00:00:02 Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your home for deer hunting news, stories and strategies, and now your host, Mark Kenyon. Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. I'm your host Mark Kenyan in this episode number two and sixties seven, and today on the show, I'm joined by Taylor Chamberlain to discuss his incredibly unique experiences bow hunting white tales in the urban areas surrounding Washington, d C. And the tactics that led him to be so successful doing that. All right, welcome to the Wired Hunt podcast, brought to you by Onyx, and today we're talking urban bow hunting for white tales and joining us as Taylor Chamberlain. And Taylor is a guy who kind of popped up on a lot of folks radars last year when he was featured in a short film put together by First Let. It was called In City Limits and essentially documented how Taylor hunts white tails in Washington, d C. And it's it's pretty crazy. Yeah, check it out. It's a great film. He's hunting these deer in town with an astonishing rate of success. He's doing some really interesting things to get it done, and he's he's just I'll let him talk about this in more detail. But he's killing a lot of deer every year and some really nice bucks to and he's doing it right in people's backyard, sometimes just within miles of the White House. Um So it's pretty it's pretty wild stuff. Yeah, did you did you get to see the film? Dan? I watched. I wasn't able to watch it, um all, but it just reminded me. I had a conversation with another guy who does a lot of shed hunting, and I'm almost positive it was in the suburbs and parks and surrounding areas of Washington, d C. And he was telling me that one time he was shed hunting and he found a I think it was either one or two skeletons like like people like people like people, and one of them had a bullet hole in its head. Yikes. So he got he had and I know this is off subject, but same area, right, So he was shed hunting. Cops came in and they had to ask him all these questions. And the cops said, to this guy, you're not the first shed hunter who's found uh human remains. Can you imagine, like you know that that burst of excitement you get like your heart starts beating fast, your stomach kind of clenches up when you see that white time, like, yeah, I got one of your run over there. Can you imagine having that excitement and then getting over there and singing as a person, Oh my god, that would freak me out. Oh wow, Yeah, that's uh, don't know what I would do. Oh I hope I never have to experience that. Yeah, man. But but it seems like there's probably some good ship hunting in these places because they're probably not getting hunted a lot, right. Um. I mean you always hear about different areas where they allow urban bow hunting. Lots of times you're seeing some incredible deer because these are relatively unpressured, they're used to some kind of human presence. These deer can get old and so lots of antlers, lots of lots of mature deer. I mean, that's that's a cool situation, and it seems like it seems like it's an important thing to write. I know, Uh, in an Arbor, Michigan used to live there. They have had all sorts of issues, just too many deer in town and they didn't want to allow hunting. And so now they started doing such a crazy things like sterilizing deer. Um just nuts. It's happening across the country when there's you know, it just seems so backwards when bow hunters can help manage this problem and instead of the city and taxpayers have to pay for something like a sharpshooter or sterilization, we hunters will pay for tags go do it ourselves. Um. Absolutely. I was out in a valley forge out in Pennsylvania. This was a while ago, and there were so many deer in that park. You could tell where they couldn't reach on there. You know, all the food from a certain level was bare, and you could look into the woods and see all of the brows had been up to a certain level had been cleared out by these deer. It was nuts. And they're, well, they're doing the same thing out in Long Island, New York too. They say that they're trying to sterilize these deer, and and there's like a bow hunting association out there that's like, hey, we'll do it, we'll take care of it. It's it's yeah, it's that's it's so much a better option for hunters to be doing it. And it seems like Taylor's kind of figured out the secret sauce to being able to do it. Especially, I think so much of it is not just understanding Dear, but understanding people and how to get that permission and get people's confidence that's okay um to have a hunter back there and that they can trust him. Um. So yeah, I think it's gonna be an interesting conversation. Um. He he definitely seems to know know what he's doing, and on top of the urban bow hunting stuff, I do want to pick his brain a little bit about one of the tactics which he's using, which is saddle hunting. He seems to be utilizing a saddle for for almost or all of his hunts and uh as you know, that's something I've been doing this past year too, So I'm gonna pick his brand on that front. But but before we get Taylor on, since you are with us here for a little bit, Dan, I did want to get our weekly pregame showing um. And it's kind of nice because we've got a good follow up conversation to have, I think from last week's episode, because you said that you were going to head out on your first shed scooping trip of the year and uh, and now we all want to hear how it went. It went pretty good. Um, I'll tell you this. I've never I made the mistake of asking someone who lives in a very small world about whether or not there was snow on the ground out in the fields and in the woods and stuff like that. In a very small world. Well, I mean, they get up, they go to work, they live in environment. They're not like us right where were at night? We'll go into the woods, or we'll go drive around out in the country, or we have a broader scope of what our environment is like, if that makes sense, right. So I love my mom to death, but yeah, yeah, I said, Hey, how much snow is there on the ground out there? Oh, there's none in our yard. Uh. And it looks like there's just somewhere they you know, they stack it up where the plows have gone. Well, I get out to my hunting farm and there's still a lot of snow. Uh, the fields and buffer strips where you know I would tend to find antlers. And in the woods there's still four inch or five inches of snow on the ground. So I thought down south it was warmer for a longer period of time, but it didn't touch as much of the snow melt as I thought that I thought it was going to. So the antler that I did find, um, I was just you know, walking in some thermal cover and stumbled upon all these beds that were in there. You know, so the snow you can tell time out. Sorry when you say thermal cover for those who maybe don't know, are you're talking about like pine trees, cedars something like that. Maybe, Yeah, thermal cover like thickness, right, something that's going to block the wind, but it might allow yeah, might allow a little sunlight in there. Um. And this was on a actually on a little bit of a north facing slope, but there was pint like these small pines with all these small, smaller trees all in there. It was it's really thick and nasty and it's just a it's a perfect spot for him this time of year because they're still getting sun and it's uh, you know, it's still blocking some of the wind. Um. It's not necessarily close to any food source, which surprised me. But the food sources only like, I don't know, five yards away, so really it's not too much of a travel for them. So so you were in this thermal cover. And yeah, I think historically I have found antlers in this area before. Um nothing, you know, nothing like the one that I found, but it was it was in some bedding. And like it's over the past five years, this area has really thickened up. And so now every shed season I go walk through it once, walk around and walk through it, and I've noticed more bed more beds. I've noticed more um deer sign in this area throughout the last five years, and so it's something I always want to walk through a couple of times during shed season. And sure enough, there there was this buckshed laying right there. Um, beautiful color on it, you know, not a lot of sunlights hid it yet. And I feel it's one of those things where, uh, it probably dropped within a day or two of me picking it up real fresh. Yet when you when you saw that time and you started walking over, did any part of you wonder like, am I going to get up to this thing and realize it's a human skeleton? No? No, I didn't at that point, but I'm glad it wasn't. It was a hammer of a shed though. Dude, that's a nice antler. That's something I want to talk to you about Mark. Yeah, and that is I want to implement a rule called the ninety degree rule. The ninety degree rule. Now on the picture that I'm sure you saw on social media, right, the ninety degree rule. Um, I had my arm out just a little bit past ninety degrees, right, A lot of what do you what do you mean by that? How? How like the bend of your arm, the bend of your arm when you're holding you to take pictures of it? Okay, I think I see if you're doing that right now, everybody's like, oh, that's a hammer shed. That's a hammer shed, And yes it's a good shed, but it's not as big as the picture makes it look, all right now, I on social media, you'll see a lot of guys almost straight arm in the shed antler pictures or their straight arm in their their trophy shots. You know, let's I like to be as realistic as possible. Hold it a little tighter to the body, try to get you know, because although uh, you know, that's a big difference if you got your arms straight versus bent a little bit. Obviously, you want to make everything look as big as possible, but that particular shed Um, although it's got six points, it's not as I mean, it's it's not huge by any means. Really, Like I was thinking it was a seventy plus side, isn't it not. It's not seventy's if any. It's probably somewhere in between sixty somewhere around sixty six, probably closer to sixty. Wow, it looks yeah, it looks a lot bigger than I mean. Still, still, that's a really nice antler. But and what's really cool though this is this is a buck you've got some history with, right right, It's that buck that we talked about earlier that's new heart. And this is kind of this is kind of cool because finding this shed energized me, like it energized me on this past year, because my first shed hunting trip of the year last year, I found the deer that I eventually killed this past season. Right, So, and I'm if I mark a straight line from where I found last year's shed to where I found this buck, it's probably a half a mile, right so, relatively relatively close and good food source. And in in the line from where I found this shed and where I found the other shed, if you put if you measure it almost straight in the middle is where I killed my buck this past year. So it's gotten me kind of excited because I feel like maybe this buck is now killable. Interesting. Yeah, and Callie, he was was he twelve? Twelve poyer last year? Um? I think he was. I think he was eleven. Either way, though, it seems like he's got great potential for this year and how old. So that's the thing. Remember, I remember we talked about this and I said I found a matching set of sheds in two thousand and thirteen. Yeah, this is the last year, this past summer. You were talking about this, right right now. I showed you the trail camera pictures and it's his gut is huge, big bodied buck. Right. But like I'm looking at the characteristics of the antler. The one that I just found has bigger pedicles, but well, I would say about the same sized pedicles as the one that I found in two thousand, right, exact same characteristics. However, the there's things on both antlers that tell me this could be a mature buck as opposed to this could be you know, the same buck or same genetics, you know what I mean. So, so on the matching set that I found in two thousand thirteen good sized pedicles, but the times were spindle like you would get in a younger deer. Right, Okay, Okay, Now this antler that I found has the same sized pedicles, maybe a little bit bigger, but the mask comes out of the antlers a little bit more right, which which tells me that this could be a buck that has gone downhill. Do you think it's is it like? So it's hard to tell what I'm trying to get at. Is I verily I really doubt that it's the same buck, just because that would be meaning this dear is like an eight year old year eight year old, eight year old buck, which honestly isn't out of the norm because last year I had a nine year old an eight and nine year old deer on trail camera. That buck I called dork right wow, who shows up every single year. I got another eight year old buck that shows up every single year, but you know, they disappear come come the hunting season. So and from where I found this shed compared to where I found the matching set of the in two thousand third teen, is only probably a half a mile at straight line, so definitely within the realm of possibility, right, right, So it's hard to tell. Like, his head doesn't doesn't make me think he's a big mature buck or he's mature, but his body does. His body is huge. Yeah, I guess we'll find out this year. Huh. That's right. We're more intel to come. But at least I'm getting a better idea of where these bucks are betted now that that thickness is growing in. And that's that's probably what I'm most excited about. Man, that's that's very exciting. Do you have Do you have high hopes to find the other side somewhere around there? Well, like I said, we just got another eight inches of snow. So, um, what I will do though, is between the trail camera that I got this buck on, um pictures of this buck and where I found a shed, I'm gonna be scouring that area, right, So I'll be. And I didn't. I didn't shed very hard, only about three hours and a lot of it was walking to take down three different trail cameras, So um, I didn't. I didn't go as hard as I normally do. But um, we'll see what happens in the next couple of weeks. Hopefully the snow starts melting off by late Um. I actually want the snow to stick around for about two more weeks and then that's as soon as it does melt. Everything's on the ground, right, nothing's been shaded. Yeah, And um, so I did walk that field last year where I walked you know, where I had um found those nine sheds. So if the snow stays on the ground, they're going to congregate in that area. So if they can, if that snow stays on for about two more weeks and then just melts over, you know, over a two week period, I feel like that that field will be a jackpot again. Um. However, I don't know other people shed hunted too, so see, yeah, well certainly lots to be excited about the potential wise, at least knowing that he's around there and probably the bucks to your buddy or our buddy, Ross Hossman man, that dude scoop and ship big sheds already and he's just a shed hunting fiend. He's always out there, him and his wife and now their son. And yeah, I think they already found a good handful this weekend, and I think they got the snow though, like you did too, So they'll probably be on a load of a hiatus. But they always they always make it happen and always send pictures and make me jealous. But I got out. I got out for a little walk um on the Michigan farm. Yeah, on the Michigan farm and Sunday, I think, um with my with my son. So it's just like an hour walk. Um. Didn't go into anywhere really thick, just kind of walked the edges of some fields and bopped around, which is just fun to get out there. Didn't find anything, but but I really want to find the sheds from that buck tram that I was seeing last year. Um, because he's like the only deer that I think made it through to this year on that property, and he'll be four and a half this year, so he's probably the the only shooter that I know of for this year. So until the next Michigan booner pops up, right, yeah, I'm not counting on that. Um Yeah unlikely. If it happens, I certainly won't complain. It's people keep on saying, like, send me messages, just white Man holy Field is gonna show back up this year? What a story if that If that happened, that would be nuts. Comes in, pushes him out, holy Field comes back now that he's gone, that would be that would be nuts. And that's definitely not happening. If he if he did somehow, if he was still alive, and he shows back up, I put my money on him looking almost exactly like he always has, just that standard date, but probably just grizzled, maybe a couple of new scars, maybe more chunks out of his ears missing. Um, i'd be pretty sweet. That would be pretty sweet. So we'll see. I'll be getting out there the next kind of next couple of weeks as soon as we lose some snow and really good looking so setting times, So when are you going to start making your trip to Iowa and out west hunting. I think that Iowa shed hunting trip is going to be that, like somewhere between that late in the first week of March too early in the second week, um, give or take. Somewhere in that time period. I think is going to do the IOA one and then the Western shed hunting trip I think will be late March. Um says, there's snow usually holds on a little longer, so I kind of want to try to play the snow game just like you said time and to try to be out there just as it melts and uh hopefully find some some sitting down there. So that's all I got in my future radar. Otherwise, just trying to do a little more prep. Gonna start doing my tree stand prep and trimming and stuff earlier this year. I always wait till too late. This year, I'm gonna try to be better than usual. But but that'll probably be like an April May thing for me. I'm still focused on sheds now. So yeah, that's one thing I've been thinking about lately. And I know this is we're getting towards the end of the intro. But as much as I move around, m I wonder if I'm doing more harm than good when it comes to prepping out my tree stands right getting in there and trimming out to stand just in case, as opposed to you know, all I do is running gun anyway. So yeah, it's nice to have them, but I hardly use them. Mhm. So you're saying, like, the what are you doing? That are you doing in August? Yeah? August mostly sometimes in late July. Yeah, Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I guess I've one of the same thing. I've always kind of felt like, what you're doing in the summer, it's it's far enough ahead of time that you're probably not screwing it up. But then again, you know, if we are screwing it up, we probably just never know it because we just don't see the deer. Then that maybe maybe there's some tricky old buck who was hanging out in there and he's like, yeah, I'm gonna I'm gonna move along. But then again, on the other hand, you know, I always come back to the fact that I sometimes wonder maybe we give these bucks too much credit. And lots of times, like if they're hanging out in the core area, if they're old and they're hanging out in that core area, they're there for a reason, you know, like they've found a safe spot, they found an area, they feel comfortable, they know their escape routes, they've got a good betting area. And the more I learned and the more I talk to people and you've heard the same things. We've talked all these things ourselves with other people too, that lots of times it takes a lot to push them out of there because they've been there for a specific reason, and in your presence there once or twice, might you know, might change their daylight activity for a little bit, But I don't know if it really pushes them out. So it's an interesting question. I have wanted the same thing. Yep. On that note, uh, should we should we avoid going too far down the rabbit hole because it should just turned into a another podcast. Yeah, so we'll have to have a just you and me talking to you us nineteen Questions and plans here soon but this one we'll wrap up the pregame show. We'll get Taylor on the line here talk urban deer hunting. But let's first take a quick break. So we want to thank our friends at Morton Buildings for their support of this podcast. And morn Buildings are the builders of would frame steel covered buildings that can be used for all sorts of different things related to what I think you and I probably want to do with a hunting property or a home or a storage facility. They can they can build pull barns, they can build garages actually Paul barn houses, all sorts of different types of storage facilities. Lots of options out there, very customizable and as I've mentioned over the past couple episodes, I've kind of been dreaming about having a Paul Barn house of my own someday. I imagine one where you've got maybe a quarter of it is a large open garage area, and then the other three cores of the building are this really open space. I imagine like vault ceilings, very high ceilings, with a big open area that includes like your living room, your kitchen, your dining area. That's all kind of one big opening, and then there's gonna be aloft where a couple of bedrooms are gonna be. That's kind of like my dream little home that maybe if I someday can can afford to get a little hunting property or by a little spot maybe out in Montana, someday I want to put that pol Barn house on it. And Morton Buildings they seem to be the ones to do this kind of job. They have several things that make them particularly an interesting option. They've got some exclusive energy performer installation which is gonna help make for more efficient heating and cooling. They have high ribs steel that requires almost no maintenance at all, and now through February two nineteen, there are some special promotional prices for Morton Buildings, so you can learn more about that at Morton Buildings dot com. Alright with me now is Taylor Chamberlain. Welcome to the show. Taylor. Hey, thanks for having me. Yeah, I appreciate I appreciate you carving out the time because because as you just told me two seconds ago on the phone before we start recording, there's a buck outside your window right now that you're itching to shoot and you're not because I'm talking to you. So thanks, And there's a big, juicy year and a half old dough that would be on my trigger and about seventeen minutes after So this is this must mean that you really do appreciate a good white tailed chat if you're willing to sacrifice a white tail backstrap. Yeah, it's one of the few things I'll enjoy as much as hunting. Because I'm just sitting here salivating at the mouth watching these dear feet around. That's awesome. Well, I uh, I'm excited for this chat though, because I was up at my family deer camp in northern Michigan this past December with a couple mutual friends of ours. Ford from First Light in Jordan from capture creative and we're just kind of bs and talking about past hunts and different people we knew and blah blah blah blah blah. And they brought you up and said that you are an interesting character, you are a deadly deer hunter, and here's someone who I absolutely have to get on the podcast. So we're making it happen today. Well, I'm I'm glad I paid them all the money to say that stuff. Funny well spent, I would say, So, yeah you got here's your return on that investment, the deer in my backyard. Yeah, you might be regretting it now. So so, Taylor, you hunt in the city just outside of Washington, d C. As I understand. I've heard that you hunt sometimes like a hundred fifty two hundred days a year. I've heard that you hunt every season of the year. Um. I hear that you do some some interesting wild things that most deer hunters don't do. I've heard there's a whole bunch of stuff we gotta cover. But before all those things, I want to know about one very important issue or question. And this kind of can of mind me because just before I got you on, I was in a conversation with my co host Dan about another urban deer hunter, uh that he that he talked to and he had discovered a weird thing in the woods. And so I got to know from you, Taylor, what is the strangest, weirdest, most shocking thing you've ever seen from a suburban tree. Because I gotta believe, when you're sitting in people's backyards, you see some weird ship the top bizarre stuff. Um, all of them involve other humans for the most point, So people don't know that that you're there. I think humans are the only critters that don't look up so uh and and rightfully so, I mean, we don't expect another person to be in in the bourbs. So um. Yeah, I have a handful of them all around people. So um. You know, one morning, while hunting, I heard what sounded like a deer running towards me, and I turned around to see one of the gardeners running from one of the other properties holding his butt um making quite the green apple two step and uh. He ended up about twenty ft away from my tree, pulling his pants down, and I was yelling at him like no, no, no, no no, and uh, I was not able to stop him from from relieving his uh seven eleven takeitos from that morning. That was pretty gnarly. Um I had you know, we can get into kind of where I hunt and why I hunt there, but um, I had had a tree that was like perfect. And one Saturday morning, I go into this floodplain area and climb up the tree and you know, it's pitch black, and as the sun comes up, I'm hearing this weird kind of like wheezing sound. And once the gray light came up, there was a high school uh frat boy looking football player guy and his letter jacket passed out and about thirty natty light cans around him. Uh So it was pretty obvious that the high school kids had been in there drinking the night before, and um, and he was just songed out. And I end up shooting a deer that morning. Um that that kind of woke him up. And that was a really fun, exciting hunt. That's amazing. I was actually gonna get out of the tree. I was just fuming and texting some buddy's about you know, Brad the jock football stud snoozing about forty yards from me, and I looked her to my left and here came some doze and the does had stopped looking at him, kind of trying to figure out what was going on, And it gave me all the time in the world to grab my bow and uh put a good shot on the lead dough. So that was pretty cool. But yeah, outside of that, I mean, you know, just seeing people are, seeing how the animals are, kind of how they're interacting with their surroundings, being super close to people, and how attentive they are. Two you know, where that human interaction is coming from and not letting it bother them is It's probably the coolest thing you get to see from the tree, almost on a daily basis. Um. But definitely seeing people kind of doing whatever um is also pretty fun. The last kind of thing that comes to mind you talk about weird experiences in the tree. I had this huge property I was hunting on. Huge for me. It's like eighty acres, which is really big. And so sitting there and I see some movement kind of coming down the horizon, throw my binoculars up and I see two like hippie looking dudes kind of dancing through the woods. They're clearly just tripping daisies, man, and they're wearing these grateful dead, tight eyed shirts and they got their arms out, kind of like dancing through the woods. And when they got to about thirty yards from me, I said hey, and one of the guys just hit the ground like I yelled incoming mortar fire, you know, and the other guy just squats down with his arms out. He's looking around. He's in like a full defensive posture zone. And I'm like, I'm like, yo, hey, get out of here. And you know, they thought the trees were talking to him. And one guy took off running and the other guys just holding his head screaming. So I think we're having a pretty bad trip from what it looked like. But yeah, I mean just seeing people is always interesting when you're elevated off the ground. Wow. I don't even know if we need to talk about deer anymore. We could just talk through the rest of your your human observations, talking about hippies and high school kids trying to hook up and everything in between. Yeah, exactly, man, Yeah, that is that is some golden content right there. I filmed all my hunts now and at the time, um, I wasn't filming, and I wish I was, because all that stuff. I mean, you imagine if I had had the you know, frat boy Chad passed out on the ground when when I was able to shoot that down. I mean, that would just be like the best content ever. Or you know, there's two hippies dancing through the woods. I don't think I could get the landscaper guy, you know, almost taking a thumbper his pants. Probably wouldn't go over well on YouTube, but everything else would be killer content. Now that's that's a viral gold right there. Man. Yeah, So, so you you actually alluded to my next question right at the top, which was, then, how did you end up hunting like this? Why? Why is it that you're hunting in people's backyards? Why is it that you're sitting in a tree next to a passed out dude underneath the deck? How did this all thin? How does this all begin for you? Taylor? It's strictly out of necessity? Man. So, um, you know, I I didn't grow up in a hunting family. I went to school out on the Virginia West Virginia border, and when I was at college, I fell in love with deer hunting. I'd always kind of wanted to be outside and My grandfather was was big into bow hunting growing up. Um, but he was a smoker, and so by the time I was like twelve or thirteen, he was in nowhere close to good enough health health wise shape to be able to be out in the woods. So um, he taught me how to shoot a bow in his backyard. But me, being the dummy that I am, I didn't put two and two together with me liking to be outside and me liking to shoot a bow and being like, hey, I could hunt critters with this thing. So um. You know, when I got to school, I just had this drive to want to learn how to hunt, and um, I just basically started teaching myself how to hunt through trial and error, which was a lot of error and not a lot of success. Um. And by the time I graduated from college and moved back home, which is here in northern Virginia, right outside of d C. You know, I didn't have any options for hunting. So there was a military installation that I started hunting. I had a has still has a great hunting program and it was about fifteen minutes from my house, and so that was great. I was out there all the time, and um, I moved away from that area that that's some kind of southern uh, northern Virginia, South Arlington, and I moved up to North Arlington, which made that about a forty five minute drive, but in traffic times here outside of d C, that little bit of a move made that drive sometimes like an hour and a half or two hours, and that was just too much too to try and do on a hunting you know, daily basis while still going to work. So, um, I just had to figure out a different way to hunt. And I kept driving to these you know, public land type areas and seeing deer in people's yards, and um, you know, one thing led to another with a buddy that I had, and he recommended urban hunting. Um, and so I got kind of used my grandmother's influences through her Bridge Club and got a couple of really nice old ladies that let me hunt on their property and started whacking a lot of deer. And then I realized, you know, this is awesome. I can go uh five minutes from my house and hunt any day I want to. And you know, our our seasons here run year round, so it allows me to hunt year round. And we have a huge overabundance of white tailed deer. Um. So it really kind of works. You know, I'm able to do what I want to do, what I'm super passionate about, which is killing deer with a bow, and I'm able to help reduce the deer population and help all these little old ladies which happened to me, my mother's buddies, and now you know, hundreds of other people. UM help them, you know, try and reduce the dear herd to where they can have plants again at their house. So wow, it's a win win um. Yeah. So so I gotta imagine you if you're hunting on hundreds of different people's properties. Now you've asked a lot of people permission. You've kind of fine tuned a system. I'm sure, But what about that, like first time and the first couple of times, do you remember after you got through the bridge club connections and then you had to start asking a random person for hunting permission? Was that tough? Do you remember what that was like for you? It's terrifying. I mean, I think about it like the first girl you walked up to at a bar. It's it's like that without alcohol. Okay, yeah, I'm terrified, which is not a good combination because that the whole reason you're at the bar in the first place is for the alcohol to help calm your nerves. Yeah, exactly, So, Yeah, I mean it's a it's a terrifying thing because if you think about, you know, when you're out in the middle of Iowa or any type of place where hunting is a tradition, people get it there. They've been asked the question before, they probably have people hunting there. They understand why you're knocking on their door. Most of the people that I'm talking to, I'm the first hunter they've ever met. And I quite often get people that look at me like I have a third eyeball or horns growing out of my head, and they're like, you want to do what here? You know, why would you want to do that? Um? And so that kind of works out in my favor sometimes and also works against me um, just because a lot of these people that I'm talking to you haven't been exposed to hunting. I do get a lot of homeowners that are adamantly opposed to hunting. They love the deer, they love seeing the deer. Some of them feed the deer um that is always tough to deal with. But on the opposite side of that, you know, I have people that understand that they shouldn't be seeing the number of deer that they do. They see how emaciated the dr are, and they know they need to be reduced. And those are people that you know, are all for it. So for the most part, when I knock on the door, I either get the door slammed in my face and I get yelled at, or I get guys that shrug their shoulder and they're like, yeah, whatever, and some of them are all for it, and everyone in between. So so, so what do you do or how do you answer that question when you when you get a landowner who says, why in the world would you do this? You know, have you ever had like a of uh, someone who really wants to get in like the philosophy have it? Like why do you hunt? Have you ever had to answer that question to a landowner who was genuinely curious? And if so, what do you say? Yeah? I have, And and even more so, I've had landowners that, once I've talked to them about why I'm doing what I'm doing and how I go about what I'm doing, I want to learn how to hunt. I'm I'm now on the third homeowner that has I've kind of gone through a similar progression with where I'm teaching them how to hunt, which is pretty cool. Um, So you know, kind of a high level overview, the carrying capacity of our area here of northern Virginia is in the twelve to fourteen maybe fifteen deer per square mile, depending on who you ask. In certain pockets, they can't even get an estimate because the deer are so overpopulated. When you look at them with the thermal imaging, it just looked like you kicked the ant hill over. Um, they're their best guests. It's in the four d and thirty four hundred and fifty deer per square mile. So like if you walk into the parks or any type of larger uncle land around here and you get down to about three and a half four ft that that deer brows line, you can see as far as your eye as as the topo will let you see. Because the deer have eaten everything, and I mean it's gotten to the point where, um, where the age of our forests, you know, as the deer destroy that underlying brows, all the animals that rely on that underlying browse to survive and thrive and you know, live off of there, they get wiped out. Um and along with that go all the new tree shoots and the younger sapling trees. So the age of our forests have gotten to the point around here where, um, you know, they're they're really worried about how the forest is going to survive. I mean the deer have literally wiped it out. Jeez. Yeah, that's incredible. That's I can't imagine deer deer populations like that. I feel like there's a lot of deer eye hunt it's insane. Uh. And and you know with that also comes we get a lot of cases of limes disease. And I mean, I would be willing to bet at least in my experience, every homeowner that I've talked to either has somebody in their house that has been affected by limes disease or one person removed from them they know who has had limes disease. So it's not like the six degrees of separation type thing that either they've had it or their kid has had it, or they're like, oh, the neighbor they had it. I mean they understand that the deer are contributing to that and you know, really want them gone. Yeah, well that will definitely uh incentivize people to see the deer herd trimmed down a little bit. When that kind of thing is knocking on the door, definitely changes their perspective on when you whacking them with a with an arrow. And then you know, I have a lot of procedures that I take into account when I'm hunting deer. You know, I really try to be out of sight, out of mind, and I carry insurance, um, you know, liability insurance for myself for anything that happens. And then I very rarely, if ever take a shot over twenty yards. I limit myself to a twenty yard shot, and I'd be willing to guess about nine percent of the deer that I've harvested or in that twelve to fourteen yard range, um. And the reason for that is I can't take the risk of having a deer leave that property or be wounded. I mean the difference in a deer running forty yards and piling up from a perfect double long hit and a deer running a hundred yards and crashing into the attorney's pool three doors down. Um is a big, big difference. Have you had a awkward recovery of that kind yet anything like that? Oh yeah, I've had a multitude of of interesting recoveries. UM. Probably the most notable one was I had a dear cross a property line and end up about three doors down, so across the creek. Died three doors down. So I go on my you know, on X map, pull up whose house it is? And around here it's pretty common for the homeowner's name just say withheld by request. UM, just kind of the nature of where I'm living and who these A lot of people are that live in these houses, right. Uh? So I go around. You know, it was only about three yards as as a deer would run, but for me it's like a three mile drive to go around this creek bottom over to the house. I get over there and they're about forty Secret Service agents out front, and I'm like, oh no, And so I keep checking the map. I'm like, there's no way this is the right house. There's no way this is the right house. And I'm like, ship, this is totally where the deer is. And so I had to go up explain my situation to the first secret service station to roll his window down, who was not stoked at all at my presence. And you know, still I have to get home owner landowner permission. So eventually the lovely uh Supreme Court Justice and his wife gave me permission to recover the deer. And the justice was a great guy, strong supporter of hunting, but told me I couldn't he couldn't give me permission to hunt there because it wouldn't look like look right politically. But he was all for what I was doing, which was pretty cool. So yeah, but it could have been a nightmare. So, I mean, you know, I deal with a lot of high profile people, a lot of um, you know, very powerful attorneys and the like, and it's just better to be out of sight, out of mind and not have to knock on their door than than the opposite of that. So yeah. So so before we get too much into the actual hunting, you mentioned the insurance you carry for someone who's going to try urban deer hunting. Um, can you can you explain it's a little bit more about what what exactly you're talking about there, how you go about doing that, why that's something that an urban deer hunter might want to what might have Yeah, So I mean in the same vein of the clientele the people that I'm hunting on properties with. UM, a lot of them want to understand that they don't have any liability towards my actions or anything that might come of from my actions. UM. Let's say, worst case scenario, you shoot a deer and it runs out into the neighbors house and smashes into their parked car. Right, Well, I'm responsible for that because I created that for happening. So UM, most states, Virginia is one of them. You know, the landowner has no liability for the hunter's actions. It's just that's already in place. UM. I also hunt on some homeowners associations property so communal property. A lot of those homeowners associations require me to carry insurance or or really their insurance provider for for the h o A piece will require me to have insurance, So I have insurance. The q d m A and n r A are both phenomenal resources for sportsmen, and I believe the India does as well. UM. Actually, Mark, you might know more about that than me, but um, you're able to get insurance through all those organizations. The q d M A is is where I have mine through excellent. That's uh, that's something I actually haven't personally had to look into myself before. So that's that's what you're You're lucky. Yeah, I mean the you know, and that's great that we have as hunters these resources like the q dum a um you know, a t A, the you know, all these big um you know entities that are willing to help the common guy. Because if I just had to go around to you know, all state and try and get insurance, I'm sure I'd get looked at again like I have a third eye and have to pay out of the butt. And this is stuff that, up to certain limits, is covered with your membership. So you know, not that we need any other reasons to join these big groups, but that's definitely a certain plus that you get by being a member. Yeah, that's fantastic and a really a really good point that that I wouldn't have thought of. Um. So you kind of outlined a bunch of things here about the types of hunting that you do that make it a little bit uh scary. Maybe it's like, oh man, I gotta worry about my dear running into some guys pool I gotta worry about, you know, high profile landowners or maybe just any landowner who might get mad about what I'm doing. I have to worry about knocking on doors and dealing with that uncomfortable situation. I have to worry about making sure I've got really close shot opportunities. I need to worry about being out of sight, out of mind. All these things make it sound challenging to me. Can you now pitch me on why I should want to go and hunt in an urban area or why someone who's considering this type of hunt actually would would enjoy it? What's the what's the plus of all this? Well, it's pretty simple. You get to hunt year round, you have pretty much open bag limits and a target rich environment, uh to to be able to help go reduce the deer herding. And on top of all that, I'm able to donate all of the meat that I get from harvest to the Hunters for the Hungry program, which here in Virginia. UM, you know, all that meat is going to food shelters, food banks and home of shelters. So it's really kind of a win win to be able to use an overabundant resource that we have to help feed people in need in in a way by thinning them out. So I mean, if you're looking for the elevator pitch on wide to urban hunt, I would ask you, do you want to hunt your around? And do you want to kill over a hundred your year. I'm sure you'd be like, yeah, it's all right here you go right, Yeah, that that's wild. That that was kind. I just can't even like wrap my head around those two things right there. So can you can you help us understand? Because I'm sure there's some people listening there, like how in the world there is there a bag limit like that? And how in the world can you hunt you around? Can you just elaborate? Yeah, so we'll Hunting you around is much less enjoyable than it sounds like to some degree, because I mean I remember when I when I first um was talking with the guys at first light. I'm like, you know, I hunt when it's a hundred and ten degrees out, and I hunt when it's negative out with a windshell and every day in between. So I mean, as far as you know putting gear to the test, there's it's pretty pretty easy to do that here. So I mean, how do you hunt your round. Well, I mean you just kind of suck it up and do it there. Uh. In the different seasons, you really need to kind of think about what the deer doing that time of year and and kind of use tactics related to that time of year that time of the season. Um, how how are their open bag limits? Well, it's because of that four fifty deer for square mile type population that we have here where I mean, the Department of Game is trying to do everything possible to help reduce the deer and there's just so much damage done by the deer. So um. And just to kind of clarify, you know, the Department of Game doesn't have just an open season. It's not like, hey, the deer problem kilmall. You know, we're not gonna do anything about it. Uh. So we have different kind of seasons within this season. So most of our hunting is analysts only. Um. The traditional quote unquote season comes in the first weekend in September for for antler lists only deer, and then the first weekend in October you can start harvesting antlers or antler list Dear. This is all for the urban hunting. Um, it's different. You know when you can harvest each in the different kind of counties of Virginia, but just for the urban areas. To simplify things, you can shoot antlerd or antler list dear from the first weekend in October all the way through the end of December. Then it goes back to antler lists only deer from January through. They changed it on me this year. I think it's the end of May. Then when May comes around, each homeowner is able to request what's called a kill permit, which is basically a crop damage permit where the state will come out and verify that the deer have destroyed their landscaping or destroyed the the forests. Then you're able to hunt on that what's called a kill permit from you know, let's call it April one through uh through that first opening weekend in September again, so you know, you really have to kind of have your your p's and ques dotted or understand what season it's in for that urban hunting. But I mean the opportunities that affords you is really pretty cool. I mean, the fact that that you can hunt on all these properties. You really don't have a ton of competition. Although the words getting out Um, you know, I get a little more competition here than I used to, you know, five years ago, six years ago. But you know, you can hunt year round and have an unlimited number of anilists year that you can harvest. I mean, my wife and I basically live off venison um and other stuff that that I kill. So UM, I mean that that's pretty cool to be able to have the self sustained organic diet and be able to so helped feed a lot of other people while you're doing it. Um, you know it makes you feel good. Yeah. Yeah, like you said, that's a good way to fill the freezer, no doubt about it. Um. I have a couple of them, yeah, freezers. But that kind of that kind of schedule throughout the year, I gotta imagine. Um, so that kind of I got. Well, I guess what am I trying to say here? Number one? What I'm trying to say is I do not know about all the other cities across the country, um, as far as they're kinds of seasons. But but I have heard of a number of different urban areas that do have these unique urban deer hunting seasons or bag limits. So if you live somewhere near up their city or some major metro area. Definitely do some digging into it, because there might be some unique opportunities, just like you know what you mentioned their tailor, UM to get in and hunt longer periods of the year. There's a lot of urban seasons that start earlier in the season maybe UM or I think you know in spots like Iowa you can get an extra buck tag. I think I remember hearing that right UM to hunt some of these special urban bo zones. So UM, you know, it definitely opens up these new windows of opportunity. Even if you still have some other places you hunt and you don't want to hunt just urban deer hunting, this might be a way just to add to your season, expand your season. UM. So I think it's I think it's helpful to know that and that that first step in the process tailor for someone new um you've started with bridge, but for other people when they're beginning, UM to look for properties to hunt and then asking permission to hunt in those places. UM. Can you walk as through your process for doing that, because now after doing it what sounds like hundreds of times, I'm sure you've got quite the system in place. What is that. Yeah, so I kind of a twofold system. Um. Any time that I have someone who gives me permission to hunt on their property, I'm trying to maximize that relationship as much as possible. So I want to do the best job I possibly can for that person to help reduce the dear herd be professional and not causing any problems for them. Once I've done a decent job doing that starting off, what I'm then gonna do is just remind them like, hey, you know, if you ever talk to anybody that that wants some deer services or is complaining about the deer, please feel free to pass my contact information along. So you're kind of working by referral in some regard. Um. So that has served me great over the years. It's kind of funny because normally, as a hunter, you're so used to like, oh man, I hope I can go knock on that door and ask for permission. I mean, I've gotten to the point now where I get, you know, one or two phone calls a week from someone that had, you know, talked to their buddy at the grocery store or talk to their buddy somewhere, and they're asking me, can you please come shoot the deer of my property. I'm seeing fifteen twenty of them my dad, you know. And and it's kind of really interesting to switch it on its head and be the guy that everyone's calling for the deer removal. I mean, I probably have more properties now then I could possibly hunt in a year. Uh And and I just spend most of my time kind of chasing my tail around trying to help these people out. And you know, the downside to that is when you get to kind of the number of properties that I have, you know, I'm like, oh, I have a buddy that could come help you out, and most of them like, well, I don't want your buddy to hunt here. I want you to hunt here because you're the one that that you know, Mrs Smith told us all these great things about and how you helped her do this and that, and so that's kind of a hurdle to get over. Um, if you're starting completely from scratch and you don't have the first person to start asking for a referral basis from you know, what I do is I look at an aerial map and I guess what I did. Um. I still do this to some degree when I go out and just cold knock on doors. I mean, first of all, be prepared to have somebody tell you no. That's fine. I mean you know the answer is always going to be no unless you ask, So you might as well ask, and then then you at least know what the answer is. Um. So kind of get that fear of rejection out of the way early. And you know where I'm hunting in these metropolitan areas or suburban areas. Any area that could have been developed most likely has, so you're not going to end up with these giant chunk September. Like, you might have a property that somebody owns fifteen acres, but for the most part, you know that parcel has been divided out, are subdivided into the maximum density it can be, so all the subdivisions are there, right. So what isn't developed are your floodplains or areas that you can't build in creek beds, things like that. Well those turn into these dear super highways. So if you look on an aerial map and you look at all the green space between the houses, well that's like a mega highway for white tail. So that's the first place that I start is all all identify those properties, and I'll go knock on doors. Eventually, through persistence, uh you, you will get somebody that says yes. Once they say yes, I asked them, you know, how well do you know your neighbors, because there's a big difference in your neighbor of five twenty years coming over and saying, hey, I'm gonna let this guy Taylor hunt here. Then there is when you knock on the door and somebody's like, what does this CEO head want? You know? Um? And the other thing is when you are knocking on the doors. I try to look presentable, so think of it as kind of office casual. I'm not showing up looking like I'm selling vacuum cleaners. I'm not looking up like looking like I'm selling bibles. I just want to look like, you know, the dude next door who is clean and presentable. And I always make a point to point out that I live in the area, so that seems to put people at ease right away. Another thing that I really like to do is I'm a really tall guy. I'm I'm like six two six three, and I'm a big dude. So I think that I'm really intimidating to people when they open their door. So what I'll do is I'll ring the doorbell and I'll step completely off their front porch so that they're you know, looking down on me as opposed to looking up at me, which I think is just kind of a psychological thing. But every little bit helps when you're asking to do something that to these people is super taboo, which you shoot deer with a bow in their backyard. Um, you know. But for the most part, people are there. They're receptive to it. They've seen a lot of the deer. They know that they're a giant problem. They understand that the thirty worth of landscaping they planted is now just dirt, and uh, they want them all gone. So so what I want to know next is what you're like, what your first words are your elevator pitch at the door, Because I when I knock on the door, I do the same thing you just mentioned. I kind of step back and give the people some space. I try to be presentable, and then I kind of get right into it, you know. I introduced myself, I mentioned if I'm in the area from the area, and then I kind of just say, hey, curious if X, y Z or whatever. I get right into it. But Dan, you know co host Dan, he likes to go the opposite way. He likes to just like bs, like, talk about random stuff for a while and then kind of mosey his way to what he wants to do. I remember the two of us had this conversation years ago, and I remember thinking, what a strangely different way we go about it. What's your tact? How do you approach those first moments after the person opens the door? Yeah, I try to be um as charming as possible without seeming like a total scumbag, because I think that can kind of you quickly flip around into not being a positive thing. So I'll I ring the doorbell, I'll back off, and then as soon as I I see them, I smile and I introduced myself, so I'll make eye contact. I introduced myself. I say, hey, my name's Taylor Chamberlain. I'm not selling anything, because around here we get a lot of door to door salesman and so I think most people's first reaction is like, great, what is this guy doing? What does he want? Why is he interrupting me? You know? So, Hey, how you doing it? I'm Taylor, I live right down the street, or I live I live around here. I'm I'm your neighbor. We're in the same community, right, is what I'm trying to express to them to kind of help get them at ease. And then I'll just ask him, how do you feel about the deer? Do you notice a lot of deer? And you can tell within fifteen seconds of the answer to that question how it's gonna go. If they go like, oh, we love the dear my wife named them all. You know, we feed him every night, I'm like, great, thanks, just checking in. You know, that's the end of it. I know you're not gonna let me shoot your pet deer. But the neighbor might be like, oh my god, they feed the deer. These people are crazy, please come shoot them, right, And so obviously that would be a scenario I probably wouldn't get myself into. But um, you know I find that being personable, pretty straightforward and honest and asking that question of how do you feel about the deer to let them kind of start talking um really helps and it puts them at ease, and that that's the number one thing you want. I think when you're opening up that dialogue with somebody is like you know, I'm not trying to sell you vacuum cleaners. I'm just popping in. I lived down the street. I'm a local, local guy, and you know, I'm trying to do a service for our community. And when it's phrase like that, I mean a lot of the people that I deal with who have never talked to a hunter before, they don't know anything about hunting. They'll be on the fence about it while I'm kind of giving them the elevator pitch. And when they find out that, you know, I've done this on on hundreds and hundreds of properties and that a lot of the food is going to feed the homeless, that's when they're like, all right, yeah, that's cool. And it's amazing to watch that kind of change their mind, when it's like, Okay, this guy is not some bloodthirsty dude. He's actually just trying to help out and he's not even keeping all the meat. Um. That tends to really kind of persuade people, which has always been interesting to me. Yeah, that is, that is an interesting shift. I'm sure to see happen. Um, what what happens when you get that permission they say yep, let's go go ahead and hunt. Um, when I get permission on a new piece of property, let's say in Iowa or Michigan or Ohio, you know, as soon as I can, I'm gonna be out on that property, walking all over the place on it, whether that be shed hunting or scouting in the summer, hanging trail cameras, checking for scrapes and rubs and trails. I mean, I'm covering every square inch of that property that I possibly can, hopefully multiple times. I am guessing that you maybe don't do that or can do that, because I'm thinking about that out of sight, out of mind thing that you talked about, and the fact that if you're walking all over the place in the middle of the day, people might start to ask questions, Um, is that something you have to do? Is that something you think about? Or do you do you scout it the way I would scout it? Or what do you do? So what I what I would do is, let's say I ring the doorbell on Mr. And Mrs Smith's house. We just go through the process that you and I discussed. Now I have permission, I said, great, can you show me where you want me to park? Right? Because first step, I don't want to piss off the homeowner because I don't want to lose the permission that I just got. Then my next question is do you want me to contact you before I'm coming out here to hunt? You know, how how am I going to tread lightly to where I'm not offending this person? I'm doing them as service. Um, So I figure out where you want me to are. How do you want me to you know, shoot your texts, give an email. How are we going to communicate between us? And then I say, do you mind showing me your property boundaries and showing me where you see the deer most often? And what a lot of people will do is they're like, yeah, sure, you know, let me throw my jacket on and we'll go walk around the backyard and they'll show me where they think their property line is, which is amazing to me. How many property owners don't know where their property line is, which is why you know a lot of these uh smartphone based you know applications are just so helpful, especially for me. Um. And then I'll have them show me where they're seeing the deer. And you know, I run probably anywhere between forty and fifty trail cameras a year, not a single one of those cameras is more valuable than the homeowner. Because I'm hunting on quarter acre, half acre, maybe an acre lot. They can see their whole property. They know where the deer are, they know when and where they're seeing them. And I can't tell you how many times I've walked to property and I'm like, oh, this little corner right here is definitely the right spot and they're like, nope, did you actually come out over here all the time? And for whatever reason, that's where the deer coming from. And I'll set up in that one lone tree and just start smashing them. And the homeowners are always correct. So if if you're looking at getting into urban hunting and you've gone down the pipeline thus far into our kind of little hypothetical scenario here, do not go set up where you think is a deery spot, set up where the homeowner is telling you, because they're not lying to you. They don't care. You know. It's not like they're like, oh, yeah, I go hunt over there because there's a giant one fort you over here. You know, like, they do not care. And the last thing that I tell them is, um, I say, look, you know, thank you very much. Please please let me know when you're seeing when and where you're seeing deer because helps me be more efficient. And you know, that's really helpful to me because the deer around here kind of are almost like nomadic. It's not like in the Midwest where on a particular farm you have your betting, you have your food source, and then you can kind of ambush them between betting and food. I think because there's so little browsed around here, and there's so many external factors like the neighbor's dog or the past out frat boy or whatever, uh kind of pushing these deer around that they kind of run this circuit and the matriarch, Dough is really in charge of that circuit. And so they'll be in an area for a couple of days and then they'll kind of, you know, have Phido chase them around. They'll go to the next spot that they're kind of comfortable with, and then they'll go to the next spot. And so I want to make sure that I'm not wasting my time when I am out hunting. I want to be as efficient as I can possibly try and be. And so by having the home owners texting me and calling me and being like, hey, they're here, you know, come on out and get them. Uh, that's super helpful. I'm I'm struggling here between if I want to jump to the question that just can my mind if I want to stick with our scenario. But I'm gonna jump to the next question, um that you just raise there, which is you get a call from a landowner saying, hey, they're here, come get them. What kind of like turnaround time do you have to have on that kind of data and and with this kind of unique uh circuit behavior that these urban deer are demonstrating. Can if you get there the next day, is that soon enough? Do these dear stay out for a while? Yeah? So, I mean the turnaround time is really anywhere in that twenty four hour time windows seems to be pretty ideal. Um. You know, sometimes you can get there same day. That's really good, But you know it's not a surefire, guaranteed thing that Hey, I can get there tomorrow and that's perfect. I know I'm gonna see deer. Um. Sometimes the deer are already gone. But for the most part, the biggest problem I have is having two or three homeowners texting me at the same time and trying to figure out which property I'm gonna go to. And what gets even harder for me is during the rut when they're like, there's a giant buck here, right, Well, giant buck to you and I is way different than a giant buck to the homeowner who might think the little hundred four pointer is a monster. Right, So you've got to kind of balance your data that you're getting on on that end as to its accuracy. But as far as from a dough hunting perspective, if I get out within twenty four hours, that seems to be ideal. And also maybe it was you know, oh the deer here every morning, and I'll go back the next morning, but I really find a ton more activity in the afternoons for whatever reason than than in the morning. Kind Of overall, something you mentioned, they're brought up a question that I completely forgot to ask, which is you talked a lot about how many deer there are, like at the target rich environment that you're hunting in. What about the quality of deer and an age structure of deer? Do you see old bucks, do you see big bucks? What's that like? So we we do see the occasional giant. Um. You know, there are a couple of deer that I have on trail camera that are you know, every bit of what you would expect to see in Kansas, like high one sixties type just slobs. Right. The problem that we have is kind of twofold one. There just isn't a ton of protein here for them to allow them to get to to where their antlers are just huge. Right, So if you wanted to kill a one, like a four year old one forty, you could do that every year. Um if yeah, and that's not a shabby deer, but means right, like I'm not like, oh there goes there goes a mid one werena like that walk? You know, like that dear is getting shot every time it comes by my tree. Um. The problem that that I run into is you don't have enough access to continuous property to where you're like, yep, that dear's betting right over there, and I'm gonna slide in on him and I'm gonna kill him tomorrow in his bet right. So what you really end up getting are you'll get a lot of really high quality dear cruising during the rut or pre rut um. But outside of that, your chances of killing them are are pretty slim if they're not betting on your property and so and and But I mean, we're the only thing that's killing them are cars and other hunters around here. There are on a ton, there's not a ton of hunting pressure. So you do get a nice age class of of bucks. Uh. And there are definitely some great opportunities for killing some good ones. Um. I mean, every year on trail camera, I'll get two or three deer that you'd be like, no question, would shoot with the rifle and put on your wall on a heartbeat. When you said that they've got nothing to worry about other than cars and hunters, the first thing I thought in my mind was was maybe like some deer talking to his young ones saying, oh, you gotta watch out for those big black trucks rolling down the road and Taylor, Yeah, and that big old tund squirrel that's hanging up there, that weird diaper looking thing with a really sharp stick. He took out a hundred of your uncles and ants last year, clear jod on really bad. Um. So, so you mentioned though, it's kind of interesting that you can't necessarily pattern a mature buck like maybe doing the Midwest, figure out where they bed and transitioning to food. That's not the kind of behavior you're seeing. How do you go about prepping a property? Then you get you get permission on a property, or in your situation, you get permission on dozens of properties. Do you do any actual prepping in the preseason or do you just run a gun in season? So I do a lot of tree prepping. I Um, I'm kind of an efficiency nut, and with the amount of hunting that I'm able to do on a year round basis, I've been able to hone in on my kit pretty uh pretty well. But um, you know, I have probably within a fifteen minute drive in my house, I probably have well over a thousand trees prepped and ready to hunt from, um, all marked on an on X. So like, if you look at my aerial view of my on X map, it looks like it has chicken pox. Like it just looks like some kid with nuts with a with the mouse and just clicked everywhere, uh, dropping pins and so I kind of have this weird hybrid system as far as you know what level of prep work that tree has had to it. So, um, some I hunt from a tree saddle. I've just found that the saddle is way more efficient for me for for having that multitude of trees prepped. Um, frankly, my wife would have divorced me a long time ago if I had a thousand tree stands just chilling in the garage somewhere. Um, she probably divorced me now she knew what half that crap cost. But yeah, I mean, so I have a lot of trees that I have prepped with the kind of metal ladder sections, and then you know, I can just climb up those and hunt. But what I've found is that the deer are are really good at figuring out. After you, you know, smash a couple of them out of their group, They're like, hey, every time we walk past that tree, a couple of us don't make it, so we're gonna walk by other trees now. So what I've really kind of evolved in the last couple of years into pretty strictly run and gun. So I'll climb a tree, make sure it's prepped and ready to go. And when you say started, interrupt, But when you say that a tree is prepped and ready to go, what specifically are you doing to have a tree prepped. Okay, So what I'll do is I'll I'll figure out where the deer trails are, which are pretty easy to identify in our area because they look like cow pass So I'll climb up those trees. I look for a tree that's got a ton of cover. Again, I'm big dude, so I'm a lot of man to hide in the tree. Um. You know, I definitely wish I was terry dreary, but I'm not. So um. So I need trees to have a lot of cover otherwise they're like, why is the other half of that tree moving? You know. Um. So I'll get up and I'll trim out my my shooting lanes. I'll try to have two or three kind of good shooting lanes to those little kill spots, if you call it that, and then I leave everything else as as bushy as possible for around me. Um. And then I'll prep different trees for what I anticipate being different times of the year for the different properties that that I'm on. So some properties, maybe it's a white oak flat and I know that the deer are gonna be pounding through there in the early season and then also in the late season while they're looking for food. So I'll prep a couple of different trees. Maybe I'll prep a holly tree or a tree that's right next to a holly tree. I'll know that will be my, you know, late season spot. Then I'll prep a tree right over by the white oak that's dropping for the early season spot when I know there's a bunch of cover um. And so what I would do is I climb. I'll mark that tree with a little bright eye, and I'll drop a pin on my on X of how to get there. And then what I like to do is I'll clear a trail out from my truck to that tree. So maybe that's like forty yards, which is kind of embarrassing that somehow that's how far I have to walk. Sometimes it's like fifteen yards. I actually have one tree that I hunt at where the parking spot is right in line with one of the trees that I hunt, and I have to make sure that the deer has cleared my truck before I shoot them, because I thought I shot my truck one night when I shot a deer and the arrow deflected and thank god, it went over my truck, but the knock came out of the back and smacked into the side of my truck and I almost fell out of the tree. I thought, I just shot a hole through my passenger door. So, um So I'll put a bright eye in it. I'll clear a trail to it so I know I can get to that tree as silently as possible, because a lot of the time the deer are not bedded far away of where I'm hunting, so I really need to kind of, you know, do the damn infult and slip in as quietly as possible, um to to get up into hunting positions. So put the bright eye in it, market climb up, cut my shooting lanes out into where I think they're the deer are gonna be coming, or where I know they're coming based on previous years hunting there, and then you know, get out of there. And then I try to have as many trees as possible hunting to hunt from on a property. And again that's kind of why I hunt from a saddle, because you know, I can hunt from any tree as opposed to only a couple of trees. And when you're hunting a quarter acre, you might only have two trees on the property, So it's important to be able to maximize those and then lastly, I don't want to burn the tree out. So when I'm when I go in on a hunt, I'm trying to be as deadly as possible. I'm not just prospecting. I'm I'm there to kill um. And I think that's something that's important because I mean people think they're like, oh, man, you're just hunting does in the suburbs, Like that's super easy. No, man, I mean you're hunting an animal that wants to live and you're you're killing it, and it's trying to do everything and it's power to figure out how to not die. And so as soon as they realize like, hey, there's something going on around here that's causing us to you know, get dragged out and go into the back of that really as truck. Um, you know, they're they're figuring out how to avoid that. So it's kind of always on you to to figure out how to keep being as efficient and as deadly as possible. Yeah. So you've got a thousand trees prepped in in one way or another. You've got them all lined up on your maps. Um, you mentioned you talk to these landowners. You're figuring out what they're seeing, all the stuff's going on. But you also said you run forty to fifty trail cameras across all those places, um to to what? Um? And are you using them for? Like? Are you just trying to see where the you are active or are you looking for mature bus or any kind of buck or anything like that? And UM, I guess that's question number one. Question number two is how do you manage that many cameras? Yeah? So, um well, I managed that many cameras, much to Amazon's pleasure because I'm com buying a shipload of batteries all year long. Um So, I mean I run those cameras to try and figure out any type of trends that I can figure out, if that makes sense. I mean I want to be as efficient as humanly possible. I would love to get to where every hunt I'm harvesting a deer. Uh. Now, granted, you know it's hunting and you're never gonna get to that. But that's the kind of perfection that I'm striving for in in knowing how to be as deadly as possible. So there's some places that the property owners just can't see. And maybe I want to put a camera on that trail and see when the deer are using it or how many of them are there are, you know, maybe looking at that quality of bucks that are living on that property. I mean there, you know, you can get lucky, I guess if you want to call it that, or you know, maybe whatever, there's a maybe there's a giant one sixty that's coming in and eating acorns on October five. You know, I'm I'm not gonna not shoot that deer. Um, even though I'm not specifically a buck hunter. I'm more of hunting to reduce the population. But who doesn't like shooting a big mature white tail, right? Um? So I mean I'm really trying to use the cameras to find try and develop trends, figure out when, where, and why the deer are using certain areas that maybe the homeowners aren't as detailed on. So, you know, I find a lot of the deer as I'm sure you've heard a lot of your other guests talk about, you know, dear move specifically because of the wind right and so I'm trying to figure out which wind direction creates deer movement on this specific parcel. What when are they betting here when are they using it? Um, and kind of you know what thermal conditions will will create that environment, so then I can try and predict ahead of time. Okay, Mr Jones is texting me saying, you see in twelve deer. I know on this property that the landscapers come on Thursday, today's Friday, and so the deer are gonna be there trying to eat the fresh grass they just blew all the leaves off of and we have a northeast wind, so the deer definitely gonna be there. Like, Okay, I'm pretty much bet in the farm and I'm gonna kill a couple tonight, right. That's I love it. I love I love a hunting A hunting sit revolving around the lawnmower, you would be surprised. So I have this giant whiteboard down here in my my little bow cave, and um, I have all the neighborhoods rotations for school bus pickup times, the when the trash trucks come and recycling trucks, and then um, when the landscapers are are there, because a lot of these people will use the same landscaping crews and the deer love the fresh blown off grass when the leaves are falling, and so they will wait until the landscapers are done hitting that spot and they will pound that yard the next day. So I try and kind of, yeah, it's kind of a food plot to some extent, I guess it is a food plot. Really, it's just man made or you know, unintentionally there as opposed to you know, what you or I would plant um in traditional hunting country. Okay, So that that brings up an interesting question. Then, So you know, certain food plots or crops out in like egg Land, depending on the soil quality, depending on how much fertilizer and things like that, all that can influence how productive and nutritious that food is for deer and how palatable it is to deer. So have you ever noticed, I don't know if you thought about this, but have you ever noticed like certain lawns are more attractive to deer? And I wonder like if people that really fertilize the yards a lot, if that attracts a lot of deer or if anything like that. Have you've been able to target deer based off of some kind of food preference with lawn or landscapes. I've found that deer will flock in the wintertime to those the septic fields around here. So let's go a little more high level. So a lot of the yards around here, a lot of the houses are on septic systems, is based on where we're living. So with that comes like a little I don't know, maybe three hundred or not even hundred and fifty yard or actually take that back. It's like a forty yard by forty yard square patch of grass right on the northern facing septic fields. Those are the first ones that the snow will melt off of in the wintertime. The deer pound that. So I have a property that I went to actually with Ford and some of the guys from first light. It is that exact area. It's this little point of a grassy septic field that's about forty yards long by about twenty five yards wide. And I could go there and see thirty deer right now, I bet, just based on the weather that we're having lately. Um actually went there the other night to hunt, and instead of seeing any deer, the neighbor pulled his law ferrari out of the garage, which was so loud. I think it's scared everything away. And three counties here. Um, But yeah, I mean so specific soil types, not exactly, but land orientation that allows for different sunlight. Yes. And I've actually been looking at this product that this guy showed me at the A T A show two years ago. And you it's a spray application for current vegetation that makes it way more palatable for deer. And what he said was that the deer will flock to this stuff and and you know they'll seek it out over other stuff. Now, we're not allowed to bait deer in Virginia, but this is he has some agricultural license that makes it a food plot as opposed to baiting, so it's not illegal in the state of Virginia. So I'm looking forward to trying that this year and seeing kind of if it works or not. Um. Although I did not get it out in time this year. It needs to be applied um when the plant is is recessing back into their root, their roots structure, so um. And that's obviously the beginning of the fall. This year, I had a my my wife, and I had a child, so that kind of negated my spraying activity on on a couple hundred properties. So looking forward to trying it this year. Um, wow, that is that is the next level stuff they're keying in on septic systems and landscaping and all that. Really uh interesting when it comes to trail cameras. Um, you know, something we hear from a lot of folks, you know in in egg Land and stuff, is an annual pattern. So a buck coming back and doing the same kind of thing year after year. Um. Yeah, I know the patterns are a little funky by where you're at because of all the different influencers. But do you do you have have you ever seen something like that that you know, late October every year we're gonna start seeing mature bucks in the spot, or every year this one buck for three years came back on November eighth and tenth or anything along those lines. Yes. And I actually first started looking at that listening to a podcast that you did, and you guys were talking about how you know, the deer are going to be back on the same day every year, and I forget who your guest was, but I mean he went through like five or six years of trail camera data with different bucks and how they would just be back in that same spot, you know, within a day or two every year, and so I started looking at some of my trail camera data and realized, holy smokes, that's correct. Um. You know, I think these deer are a lot smart er than we give them credit for. And with the different you know, lunar cycle or whatever, you know, they're they're looking for those relatively the same time of year. I have a couple of spots on some properties that are just natural pinch points, and I mean every year, on a couple of these on certain days in November, you're gonna see a shooter um, which is really kind of interesting. Definitely, it's for me. You talked about those podcast when I started chatting with folks like that, I think I think Mark Drury has talked about it a lot. Don Higgins has talked about it a lot. Um that was big eye opened it for me. I certainly started looking back at my pictures and sightings and I saw the same thing. So yeah, and for me, it's what's hard is figuring out what buck is what, because I mean I might have twenty five different bucks come through a property that are all, you know, hundred and fifteen h pointers and I'm like, okay, which which one is the one that's now a hundred forty h pointer which one of these was he? What day was it here? Um? And And what's even harder to do is not burn that spot out with the anticipation of it being a quote unquote like good buck spot, right, because in reality it's not that great of a spot. They're just coming through there when the timing is right within the season, And you know, you really have to have that kind of that resolved to not go into certain spots like that until the timing is right, because otherwise you're just leaving a bunch of cents around and doing nothing other than educating the deer that that you're there. So how much are you worried about that kind of thing pressuring these deer or what kinds of pressure do you feel like you have to worry about, because I, you know, I gotta imagine they're used to some level of human intrusion all around them. Um, So what like, how is your brain thinking through that whole balancing act? Yeah, So what's really kind of interesting is I try to not let the deer know that I'm a predator. And I know that sounds kind of funny, but it So let's take a hypothetical property for example, Right, and let's say they have uh, it's it's an acre, and they have Timmy and Tommy's old tree for it in the backyard, right, and and mom and Dad go out back and you know, smoke a cigar or whatever on the back deck a couple of times a week. Those deer could not care less if you're in the tree for it, if you're walking in the grass, if you're out there doing whatever, right, they could care less the second that you crossed the threshold from what their normal routine that they're used to seeing on that property is into an abnormal routine. Now they're taking notice. So I could literally have street clothes on and walk past a couple of deer that are bedded forty yards into the woods, and they're gonna be looking at me with their full attention. They might not even stand up on their feet, right, They're just I'm just another schmo. The second that I have some camouflage on and I'm walking directly towards them or climbing a tree, now they're taking notice and they're starting to figure out, Okay. You know, first of all, I think the camera really throws them off, because when they're used to seeing you know, humans, they can make up make out our entire outline, and so they know, okay, that's a human. That's fine. So I've actually gone as far as walking to the tree and normal street clothes, throwing on my camo and climbing up and and had really good success in areas like that. If I'm hunting in a park, for example, we we have some parks around here that you can put your name in a lottery and hunt on. I could just smashed your all the time doing that, because they're used to seeing people in there jogging. So I would just go in and like a track suit, looking like dude from Jersey Shore, and under my track suit, I'd have my camo and I would just get to the tree unzipped, click my saddle on, climb up, And I killed a lot of deer doing that. Um, you know, so kind of a long winded answer to your question. I mean, yeah, I'm worried about educating the deer, but the only way they're getting educated is if I'm interacting with them in some ways. So if I'm in the woods, I climb up, I shoot a couple of does the other ones run off. I get down, recover those does. Those other ones don't really know what happened. They might come back in a couple of days, they might even be back there the next day. Um. But if you get in there and like Booker up a hunting situation where maybe you know, you bring your buddy out and your buddy misses a deer, wounds a dear God forbid, you know, that is really what's going to educate those deer. So I'm not super worried about it per se, but it's definitely something I'm taking into account to try and minimize as much human impact as possible while I'm in there. And that's why I'm trying to do everything i can that when I go in, I'm trying to hill um and and so I'm I'm looking at the wind, I'm looking at you know, when and where they're seeing deer, and I'm trying to hunt with everything in the deer's favor, thinking that I can use just a little bit of it to my advantage. So I want the wind to be just off for that deer um or for me really in order to go in and hunt that spot. And in doing so, I've been able to really you know, knock on wood not booker up too many of my hunting spots to where that's an issue. Yeah, So what about, um, the exit? So you talked about sometimes getting in there you could wear your street clothes and they see you coming in, and then I think that's no big deal. But what about like the exits off of an evening sit Now it's after dark. Um, you know, this is one of those situations that I deal with a lot in agricultural land, worrying about blowing deer off of food sources and things like that because all these deer on their feet. Now, do you worry as much as maybe I do about spooking above or deer off of off their feet in the evening or what's that scenario? Like, Yeah, that's a nightmare for me. I mean I there have been some nights where I've been in the tree for a couple of hours after dark because there are a bunch of does feeding around me and I don't want to blow that tree out. Um. So what I'll do is I'll just sit there, unfortunately until until they're gone. Um, or I'll have, you know, maybe one of the other guys that I hunt with come through and blow them out on foot, so that they think it was just some guy coming through the the yard and not me climbing down out of the tree. So I mean, I'm constantly worried about bumping deer or letting them know that I'm in the area. And I think it's something that you have to take into account, and you have to try and be as as intelligent as possible with what you're doing as far as areas of access. That's why I take the time to really clear out lots of trails to the trees that I'm hunting, is because you know, if I can get in and out of there silently, that's way better than like bumbling through, breaking sticks, crunching on leaves on your way in and on your way out. Yeah, for sure, speaking of um, you know, making noise when you're bumbling out or bumbling in and stuff like that. Um. Another one of those things that I gotta imagine a lot of people might struggle with in your kind of scenario is the setup for each individual hunt, especially you know, with what you're doing, setting up a new spot every time you hunt, because you're hunting with a saddle and sometimes sticks. Um, that's gotta be a process that you've got pretty dialed in, UM, and shoot hunting a hundred fifty days, two hundred days a year, you might have the most dialed in or I gotta believe you've gotta have something pretty well dialed in as far as your gear for this kind of mobile hunting to more than maybe anyone else, because there's not a lot of folks hunting that many days a year in a mobile kind of running gun situation. Yeah, I'm super anal about my gear. I mean so, and I think being able to hunt as often as I do and as much as I do it really kind of affords me the opportunity to to tinker with stuff and and try to get it get it right. So, I mean my kit, um, there's nothing that I take with me to the tree that doesn't have a specific purpose that it's needed for. So, and I'm really anal about even like how I pack my pull up rope or where I put it, because you know, the more efficient I can be in getting to the tree and up it, you know, the faster it goes, the choieter it is, and the more kind of mindlessly you can climb a tree. Not that I want to climb a tree mindlessly, but uh, you know, the more kind of automatic it is as opposed to to like, you know, you got crap everywhere. It's hanging off, you know, your pull ropes kind of tied up. You know, you gotta not your bows hanging I feed off the ground. It's just you know, you don't want to to do that. And also, you know, on some of these really tight properties, when I'm leaving, I don't want to use a headlamp because this time of year there are no leaves on the trees and I might have eight, you know, three million dollar houses They're looking down on the floodplane that I'm hunting in, and I don't want to have this giant white torch like coming through the tree and now having all these houses be like, hey, what the hell is that? Oh, there's a guy hunting back there. You know, let's give him a problem. So sometimes I have to climb down in the dark or with a very muted kind of green light. So I want to be as proficient in my system as possible for my own safety. But um so, I mean, do you we're gonna ask me to walk you cut off? Ever, I want to know exactly everything you're bringing, all your essentials exactly. How do you have it packed all the details. I'm really curious about what your kid is, how you have it all set up for this kind of scenario. Okay, So in an incredibly kind of like micro view of my kit, uh, it starts in the basement of my house. So my my basement is kind of my my bow cave, man cave whatever. UM. With all my analness uh anal retentiveness, I also really big into tuning my own gear and making sure it's absolutely perfect. And I think a lot of that comes back to I don't want to track a deer a yard further than I have to, UM, and so I want to deliver the arrow as efficiently as possible. So I have all of my gear kind of organized down here between, you know. So I have like a bin full of socks that have all of the different thickness of socks, and then I have all of my um basse layers, mid layers, you know, jackets, etcetera. So I'll come down and get what I need for my hunt. And I have kind of a airtight tote that that I keep all that in. UM. I used to wear street clothes out when I hunted, and I still do that a lot, but in some of the neighborhoods and I'm going to if I can park off the street, then I will wear my camo in the truck on my way out there. But if I if I'm going to a newer area, or if I'm going to an area that I might not be having like a really good out of sight kind of parking spot, then I'll wear like like a golf shirt and some khakis or um. I've actually been wearing the first light. I think it's a catalyst pant in the brown because they look like khakis, but there they feel like sweatpants. So it's easier for me. So I'll pack my gear up in my house, take it out to my truck, uh throwing the truck, drive to the property, and I'll get dressed at the properties. So I'll have two toads in the back of my truck. One will be all my camo, which is one of these like Eagle Creek dry bags, so it's it's airtight with all my gear in it. And then I have a rubber made tote that has all of my stuff and it's like my saddle, my backpack, my camera arm uh and all that stuff is layered in my tote as to when I need it to put it on. So you know, it starts with the saddle on top, then my backpack, then my bino harness camera arm all that. So the order that it that it's gonna go on my body is how it comes out next. So get to the property park, put my camera on, open my toe, start putting my stuff on. I use the wild edge steps. Are you familiar with those? You know, I haven't used them, but I have heard of him. But can you describe them for folks? Yeah, So it's. Um, it's a little metal step that's maybe like five inches wide and maybe three inches tall. It's got a little point. They packs into a little green bag. Okay, And so I'll throw those on, grab my bow, and I'm I'm walking off to the tree. Um, is this a morning hunter or afternoon hunt? Let's say it's an afternoon hunt. But let me pause you still further and tell me. So you got your camera and you're wearing your saddle, What about your tether? What about your your belt? Yes? All that all that I daisy chain up and it's clipped on on either side of my hip. So my lineman's belt is always on my left lineman's left Keep it simple, right, um, And that what that does is I have my lineman's belt kind of looped through on the left hand side, girth hitched onto the lineman's loops, so there's only one um carabine er that's needed. That's what's on my ropeman. So I'm right handed. It just helps for me to take it around the tree, clip it into the right lineman's belt and tighten it down with my right hand. Both of those are on on my hip. I don't I don't want it in a baggy. I just kind of have them. Daisy chain there, Are you familiar with with how to do a daisy chain? Yeah, but you should probably walk folks through it. Okay. So daisy chain is where you take the rope and you create like a little half hitch by twisting the rope over and then pulling the I guess it would be the mail end through the female in and kind of creating a loop with that and then create pulling it down. So what it does is you're doubling the rope up on itself over and over again under a little bit of tension. Um, and then you can clip it in, and so I'm able to get a you know, seven foot rope down to about the size of a basketball or excuse me, a football, maybe a little smaller with that daisy chain, and then the carabineers on the top, which is what's holding the daisy chain together, and I can clip that onto my saddle. So what I've created is this tiny little little thing of rope that's that's no bigger than half of my thigh, that's compact and hanging off of me on either side of my body. So those are there and the carabineers or what's clipping it onto yourself. So there's no real metal exposure to hit anything. So you got your you get your saddle on, You've got your daisy chained tether in your lineman's belt on your hips um, you got a backpack on, and do you have your steps inside the backpack or they strapped to the outside of it. So my steps are in this little green bag which is part of the part of the wild Edge system, and it's slung over my shoulder kind of over my head on a forty five degree on my body. Those are resting on my right hip and my backpacks on. I have my bino harness on my chest. My bino harness has my binoculars and my range finder in it, and then I have my I use a thumb release for hunting because I don't want to clanking around while I'm climbing up the tree. Um, So I have that in my either cargo pocket or or tucked into a pocket. But I will put it into a pocket and make sure it is zipped shut. The last thing I want to do is climb all the way up a tree and go where's that? Right? So, and I keep keep an extra one in my backpack always because one is none? Right? Who is one? One is none? So? Uh so I'm walking in I have all that stuff kind of on me, and it sounds like a lot, but it's really kind of a very compact system, very seamless. I have my bow in my left hand. I have my Predator platform on my green bag, so that that's the little platform from my feet for the saddle. On a lot of my older preset trees, I used to have screw in steps, but that was before the platform came out and really saved every saddle hunter's life. Um that thing is a game changer for everyone. It's really pretty sweet. So I have that kind of clipped onto my green baggie using one of the giant gear ties that come from guessing gun from Home Depot or Amazon. But it's about uh fifteen inches long and minds Blaze orange, so I can see it easier, and I kind of wrap it around the the standoff, through the through the platform base so it doesn't move around at all. One of those like bendy like night eyes things that we're talking about exactly. Yeah, one of the giant ones. I think it's made for like hanging stuff up in your garage. Um. And so it's about you know, I think it's sixteen or eighteen inches long. They come in different lengths and thicknesses. So, um, that's what's kind of clipped on. And a lot of my gear. You know, every time I use some gear, I'm always thinking, Okay, how can I improve that? How can that get better? What what can I do to make that faster or more efficient or and and sometimes that might be buying a different item, or sometimes that's kind of making adjustments to that particular item. Um. So all my stuff is kind of moded to some degree for the most part if it needs it. Some of the newer saddle stuff, though, doesn't need any modifications, which is really pretty sweet. So so I walked to the tree. In the wild edge bag, I only have, you know, five or six wild edge steps. What's in there also is an aider, a little five step climbing aid. So what I'll do is I'll hang one at head height and one at belly height or so, which is about four ft four and a half feet. I'll clip the aider onto the wild edge step that's above my head, and then I will pull my bow rope out of my left pocket of my backpack. So the backpack has the waistband on it. On that waistband there multiple pockets, so I have it. I have my poll rope on there. The way that I carry my poll rope, it's pretty simple. I have one end that has a little tiny locking I guess um clip for a lack of a better term than I picked up at a hardware store. I think it's for a flag. But you press on a little button and instead of it being like a keychain clip, it opens up like an alligator mouth with two two hooks on the other side. So I have that in and I tie it in a figure eight not around my thumb and my pinky when I'm done with it. And what that does is I can clip the metal part to wherever I want it, and I can pull just enough out of this figure eight para cord to tie onto my bow, and as I'm climbing, it'll just pull itself out, so you don't have just twenty five ft of rope just dangling around waiting for you know, whatever rare influence to to screen up. It's just pulling out. And then by the time you get up to your hunting height, it's just ready to go. You just pull it right back up. So, um, first two wild age steps on the tree, clip that onto the bow. Then I start walking up the eight ers so I can I will put my alignement's belt on obviously. Can you can you describe what you mean by native Yeah, So, an eider is a nylon it's a system of nylon runners with a carabean or on top. And so that carabineers clipped onto the wild edge step and these aids are these giant um, well, they're they're large nylon footholes basically, so it's like a like a ladder made out of nylon that you can walk up. It's what rock climbers use. And this one in particular is rated to like killing Newton's or something insanely more than I way. So, um, what that allows me to do is get a lot of space between my wild edge steps instead of having to have one every two ft. You know, two of them get me about eight ft, so I can you six and be at no problem. And it's incredibly fast and secure to climb up these things. So even if you know you're climbing a sideways tree, I can lean back into my alignment's belt and have the tension on my feet and it's just like walking up, walking up a ladder. Um, So you just kind of step up, climb up the eight er to where you get to your the first step that you hung. Now you're a carabineer with the eights. You know, maybe at that chess level you hang another one at eight feet, which is as high as I can reach with my hand, and I clip the eight on that and repeat the process. Um. It's a really slick way to ascend quickly and quietly, very very easily, in the way that the wild edge bag kind of sits on your hip. All those little steps are right there. There's no need to be clanking around anything. They're held totally securely there. Uh. And they connect by by using a rope. So you you you put the rope around the tree and then you tie. It's not even a knot. It's just a loop that goes under, then back down and over, so it pulls tension on itself to where it keeps you totally secure on the step. Um. Sorry, do you keep an eight on each step? So you bring so so when you step up to the eight or so, so you have two steps. If you're a ground level, you have one step at you know, let's call it belly button height or bottom of your bino harness height. You have another step at as about as high as your hand can reach, which for me is a little over eight ft. So my aider goes on my top one at eight ft. Then I walk up it and my feet go onto now the step that was at bino harness heights, so about four and a half feet off the ground from me. I then hang another step at at the new eight foot level, so you know, twelve and a half feet in this scenario, which is the eight feet on top of the four and a half feet that I'm currently off the ground, and then take my eider off of what was originally the eight foot one when I was on the ground and move it up and then I walk up that AID or to the next middle level. So so the way the AID works is the AID is always going to be on your highest step. So so since you're not going all the way up to that top step, you're able to just move it from what was the highest step to the new highest step that you've hung. Does that make sense. Yes, here's bending out on clipping it and then standing back up and clipping on the next one, right, And so really when you're climbing though it, you'll never have to bend down because it's starting at eight ft above your head. You're walking up to to whatever is at four and a half feet and then so once you're there, that eight is only the eights rate at belly button level or maybe a little higher, so you can just clip it off, you know, pull the cariban or off, click it to the next one. So what what this eliminates is it eliminates having you know, four lone wolf sticks dangling behind you. Um, you know, clanking around on everything. Then you got the metal buckles and all that. It's really pretty a slick system. And you just kind of pull the rope around the tree tie this little um it's not even a knot, you know, you come under the step and then you come around it and down and so it sentches on itself to where it can't move at all, and um, it really works well. It takes a little while to kind of get used to how to flip the the while that's stepped down to where it's super tight. But I mean, I'm two forty pounds and I could do jumping jacks on these things without fear. They're they're really pretty impressive. It's that flipping down to that's what really gets the tension right. It kind of calms down correct, because what you're doing is you have these two little standoffs is what they're called. It's what what pushes the actual crossbar off of the tree that's flushed to the tree when you're tying the the the not, if you'll call it that. And so when you cam it down, you're you're now creating another four inches of tension or however far it's standing off the tree. Maybe it's like three and a half inches and really pushing it out to where um it, it's not going anywhere. I mean that sucker bites into the tree a pretty good bit. Interesting. Okay, So so walk us through the rest of the year. Yeah, yeah, So halfway up, we'll get all the way up to hunting height. Now we're about you know, three and a half to five minutes in. I'll hang my platform on the side of the tree that I'm gonna be hunting from. Uh, step up onto that platform, and then I'll take my tether, tie my tether off, and clip in. Okay. Now, once I'm clipped in, I have a ropeman as center on my tether. I have also have a prussic knot above my ropeman And what I use that for is I take my backpack off and I clip my backpack onto that prusse ictnot. Then I opened up my backpack. In the top of my backpack, I have what a climber would call a daisy chain, which is just like a you know, five ft six ft long piece of nylon that's doubled back on itself in every inch and a half or two inches. It's a son loop and on the end of that. I have a carabineer and so I put that around the tree and clip it on whatever loop I need to to make it tight. And I have one of these night eyes. It's an S hook. It's a plastic S hook. I think it's a size five or size six, and I've taken the wire gate out of the bottom one. So I don't know if you're familiar with what I'm talking about, but it's kind of like a large plastic holder that people use in their garage. So I clip that on whatever whatever clip I need it for to be right on the left hand side of the tree, and then I'll pull my bow up and put my bow on the open hook portion of the bottom part. The reason I do this is it's way faster to throw this this little nylon runner around the tree and and use it for a bow holder in my backpack holder. And then it is to sit there and screw in a little thingy on two sides of the tree. Uh. So, now that that's up, I'll take my backpack off. I'll clip my backpack onto the lower, you know, the right hand side portion of that that's about at waist height. So now my bows up. My bows on the tree. I haven't taken my cam cover or knocked arrow or anything. The bows just come up the tree. It's hanging there. I got my backpack on the tree. Now I pulled my camera arm off, set my camera arm up, take the bow around. I'll knock an arrow, you know, take the uh quiver and take my little bow cam cover and hang that on the back side of my backpack to where they're not flopping around on the wind. And then pull my camera out, set my camera up, and uh, take my lineman's belt off. Now I'm hunting and um. That whole process, going slow and smooth, takes me about ten to twelve minutes from ground. Two arrow knocked, releases, clipped on the d loop, ready to go. Um, I could do it as like, if I wasn't worried about the noise that I'm making, I could probably do it in five minutes. But I try to go pretty slow and uh and be as quiet as as humanly possible. But it's amazing how fast you can fly up the tree once you're comfortable with one of the saddles and comfortable with whatever climbing method you choose. Yeah, and would you agree that, especially if you're just getting started with this. A key thing to do is practice before the season and develop that system and get comfortable with it. Yes, and and you know, the cool thing about saddles is also what is is kind of hard for some people to kind of figure out. So first off, you know, a saddle is is totally customizable. You know, Mark, you you started hunting with a saddle this year, and I bet your saddle is probably completely differently set up than my saddle. If we got fifty saddle hunters in a room, we probably all have it set up a little bit different. And that's because you know, the saddle is totally modular and it allows you to kind of cater to your wants and needs. Whereas if you look at the old lone Wolf system that I used to use, like that's all you get. You have sticks, you have a stand, like, you don't have many options to kind of play around with within that medium. Really, so um, you need to play around with the saddle at at ground height. You need to shoot from one, you know, figure out what's comfortable, figure out what's not, and figure out what kind of climbing method you're gonna use to go from on the ground to whatever your desired hunting height is and and hunting. And you also need to practice different shot opportunities from the saddle. Um. You know, it's great to be able to hunt with the tree directly in front of your face, but you need to practice for a right handed shooter, how you're gonna shoot to your to your right hand side. And that has gotten many guys in trouble for their first couple of saddle huts. I can't tell you how many guys are like, oh, dude, I try to saddle and I had to shoot her it, you know, twenty yards right off my right hip, and I couldn't figure out how to get them. Um. You know, with the platform, that's really helped out a lot because you can just literally you can just stand up and spin around and shoot if you wanted to. UM, And you can kind of develop what's comfortable and what's not. But but really what you want to develop is that confidence in your equipment. Because when you're just hanging there with your butt hiked out over the ground with nothing between your button the ground, UM, it's a little scary at first to kind of get that confidence in your system. I'm at the point now where like I sleep in my saddle. If I get up early and I'm like in there an hour before daylight, I'll just you know, put my head kind of down on my hands and get it all wrapped up into my bridge and I'll take a full on nap. I mean it's I'm super comfortable on one, but I've also spent the last ten years hunting out of one, uh and and hunting a lot out of one. Yeah, yeah, I can. I can attest to that. It does take a take a minute to get used to it, but very quickly I came to realize that, uh, that this is going to be my new thing that I'd be using all the time. I mean, it really is nice. Everything you mentioned is true. But do you have any specific examples of of things you've learned over the years as far as how to make a saddle more comfortable or more usable, or anything that people should be trying them out in the tree when they first first get one. Yeah, I mean I really the first thing is what am I going to do with my feet? Right? Because, um, whether you're going to use a ring of steps or or use the platform. I mean, I find the platform to be way better for my feet because of the fact that instead of just having one point of contact on your foot, you're able to have your whole foot kind of balanced out um, which I think is a big deal. After that, you know, you really have to get comfortable with your tether height and also where you're connecting to that tether. So tether height is where are on the tree are you throwing that rope around the tree in relation to your head. I used to throw literally could not get the rope high enough up the tree for me to be where I wanted it to be. I mean, I I just wanted it as high as possible. And with that, you know, you're kind of it pulls you more into the tree. So if you're a sitter, you know, if you find it more comfortable to be sitting into the saddle with your knee and the tree, that might be more comfortable. If you like leaning more, the lower on the tree it is, it's probably the better. And what you're really doing is you're you're changing around that triangle. If you're looking at a saddle hunter from the side profile, there's kind of a triangle there as to how the weights being distributed between the rope around the tree. Your butt and then kind of your knees connecting or your feet connecting wherever that lower point of contact is. I find it most comfortable for me personally. I used to be a sitter. I used to always sit with my knees in the tree. Now with the platform, I lean back, so I tie the rope around the tree almost at forehead height, maybe at like eyebrow height, and then I'm clipping into the saddle and tightening it up to where I'm almost standing like totally vertically. And what what I end up at is my knees or maybe slightly bent, and I'm leaning back almost as if you know, I'm I'm almost standing there. Uh you know, maybe the way it's probably se in my butt on my feet, and I'm more comfortable in that position then I am in the leather recliner in my in my bow cave. I mean, it is super comfortable. But what what guys need to do is you have to put the time in in the saddle in your yard until you get to that one hour point, because what will happen is you'll sit in it. You're like, oh man, this is the bee's knees, this is the ticket. I'm super comfortable, and then you'll go hunt in it and by hour or two you're like, oh my god, I'm f and miserable. This is brutal, Like it's pinching here and here, and you just need to kind of fine tune it and literally changing where that where that connection point is between the bridge of the saddle and the and the tether rope by a quarter of an inch or by a half inch, that can make all the difference in the world as far as the comfort of a hunt in the same with where that tether is tied around the tree. I mean, to go from let's say three inches or a fist above head height too nose level is a world of difference in comfort. And that's because you know, you're changing the way that you're pulling on your body with the gravity of of how the tree is, and that changes a little when the tree is you know, angled to some direction as well. So you really just need to get in it and put the time in it, uh to figure it out. I mean, did you find that in your saddle hunting kind of endeavor this season? How how changing an inch could really make the difference in a in a comfort level, huge, huge difference that was. It was all those little tiny micro tweaks that would change things up. Now, I still I still found myself. I definitely had a handful of things, Like I knew where I wanted my tether at. I knew I liked it pretty tight. I was more of a standard um. But I would sometimes, especially like all days sits during the rut, those long sits, I would find myself sometimes just changing things up so that the tension was in different places. So after sitting in one kind of certain way for four hours, then I would lower the tether, I bring my ropeman down the tether um and then I'd be more of a sitter for a while. UM. Sometimes I would kind of turn and put both my legs to the left side of the trunk and kind of do that side saddle move, and then I would reposition. And having the platform is really nice because sometimes you could just stand for a while, and I think, you know, playing around with different things, switching things up every once in a while does help make it more comfortable, because I do think that if you stayed in one specific position the entire time, you know, at least for me, there were times that you, like you said, you get those pinches, different things on those lines, but the the versatility allowed with the saddle makes it makes it as comfortable as it can be. Like, if you're willing to tweak things and ad just as needed as you figure it out, that's how you're gonna make it comfortable. If you just take it out of the box when you bought it, or take it out of the bag and slap it on and head up into a tree and just sit there, you might be miserable because you didn't tweak and adjust and find out what's right for your comfort level. So I think your spot on, I think those um that learning experience is really important. Yeah. I couldn't agree more. You really need to take the time to to play with it. I've had a lot of guys they're like, how do you come from the sing? This thing is miserable and it felt like a some archaic torture device. While I was I was hunting in it and like, well, dude, you need to need to figure out. I mean, I was talking to one guy at a t A and he was explaining where he was wearing the saddle and it was basically around his armpits, and I was like, yeah, you just I don't know how you guys draw in this thing. I mean it's miserable, you know, Like, well, dude, you know, of course you're wearing it like a bra instead of like like under your butt. Man, what do you expect? Man? Yeah, But but as long as you tinker around with it and try to figure out the um, what's comfortable for you and and again what's comfortable for me might not be comfortable for you and and everybody else because we all have different kind of builds and in different ways that we feel comfortable. So really kind of messing around with different different stuff is what really gets you there. I find that I end up kind of with like one foot on the platform, one on the tree, and kind of like changing that around. Um, just changing that that pressure point and really help with comfort, especially on long day sits. But you're right, the versatility is is the reason that I hunt from one. I mean I can hunt any tree in the woods, not just you know, you get to a spot and you're like, Okay, here's where I want to hunt. But I can't use that one, can't use that one. I can't use that one. I mean I've been in some trees that are smaller around than my thigh and and had no issue with it other than when the wind's blowing, I'm like, this thing might snap in half. But what I mean, um, you have to hunt where you where you need to in order to kill the deer. Yeah, I really, Um, I was converted. I've been intrigued by it for a long time, finally took the diet this year, and the saddle hunting community now has my heart. I've fallen for it, and uh it's It's something I'll be using for a long time, I think. So it's interesting to hear how you're using it though, in this kind of urban scenario where you have to hunt so many different places, and this seems to be the perfect tool for the job. So um, well we are. We're only like halfway through the various things I was wanting to talk about, but we've covered a lot of interesting grounds, so I think we probably should wrap it up before we get to uh a seven hour podcast. Um um, if you want, if you have any other like pressing things on your list or whatever, I'm happy to like rapid fire some of them. Well we might we might just need to circle back again another time too, But let's let's do this. Is there any one thing that that is like a burning topic in your mind that you always like to leave folks with when you're talking about this whole urban hunting deal or saddle hunting for that matter, Since we kind of touched on both, is there anything we've missed that people really need to know about before they take the dive into either one of these types of going going about it? No, man, I mean, um, and we really covered a lot of it. The you know, I don't want to scare guys off from from urban hunting. I mean, there's there's an incredible opportunity out there no matter where you live to try and you know, more likely than not, there's a deer problem in those urban or suburban areas, and um, you know, it only takes a little bit of research or just reaching out to your local you know, legislation enforcement, you know, whether that's game wardens or police officers or whatever, and kind of looking at, um if you're able to discharge a bow there and hunt the deer, and if you can, you know, get out there and try it, because it's a great fun way to hunt. I mean, I'm able to go out and hunt any day of the year. When I found out that my wife was pregnant last year, I kind of had a little worries. I'm freak out where I'm like, oh my god, I'm never gonna be able to hunt over again. And I literally hunted every day that the weather wasn't completely miss your bowl. I think I hunted like two d thirty five, two hundred forty days last year. And I mean I'm doing that within a fifteen minute driving my house or ten minute drive. I mean some some places I'm driving to, I mean it's literally five minutes. I could walk there if I really needed to. And you know, you have this incredible opportunity where you know, it's funny that when I moved back to this area from college, I'm like, man, this sucks. You know, I'm not gonna be able to do all this outdoor stuff that I used to love so much. And I ended up in this like amazing little deer hunting nirvana that I didn't even know about or think about at the time. So if you can keep an open mind, you you might realize that some of the best hunting is where you least expect it. And you know, is this Iowa is in Kansas. No, it's far from it. But you know, once you kind of get into the urban hunting and realize the opportunity that's there. I mean, I'm a member of a hunt club that's like US Acres, about forty minutes from my house, and it's you know, qt May Managed. It's phenomenal hunting ground. It's just awesome. And I hunted there one time this year because I like the urban hunts. You know, it feels weird to me when I'm not in somebody's backyard or in the floodplane behind the houses. You know, it's just you get to see so many deer and see so much activity, and you have just an unbelievable amount of of targets. Um, it's hard to pass that up. Yeah, I can understand that for sure. So two last really quick things. Number one, can you tell folks really quick about Hunters for the Hungry because I know that's a program that you contribute to a lot. And then after that, can you just give us a quick idea of where we can follow you online or see what you're up to. Yeah? Sure, So Hunters for the Hungry is this phenomenal program. Uh, it's actually a private organization that's partnered up with UM all of the butchers in Virginia. Right, it's kind of a blanket, blanketly open UH program that that the butchers are able to participate in. And what they do is they pay the butcher to process the deer, so they have a deal with the butcher. So as a hunter, you're able to just take your animal fuel dressed to any butcher that's participating in the program, drop it off, not a penny out of your pocket. You just say, hey, thanks, have a good one, and they will process that deer and and take all of the meat from that deer along with all the other deer that have been donated to hunters from the Hungary and they will provide it to various homeless shelters and UH food banks for people in need or people that are less fortunate. So UM absolutely phenomenal program to be able to take, you know, all these deer that people are harvesting and and use them for good because I'm mean, what am I gonna do with seventy plus white tail here? Yeah, And I think especially in a situation like you're in in a large metro area where you know there's a lot of people in need. I think you're you're doing something pretty special in that area. Absolutely, yeah, and and I mean, um, it's not just me, it's every hunter around here to to be able to to help all of those people in need. I mean, we have a large homeless population in d C obviously and also throughout in northern Virginia. And you don't just have to be homeless to need food. You know, there are a lot of people that are just, uh, for whatever reason, in need of of some assistance. And to be able to help that is, um is priceless. So that's awesome. So then, uh, all that said, where can we see what you're up to on the web? Yeah, so on Instagram on both hunt at Hunt Urban and also at Urban Bowman are are my two little feeds on there. And then on YouTube we have a channel called um Hunts Urban that putting a lot of vog style urban hunts out on that are pretty cool, as well as some tips and tricks and things you pick up on when you hunt and fifty plus days a year. And I checked out your YouTube channel saw your most recent videos. I really like them. So anyone out there who's intrigued by what Taylor is talking about check that out for sure. So Taylor, thank you so much for taking the time to do this. Uh. If I lived closer to an urban area, I would be trying it out for sure. This sounds a lot of fun. Hey man, come on down. I got plenty of open bedrooms and plenty of plenty of critters to Flynn carbon at, so I might take you up on that. The the d C Hunt is very intriguing. It's it's a unique one, to say the least awesome. Alright, Taylor, good luck the rest of this year. Thank you, thanks for having and that is going to be it. I hope you enjoyed that one. I'm gonna leave you guys with one quick heads up or announcement. Uh, if you're listening to this when it just came out Thursday, Valentine's Day, February four, next week Friday, So that's February twenty second, I believe is the Live Meat Eater podcast in Kalamazoo, Michigan. I'm gonna be at that one speaking there, and there's going to be an event before the podcast put on by a couple of my favorite organizations, the back Country Hunters and Anglers and the Equality Deer Management Association. This is like a live pre party or meat Eator podcast or live pre party, uh for folks that are gonna go to the show, or folks who couldn't get tickets to the show which want to come and hang out. There's gonna be food, there's gonna be raffle prizes, there's gonna be all sorts of cool stuff. They're giving away a rifle, they're giving away some optics, They're giving away gift cards, some weird hunt swag, all sorts of stuff like that. So this is at let's see here five to seven thirty pm on the twenty two at Harvey's on the Mall. And that's supposedly right next to the venue where the show is going to be, so check that out February twenty two before the Mediator Live podcast. Should be a good time. And with that little announcement out of the way, I just want to thank you all for being here with me. I want to wish all of your luck. If you're out there looking for antlers or hanging tree stands, or doing some kind of work on your hunting property of choice, I hope you're having a good time. And until next time, stay Wired, Don