vegetation. Pennsylvania has more dinners per square mile in every other state fourteen and a half deer, so there are people everywhere we are into It’s the end of November. We’ve hunted deer for six or seven weeks with the bow, now a week with a rifle. Deer know they’re being hunted. I’m in the stand when my young son we watch a buck walk into this food plot. What he’s done is he’s walking by the early successful vegetation because he knows one step. I’m completely hit. It’s a winter ride plot. He walks down an hour before dark. You know mature bucks aren’t walking around an hour before dark in Pennsylvania. He walks down this row of early successional vegetation, stops at one hundred and thirty yards away. My son pulls a trigger, drops him in his tracks. We are going crazy celebrating because we’ve had our camp since nineteen seventy seven. This was the biggest buck we’d ever killed. This was a six and a half year old, one hundred and fifty inch dear that is standing at the edge of a food plot an hour before dark. He’s not standing there if that early successional vegetation isn’t there. That is the game jigger. That is why every food plot we have now has that around it. And then when we are standing in the woods, we work in the woods to have thicket. They don’t have to be huge areas, but it just has to be enough cover that deer feels secure that one step and I’m hitting. So I say that to say, everything else being equal, I’m going to hunt at oat flat. I want to be with the eight corns. But if it’s all wide open and the corn and or the green patch has early successful vegetation aren’t cover around it, I likely I’m picking one of those because deer are more likely to show themselves during shooting. Ours.
01:03:30
Speaker 2: All right, I love this topic that you brought up about the hunting pressure impacts there and how you’ve dealt with that. From like a habitat management perspective, I’ve got to question a scenario for you that is related. Let’s say you’re on your home farm or yeah, let’s say it’s your home farm and you get new neighbors this year. And I don’t know what your neighboring landowners situation is, but let’s say that this new neighbor owns property on two sides of your farm and they come in the season open, and all of a sudden, you see, like WHOA, these guys are guns blazing. There’s people there every weekend, sometimes weekdays, there’s a whole pile of people. Like a lot of hunters, you frequently see them. You hear them buzzing around on their ATVs all the time. They’re setting up on your property lines. You’re seeing them often right there on the edge of your property. As the season advances. This continues from a hunting perspective of what you can do and impact right now during this season while this is happening. How does that change things, if at all, for you.
01:04:34
Speaker 3: The first thing I’m going to do is if somebody buys land near me, I’m going to go meet them and introduce myself and just let them know what we do. And actually, this is a very real serio for us because where I am in northern Pennsylvania, it’s an economically depressed area. It’s an awesome place to raise kids and hunt. Money wise, you know, there’s not so every landowner except for one who borders our farm, lives at least three hours away. They live in southern pa or Maryland or New Jersey and then drive up here monetarily. You know, they can afford to land here more than the locals can. It’s a great place to be. So having said that you know, it’s not like I grew up with it. Because I now live where I grew up, It’s not like I grew up with our neighbors. So what I do is is I share information with all of our neighbors. Every year, I share trail camber pictures, I share an annual camp report to let them know what we’re doing. And I remember in the early years when I started this, the guys that are camp said, I can’t believe you’re sharing dear camp, And I said, look, I want them to know. This is what we’re doing. We’re gonna be we want to be good neighbors. I’m not asking you to do what we do. If you don’t want to ever pass the buck, that’s totally fine. But I want you to know where going to so that if you choose to, then you can feel secure that we’re going to as well. And that has worked out very well for us. So first thing, I’m gonna let them know, Hey, I’m Kip Adams. You know awesome hunting in the area. Congratulations, And by this, you know we work with a lot of the neighbors here. Share information. You know you have bought into a good place to deer on. This is kind of what the neighborhood does. This is what we do. Love to hear what you want to do, you know, love to have you be a good, productive part of us. And if they say they choose they don’t want to be at all, or they just are. And there are certainly something like that, and I work with people who have neighbors like that. I work really hard to make sure we have good cover on us so that deer have places to feel secure. I would absolutely make sure that in these areas that deer you know, between us and them, had really good cover that they could get into, whether they’re on you know, our farm and moving into that, you know, because they’re not our deer. It’s the neighborhoods dereal. They belong to everybody. But you know, if these people are and the neighbors are shooting everything or run over, I want to provide a place for deer that are, you know, near us to be able to feel safe and secure as well. So I’m going to make sure there’s really good cover that they can get in, and then I’m gonna be uber careful to not apply pressure to those sides of the property that you know, to make dear want to leave and go the other way, and you know how dear are, though, they will react very quickly realize if there’s less pressure over here, I’m going to spend more time this way. So we’ll just we’ll just be super careful about that. But I absolutely I am going to reach out and try to meet the neighbors and you know, be a be a good good friend to them, so at least give them the opportunity to to be good friends with us too.
01:07:31
Speaker 2: Yep, that makes a lot of sense, all right, Kip. In the interesting time, I want to move us to the final section of this gauntlet, which is like a rapid fire section. I’ve got several just very quick questions that I ask everybody and ask for them to just respond with like a yes or no or like the one word answer. I’ll give you your options. I know what you’re gonna answer for a couple of these, but I gotta ask you anyway, and then we’ll we’ll wrap up with the one real doozy for you, Okay.
01:07:58
Speaker 3: Right, all right?
01:07:59
Speaker 2: So does the moon matter to deer movement in any way at all? That is worthwhile for hunters to pay attention to yes or.
01:08:07
Speaker 3: No no, not that it’s been in there. Again, there are millions of data points to show this, and that goes for both moon phase and moon direction, whether it’s overhead or underfoot. We literally are talking to maybe a minute or two minutes different, So no appreciable difference with regard to to when deer moment.
01:08:30
Speaker 2: Would you take a fifty yard shot at a white tail with your bow? Yes? Or no?
01:08:35
Speaker 3: I would not. I practice that far. I practice farther than that. Most of the hunting that I do involves being near or in woods, so total wide open area. If I was hunting most of that, like maybe mostly out west, that might be different. For the vast majority of the deer hunt that I do, I personally am not shooting fifty yards.
01:08:57
Speaker 2: Yeah, if you only have one of these for the rest of your deer hunting days, which would it be grunt tube or rattling antlers, grunt tube expandable or fixed blade broadheads.
01:09:11
Speaker 3: I’m an expandable guy. And then the data shows that that that’s a little better. And this comes from a hardcore fixed blade guy for a long long time, But for white tails, I’m an expandable guy.
01:09:22
Speaker 2: Okay, should you stop a moving buck with some kind of sound before shooting with your bow. Yes or no?
01:09:30
Speaker 3: Yes, and that that is a gay difference for me. I did not used to be that I am with a rifle, no, with a bow. Absolutely.
01:09:39
Speaker 2: Okay. Let’s imagine that I ascend to a place of power in which I have control over your hunting privileges and I am going to take away your hunting license across all fifty states unless you can kill a mature buck this year. You have to kill a mature buck that if you don’t, no more hunt in the rest of your days. Here’s the real kicker, though. You only get one day to hunt this season, and you have one location to do it from, like one specific stand site, one ambush location. I would like you to pick the date on the calendar that you would like to choose for this very important hunt, and then describe for me the exact spot. This can be an actual spot that you know of, or this can you can paint a hypothetical. You can dream up your perfect situation if you’d like. But what’s the best possible date for you to kill this mature buck and the best possible place to do it on that day?
01:10:37
Speaker 3: My favorite day to hunt therey of the year is November sixth, and so it’s that early November time. Personally, the sixth that’s just been very good to me. So it’s going to be November sixth if I’m in Pensilvan, say I’m near home, it’s where we have, you know, a mix of woods and ag land. I am going to be in the woods, preferably on a saddle with good cover nearby, just a route that really is conducive to deer move and you’ll covering a lot of the ground. You’ll be able to navigate between ridges. So I’m a huge fan of saddles, but I absolutely want some some cover and then often is in the case of young forest, you know, even those environments nearby. But November sixth, without a doubt, one day of the year, that’s the day I’m hunting.
01:11:22
Speaker 2: All right, Well, I have a strong sense of confidence that you would get the job done, Kip. I believe I think you’ll be able to keep on hunting, Kip. Before I let you go, what should folks know if there’s is there anything new with the with the Deer Social Association these days, anything that should be checking out, anything you want to make sure we’re aware before you hit the road.
01:11:45
Speaker 3: I think one thing that’s cool that we have now that it’s going to be brand new is, you know, we talk to people about the need to shoot additional analysts deer. Part of the reason they don’t, it’s not because they’re not a tag or they don’t see it, it’s because they don’t even outlet far. So we have spent a ton of time this past year H one working with Venison Processors to develop a national Venison donation processor map. You can go to Deer Association dot com and see that, and we continue to add Venison processors all the time, so it’s a place that you can have an L two take a deer to be donated, and we’re working with statewide donations to increase the amount of revenue to them so that it doesn’t cost you or me or any un or anything. You can literally take the deer, not pay a penny. You’ve done your service as a deer steward. You know, you’re you’re helping balance deer nerves and then that food ends up in needy family’s hands. So I am super excited about that. So, yeah, they can go check out that Venison processor map. Has all the information you know on state donation programs, et cetera. I think it’s a great resource for hunters and it’s helping get food into needy family’s hands and allowing hunters to be the champions of society. So that’s a pretty good image for hunters to be. I like that a lot.
01:12:59
Speaker 2: Yeah, that’s that’s a huge win across the board. Well, Kip, thank you as always thoroughly enjoyed our chat. I always learned something. I always come away with these with new ideas and stuff to take to the woods with me, so I appreciate that, Kip, And best luck this season.
01:13:16
Speaker 3: All right. Thank you always good to talk with you, and thanks for what you do, and absolutely good luck to you as well. And I’ll be following you and I’ll be sending you a congrats when I see some hero.
01:13:27
Speaker 2: Pics, so bitter back at you. Thanks geting right, We’ll see you all right, And that’s a wrap. Thank you for tuning in. As I reminded you guys at the end of the introduction, please go to dear Association dot com to learn more about what the National Deer Association is doing. Kip is leading the charge on a lot of really great and important conservation work for white tail deer, white tail deer habitat, and the issues and causes that matter to folks like you and me deer hunters. So become a member. Support dear association. Keep on saying the Deer Association. It’s the National Deer Association, but their website is Deer Association dot com. So, without all said, and without any further ado, thanks for being here. I appreciate you being a part of this community. I appreciate you tuning in every single week, and until next time, best of luck in the woods and stay wired to hunt.
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