00:00:02 Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wire to Hunt podcast, your home for deer hunting news, stories and strategies, and now your host, Mark Kenyon. Welcome to the Wired to Hunt Podcast. I'm your host, Mark Kenyan. This episode number two and in seventy one, and today I'm joined by Todd Havill, a serious white tail hunter from the Upper Midwest, specializing in tracking down bucks on the ground. All right, welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, brought to you by Onyx and Todan. The show. I've got Todd Havil with me, and as I just mentioned, Todd is a tracker. Now, I've talked to a couple of folks over the years that track down deer in the snow on foot, but they've always been people up in the Northeast states like Maine or New York or New Hampshire, were tracking deer is a really popular practice. But what's unique about Todd is that he's adapted this style of hunting to the Midwest, and in particular he's up in the Upper Great Lakes region of northern Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan, and that makes him pretty unique in the white tailed tracking world. So in our conversation today, we discuss how we got into the style of hunting, how he specifically identifies mature buck tracks, which I think can be helpful for any of us, regardless of if you're gonna be tracking or not. Um, we discuss the approach he takes to following and hunting these deer. And then finally, and maybe most interestingly, we cover the specific things that he's learned about mature bucks by way of tracking hundreds of them down on foot and and noticed how they moved through the woods, and how they how they bed, how they maneuver, all these different things. I mean, it's it's pretty fascinating the inside he's gained over years of doing this. So, without further ado, we do not have a pregame show in the books today, So let's take a quick break and then we'll get Todd Havill on the line. All right with me? Now on the show is Todd Hovel and Todd welcome to the show. I appreciate you, appreciate you coming on. I was just saying before we start recording, buddy of mine, Ross Uh. Listeners of the podcast might recognize him as Ross hass Um. He is an even more thorough lurker on the Hunting Beast Forum than I am, and so he keeps tracking things more more frequent than I do. In a while back, he said, yeah, I talked to Todd. Yeah, I talked to this guy. He's he's tracking bucks on the foot. He's doing some really cool stuff. And he's not doing it, you know, in the Northeast, where most of these trackers are doing it. He's doing it in the Upper Midwest. And that intrigued me because I've been kinda tinking around the idea of trying something like that up in northern Michigan because I got a property up there. And um So that's a long way of saying that I'm I'm glad this is finally happening Todd, and I'm personally I'm selfishly interested in trying to pick your brain and those are always the most fun podcast for me. So I'm looking forward to this. Um So, DoD, how did this whole thing come to be you tracking bucks? How hard did that happen for you? Uh, that's a good question. It's kind of interesting answers as well. Um, I was a farm farm country hunter central Wisconsin and I was looking for a different challenge and uh, mid nineties, I headed north to northern Wisconsin take on the big Woods, and UM, I took on my style of hunting up there, which is fine, a spot sit there forever, you know, just don't give it up dark to dark, put you know, grinding hours out um and in the big woods it can get pretty lonely. Um. Over the years, I probably averaged seeing one deer a day and UH, so it could get really you could get boring. When the weather is really in clement, you freeze the down. UM. I reached a point of just it just wasn't in fun anymore. I just wasn't enjoying it. And I needed something as a spark to do something different, uh, something that to spice things up a little bit. And uh I had played a round with the idea of tracking, and I had done some still hunting, but the tracking I really didn't have a lot of success. But then I ran into uh information from the Benoits from out east, and I started piqued my interests. So I started studying it and started buying their DVDs and their books and and finding out more and more about tracking. And UM, I wasn't sure if we could even be done in our area because maybe the train was different, situations are different, whatever, But I was born determined to try something different, and uh that's what got me going. And I just studied a lot and just start to jump the tracks and and lower behold, I became a tracker. How were those early years when you're first doing it? Did you struggle or did you figure it out pretty quickly? Ah? Well I had success quickly. Uh, but even as being quick, I'm I always want. I expect things to happen, you know, I expect to make things happen. So it didn't happen immediately. I thought I was gonna be able to go out and just jump the very first track, track them down, shoot him, and this is gonna be easy, you know. And it turned out to be that way at all. And uh, after about for frustrating hunts, I kind of drugged myself back to the camper, uh, licking my wounds, and I decided, well, Tiger Woods didn't become the golfer he was the first time you went golfing, So I can't expect to be a tracker the first time I go tracking. And and so I decided to try something different. And what I told myself was, I just want to learn something new each time out. Each time out, I want to track and then evaluate, figure out what I could have done different or could have done better, learned from that experience, and apply it toward my next track. And I thought, Okay, that's how I'm gonna do this, and eventually I'm going to be successful. Well well and behold. The next day I shot one, so that kind of went out the window, but I was happy to have be to taste success right away. UM, and it was an interesting I'll tell the story about a brief story about that two because it's it's an interesting tracking story, but it's it's really a little different than the normal track you would have. UM. I grabbed the track and uh. I followed him for quite a ways and he hooked up with a doll with two fawns, and I sorted that all out, and I was pretty proud of myself that I stayed with the track and uh, and they they took off out of that area. Of course, you've chasing her at that point, and the fawns were staying with her, which was making all kinds of tracks. And I followed him into an area where they just started circling. She just started running in circles and circles and circles, and I had no idea what to do with this. I was walking around and around and and it was like there was, you know, fifty deer in that area, but in essence there was only four deer. But they were just running around and around and around. So I made a big loop around the area trying to figure out where they came out of there, and they never did. I just couldn't find a track where they left. So since it was such a big loop that I made, I'm thinking they must be in here yet. And I thought, you know, I'm just gonna stand here for an hour. I'm gonna get my check, my watch, and I'm gonna stand here for an hour. And it was kind of on the edge of a swamp, so it was kind of a funneled edge there, and I'm thinking, if they come back around that this swamp might push them right along this edge and I might get a chance at him. And I'm gonna wait one hour before I try to figure this out anymore. So I moved over about fifty yards or so. It's where I had a really good vision and stopped and stood there for maybe the count of five, and here they came, all four of them rotting. There was a dose two fads and his buckets chased up and he was to say. I put the gun up and I took two shots at him, and I did pretty good. I hit him in the front shoulder two times, about three inches apart on the run. So I just really good shooting and uh folded him up. He wasn't a monster. A matter of fact. I was a little disappointed because he was about a three year old and he had a smaller rack on him, and it was not a buck I normally would have shot. I would have let that dear goal. But it's sank and I killed a buck. Tracking This is awesome, you know. It wasn't the typical track where you follow a deer, come up behind him and shoot him. But still the fact that I tracked this deer led me to this spot, led me to make the decision, well, he's chasing her around in circles here, I'm going to stand here and give it an hour, you know. And it ended up tracking brought me a deer and it was like, this is fantastic. So that was my very first one and I've never looked backs hits. Wow, so you said just before that hunt, the day before whenever, it was that you wanted to try to just learn something a little bit more each time you go out. So then the next time you go out you end up killing one. But did you ever get a chance after that to sit back and think, like, Okay, what did I learn from that hunt? Even though it was a successful one, and you thought that you were gonna have to hunt and hunt and hunt and keep on learning every single time for for dozens and dozens more hunts. Now it happens so quick. Was there still any aha or lesson learned from this unique hunt? Um? From that hunt and every other hunt since I'm I'm learning, I think, I'm all, I don't know ten twelve years of this now, Um, I'm learning something every time out. The art of tracking um is an art. It's a skill, and you never you never master it. There's always more you can learn. UM. I am just so jealous of a proud of these trackers in Africa on sand, on dirt with multiple species, and they can sort out all these tracks from all these animals and stay with one particular animal on dirt. Those those people are superhuman, and there's no way I don't think in one lifetime I could ever get that good at at staying with the track. I'm I struggle with snow. Uh you know it's it's it's amazing. So it's it's something you never you never master, You just start. You get a little bit better at it as time goes on. So I think it is. It's it's a never ending process of getting better and better and better. Do you do anything in particular to try to, uh, you know, in some way record what you learned or in any way like I asked this because I like to say that I try to learn something remember singing one of my hunts too. But then I oftentimes find myself off having hunted fifteen days straight during the rut or something, and then realize I've never haven't taken any time to sit back and think about all these things. So sometimes I'll be laying in bed late at night and then I have to force myself to think through all these days and what I learned from that, or what what what what went wrong there? Or when I start kind of looking at my maps or maybe tracking, like I wish I did a better job with a journal or something like that where I recorded everything that happened. I'm not good at that. Do you have any trick or any processum or system to try to help you record these lessons learned or actually kind of make them hammer home in anyway? Yeah, A couple of things. Um. The first thing, turn your GPS on a track where you go when you get done tracking for the day, sit down, and if you can transfer that onto a bigger screen like a computer monitor or something, take a look at that and look at aerial photal and an overlay of topographical map and see that deer did and what happens is is over one time, ten times, a hundred times, a thousand times of watching how these mature bucks run the land, you start to think like they they all do the same things, they have tendencies. Um, you start to see the woods like they do after you follow them. And why it's so important to to track it is when you're following them, you're not really paying a lot of attention to a lot of things. Besides, you're focused on the track and watching for the deer, so you're really not catching where they're going and how they're using the land quite so much. But later on, when you start looking at the maps, things start popping out at you. And UM, yeah, I've got to say that if a young man came to me and said, hey, Todd, teach me how to track or teach me how to hunt deer, I would say, do you take a journal they go in the woods and follow mature bucks. And then after you've done that, come back to me. And at that point you won't need to be taught anymore. You can teach me. So it's um that that's that's the first thing is map those deer. Uh um. And I hope I don't lose my thought on this, but there's something I want to talk about as far as map. And he's deer too, But I want to go to my second point. Um, watch what they do, not only where they go, but watch what they do, how they react, what they eat? Um? How you know do they run through valley? Do they run the hillside? Do they run the top of the hill. Um? When they come to a road where they like to cross, and when they come to a creek where they like to cross. Um, start documenting behavior. What do they eat? Where do they bed down? You know when they when they bed where do they bet? Um? How do they walk the land, how do they walk the train? All the little things that they can teach you about their behavior. Um. Again, after you follow a lot of them, you really get inside of a buck's head. You get inside you know exactly what he's gonna do. When you walk through the woods. Do you say, well, I'm sure I'm surprised that deer hasn't been eaten off of this, or you know, if he came across here, he'd eat that for sure, Or if he comes through this area, I'm sure he'll cross right here more than likely. And what this does is it allows you to make really wise choices when there isn't snowtting ground, so you're able to kind of apply that shoot. Probably someone who doesn't always track, even someone who hunts from a tree stand could probably take a lot of that same data and a eye that to their own way of hunting too. I mean, you can almost look at this as just like a scouting method like go out somewhere, track a few bucks, learn from it, and then even if you don't like that style of hunting, you could probably still apply those lessons back to stands as well. Oh you the biggest The biggest UH gain from this tracking is not shooting a big buck. It's what you learn about behavior. That's that's the biggest gain you get from tracking. Yeah, because you're not going to be tracking on UH in many cases early bull season, um, seasons when you don't get snow, maybe even seasons when you get really crunchy snow, and it just doesn't pay to even try to, you know, go after him. Um. But you know what these gear are gonna do, you know how they think? Um? And I want to now I want to jump back in time a little bit too, to this mapping. Yeah, because there's something even more important to be discovered and now is when you when you map that box and he goes through that area, if that buck comes back through, he's gonna take that same trail. And if he comes through again, he's going to take that same trail. And if he comes through next year, he's going to take that same trail. If he lives to be another two or three years older, he's going to take that same trail. Now, you go into the northern regions and it's all continuous woods and there's hundreds of thousands of acres. Where do you put a deer stand. Now, when I get to learn specific bucks by following and mapping their trails, when I throw a stand up, my odds still are really bad, But now they went way up compared to everybody else because now I'm sitting on a trail that I absolutely um certain that a trophy buck is using. And that's huge. That's huge, And you can get interrupt. I was gonna say that something that you personally still do. You do still sometimes throw up a tree stand in certain situations and hunt a spot like that. I don't because I don't. I don't do a lot of archery hunting um and stand hunting. Yes, I'll go back and sit you know with the rifle. Uh, jump on spots that I that I know that that bucks are using, or a particular buck is using. Um. Not only that, A lot of times I go back and look for his track there if he got good snow it uh, because I know if he's if he's still alive and he's coming through this area, he's going to come along the edge of this swamp here and um, I just know that's part of his route. So I can go and check that every day until I catch them coming through again, and and so it helps me there as well. And if it's bare ground, I can go sit um on that spot as well with just you know, stand or sit on the ground and just watch that edge and see if he's If he comes through, then I you know, can get a shot at him. I know that if if I had time with my business, I don't get up north until November. Um so I don't do a lot of archery hunting anymore. But if I was up there for archery season, I'd be sitting all these trails that these bucks are using. And especially late November, late October, early November, when these bucks start cruising nett ruts just starts getting going. They started going out and opening them the scrapes and and running those edges. Boy, to have a bowl in your hand, it's sitting on those edges. It's phenomenal. I mean, your your odds will go way out. And unfortunately I don't. I don't get tied. I know spots that I could have killed big deer, and I just can't get up there to hunt them with the bowl, you know. And then and then after two or three years they disappeared. Well I'm sure they're you know they're dead by that. So, so as you're describing all these things, Um, one of the things I was originally kind of curious to hear from you was was almost like your sales pitch for tracking bucks. But I feel like you've already kind of given us that sales pitch just by having these things that you're learning from it, because it's so obvious that these are some huge benefits tracking deer, just the lessons you can learn from it. The it's almost like a master's degree and dear behavior by simply following a deer, which I guess you know, if you wanted to learn how to paint, like Picasso or something, I imagine if you follow Picasso around a hundred times or a hundred different days, you learn a lot um Probably just like falling around the mature buck a hundred times, you would learn a lot to UM. So that sure seems like a great sales pitch for why you should try this, But is there is there anything else? If somebody's listening, they're like, Wow, you know it sounds cool, but I don't know if it's for me. Um, what else would you would you bring up? Were there any other reasons? Why? Why you personally love it so much, or why you think other people might want to consider it. Yeah, think of me every time you're sitting to your dear stand freezing, and your knees are knocking, and you're brutally cold, and and you're miserable because you've been sitting there for eight hours and the wind is blowing hard, and and and and you're just you just had had it. I mean, you're so cold, you can't even think straight anymore, and you're so bored because you haven't seen a deer all day. Think of me running around through the woods, having a great time, all the adventures. I mean, I carry a camera with me. I stopped. I take pictures of things that other hunters never see. Animals, pictures of love. I've got a picture of a huge pine tree that got struck by lightning and it just chattered it. You know, um, lakes, rivers, beaver ponds that that normal people don't see. Um. You know, it's kind of funny. The buddy of mine took me up beaver trapping. I went with him one day and he dropped his snowmobile off the truck and away we went in the woods, and and I said, where are we going? And and he says, oh, we're heading Norris up in here. I says, oh, that little beaver pond, way back up in the woods, way back out there. He looks at me and he says, yeah, how do you know about that? Well, I'm a tracker, you know, you get to learn the land. It's it's amazing what you learned. You see things that other people don't see. Um, I come up on moose, I come up on you know, fox woves, um anything, uh, hotters, all kinds of different things. You know, things that the average deer stand hunter just doesn't get to see your experience. And uh so you know, if you want to sit in the stand, you're welcome to it, you know. Um, here's here's another nice thing about tracking. Um, you did your stouting and you're gonna sit in this spot. And you go out there and there's a guy. It's public land, and here's a guy sitting eight yards away from you hunger stand. You didn't even know he was going to be there. Now what you know? Um, you're you're a bait hunter. You throw a bait down. Um. Then another guy comes and he baits, you know, on fifty yards away from you not what you know? I mean all these things that nobody stops me from going and doing what I want to do, and nobody really gets in my way, you know. Um, the whole woods is mine and I just go. I can't. I don't know if you know, if there isn't, if I've learned good enough reasons, then I don't know. What are you know? Um, here's a here's another good stat for you. Let's say I'm successful five percent at the time I gotta chase twenty deer. I got a trophy buck on the wall. How good of a hunter are you? How you know? What's your success rate? You know? Ah? I mean it's phenomenal. I don't know of any other method where I can walk into a wood somewhere I've never been before. I have no idea where I'm going nothing, jump the track and and have a deer on the ground a two hours a trophy here, and I've I've done it. You know. It's it's there's no other method. I don't even have to pre scout, I don't even't have to look at maps. Um, there's no other method that can produce deer like that, you know? And and it it's tough. I mean, I'm making a sound easy, but it's tough. And this year I don't shot a deer the one I when I caught up to with shed, I have wanted to mention it, and he was shed, so you know, I mean, that's the way it goes. In Minnesota, I was right on one tail all day long. It was actually two bucks Jason a dole and heat, and I should have the boy. I should have caught up with him, and I never did. There was I was right behind them all day. I got one glimpse of those deer all day long, but I know I was right behind him. They you know, they just he got rocky. All he had to do was turn and chase another buck back towards me one time, and it would have been I would have shot that deer. You know. It just needed one break all day long, and I just never got it, you know. So it's just the odds were against me this time around. In Wisconsin, I tracked down a nice buck and I jumped up up and I had one if you shot at him, and I took it. And then yes, so um, I went over three. I could have went three for three. Wow. Yeah, like you said, it's it's, uh, you just never know when you go out there, and I think, for now I've never done this. I'm never hunting this style that you have, although I'm seriously thinking about trying it here soon. But I gotta imagine for somebody trying this out, it's important to remember that you might, just like you mentioned, you might go over and over and over a whole season and not get your chance, or you might go out the first day or second day and it happens. But it's it's no different than any other style of hunting, where of course there's a whole lot of variables outside of your control that sometimes it's just aren't going to go your way. But at least in in your style of hunting, you do have some amount of certainty because if you find a mature buck track, you know that there's a mature buck ahead of you somewhere that you're heading towards. While I could go sit on a a scrape or go sit in the edge of the betting area and I might I have no idea if there's a mature buck within five miles, I'm hoping I'm the very kind of area, but you just don't know. So at least there's some amount of certainty around around your style that it's got to be kind of comforting when you're when you're hiking out there, at least you know there's something up there. So the adrynline flow on a good track, I mean, when you find a big track, the addreynline flow, it just pushes you forward. You know, you know he's there, and you want to get him. I don't care how tired you are, I don't care how beat up you are or whatever. I'm fifty six years old and I get on a track, I'm like a twenty year old man again. I mean, I I want to catch that deer. I don't care how much my back hurts and my hips heard, or my knees hurt, or whatever the case may be. If you know, if I stopped and check my bearings where I'm at, and I'm four miles away from my truck, and i still only have three hours left to goal um, and I know that if I keep going, I'm going the wrong way and I'm gonna have one heck of a long walk back. I still keep going. You know, I know he's right in front of me there somewhere, and I'm hoping to catch him, you know. But it's uh, yeah, it's exciting. It's an adrenaline rush for me. I knowing that there's a big buck in front of you. Um. It's similar to beer hunting a stand hunting. Let's say you set up a stand and you you've got a big buck peg. Then you know he's in a betting area. Um, and you know he's been coming out. You've got trio camera pictures of over or whatever the case may be. That adrenaline that you're feeling when you're sitting that stand is adrenaline I feel every day when I'm on a big track. Yeah. Yeah, that's exciting stuff, no doubt about that. So how do you how do you get into that situation? Then? I've talked to a handful of folks over the years that the track. Some folks I've heard just drive back roads. Some people drive you know, pulp forest roads through the national forest until they cut a big track on the snow and they start on that. I've tried other people that know there's certain ridgelines where they've seen good tracks in the past, and so they'll head right to a little terrain feature and walk that kind of stuff. How do you approach the beginning of this kind of hunt? How I do it is they based more on my age than anything else. I do a lot of driving, um uh, simply because of my age. If I was twenty years old and I felt like putting on ten miles a day every day, I think I would cut country, um just simply because I think a lot of these older bucks are a little bit road shy um and and they kind of keep to themselves ah and or they might be locked out with those and and so they just never do come out to the road. Um. I think you could probably find more quality deer just cutting country. But being fifty six years old, I kind of kind of temper the amount of walking I have to do. Um, So I stick to the roads mostly. Or if I know where, you know, pararily there's been a deer in the past, I'll go and check those areas out. And I might walk in the ways and and and check some of their runs out to see if they're coming through uh particular bucks. But for the most part, yeah, it's it's a lot of road time. How often do you actually come across the track that you're gonna hunt? I mean, is this something like every day you find a track somewhere to hunt, or do you just find over course of the season, there's a handful of actual stocks you get because it's been that many days to catch the mature about crossing the road. It's getting worse. It's getting a lot worse. Uh. The age structure in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan is getting really bad. So those numbers are going down. It's getting harder and harder and harder. Uh up in Michigan particularly, Um boy, I might I might work four or five days to find a good track. Um, it's it's getting there's numbers. Uh, there's numbers a deer, but the age structure is shot. I don't know what the problem is. Unfortunately, was the winner we've having this year isn't going to help anything either. But yeah, it's it's it's getting harder. It's it's getting a little bit tougher to find good tracks. So you gotta work for him. And when you find a really really good one, you know, it's it's it's pretty exciting, you know. In the past, in the past, I usually don't bother to try to catch up with the same deer again. This next day, if I don't get them. But I'm starting to rethink that just because of the numbers of quality deer that are out there. Um, if the situation weren't that, I think I would definitely go back after the same deer another day. How do you I was gonna say, how would you go about that? Would you just hike back into the last spot you've got into and just try to pick it up that you know, twelve hours later, eighteen hours later, or would you, well, how would you approach trying to pick that deer back up the second day? I would go right back to where I left him. Yeah, that's the most easiest guaranteed. Yeah, that makes sense. Um, so you're now you're now driving on the roads, you cut a big track. Tell me how do you make that decision? Because this is probably one of the very most decisions, most important decisions of whole process, right, because determining whether you're gonna actually stalk and track a buck or not makes or breaks your whole day probably in some cases. Um, And this has always been one of the things I always wonder about because it seems like there's a lot of ways you can possibly screw this up when trying to determine if a buck track or if a track is definitely a big mature buck or not. UM. I actually watched a video of yours once where you were analyzing what looked like a sure thing big buck track versus a track that might be mistaken for a big buck track. UM, could you walk us through that example and maybe some others to help us better understand how to properly identify the kind of track we would want to follow. Yeah, the first thing, the first piece of advice I would give is, um, it's human nature to want to find a big track. So right off the bat, mentally you're gonna you're gonna find this to be true. You'll start to try to convince yourself the tracks that aren't big are big. You'll see that that a shitnabowl track, and you'll in your mind try to make it bigger. And then you'll look at a series of tracks and you'll still you'll always take out that biggest one, and mentally you'll try to convince yourself that that's a big buck because after UH put it on sixty miles driving and you haven't found a good track yet, and it's getting to be you know, twelve o'clock in the afternoon, and you know, and you're you want to get on a track that day, you're going to try to convince yourself to take that deer. Um. So what I do is I always have to say, judge your track by the smallest one. So when you're looking at a series of tracks, look for the smallest one. Pick the smallest one out of that track series, not the biggest one, because a lot of times they sidestep, in other words, the front or the hind LEGO missed the front just by a little bit, make it wider, or it'll fall right behind it and make it look longer. Um. And so that track looks bigger because it's of course every track is actually two tracks. It's a front foot and hind foot steps right in the same spot. So any offstep of the hind leg is going to make that track look bigger. Um. So look at a series and and and try to determine a good track. One thing I like to see is I like to see the dudes hitting um, especially in shallow or snow. UM. I like to see him sitting back on his feet. That usually designates one or two things, either that he is awful tired or he's awful heavy or both. Um, But look at a series of tracks. I often walk back into the woods hundred hundred fifty two yards on a track and really looked the whole track, over the whole series of tracks to make decisions. I start looking for situations like that he duck between two narrow trees, which tells me he doesn't have any antlers to speak of. You know, if he can go between narrow trees, is he going through thick brush instead of avoiding it? Which is a tendency of a smaller box versus a bigger buck is likes to take the easiest path. Um. You know, if he comes to an obstruction and like a fallen tree, is he willing to dunk way down to go underneath it or does he just walk around it? Again, another tendency of a big buck is to walk around those obstacles instead of ducking under or having to jump. Um. They're bigger, they're older, and they don't like to waste energy. Um. So I like to look at a series of tracks to make my decision as to what what if I'm going to take that deer or not? And and you were absolutely correct when you said, that's the most important decision you're gonna make all day is whether or not I should take that track, because you do not want to waste your time. Um, unless you're learning and you're just having fun or whatever. Uh, you don't want to waste your time on a subpower buck. You don't you don't want to put four miles in that day chasing a buck. That just isn't what you wanted. So what about when you when you are actually looking at the track and you've identified what you think are some of the smallest tracks of his that you're gonna look at, and so okay, this is the most realistic option to look at the most realistic example, what characteristics of that or um, you know, measurements or any other you know, tangible things. Can we look at it? Say? Okay, yeah, definitely mature buck. You mentioned the do clause. Um, I know some people I've I've even used it sometimes, you know, three or four fingers wide might tell you that's a that's a big track. Um. Any specific things like that that we can kind of take home with us just to try to help, you know, gauge the size of a track or not. Yeah, I don't know. What I she was thirty got six, So I kind of used the shell casing as a as a guide. If if it's as wide as the shell casing, it's it's pretty good. If it's wider than the schelle casing, then it's you're getting to be a good box. Okay. I mean you very seldom see what is wide as the showcasing with the bullet um and I don't know. I haven't measured a thirty six shell. Somebody have to measure that decide. I think it's about two or three quarters inches wide. Um. But again, make sure that there's a walking track. Don't don't measure that track if it's running. If he's walking fast, don't measure it. A decent buck is going to take about a two foot long stride. If he's taking more than that, he's probably in a hurry. And when they're it's just like you when you're running. When you're running, your foot comes out a lot harder because you're jumping, you're you're you're coming off the ground and you're coming down hard. Um, that's going to change the way that track is gonna look. So I always like to judge only from a walking track. Um. And look for one that's, like I said, showcasing wide um, and I like to see the dew clause hitting h. Another thing, too, is I like to see those dew clause setting at least is why it's a track a really good buck. And I don't know why this is, but almost always on a be really good buck and dow clause will sit on the outside of that track. A little bit I saw. I saw example you shared where you described wanting a rectangular track versus a V shaped track with um with the two sides of the hoof kind of splay it out. Can you can you elaborate on that a little bit what you meant by that? Yeah, pretty much, when you get a V shaped track like that, it's because they're running. It's it's almost always when they're hit that that tolls spread wide apart. And and that that doesn't mean it's not a big buck, but that just means that it's he's probably running, and it could fool you because if it's a really big buck and he runs, his track will splay that way as well. But so will a two year old buck, and so will adult They'll all splay like that when they're running and they will almost always all hit their dow clause when they're running. That's just uh, that nature's traction. I mean they lay back on them and they use those do clause for traction and and uh and the hoopsplay in soft soil and or when they're running to give them the traction to give them, you know, stability when they're running. So Um, that V shape is a classical example of a deer that's moving fast and then that foot displays when it hits and um, if it's if it's parallel, then they're not most of the time, it's not a running track. And you can get a lot better gauge. Again because again, like I said, you go back to that, uh use a walking track is your guide when you're checking a track. Yeah, And for folks who never really looked at tracks or paid attention, can you share a few of the other things to help someone determine whether it's a walking or running track. So you already mentioned display versus non display track. You already mentioned the fact that you know, all walking buck might have like a two ft stride length. Um, there's going to be some different things in the snow or dirt based off the speed and the jumping of the deer too, right, Can you point out a couple of things that that that might be worth noticing? Well, you know, the biggest thing is is the faster they're running or faster they're moving alonger the stride if they'll do if they're doing like a trot or something, it'll be like a three ft gate uh. And then of course you know that no deer is normally doing that as a walk. And and then you know from there they start running, so they start jumping actually then and then you know it could be up to fifteen feet or more. You know, when they jump like that, then of course you really know that they're not walking. And and they really pound the ground hard when they when they run like that, so you know again it's it's just do you want to look at it deer walking uh at ease? Um? And do you like to see one that that has is sitting back on its new clause? And and it's as as simple as that, um, and I have noticed uh from tracking deer two beds and in away from beds, they walk different when they're tired and when they're rested, just like just like you and I, UM, I always get a kick out of it. Um. As I was telling you earlier, I get I get quite an adrenaline rush when I get in a good track. Um, if I don't get that, deer and I and I tracked back on my old track. I always laugh at myself when I'm coming out because I have to take long strides to walk in my track that I did when I started out, because now I'm tired. And when I started out, I had a little adrenaline rush going. So I was taking big, long strides and I always have to laugh. You know, wow, I was really you know, really walking a big stride. But but that's a good lesson because deer are the same way. When deer gets tired, they lay back on their feet a little bit more. Uh, let's at do Claus shoal Um. When you get a big old buck that's really good and tired, he drags his feet in an arc shaped motion and and he most like just like you and I, when you get really tired, you just don't want to lift your feet anymore. You know, you just kind of slap your feet forward if you're walking when you're really exhausted. And so they walk different and and it'll surprise you how much different that track will look coming into a bed and then he lays down there for a few hours, he gets rested, and he gets up and he walks away. There's been times when it's been so different that it's like I can't even believe that I'm on the same deer. You know, they stand back on their toes again, um, and they don't do clause, don't hit very hard, and of course when they're standing on their tiptoes more, the track isn't it big. It's like, wow, you know, it looks like two different deer, but it has to be the same deer because you walked in, late, down and got left. Now is that something that you can identify accurately enough while you're actually tracking a deer that you can be like in your mind say to yourself, oh, based off what I'm seeing this track now, it looks like he's getting tired. He's probably gonna bed soon, so I'm gonna slow down or something like that, Like do you actually use that to change how your track and hunting? Or is that something that you know you've noticed but you can't say with enough you know surety in the moment, If it's if it's indicative of one thing or another. No, But I think I pick a lot of tired tracks because of that. You know, I think the track just looks bigger because they're tired, and they're laying back on their feet more and dragging their feet a little bit more, and and you know, they're walking a little more sloppy, which gives a little bit bigger looking tracks. So I think that just by the nature of the beast, do you you end up picking those tracks that makes sense? Do you ever do you ever try to identify individual deer and and come back and say, Okay, I think this is that same buck. It's the buck that has a little chip off his right side or something like that. Have you ever looked at them that closely? I pay attention, uh more soul for the time I'm tracking him now if if it's right right rear hook is the outside of the hoof hooks a lot longer and hooks around a little bit um. I try to make a mental note of that, because then when I get messed up on the track or whatever we'm I'm trying to sort things out a little bit, and I get back on the track again, I'm following it and I get a nice good imprint, I can say, oh, yees yees, I know this is the same deer. Now. The one thing you've got to be careful of is from season the season is a hoof is like a fingernail. It keeps growing and they keep wearing it off. So if that buck chip set hoof, it's going to grow out. It doesn't stay like that forever. So you've got to be a little careful about, you know, saying, well, next year, well, I see a track here, but it doesn't look he doesn't have a chip in that, you know, on his left foot, so that can't be him. Well that they're they're like a fingernail. They keep growing and they keep wearing them down. So uh, that might not be the case, you know, so you can't really judge by that. But the toll, the toll is configuration will stay the same, you know, if they If his toes are really hooked on the outside on the right foot rear, he will have that the next year as well. That that won't change that. That's pretty that's just the way that his feet growing. Maybe the way he walks, or you know, whatever his his skeleton or structure or whatever I don't you know genetics, so yeah, and you do. You do want to try to keep track of that, you know. Unfortunately for me, UM, I live at Center, Wisconsin, and I and I hunt north. You know, my closest spots are like three four hours away, so I don't get to hunt. You know, I shot a lot of big bucks over the years, and I don't have time to hunt, so I don't get I don't get a chance to get familiar with deer um. It's always been something I hoped I would be able to do at some point in my life. Does actually live closer to where A hunt, so I could become more familiar with specific deer um. Knowing what I know, it would be an interesting experience for me too to be more familiar with my dear and actually hut specific gear and see what the results would be. I kind of know, I think what would happen, but it would be interesting to actually put it to practice and see, you know, what the results would be. No, I'm should that be fascinating? To take that kind to the next level would be really interesting when you're when you're on a track. Now A few other things I've heard some people mentioned when they're trying to identify or confirm, like whether or not they're sure this is a big buck track. Um. I've heard some people look for like antler imprints in the snow. I've heard some people to talk about paying attention to the width of the gate um, so the space in between the left and right legs. Sometimes you can really supposedly a really big mature buck might have a wider um gate. Is there any truth to that kind of thing? Have you noticed anything like that and had that help you? Uh, the width if it's a really really big one, I mean, if it's if it's and you just don't run into those up north anymore. Let's say one that would probably maybe push the scales dressed at two fifty or something to thirty five. Uh, it gets a big, big body like that, you're gonna definitely see uh some with between the tracks. But I don't usually use it as a guide all that much. Most of the deer I shoot anymore across the board a late post rut or whatever, you know, like during rifle season Thanksgiving, let's say, use it as a guideline. These deer are rundown. Most of these deer are going to push the scales about. Um, I've had a something that was sold run down one. Um, they they're they're just you just don't see those big, you know, two forty thirty pound box like that anymore. And if you'd seen one like that, yes, you would see that in the track he would have a wide gate. But I have seen small, young deer with a wide gate. So I don't go by the width all that much. I know there's a lot of talk out there about that, but I just really don't go by with all that much um length. When they're walking, I do pay attention to that, but again, you know, it goes back to what I said earlier. If they're walking and they're tired, or if they're walking and they're excited, um, that that length of their stride is going to change. And uh so again, you know, I can't really tell us that deer was excited when he was walking, or if he's rested up when he's walking. So you know, maybe he's taking an extra two inch stride because he's really anxious to get somewhere, you know, And then maybe his stride isn't is long. Maybe he's a really good buck, but his stride is three inches shorter because he's just exhausted, you know. So those are things that I don't put a lot of stock into. I'll tell you what I do put a lot of stock can do. How they walk through the country. A big buck walks through the country a lot different than a doll or a young buck. They all have their own way of walking through country. When you're on a really good buck, it's hard for me to put in the words, but you know it because he always takes the easiest route. It's always easy. It's always almost premeditated. And and I shouldn't say always, uh uh, almost always it is premeditated. He knows where he's going. That buck has been through their fifty two hundred times before in the past. He knows exactly where he's going. He knows exactly where he has to get to get through the cross to that next area he wants to go to. He knows when to come out to the snowmobile trail where it's easy walking so he can get around the swamp and he doesn't have to try to walk through the swamp. Um a good case. At point I was following him last year, he's walking. He went to the snowmobile trail, walk down the snowmobile trail and then ducked into the woods. And I thought, well, that's odd, but it wasn't because right up ahead it got really wet and it was all under water there. And he knew before he even got there that if he cuts off to the left, that he could walk right along the edge. It was a hump that he could walk on all the way to get through there. So I know that deer knew that deer has been through there a bunch of times before, because he didn't have to come up to the water, didn't make a decision. He made a decision before he came to the water, so he knew how to get through there. He's been through there so many times before. This is a sign of a really good buck. Um. You got a tree leaning, he won't duck underneath it or jump over it, He'll walk around it. Um. He he looks through that the easiest path through an area. Um, it's amazing when you go on some of these big bucks and they take you through an area and then you cut off the deer and you say, well where am I and we check my GPS. I'm gonna walk out to the road. Well, if I cut straight that way, I could get back to the road a lot easier. And when I do that every time, I always say, you dummy, don't ever do that again, because that deer knew the easiest way through that area. And when I try to take the quickest path or the straightest path through, it's hell. I mean, it's nasty, and I have to keep relearning that. Have you know that that same lesson over and over and over again. That deer went there for a reason because he knows the easiest way through. Um, they'll be going along and all of a sudden they'll cut off to the left and they'll be cutting through some thick brush and stuff, and you'll be thinking, why are they doing this? This doesn't make any sense, And boom they'll pop out onto a beaver pond right at the damn and he'll walk right across it. So what didn't make any sense to me beforehand made perfect sense. Now he knew where that beaver dad was. He knew exactly where it was, and he knew if he was gonna get through that area, that was the best way across that water. So he makes that Hell, he'll push his way through some stuff rough stuff just to get to that crossing. Yeah, and it's I mean, it's amazing. And you watch this happen again and again and again and again these deer, and and the more mature the buck is, the more you'll tell that in the track, you'll see that he absolutely knows where he's gonna go. He knows where he's gonna go, and he knows why he's going there, and he takes you on a really easy path through the area. And you just really get that sense. After you follow enough deer, you'll know when you're on a really good buck. You'll say, man, this is a nice track. Then you start following a track and you see how he runs the country and it won't be long, and you'll say, this is a really good buck. Yeah. You mentioned beaver dam crossings. I heard you talk about this before where you you mentioned that you've seen beaver dam crossings are be in particular good spots to hunt because deer identify that almost as a bridge across water. So even for someone who's not tracking, but someone who's maybe be gonna pop up a tree stand, is that something you you can on that you've seen him being a hot spot in certain areas don't. Absolutely Yeah, and then I'll take that one step further. UM use your wood skills. UM, get in there. Check that wherever there's a beaver dam, there's mud because it's water, it's wet. Go in there and look for signing that a big buck is crossing. Go look for some big tracks in that mud. If there's a big buck using that crossing, he's gonna leave some tracks there. And if there's big buck tracks crossing hunted, that's a high percentage spot. That's a very good spot. I killed a really nice tent point or bear ground up in Minnesota that way you're about. I don't know. Four years ago, my area had dried up. I mean, I just wasn't seeing any deer in my area, and I didn't have a snow and I thought, well, let me let me check some maps. So I started looking at maps. Found an area aerial photos you can see beaver dams on them really easy, and and uh, I found a spot where there was a couple of beaver dams on a river. Drove back in there, had to push through brush with my truck like you don't believed to get back in there. And then I walked back in and got along the bottom of that river, along that river edge, there was a buck running up and down that that edge, tearing the heck out of everything, trees, robbed, scrapes everything. I mean, he was just really active. And that's a very good sign of a buck that's just just made it. He's he's old enough. Now he's like a t's like a teenage boy. I'm big and strong now, puffing his chest out. I'm gonna act tough, and they'll start ripping a lot of stuff up. Really really old buck usually doesn't do a lot of that run activity. Um, but a young one dis feeling as though, so really do that. And he had that hole that holes edge of that river, tore up on one on that one side, all the way up and down, and there was two beaver damn crossings. I had three days the season left, and I went down to the river edge and I sat there, and I had a hundred fifty yards to one crossing and one seventy five to the other. And I sat there for two and it was two and a half days. The first day, it was half a day after I scouted it. I didn't even I didn't worry about all the scent day laid or nothing. I was there, I hunted. I sat there for half a day, didn't see a deer. Sat there for the next day all day long, and a Dolana fawn crossed one of the beaver damns. The third day, which was the last day of season, I grunted up to that beaver damn at doon he came. I picked up my grunt call at doing and I blew it and he was happy to be on the other side of the river. And he came right out to the beaver dam and he stood right there and I shot up. So he was and he was exactly what I thought he was. I'm sure that was the same buck that was doing that. He was a really nice tent pointer. Uh three and a half year old, maybe four and a half, but I don't think so. Um, just a really nice, decent, really good buck. Not a monster, but a really good buck and a few Sorry I was gonna say I might have missed it. But did you say that you found a track too when you were looking at all that rub, all those rubs and rutt sign or were you did you make the decisions that they're simply by the fact that you knew that the beer damns were there and you saw the sign or was there a track that said, okay, yeah, for sure, there's a nice buck passing through. Oh yeah, in the in the in the scrapes, there was good tracks. And then uh, the the crossing that I shot him on, I didn't. I didn't see a good track there, but the other one that I was watching as well did have. So I was more expecting him to come out out of the other one. But but he didn't. And it was actually a third beaver damn crossing on that same river, further upstream yet, and that one just didn't have any sign at all. So I just crossed that one off, and I thought, well, I'm gonna watch these two and this this, this determination was made with you know, a quick run through one hour scout of the area I've never been before. You know, I just see all the sign I made a quick determination. I thought, Okay, I'm gonna PLoP down in here and I'm gonna stay here for the next I got two and a half days the season left. I know there's a good buck working this, and I'm gonna stick here, you know, and I'm just gonna wait it out. So is that a typical is that your typical plan when you don't have snow, you're gonna go into the best looking area based off of terrain and a quick walk through scout and hopefully find a good track. But otherwise without snow, it's it's it's usually a sitting way to fair Or do you ever try to track in dirt and mud? I won't try to track on bare ground. And I'll tell you why. Um, that's during the rut when I'm rife hunting. That's that's the rut. And these bucks, uh, four miles, six miles, eight miles, that's nothing for these deer. There's no way you're gonna stay with them that long. There's there's no way that you're gonna follow a bearer ground track for for three miles um. And then when they start if they hit some areas where you know it's really not soft, you have a heck of a time. A good buckle leave tracks in the leaves and you can follow them. Um, but it's just too time consuming and your your noses to the ground all the time, so you're not even if you did catch up with him, you wouldn't see him. I mean, he'll see you before you see him, because you'll be looking at the ground all the time. So bare ground, I just don't mess with it. But what I do is if I do have bare ground, is I'll go back to these areas where I know there's been a big buck previous years that I've tangled with and and and I'll go sit them out. And that's basically my you know. And then if I don't have anything to go by, I just get out on foot and I move around. I do a lot of calling, and I look for sign and U sometimes I get luckys. A lot of times I find a dough and heat in the area, and of course that area is going to be hot for about a day and a half. And uh, I've had good success doing that too. I've killed I've killed several good bucks doing that, finding finding a dome heat in an area, and and uh it could be some of the most exciting hunt you'll ever have. A Couple of years ago, I shot a really nice background buck up in Minnesota doing that. There was a dough and heat on a slashing that was about or two miles back in off the road, and I walked in there scouting it, ran into bumped a little box, and there was a lot of activity, a lot of signing there, and I thought, well, I gotta hunt. This is pretty hot. He came back the next day and by ten o'clock I had my buck on the ground. And before I got out of there that day, I had saw five different bucks and a few hunt where I hunted Minnesota. Five different bucks can be three seasons worth a hunting. I saw it one day, you know, And and the deer, the buck I shot the bucket shot, was chasing a doll and he was split browl eight pointers, so he was actually a ten pointer. He had double split browsed, and there was another buck with him, but he was a better rack. He he was a ten pointer, but he was a younger buck. He had long tie and times, and he was a ten pointer, real dandy buck, but he was younger. And you could tell he wasn't the dominant one because he trailed off on the side while the u when I shot, was great with the doll, and I opted to actually take the one that didn't have as nice of a rack because I knew he was an older buck and I was sure hoping I'd run into that another one another year, you know. Donder rolder. So he was he was a really good buck and he didn't even run away. I shot that one buck. They ran off. The doll came right back through about ten minutes later, and she walked right by me, and he walked right by me to the ten pointer. And then when I got down to check out my shot, a little spike buck come running up. He got I always gonna poked a little by barrel. He got so close to me. But that was you know, that was by in season scouting and getting in there and you know and hitting the ground, uh, you know, checking, just checking, just just staying active and looking. I heard another time you talking about a situation like this where it was a bear ground situation and you you I think, if I remember this correctly, you went back in to an area you previously walked. Maybe you're tracking a buck and something you described as rut routes. So these bucks taking specific rout routes that you knew of based off of previous tracking, and you knew too, you know, if you didn't have snow, you'd go back and check something like that. Can you describe what you meant by that? Um? Yeah, I don't know exactly the exact uh story you're talking about. But yes, that's that's exactly you know what I was talking about earlier here. I know where these specific bucks run. And if I don't have a spot, um, you know, if I don't have snow to track, I go right back onto their their runs that they've used from previous youths. And uh, that's you know again you're talking sucking hundreds of thousands of acres and you're narrowing it down to one trail, you know, And and if that buck happens to move on that trail, you get a chance. Um. And that's that's a And you don't find those without without tracking. Um, you know, you just you just don't know. I mean, every edge is good. Any edge could be good in the woods. But there's so many edges that which one do you pick? You know? But if I have a, if I have a let's say I tracked the buck to an area last year, and again, UM, I'm gonna add rubs are like fingerprints. When a buck makes a rub on a tree, if you study that rub and he makes another rub somewhere else, you can tell it that's the same buck. Feel rub, the same height, feel pick the same sort of tree. He's got birds on his antlers that rubbed that tree a certain way. Um, you can pretty much tell one buck from another when you're looking at the rubs. So let's say I go in an area and I and I was following a buck through there the year before on snow, and I go in there on bare ground, and next year because I don't have any snow to track, and I see rubs opened up on that same rub line along that same route. Well, I know that buck is still alive. I know he's still lives. Yeah, so I'll sit it. And then not only that, while I'm following the deer, I'm finding places where they are bottleneck down, where they do cross. And that's the spots I pick out because I know, if he's coming through anywhere from here to go to there, he's coming through this spot. Um. And you find those again, you find those by track and deer. Um. Seck, I went, what do I The best spot I ever had in my life. I never hunted. I followed deer through there all the time, bucks through there, and it was a crossing like it was unbelievable. And I always told myself, I gotta sit this crossing sometime because man, this is every time I chase the deer they come through here. Well, one year I decided I'm gonna actually just put some time in sitting there. I'm gonna just I'm gonna take two or three days and just sit there because it's such a good spot. So I walk way back in there, and it was logged out, so I was like, wow, can you believe it? You know, so I kind of abandoned it. But the one thing it doesn't change is the land doesn't change. The tree. You can cut the trees away, but the land doesn't change. So oh, let's I don't know. Fast forward three or four years now. Um, this last season, I said, hey, I'm gonna take a walk back in there, and I'm gonna see what's going on. I haven't been back there for years. So I drew up I could get within about a half a mile of there, and then parked my truck and I walked the rest of the way and went on too that slashing where they had cut that out. Come up on top of this big hill and I'm looking down in the valley where they always came through there every time, and nice stood there and watched for a while grunted if I got call a few times see if anything with shoul Um. And I walked down in the valley and guess what I found one lone really good buck track coming through there. You know, now, you know that's that's that those things don't change. I mean, these deer use these some of these. If you find a spot like that, those are gold because if your buck dies, the next buck will come through there too. It's just the way the land funnels. And and you can't sit and look at maps and find those on maps. I've tried. It just doesn't work that way. You find them by following deer, and then then you have something when you find one of those. If you want to sit all day long, the boy, a spot like that is gold. You know. You you take your ground blind in there popping up on top of in that case, they're on top of that hill. You can sit down in that value beautiful. Put a put a pop up ground blind in there, sit in there all day long, every day, and eat your granola bars or whatever, and just keep watching that crossing. And you know at some time in that week or two weeks that you're sitting there. Uh, chances are a decent bus might come through. Yeah, if that's a kind of honey you want to do, I mean that and that you can't get better odds in that north country. Yeah. Can you describe that area? Like why was it so? Why did so many deer come through there? I'd love to hear, like the what the terrain was that funneled that movement? Um, it was a combination of several things. Um. One was uh there was two lakes that neck down the land, and then the uh potography there was really rolling hills and valleys there, and just the way it laid out, it just brought them right through. And again you know, I mean I could I can look at maps and find fifty spots like that, you know, But for some reason that I'm not seeing when I'm looking at it myself, every deer came through there. I remember I took one. I took one two miles away from there. I started once on a track and he started heading in that direction, and I got a half mile in and he was still going that way. And then I got a mile in and he's still going that way. And I got about a mile and a half into it, and I'm thinking I wonder if he's gonna go through that funnel, you know, through that little that little valley there, and sure it is Hackey. There's two miles away when I started up because where he took me right through that spot, you know, I mean it's and and that was every year that came through there, every deer. Uh, they always ended up funneling through that. And it's still good today. Uh if a person wanted to go and sit hunt, Um, I don't know a better spot to take. Try to take a deer. You know, it's it's it's tailor made, and it's beautiful because nobody knows about it. Nobody knows their way in there. That they closed the logging roads off, you wouldn't know what came in the back way to find that spot. I had a heck of a time finding it, and I knew it was there. I had to keep looking at my my aerial photos to locate my way back in there from the back side because the roads were it was all it was a mess, and the roads are blocked off, and you know all loggy roads were plowed in so you can't get through them. And and uh, if I would try to just use my senses to get back in there. I never would have found it. So it's a spot that's gonna sit there, and it's gonna just it's gonna sit there for years, and I'll bet you won't see a hunter back in there. Nobody. Nobody's gonna go in there. You're hard to find that kind of spot without, like you said, actually following a buck that did it and seeing them do it time and time again. Um. And that that that kind of brings me back to something you talked about right at the top, which was just how much you can learn from tracking deer um. And I want to drill more into that. I didn't it to initially. But where What are some the other things you've seen? After watching so many bucks do what they do, have you identified any trends or patterns that you can now say, well, I've seen so many, Dear do X, it's kind of safe to say that most bucks like to travel with the wind this way, or most bucks like to travel I don't know. Is there anything like that that stands out to you, like big AHAs that you can now point to after all these years at tracking them. Yeah, the wind is a very I'm glad you brought that up, because that's a really, really good point. I Um, when I was younger, I used to read every magazine I could to try to figure out dear and try to understand, you know, I just would soak up everything I could. In one year, they come out with an article bucks travel with the wind during the ruck. And in the next year go and behold, another article would come out, bucks travel against the wind during the ruck. And then the next year it would come out with bucks travel quartering into the wind. And they always had a theory as to why they were doing it and what was going on, and and here's what happens. And I don't want to pick on people or whatever, but these guys are making determinations based upon a very small yards snapshot of that bucks eight mile walk that night. Okay, they're sitting in a tree stand and this buck comes walking by them, they test the wind, and they make a determination. And unfortunately, if the next buck they see follows the same pattern, now they've already just they've already convinced themselves that that always do the bucks always do that buck always walks into the wind. If he saw two bucks in the role walking into the wind. But he only saw one yards of that DearS six mile trail. Now, when you're following, you're tracking them, do you get to see the whole six mile trail? And the determination I've made by checking the you know, knowing what the wind was they for and watching the way they walk and how they do it and what they go. Bucks go wherever they damn well want to go, and they don't care about the wind one bit. If the buck is here and he wants to go over there, he goes. He goes over there. And and if he's here and he wants to go over there and he's been there before, which he has been, he'll go the same way he went to time before and the time before, and the time before and the time before. And it doesn't matter which way the wind is going. Now, I'm not going to tell you that deer don't use the wind, because bucks, big bucks are using the wind all the time. A big buck may circle downwind of of an area to send check for doults. If he knows there's a dough betting area there, he may set check if there's if he has assumes that there's some kind of danger, or be scared a lot of times they'll circle to get down winto that. They'll use that their nose to to win things. So they're using their nose, and they will use their nose on occasion more so than others. But it doesn't they don't use the wind as determining factor as to where they're going to go. And it's simple that this logic has been used many years already. If that's the case, all of our deer would end up in California because we have a we have a westerly wind, right, Okay, for the most part, we have westerly wind. So if if the deer had to travel into the wind all the time, eventually they'd all make their way to California, you know, because they'd have to keep going into windy It's a it's a it's a very good point. And like you said, everybody likes to kind of postulate about what they think bucks are doing based off of a little snapshot as you described, and that's uh, that is the downfall of watching a deer just for a short period time versus walking for so long. What about um, what about betting areas? This is another specific scenario where a lot of folks like to theorize Um, you know, I know you're active on the hunting beasts. A thing that Dan likes to talk about a lot is how lots of times heeps a buck's well jay hook into a betting year. It go down wind of the spot where they want to bed and then work their way into that location. Have you ever noticed anything like that? Yeah, a buck well more than likely do a jayhook before he uh, before he lays down. Um. I got my own theory on that. I know. Dan postulates that that they circled down the wind of the betting area so that they can send check the betting area before they go in there to lay down. Um. And that may be true, especially in what the type of hunting he does. Um, he's hunting oftentimes early season, and it's a bed to feed pattern that this book is on, and he's more than likely going back to the same bed that he used for the last months every day. Okay, I'm hunting here in the North Country and I'm hunting deer during the rut. Um they jay hook. But I think the reason that jay hook is different, and and my thought process says is I think that jay hook so that if a predator is following their set trail. It leads the predator past them, and they can see the predator and get up and leave before the predator makes the tire jay hook and they're gone. That gives them, That gives them an opportunity two see if something's following their track, and then they can just get up and take off. And believe me, I've been that predator and I've been made a fool out of a lot of times. So um, yes, they do like the jayhook. It's like a dog. I don't know if you have a dog or not, but almost every dog before they lay down, they got to make a circle. I don't know why that is. They have to circle around. Why does a dog circle around every time he's gonna lay down. I have no idea, you know, but they do. But it's a tendency that bucks do have, you know, deer do have that. They like to do that that jay hook and then they like to lay down, which if you're tracking, is a very good important lesson to remember because they're jim hook could be pretty big, uh, you know, fifty yards or sol um. So when you're tracking a deer, if you're not watching left and right all the time, you're gonna miss them. Um, they're not going to be in front of you. They're gonna be off to the left or right. So if you're not watching that when they do their jay hook, they'll they'll get away. They'll they'll jump up and run away and you won't even know they go, they're gone, and then you'll come across the bed. Right. Yeah, that's a good, a good thing to be aware for sure. Are there are there any other things like this, whether it be a commonly held belief like the deer walk with the one in their faces that you've kind of debunked based off of what you've seen, or anything else like that that that stands out to other than these two examples we just talked through. Yeah, here's a good one. If people are gonna laugh at this. Big Bucks aren't very smart And I thought you friends up to it. So you know, it's always that there's that hesitation. It's like they're not you know, they're not very smart. They've learned how to they learn how to survive, but they're not very smart, aren't And and being human, we we try to give them a lot more credit. We try to give them the ability to think and reason and logic, and they don't. They just react. They'd react to stimulus and that's it. They're just they're just animals that react and and they're they're good at surviving, but they're not smart. They don't think. If they if a buck could think and reason like we would, we'd never kill them. I mean they would if they were as smart as we were. Unless they're stupid as unless they're foolish, they would never die. You never, you you'd never catch them, you know, uh, they would, But they just have tendencies survival tendencies that that keep them alive. Um, but don't give them too much credit. You know, they're they're not all that smart. They're not. They don't think in reason and logic. Yeah. The unfortunate thing about that is that we do think and use logic, and we still screw up more times than that. Yeah, here's my classical example was people like to give dear human traits like drive by somebody's house and you'll see it a lawn, ornaments a deer, and it's always a family group. It's a bucket, door, want a fawn? Right? When do we ever? Have you ever seen a bucket, a door, and fawn together in the woods, never not happening, never happened. No, that's not their way. But we want to make a human. That's hence, uh, the whole Bandi scenario and all that stuff. Yeah, what other tricks like this have you kind of are not tricks? But UM, I'm wondering as a as a big woods hunter sometimes from a tree stand. UM, I've always noticed it's hard to identify anyway to to pattern deer movement in a scenario where they're just isn't a whole lot of terrain change? I mean you mentioned one of the things that being just edges. Um. Is there anything else you've found that that directs deer travel that you're seeing? You know a lot of these buck tracks falling along or is there any kind of edge is better than another? Um, any kind of that kind of thing, or I don't know, like a little high points in the big in a big woods area or um. Any other features that are worth thinking about whether we're gonna track one or sit over one that might be worth looking for. Well, rubs are a good indication that there's a good buck using that. Um. If you have perennial rubs and you can kind of tell that it's the same deer, especially if there's fresh ones from this year, you know that buck is using that edge. Um. And there people find it hard to believe, but bucks picked their roads and they stick to their roots. And then if that buck dies or if there's other bucks in that area, each buck has his own set of routes that he made. Now sometimes they use the same edges, you know, because it's just a natural funnel in the area. Like I was telling you about that one spot where all the bucks seem to come through there. Um. But they have their own paths and when once they once they're taken out, once they die or whatever, the other buck doesn't take over his paths. He has his own paths as well. Um. So you have to use like rubs as an indication. That's a very good indication, um that he's using that edge and and and to be that would be a good edge to hunt because you know bucks are you know, or a buck is making rubs along that edge. Um. That's probably the number one indication looking for tracks, uh, look for big tracks, which when you can where you can if you find if you're following along an edge and you you find a spot where it soft and you see something that really nice buck tracks coming through there. Um, you know that buck is using that edge. It's a good place to hunt. Um. There's a million edges out there. So if you can't find some indication that tells you that a good buck is using it, um, it's just not a good And here's another user, huge mistake. I see a lot of people make. They sit at home now with with all this technology we have, and they pour over late night, uh, over these maps and they look at these aerial photos and up to northern Wisconsin, and they find us two lakes. Like I was telling you about, like that situation, I added a bottle that coming through there, you know, and it's like, oh my god, look at this. There's five acres above it and there's fifteen acres below it. And if the deer wants to come through, they have to come through there. They have to, Okay, And then they go in there and they hunt. Well, guess what, First of all, somebody else has already found that, and it's probably been hunted perennially for fifty years. Okay. Um. Usually the mature bucks know about that already. They know where they're being hunted, especially like Wisconsin. When there's they'll throw a bait down in there. Tool those those bucks avoid those spots like the plague. Um. And every year something he falls for that same trap, and they hunt that same spot again and again and again and again. You know. So, just because it's a good funnel doesn't mean it's worth hunting. What makes it worth hunting is if you know a big buck is coming through there. I'd rather take a crappy looking funnel on a map that shows good rub line and tracks, then a funnel that looks like it's funneling down thousands of acres into one little spot. Um. Again, you gotta there's gotta be a buck using. Again in order for you to shoot a big buck there. You can't shoot one there if he ain't using. It comes down to that. On the ground scouting, Yes, you ought to get in there. And and here's another thing that, Um, don't be afraid to get out there during season. And uh, don't worry about scenting it all up, don't worry about leaving your scent, don't worry about it. Get out there, scout, get on, get out there, find out what's going on. Look for you know, hot sign, look for maybe a doll and heat uh. Uh, you know an area of being worked up really hard. Uh, and get in there and hunted, look for watch for dough areas. You know, shoo, seriously, do sign where you kick those up, where they're browsing, where there's beer poop. Um. You know most of these seasons, like the rifle seasons and so forth, are there during the run. Um, there's no better place. Uh. If there's doose there, I'll guarantee you the bucks will be there at some point. You know. Then you've got edges coming away. Then that's where you get your maps out. You know, when you're out there, look for rub lines that follow the line the edges coming in and out. Where there's a dough area. Um, didn't look at your maps and see where maybe a good spot and that's a good place, a good place to set up, you know, get in there and don't worry about leaving your sand. I I track box, I go out and I walked through the woods. The next day, I come back and there's a buck walking in my track. If a buck walks in my boot track that night, do you think he's afraid of my scent? Do you think I scared? Him out of that area. He's walking in my track for having's sakes. It's interesting, you know, he's not afraid of my scent that I left behind there the day before. You know, I don't. It's not I had a I had a good friend that kept walking back in and by a really good sign every day to hunt a different deer. He kept walking by there, and one day he just woke up and he said, you know, I gotta hunt this. There's there's a big buck here. And he had walked through there how many times hunting that souther buck way back in, further back in, And the first night he sat there on that ridge coming up out of the swamp, he shot that bucket. It was a dandy. He was a bootee, and he had left his cent there every day that when he went through there to go hunting, you know. And so two lessons, don't worry about leaving sent in the woods, uh, and then um hunt sign, you know, get out there and scout. Yeah. So so speaking of walking around the woods, whether you're scouting or well, there's imagine there's one way you're you're hunting in there when you're when you're scouting into hunt. But then there's another way you're walking when you're walking in there tracking a buck. We kind of skipped over the final phase of a tracking hunt. We talked about how you find a track. We talked about identifying the right track. We never did get to the point where you're actually walking down that track, how you're actually doing that? Um, And I figured we better, we better touch on that before we wrap this thing up. UM. Something I'm curious about that I that I haven't talked to other guys about when it comes to tracking, is how you think about wind direction when you're tracking a deer. So what if you're driving down a forrest road, you cut a big track, it's a giant track. You're no doubt boy, this is a big buck and it looks fresh. But you step out of the truck, you walk ten yards out there and you see it. The wind is blowing on your neck, straight down the trail towards where that buck is. Do you just say, I'm not gonna I can't do it because my winds going me blowing right where he's probably at and it's no good. Or do you say screw it and you track that buck anyways? Well I'm gonna track him because he could be four miles away, so and he could be and he could have turned, you know, fifty times during that and he may be going he might be coming back at me, you know. I mean, I don't know, I don't know where he is. He could you know, he could make a one mile loop and be coming right back in the same direction that he came that he went in. So I don't pay no attention. There's only one time I pay attention to the wind when I'm tracking a deer, um is, and that's after I bump him. If I bump him, I let him go. I give about an hour a calm down or whatever, and then and then I take up the track again. Um, when I get to the point where I'm catching up to him again, where he's down to a walk and he's going really slow, he isn't going to go that far totally, probably won't go over half a mile from where I bump him before he'll lay down again. So by the time I get to the point where he's walking now, he probably isn't more than a couple hundred yards away from me. Um. And then I I slow way now. But and I mean, I'm I'm talking so slow that if you sat and watched me, you would have a hard time knowing I'm moving and uh, but I won't do that. If my scent is blowing right to that deer, I figure he's within two hunter the yards and me. Yet if the if the wind is blowing right at him, I'm sure by now he's already caught my wind. He probably has already blown out of his bed. If the wind is going to him, There's no way I'm going to spend the next three hours trying to creep yards knowing that my scent is blowing right to him. If if I got the wind not in my favor, I will move a lot faster because I feel like the gigs already up. There's no sense of, you know, going through that painstaking death creep to try to get close to him when he's probably already blown out of there because he's probably already caught. Me. That the only time I ever paid any attention to wind at all whatsoever. Otherwise I never pay attention to what the way the wind is going. It doesn't matter, you know. And I don't even care about how much noise I make, because again it bothers me. It always bothers me when I crack a branch or something that when I'm walking through the woods. But he's probably three miles away, you know, he isn't good to hear me. Um. Yeah, here's another thing too. I do this with the guys in the tracking school. I have him, I have him stand, and then I take off walking and I tell them to yell at me when they can't hear me anymore. And you'd be surprised. You can't hear very far in the woods. You can't hear very far at all, So you don't have to worry about making much noise, you know. I mean again, if you're in that death creep part of the tracking, after you bump them and you're you're you know, he's gonna probably bet it down a couple of yards ahead of you, and you're going very slow, yes, and you really want to make sure you don't make any noise. I test the ground with every step, I feel for anything that could snap or whatever, and I push it out of the way with my toll and try to get a firm foot on the ground. Um. Other than that, when I'm going through the woods, I don't really care how much noise I make it doesn't matter that deer is not probably anywhere close to me. And and uh, you know here's another thing too. A lot of guys want to go really slow and really watch for the deer when they're tracking. I go as fast as I can. I go as fast as I can. And because again, that deer is probably four miles away from me, six miles away from me. If I go slow, I'm not we're going to catch them. I'll run out of daylight before I catch them. So I gotta put the miles on in order to catch them. So I just go fast. I just go as fast as I can. I try to try to watch it. You know, I always try to stay really active. Um. I try not to look at the ground anymore, and I possibly have to when I try to move as fast as I can and I keep looking for that deer. A matter of fact, sometimes it works in your advantage to go really fast, because a lot of times you come up on them so fast that if they're distract did you close that last yards really fast? And and they might have been pawing the ground and eating or something, or or maybe they kind of dozed off a little bit or or whatever. The case may be, you make up that ground a lot quicker when you're moving faster, and if there happened to be in a slight disadvantage at that very moment, you make that ground up really fast and bam, you're on top of them before they know it. Then you do get to jump on him, and you get a chance, you know. I I came up on one that was just so happened. I got really lucky doing The fawn head went through right in front of me, and they walked by him. He got up out of his bed. He standing there mewing at him. Yeah, it was. It was hilarious. I came up right behind it. I'm standing there watching this buck mewing at this door and this fawn, and he doesn't even know I'm there because he's so distracted with this dough on the fawn. And it was but and it was. It was the young bucket. I knew the track wasn't real good when I took it. It was one of those day is where I just wanted to stretch my legs and have a little fun. And I grabbed the track, caught up to him. It didn't take me that long and and he's I videotaped him that I leaned my gun up against my leg and grabbed my video camera. A videotaped, and he actually walked up to me, and once he realized that there was something there, he stopped and he starts doing a head bob at me, and he starts pawing the ground and I'm just adding there looking at him, you know, and I wouldn't move. Here was a guy in blaze orangeading right there, and he opened, you know, and then he walked by me and he kept going and then I pulled the cabra out of my pocket. A videotaped as he walked away. I laughed, But they're going fast. Got me close to him, you know, and he was distracted at that very moment. He just got lucky, you know. And and uh, I opted not to shoot him because he was a young buck. But it was it was a fun track and it was you know, and I had that happened before. I jumped on a track and I practically ran because he was an open hardwoods and I thought there's noise in a bed down and he's open hardwood. I was wrong. I'm jog it along, went down to a valley, came up the other side, and I froze right in my tracks. He's sitting there on the ground fifty yards away from me, underneath the cedar tree. It's like, really, you know? And again it was. It was a buck that didn't really have a real big rack, and I opted not to shoot him, and I took a bunch of pictures of him, and then I whistled at him, and he boy, what he realized I was there? He got. Now, what about a situation where, um, other than actually seeing the buck and bumping in, um, other than that scenario, you're going really fast, you're trying to cover ground. When do you know to start slowing down? Is there some kind of something you're seeing with the tracks that's indicative, or something with the habitat that says, okay, now it's time to put on the brakes. We're getting close. The only time I would really ever do that is if they started feeding really hard. Um, if they start meandering, I get a little bit edgy, and I start watching a lot closer and MA low down somewhat. But I've learned from experience they can start meandering for different reasons, and and you waste a lot of time. More times than not. You're wrong. They're thinking that they're gonna lay down and you're just wasting time. Um. If they feed really hard, if they really start pawing the ground and they really start tearing up an area, really feeding, they're going to lay down. Um if they stop at nibble old man's beard or some mushrooms off the side of a tree, or they dig up some filler ferns. Um, take a little couple of bites. Um, that doesn't mean they're they're gonna lay down that that more times than not they won't even Uh So I just don't. I just keep moving. I've learned. I've went home so many days never catching them that I've just taught myself to go fast and not worry about it. Um. Here here's what they're saying. I have. I've shot zero percent of the deer that I didn't catch up to it. Yeah, and that's that's an interesting, interesting statistic. Yeah, you know, I've never killed one that I didn't catch up to So I got to catch up to him. And and if my if my percentages go down because I'm moving fast, which I don't really think they do. Um, even if they did, I still can't shoot them unless I catch them. You know when you learned this lesson in the north, uh, after chasing hundreds and hundreds of of me and and just coming home, you know, dragging your tail, but to bind you because you didn't catch up with him. You know, you learn to go fast, you learn to just to go. You got to catch him already, kill him. That makes sense. That makes a lot of sense. Do you do anything speak uh? Speaking of that, there's one time a year that I like tracking the best more than any other, and that's late. The later the better, The later the better because the later you it, the more they start dropping away from the rout and more towards feeding, and they don't travel as much. Now it's a little bit harder to find a track because the less tracks are making the harder it is the finer track. But if your key on areas that you know, whe there's a good bucking and you're watching for him and you catch them there, you're going to catch him because he's probably not going to go real far, you know, maybe a couple of miles um uh, sometimes half a mile. You'll catch them because they're just they're just not moving as much anymore. They they slow down a lot that time of year, so that from that standpoint, they're tired, they're exhausted. All they want to do is feed their belly and lay down. UM, And so it's a lot easier. Your percentages go way up the later it gets the Unfortunately, the later it gets usually the deeper snow gets, which makes it a lot tougher to track and so forth. Um. There's always advantages the deer get no matter what situation you're in, But that's the time of year that's probably the most fun for me. UM. I think my success rate goes up a little bit more that time of year because of that. When you're when you're out there tracking a situation like that, it's late, there's a lot of snow on the ground, you've been following track for long ways. Then you see that situation you just detailed a second ago, where lots of meandering and now like heavy feeding. Everything tells you, okay, this buck is getting ready to bet it's it's it's close. Um, you're within the zone. Now you're just creeping along. At this point, do you do this? Do you stop and stand still for five minutes with your binoculars and scan everything? Do you have your gun up and ready. What what what happens when you realize that you're in the zone? Does anything change or do you keep just slowly moving until it bumps? Well, first of all, I have the gun ready all the time. I don't sling it. Um. I took the sling off years ago when I was practiced shooting. I learned that when I have my sling on my gun, when I throw my gun up with the sling on it, my sling swings back and forth like a pendulum. And I watched my bead move back and forth with the swinging of the sling, and it it It's amazing how much that sling swinging will throw your gun. And if you've got a deer that's a hundred yards out there that will push that bead enough to miss them. It's hard enough to shoot them when they're running then, let alone trying to compensate for a sling that's swinging back and forth. So I keep the gun at hand all the time. UM, So I am always ready with the gun. Um. Again, it's hard for me to slow down too much. I'll tell you where I like to slow it down. Here's where I like to slow down when I get an advantage. Let's say I'm going down to a valley and I come up on and I crested the ridge. I'll usually go up the backside of that ridge really fast. I usually pick up the pace fit the top of the ridge, moving fast, and then freeze and stand still, and then I that's where I'll stand for a minute or so, and I'll just really survey the area, because now I've got the heights advantage, and I can see quite a bit, so I'll just stand there and watch for a while. Not for a long time, but for a while. A matter of fact, the one I was telling you about this this last year that I caught up to that was shed That's why I caught him. I came up to a valley, came up the top really fast, got to the top of the ridge, and I froze and I stood there and I started surveying the area, and sure enough he was out there feeding. Didn't have any antlers on him, so I thought, well, it must not be, my dear. But I followed the track right to him was so and they were little drops of blood as he went along. To A videotaped that, so I think that he had just shed. I actually tracked backtracked him all the way to where I started again, tried to see if I could find where if he you know, dropped his antlers somewhere. But then by the time I got where I started, it was already getting dark, so I didn't go and try to backtrack him any further. And the next day I wanted to see if I coul shoot a deer, so I didn't go back looking again. But um, but yeah, that was you know, on that particular deer. I came up to the valley fast and then I hit the top and I stood there watched him. Sure enough, you know, I caught his mood him, but that he was feeding. So other than that, I try to keep moving again. Here's here, Okay, think of this scenario. So you're you're you're following a deer and he starts meandering and he starts feeding hard. Okay, so now you're convinced he's gonna lay down. Okay, let's say you're right. Let's say he does lay down. But let's say that was eight hours ago, and he laid there for two hours and got up and took off again. Now you just spent an hour covering that last hundred and fifty yards to the bed only to find an empty bed. What did you gain? And I've done this so you know, I mean, this is what happened. So I try not to again, you know, I try not to error on the side of wasting time when I don't know. I like to move. I like to you know, I'll be more, I'll be tuned in a little bit more. I believe me. My radar is going full bore. When you know, I start seeing these signals that he could be going down, I you know, I get a little bit more intense. Um. But again, I unless I absolutely have you know, I mean, the only way you really know if he's there is if you see him. So, um, I don't like to waste a lot of time. I've just wasted too minch time on tracks and not caught too many deer and and and so I just kind of you know when I said the lesson, I have to keep learning all the time because I want to slow down. I really want to start picking the woods apart. But you know, you just don't catch them and you don't get them. Yeah, here's another thing too, I want to touch on. When you come up on a bed. You're tracking this buck and you come up on a bad I'm gonna tell you a story. I tracked the buck is in Centter, Wisconsin here and it was a muzzleoader season, and I came up on his bed. It was a nice bed, nice buck. So I got my camera out and I was taking pictures of the bed, and I laid my muzzleloader in the bed and I took pictures of that to give an idea how big the bed was and stuff and all little fun with it. Whatever it got, okay, I'm gonna put away, grabbed my muzzleloader again, and I started taken off on the track again, and I walked about another twenty yards and I blew him up and I he jumped up and he ran away, and I didn't even fired a shot. I just couldn't get the bead settled out of him. The nice dandy, dandy, nice eight pointer, you know, and and and uh, I just couldn't get the beat on him. It was muzzleoader, and you get one chance, you know. So I just waited too long, and I just never got the bead set alowed, never took the shot. But the lesson to be learned in this is when you come across the bed and it's empty and he didn't run out of it, so you know you didn't push him out of that bed. Be on super super red alert because I've seen it many times since that day, where they'll get up, they'll move forty yards, twenty yards, thirty yards, they'll poop, pe uh, maybe nibble a little bit more, stretch a little bit, and they'll lay back down. And then they'll get up and do the same thing another hour later and they'll lay back down. And so oftentimes when you come up to an empty bed, that doesn't mean he isn't very close yet a matter of fact, is a good chance he's closed. So when you come up on anti bed, be on full alert because he could be in another bed just thirty yards away. And I've had that happened many times to the point now where I just get excited when I see an empty Betty, if I can tell that he's not running out of that bed and I haven't scared him, I get excited because I'm thinking he's right there, because more times than not, he is. It's a very interesting observation, and you had's something you think about, you know, just when you consider, dear, a buck betting behavior in general is that, Yeah, the lots of times they'll have a little spot and then, like you said, get up, stretch, urinate, bed, back down, maybe just reposition. And uh, it's interesting. You might, you know, pan out in the way you describe where you might be right there, just yards away, and you might not even know it if you're not paying attention. The biggest buck I didn't I didn't get him. I never got that, dear, But the biggest buck I ever tracted northern was God's. And that thing was like a horse. Oh my goodness, um, the first time my color of that deer. There was a bed and he got up and he moved over, oh, I don't know, about another ten yards and laid down again. Then he got up and he walked right back to the first bed, past the first bed, and he circled around and he went back into some thicker brush and he laid down about another thirty yards over, and I came in, walked to the first bed, walk to the second bed, backtracked into the first bed, blocked past the first bed, and started circling around towards that really thick brush where he was and he blew up out of there, and he blew out. It was so thick I couldn't see him, but he was right there, and he I scared him so bad. He actually tripped and plowed the ground. He just he hit the snow and just slid along. And he got up and he ran out of there. And boy, he made he made a lot of noise when he went took off out of there because he fell down. But he was a brute. He was just he was a brute. And and but he had three different beds, right. That was just a you know, that classical example of that. He had gotten up, you know, two other times and moved around and reposition. Could be the wind, it could be just he just wanted something different. Um, who knows why they do what they do, but he had, you know, I see that all the time, where they get to an area where they want to hang out, they'll just reposition a bunch of times to get up to stretch a little bit, you know, move around, and then and then rebd ont again. I never did get that year. I was after him for a few years and he dropped off the radar. So I'm sure he's dead by now. Wow, that's cool to We'll see that though, and actually have you know proof that that actually happens by getting to see the beds and bump them out of there. That's another great benefit of what you're doing. Just getting to see that kind of signed firsthand. Is uh really useful? Um? Well, we have to wrap this up because I've been keeping you here for a pretty long time. UM, but I want to ask you as two more questions before we do before we do wrap it up, And the first of those, I'm just kind of curious. Is is there anything that you do that most other trackers, most other deer trackers would think you're crazy for doing? Is there anything out there that everybody else that does your style of hunting would be like Todd, that's nuts, but you still do it. Is there anything that comes to mind when I when I lay that scenario out. I don't know if technique or or anything that I actually do, um, not not really um, but I will say something that that kind of gets into a strange realm and a lot of people you kind of kind of like the turning walk away. Um. The it's the mental aspect of it. Ah. I think there's something much greater than we're capable of understanding that comes along with the mental aspect of it. I believe I want to kill every deer I chase. I believe I'm going to get everyone. I believe I'm going to be successful all the time. And I think something changes when you have that mental aspect, and not just that it pushes you to try harder or anything like that. I think there's something even beyond that that that things happen. I've had weird, strange luck that just it is hard to explain, and and it always seems like when my mental attitude is there, things go my way. Yeah, how do how do you put yourself in a position to have that positive attitude? How do you keep that mental state strong without losing hope or getting discouraged? You're getting frustrated. That's a good question. And if I could figure that one out, I'd write a book and be a millionaire. It's a mindset, it's I think it's it's a practice skill, it's a learned skill. Um. You see some people run around and um, you know they talk about the glass half bold, glass half empty. You know, mentalities and stuff. And I think the people that have the positive attitudes and so forth. Um, it's a practice to learn skill. If you don't have it, and you practice it long enough, you will become it. So if you you tend to be negative or you tend to not have confidence, then fake it till you make it. Yeah, just keep telling yourself. Keep telling yourself, you know, keep telling you, I'm gonna get this steer, I'm gonna catch this steer, I'm gonna be successful, I'm gonna shoot this steer. You know, I did that muzzleloading. When I first started muzzleloading, I have to pull the hammer back on my muzzleloader. And I'm used to running a thirty six pump. I don't have to pull a hammer back or anything that's totally rooted foreign to me. You know, I don't. I'm not used to that. And so I was really concerned when I took that muzzleloader in the woods that I was going to freeze up at the moment of truth and try to pull the trigger without pulling that hammerback. So what I did was I told myself probably a thousand times every when I first started, you carrying that gun, pulled the hammer, pulled the hammer pull. I kept telling myself that is I'm walking along, you know, just mentally in my head, pull the hammer, pull the hammer, pull the hammer. I kept doing that, kept doing it, rop doing that when I shot my buck, I first buck with that muzzleloader. I don't remember pulling the hammer which did it, but I did because it won't fire unless I do so. If I could do that with the hammer, you could do that with your mental attitude too. I'm gonna get this buck. I'm gonna get this buck. I'm gonna get this deer. I'm gonna get this deer. And I'll tell you if you're out in the woods and you and you stop walking and you check your your GPS and you find out your three miles from the truck, and you're getting tired, and all of a sudden you start thinking about it all My back hurts three miles away. Oh, I don't know how many you know. It's you quit. You quit. You'll give buck if you if you start, if you if you let that voice inside your head start to mess with you, so you just and you can train yourself out of that. You can tell yourself, I'm gonna keep going. I'm gonna get this buck. I'm gonna keep I'm gonna get this buck you know, and and and like I said, it not only helps you from that standpoint, I believe there's something else beside that. I think think the universe bends to you to some to some extent, just by things that I've experienced in my own life. It's it's amazing, you know, uh, when your attitude is right, how incredibly lucky you become. I think there's something to it too. I'm a d percent right there with you. There's something. I don't think there's anything more important in the hunting pursuit, more important than your mental state than being positive, being mentally tough, mentally focused. Um and and you you described a lot of the things that I try to do that self talk is so important. Like sometimes no matter how how much of a positive person you might be, or how confident a person might be, at least in my case, I find myself I think I'm pretty darned positive and pretty confident in a lot of things that I'm doing. But I'll still you'll still have that doubt creep and you'll still have that frustration creep in. But I think I think there's value in being able to identify when that's happening and say hey, okay, well I see what's happening here in your own mind, and you kind of say, all right, that's that frustration creep in and I see it. I'm stopping it right now, and and just start telling yourself like you just said, it's you know, any second, ow can angs. You just gotta stay ready and the second out that big Buck might comen walking her and his second. Now, all the bad luck you've been having that's going to change. You just gotta, like you said, will it into existence sometimes And let you know, if you're positive and and working hard and doing the right things, sometimes the universe will present that opportunity. You just got to be ready there to take it. And um, what's interesting is is I actually started doing a study on this a little bit, and I never really followed through on it. But um, I've got all the annoying information, all the books and the DVDs A and uh. One thing that I noticed because I studied this quite a lot, the mental aspect of things. When I was going through the annoyed books, I started noticing that popping out of what was getting written. And so I started one day I went back through when I started copying all the times that that was mentioned. Um, don't worry about what's going on at home. Stay focused. I'm going to get the deer. I always think I'm gonna get every deer I hunt. I mean this. Those themes are in in the Benoits books. And you may think they're suproved trackers or excellent woodsman. I think they're fantastic manifestos. I think they're tapping more than just hunting, you know. And and um Bruce Bruce Townsley, when he wrote the book and he spent a lot of time with Lanny the Oldest Boy, he made a statement in the book. He says, Lanny, when he enters the woods, he's in a zen like state, that focus is so sharp and and it must impressed him because he impressed him enough that he actually wrote it into the book. So you know, that's that that mental aspect of that. You know. I think that annoys are they're successful because of it. And I think if you look at anybody, I don't care if it's business, personal sports, I think you're going to see that theme. Yeah. I tend to agree. I think anyone who has reached a level of excellence, there's a very strong mental mastery component, being able to men, being able to master your inner self and your attitude and all those things that to your point, I think it's a very consistent across those in that top tier of any kind of pursuit. So in the end, like you said, it is something that doesn't get discussed a whole lot when it comes to hunting and tactics and stuff. Like you said, sometimes people want to kind of turn and walk away from that kind of discussion. Um, it's it's a little bit outside of the realm of pinch points and tracks and grunting and bucks. But um, but really there's a whole lot to it, I think. Um, So I'm really glad you mentioned that it's uh, it's hard to put a finger on exactly how to control it, like you said, but um, but I do think there's something to be said for it is being. It is a learned trait is a practice. It is something that you know, if you're thinking about it and trying to be more focused, trying to be more positive, trying to be you know, enter somewhat whatever that whatever is then mean to you and each person individually. Um, Being in that state where you're fully present, where you were focused where you are. Um, I don't know. I mean, like you said, it's hard to put words to it sometimes, but having that mental mastery, that mental focus and control and toughness, I think really is maybe the ultimate differentiator between your average running the mill person and the excellent, the expert. Um, the person who's kind of mastered anything and hunting is right there with anything else like football or business or whatever it might be. So that is a perfect way to wrap things, Upton, thank you for bringing that up. No, I know that you've got a few other resources online that that people that want to learn more about this kind of stuff and more about your experiences and expertise. Um, there's some places they can do that, right Where can they go online to find that? Yeah, I've got a Probably the best spot is I've got a Facebook blue Um, I've got a Facebook site, But I also have a group, and the group is kind of the fun place because that's what we do a lot of our our stuff. It's a lot of interaction. Uh. I do some online tutorials, live videos, I share a lot of things on that site and then then people can interact back, which is the fun part about it is is uh people can interact back to me on that and UM, that's a Facebook group page. It's Misty River Trackers base camp is what I call it. And then uh, and then I also have a website, uh www. Misty River Trackers dot com. And that's uh a good place where I kind of draw everything together. UM. I have all most of my resources listed out there, or how to find all the resources that I have. UM. It's also gonna be on my online store for tracking class, offering a tracking class, teach this and other things. I'll have logo hats and so forth. UM. As a matter of fact that I'm going to be talking to a clothing manufacturer coming up here about a tracking jacket hat, um and some other things. I don't know what's going to happen to that. We haven't really talked too much about it yet, just kind of in the inter beginning stages of talking about that. But if something like that comes available, that will be on that store too. That's my website, is going to be my store basically for selling things. UM. And then I also like to mention one other site. UM. Troy Spooner uh started a site uh www Old School white Tails dot com. UM and he asked me to have import and help and and it's been a fun project. He wants to stress the old style way of doing things. Um. Uh, not a lot of fancy gear and not a lot of you know, high tech stuff or whatever. Just kind of like how your grandpa would have hunted, you know, that kind of thing, getting back to some of the roots of hunting and public land, big woods type situations. Uh, he's going to kind of cover a lot of those kind of things on that site. So, um, a lot of really cool stuff out there. Uh that's uh www, old school white tails dot com. So go check that out too. Great. There's something to be said about just the woodsmanship and uh sometimes that's a lost art. So I think that's great that that you guys are covering that kind of that kind of content and making sure that folks can can keep learning about that. I I think there's value for sure. So and there's been value with all of this, Todd. I can't thank you enough for taking the time to share all this with me and our listeners. Um, I've really enjoyed it, so so thank you very much. Yeah, no problem, it's been funny. I've had a good time to let's chat against him, all right? And that is a rap today. So thank you all for listening, appreciate you tune for this one. Hopefully you've been inspired to at least pay attention to tracks a little bit more and know I have. So until next time, best of luck, shot, dunning or scouting, and until we chat again, stay wired to hunt. H