00:00:02 Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your home for deer hunting news, stories and strategies, and now your host, Mark Kenyon. Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. I'm your host, Mark Kenyan, and this is episode number two and today the show, we're joined by Adam Hayes to dive deep into his tactics for consistently locating the best buck in the neighborhood. And welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, brought to you by on X, And today I'm joined by Adam Hayes and we're focusing specifically on the topic of finding the best buck in your area. And Adam seemed like they got to talk about this topic with because he does that year after year after year. Now, shooting big buck is not all the hunting is all about. It's not for everyone. It's not something you gotta do, but for some folks, those who seek the greatest deer hunting challenge possible, the goal of finding and hunting the biggest and oldest buck in your neck of the woods. Is this this task, this mission that can be incredibly rewarding and frustrating, But somehow Adam seems to do it with ease. Now, you might be familiar with Adam from his appearances in various magazines or his show Team two hundred, or from the fact that he's pretty widely known as one of the few people out there who have killed four free range white tail bucks that eclips the magic two inch mark. So needless to say, he's got a lot of experience finding and targeting bruiser white tails, and today I picked his brain for every single idea, tip and tactic I could possibly find that he has for how to find those kinds of deer, how to locate the best buck and whatever area might be in. We discussed that and we break it down how to do an winter in the summer and in the season. So, without further ado, let's take a really quick break and then we'll get to my chat with Adam Hayes in a one more quick announcement For all of you guys out there, if you are into white tail deer hunting, what's if you're listening to this podcast, you sure ought to be otherwise hereing for a boring conversation. If you're in the white tails, we are just launching a new newsletter from Meat Eater that is all focused on our latest and greatest white tail hunting content. It's a spot you can sign up and get all of our white tail stuff sent to your inbox every single week. It's called white Tail Weekly. If you just go to the Meat Eater dot com, you'll see a little pop up that's gonna show you how. You can just enter your email address enter to get that. You're gonna see the new wired Um podcast show up there. You're gonn see our new Refresh radio podcast. You're gonnaee our new video series we just launched called How to Kill Buck. Have a whole other video series coming very soon that's white tail focused, and a whole bunch some articles focused on our favorite big game species, the white tail deer. Content for me, Spencer new Heart, Tony Peterson, Pat Durkin, all sorts of other folks that love white tails just like you and I so heading over to the media dot com and sign up for the white Tail Weekly newsletter. Alright with me. Now on the line is Adam Hayes. Welcome back to the show. Adam, Thanks Mark, glad to be here. Yeah. I just was looking back on the archives to see when we had you on last and this is crazy to me, but it was four years ago that we did that episode. It does not seem like it's been that long at all. Time flies when you're having fun. I know that is Uh, that is the truth. So I'm glad, glad we're finally circling back again. And speaking of having fun, Uh, are you having a good late summer early fall period? You get excited for the season to kick off here soon? Yeah, I'm getting excited. Uh, just summer just flew by and got some good deer on camera, so might just get after him. Yeah, I'm right there with you. And uh, speaking of those good deer and camera, that kinda ties into the main the main focus area I thought we could try to dive into today. And I know last time we chatted it was kind of a holistic view of everything you're doing to target big old bucks, And today I thought we can narrow in to one slice of that which you seem to be particularly good at, which is locating the best buck in the neighborhood, like finding that very biggest oldest buck in whatever neck of the woods it is that you're in, and then you just zero in on that deer and you it seems to be that you're getting within range of that deer more often than most other people out there. So I thought we could dive into all facets of that. So everything from you know, preseason work and scouting all the way to what you're doing in season, everything from actual hunting to trail cameras to whatever else it might be. Um, but I gotta ask you alluded to it. You've got a couple of good bucks on camera. Do you have a couple of these bucks in your sites already that you think you're going to be the target for this year? Yet? Yeah, I've got a couple of target bucks. I've not seen a deer that I thought was pushing two hundred incheons this year, but one dear in particular been chasing for a four year at home, and big deer over in Illinois have been after for a couple of years. So that's what it's all about with me. I'd rather be chasing a specific animal than just out there deer hunting. That's really what drives me these days is um, you know, having some history on a deer and trying to figure it out and playing that game with them a supposed to just sitting there hoping a big one is gonna show up. Yeah, I hear you. I'm right there too. So how does that process start for you? You You know, let's say two thousand eighteen season ended, two thousand nineteen has started when when you went into this year. Let's let's look at this year as a perfect example. How did the process start for you as far as trying to either relocate a buck you new from past years or find whatever that buck will be a new buck might be this year. When did that start? What's it start looking like? Is it is it right away in the postseason or do you wait till the summer? How do you start locating that? Dear? It's really important to get out in the woods, we think before things start greening up. I mean a lot of guys get out hunting, and I do shift hunt. I'm really looking for you know, handlers, off specific animals though, as opposed to just out comb in the woods looking for looking for a horn here or there. But it's a great time to get out and really, you know, everything's kind of really laid out for you. Um as far as the previous season. You know, obviously rubs, trails, scrapes, this sort of thing, But the main thing I look for late season like that when I'm after a specific buck, is are the core areas, you know, areas where those deers spend the majority of their time in October especially, you know, thick, thick betting areas that are going to have concentrations of large RUPs because you know, getting after a specific deer excuse me, I like to get after him in October obviously before the route when they're still pretty predictable and on a on a set pattern doing pretty much the same thing every day. But you've got to know, you know, right where those dinner a betting and food sources are pretty obvious. But early season they're doing the same thing every day, and some guys struggle with killing deer then, like during the October lowy because a deer doing it the same thing but in such a small area and it's tough to get into those spots without tipping them off. He usually get one crack out of them and that it's game O for or things get a lot tougher. So that's really what I focus on that time of years, finding the core areas where this big deer bet or betting. Early season they're doing a lot of rugs and everything is pretty much right there laid out for you to find um late season is so so what you know, Let's say it's a property that you know you've hunt in the past. There's a buck that you think made it to the next year. Now you're out there in January or February and March whatever it is, and you're looking for these core areas. Once you find a spot you think is his core area, maybe in the past, like you, you've hypothesized that, Hey, I think this buck is hanging out in this little zone. What are you really trying to do them? At that point? If you know that one of these pockets is one of his little core betting areas, do you go in there and try to actually take it even further and say, Okay, I know this is zone. This five acres or fifteen acres or whatever seems to be his core. Do you go in there and try to precisely pick I bet you he beds in this exact spot some days. I bet you beds in this exact spot some days. Or do you try to find exactly the routes? Do you think that deer is coming in? What are you actually doing when you're there on March one looking at the core area. Well, it's really all the above. I mean, you gotta have a really good idea where he's betting at and it's really a matter of almost you know, thinking like the deer. So if you know where he's betting, you know where the food sources are are and where he's gonna want to go. Number one, what travel routes are going to take to get there? And probably the most important is what kind of wind is he gonna need to feel safe enough to get up in moon during daylight to get there? Because my whole regiment is all about finding a weak spot somewhere on that travel pattern where you can get within bow range of him while he's using the wind to his advantage, because you know, a five six seven year old buck in October is probably just gonna lay there in his bed until dark and let he's got a few things in his favor, particularly a good wind. You know, weather influences mature deer to move, and obviously the moon to him a big follower on the moon. You know, when you can line a few of those things up, it's uh, that's when you catch those big deer making mistakes. But you know, it's really about just like I said, trying to think. I think, like the deer, what's gonna what's it gonna take for that deer to feel comfortable to get up and move and finding you know, an ambush spot along there while he's using the wind to his advantage, and those spots are tough to find. You It's hard enough to beat a big bucks nose let alone given him the wind. You know, That's really what changed my success on big deer was when I quit hunting winds that were good for me and started hunting to win good for the animal I was after. So it was a fair to say that you are looking at a property and you're kind of finding these core areas, and those core areas kind of become like a hub on a wheel, and then you're then trying to guess where are the spokes coming off of the wheel these travel routes out. So do you end up having different places you hunt that having these different little wheels. You've got a coreer here and a couple of spokes coming out, and then you've got another coreer somewhere else. Maybe it's a different buck. And if you spokes, is that kind of what your maps in your head look like when you're thinking about breaking down these properties. Yeah, I mean, because they're not going to be headed into the exact same place every day. I mean they're pretty consistent early season, but you know, food sources change almost daily in October. You know with crops, you know, the soybeans change from you know, being grained to drying up, and they switch over to the eight corners when they're dropping. And if a corn field comes down, you know they jump on that right away. So I mean, changing NonStop. So there's gonna be multiple routes a big deer it can take. So that's where you're you know you're in season. Scouting comes into play a lot. I probably scout more of and I hunt during the season also because you've got to be on the freshest sign. You know, there's that stuff changing, like I said, almost on a daily basis, and get to stay on top of that stuff. But then then again that also causes its own set of problems and issues trying to get in and keep an eye on fresh sign how things are changing without disturbing the deer. So you really got to have an intimate knowledge of where that deer is betting at, where you think he's going to go as the crops and purfood, food sources change, and I mean it's just, uh, you know, it's just a combination of a lot of things they're going to play. It's a huge puzzle. It's a huge puzzle. Now. Yeah, yeah, that's a strategic nightmare. But that's what makes it fun. Right. So I do want to talk about all that in season stuff for sure, But before we get to that, one more question on the on this, you know, winter scouting of these star at these core areas, finding them the spokes along the way. But what if it's a new property and you don't know where you know, where these certain bucks are typically spending their time. So if you're brand new on the spot and you're now walking around and you're trying to determine where is this best buck living, you know a lot of people say, well, you know, there's certain places I think the bucks should bed like they'll be good thick cover. And then so if you just go to the good thick cover and you say, okay, this has gotta be his coreer, this has gotta be his betting area because it's good they cover um. But you know, maybe there's four bucks living around there and one of them, maybe he's using that one, And is that the best one? Is that the oldest buck? Is that the biggest buckle? How do you actually go about determining where the king of the hill is living? Is it just by rub size or is that a concentration or is it I mean, how do you go about and actually say, okay, this little area here, this is the big boy I think, or this is where they're spending the most time. How do you actually make that qualification? I'd probably rely on concentrations of I grew up. It's more than anything. Um. But you know, on any given property there can be you know, multiple bucks and multiple areas that they use. So unless you actually witness firsthand, you know, a deer making rub, it's hard to know for sure. But um, you know, I use a lot of mineral sites in those locations year round to keep tabs on the bucks and to know which areas that they're using. I'd love to set my mineral sites right on the edge of these core areas, where you know, when a whether bucks traveling um through an area or you know, going from his summer pattern to his back to his core area, when he sheds his a velvet. Typically they'll you know, they'll hit those mineral sites that I'll know when they're there, and you know, it's it's a good idea to put them right on the edge where you can get in and get out without disturbing those areas. But um, that's a great way to keep tabs on them, to know which deer are living where, you know, and you just you gotta cover. On a new farm, you gotta cover every stitch of cover that's available, because you know, a big deer could be using a typical you know, flat in the middle of the woods as his quar area, or he could be using a little tiny thicket right up next to the road. I mean, you just never know where these big deer of little pockets that they've found where they've learned to survive. An older guy that it's hunted lower than I've been been alive told me one time that if you've gone more than a hundred yards from your truck, you probably went too far. So I don't I don't skip any patch of cover when it comes to figuring out, you know where these big deer high net and especially on a new piece, you just got to cover everything that's available to you in what you've got permission on because you don't want to miss anything. Yeah, what about scrapes, um, you know, big hub tile hub type scrapes. Some people like to really focus on those scrapes. They're back in the cover and they use that to kind of focus. And do you pay attention to that sign at all when doing this early you know, postseason type stuff in the winter still or is it just rubs and another signs like that? No, I pay a lot of attention to him. It seems like the bigger and larger breeding scrape. So that's you know, those are the ones that you're gonna want to pay attention to a November and I normally don't find those on those isolated you know buck travel patterns. Those are more typical for you know, all your doughs and all your bucks are hitting them in a real common area, which is where you want to be in November. But when I'm after a specific buck, I like to try to kill him in October and that's typically not the kind of place we're going to find them. But you definitely want to note those areas, um, you know for November action, that's for sure. Okay, that makes sense. So let's move the clock forward a little bit. Now it's the summer. It's July or August, and you kind of made you made a comment a second ago that makes me curious about what you think about summer scouting, because he said something about how these bucks moved from their summer patterns to their fall patterns. So, right, a lot of us talk about the fact that you're gonna have these deer in one place in the summer and then some significant portion typically shift their range to a degree once a volvo comes off. So do you how do you look at your summer scouting, your summer trail camera pictures, your summer bean field scouting, when you know that allow those deer going to be somewhere different in a few weeks. Well, it's just something you gotta keep in the back of your mind. And that's when that late season scouting comes into play, because these mature deer are usually going to be located next to a preferred food source in the summer, whether it's you know, a really green soybean field, alfalfa, whatever the case is, and who knows why they pick a specific field, but I've seen them here in Ohio where deer don't travel a lot um relocate a mile or two miles away in the summer, and then you know they're out there like clockwork all summer, wrong every night, and then all of a sudden they vanish. And that's where a lot of guys have problems with them. They don't know, you know, what happened where they went, and a lot of those books, when they shed their vote, they automatically relocate back to those core areas that I try to find late season. But um, you know, the only thing hunt the only thing definitely about hunting big deers, nothing's ever definite. You know, some of those big bucks might stay right on that food source right in through October. If the beings were planted little and they're still green, they could stay there. I've seen that happen before. If there's a good oak drop in the area, they could stay right there or relocate, you know to a different spot where they're dropping. But typically September, you know when they should there's a lot of stuff changing, and you know, a big, big deer could stay right where he's at where he could completely vanish and relocate. But nine times out of ten when they do that they're going back to that safety area. You know, they know what's going on, they know what's coming in. Things are changing and it's time to get reclusive again and that's normally where they end up. And that's when those mineral sites come into play and having a camera on and monitoring them so you so I know when they you know, when they vanish from the southern pattern, they'll usually show up on those mineral sites. Yes, so tell me a little more about your mineral site trail camera process. So you're putting these spots on the edge of the core area. When you say the edge of it, I mean, are you saying it's on the edge of the field so you can drive right up to it or you actually back in the timber, but you're on the edge of the transition between like a staging area and the good they cover. Like, how how close to the edge are you really? When I say edge, I'm talking about somewhere where I can get in and out and check in with out disturbing the deer that I'm watching, but close enough to him that he's gonna find it and it's gonna have to be on his travel pattern. You know, when he comes through the area. They just I don't know, it seems like more and more of these days to find these big mature bucks, they just don't seem to venture off their set patterns. You know, you can go out of their way to find stuff. So you've really got to be either right on it or close to it for them to define it or to pay attention to it, or to hit it consistently. So as close as you can be to their core area, I'm on the edge, so you're not disturbing anything if you have to go in and replenish it or change batteries on your camera or whatever, you know. And and a lot of times I hunt really close to him too, so you know, I don't want to go busting through the brush to get into a tree stand I like, I love just being able to slip right just inside the cover, not disturb anything, jump up in a stand off if a big deer you know, started to hit a mineral, which they don't a lot of times in October, but you know, if he's making a mistake, you got to be able to slide in their undisturbed and take the crack at him. So yeah, So what's your trail camera set up? Over those. I mean, I'm curious, like, do you put them away high in a tree and aim it down because you're worried about the buck spoken to the camera, or do you just place a camera eye level. I'm curious about your whole details set up for those cameras, those like stationary cameras where they're over mineral side or something like that. Well, most of those are there year round, So did deer get used to him? And I haven't had a need to you know, hang them tin foot up in a tree or anything like that. I've not noticed where they really disturbed the deer I'm after. And like I said, because they're in there all year, going to get used to them. So just a typical set up. Okay, And are you running uh cell cams nowadays? Do you run just traditional cameras? And and it's so how often you going in there to check them at this point in the year, at least when I'm in close to a quar area like that. Yeah, I used the cell camera so I don't have to go in there and check them. I probably run about fifteen of those, and then everywhere else it's just standard cameras that I've bounced around from spot to spot. But those cell cameras are worth their weight and goal, especially during season. So any of my you know, kill spots that I'm actually hunting and I think that's where I need to be, you know, I'll definitely have a cell camera in there. So okay, that makes a lot of sense. So let's say we're in that late summertime period or early falling, like right now, it's September, early September. You're waiting to get some of these bucks on your camera, on your trail cameras. Let's say you get a ping, you look at your phone. It's September six, and here's the big shooter box that you've been hoping to see all year. He's on camera just outside of one these core areas. Is at that point do you just let it be and keep your cameras all where they were at because you want to keep track of what other deer might be around. Or do you go and grab some of your other cameras or elsewhere and then zero in on this spot now that you know your target bucks in. Yeah, it's too late in the game to make a lot of changes right now, So the less pressure the better. You know, it's all about the element of surprise and and going in the first time. And I mean a deer that survived for five or six seasons, you just can't you just can't make any mistakes. Not early season. And like I said, this time of the year, they're doing pretty much the same thing every day, but they're doing it in a really small area. And if he's in there and you catch you moving during daylight, don't change anything. I don't change anything. I mean unless something absolutely has to be changed. The key I just I want to stay out of that area, let him feel as comfortable as you possibly can, and then wait until I stacked the deck in my favor with everything possible to get him to move during daylight as soon as I can slide and take a chance and killing him. Because if I took the ten biggest deer I've killed, I bet you nine of them were killed the first time I went in. You know, I think a lot of guys struggle with the fact that it's hunting season. I gotta be hunting, which is understandable if a guy can only hunt, you know, a couple of days a week or weekends or whatever. You know, guys want to be out there hunting, But I don't go through all the work and scouting and effort to go in before everything's lined up and take a chance on blowing him out, because like I said, it gets tougher each time you go in there and don't get it done. So you really got to be patient and just wait for everything to line up before I even take a chance. I'm going in, and nine times out of ten it works if you can do that, if if you can stay out of your area till everything lines up. So so before we get into the season. Um. One other thing I know we talked about this a little bit when we chatted last, which was this idea that sometimes a lot of folks will just focus on hunting whatever bucks they have on their property that they've always hunted or whatever, but that you sometimes will actually go out there in the summer or off season or whatever it is and seek out these top tier bucks glass and fields and looking all around, and then when you see a buck that you really want to target, then you go about trying to get permission to hunt there or whatever it takes to be able to hunt there. Um. So when I guess question number one is do you still do that question? Number two is if so do you do that in the summer? Do you wait till early September so that you know you're in the spot that buck's going to be during the fall. That's really good to be the toughest part of the game, anymore, fine and quality deer that you can actually a hunt, you know, and being able to find one, I mean, there's lots of different ways to find them. You know. I follow up on every lead I hear about on a big deer. You know, I do a lot of glassing in the summer. You know, um shed hunting new properties. I'm a real estate agent, so you know I'm looking at properties all the time. Um, you know, just any any um any way that you can, you know, get a lead on a big deer, you gotta follow up on it. And I like to focus on sanctuaries or areas that don't get a lot of hunting pressure, or areas next to sanctuaries for good places. I mean here in Ohio, I think just about any buck has got the genetics to be a trophy. He just needs time. So in order for him to get the time to grow to be you know, Bon the crocker or two intern inch dear, he's got to have you gotta have us eight spots, so you know, anywhere we can get next to or on a spot that has minimal or no hunting pressure, you know, those are spots I focus on on trying to find a newt here per se. But yeah, I think probably the best times to really locate one is is in the summer, when those deer a little bit more relaxed and out in the beans in the summer. And tell you that though there's not um, even a mature dear is not out there every night. I've I've noticed that quite a bit in the last ten years, with more guys out scouting in the summer and pulling off the side of the road. There's a big deer don't like to be seen, even in July and August. And there are certain nights that I focus on in the summer to increase my efforts and success on seeing those big deer out in the fields because I can't I don't have the time, you know, to be out there every night in the summer like I used to be. And there are certain nights that are better than others for catching those big dear out in the fields. So you look at the same types of factors like the moon and temperature and other weather stuff like that to impact deer movement that we look at in the season. Is that the same stuff you kean during the summer for your scouting. Yeah, exactly. Maybe not so much the wind in the summer, but definitely the weather and the moon. You know, when you get the cool evenings or an evening when you know rains and then the sun comes out and you've got some moisture on these plants, you know, dear just coming out of the woodwork. And then of course the moon. Um. I just in the last twenty years, I've just seen it happen too many times when that moon's peaking in the evenings that especially the maturity or seemed to show up early. And that's really what I've focused on her and fift twenty years now for those bigger animals, trying to locate them in the summer. So those those deer though you find in the summer, Let's say you let's say you did this, you went out there, you scouted near some different little saints where areas you found you found a buck you're really interested in. It's it's August though, yes, you glassed him into bean field. He was out there every other day through all of August. But now it's early September, and maybe like did you go and get you asked on every property nearby and maybe you've got permission on one of them or two of them, but not September, and you're now you're trying to decide, Okay, are they still there? Are they still around or did there was there fall range somewhere? Totally different, like how do you try to verify that? Is it just that we talked about earlier? Did you go and put a camera out and now you're waiting to see if the camera starts popping in September? Or is there something else you do to try to verify is he here? It's a shot in the dark when you catch one in the summer. Because you did, you didn't have a chance to do your your postseason scouting to know where his core area is, so you don't know if he does they initially he's going to relocate to. Really, the best thing you know for catching a big during the summer and you find one on the field is just you know, I call it um uh summer observation. And that's getting up in a tree or you know, in a truck from a few hundred yards away, and keeping an eye on the area with a spotting scope, and and just not tipping that deer off because you bust one in the summer on debt and pretty much most of the time he's gonna be gone. So you get permission on any any adjacent spots that you can, and the last thing you want to do is just busted deer like that, to just keep an eye on him from a distance, try to you know, you know, through aerial photographs and some low impact scouting, you know, trying to figure out what he's doing. But it's that's a completely different game, you know, when you find one in the summer, when you've got nothing other to go on other than just seeing him out in the field, you know, that could be that could be tough. So what about a situation where like, what if this is actually happening right now? You just got permission in late August, it's a week later, it's early September, You've done the truck observations, you sat on the hill of the spotter. Would you risk going in and doing a walk about still at this late in the game with your season opening four weeks from an how or whatever? Or would you say, now, I'm not even gonna walk in there once. I'm just gonna start hunting running gun, you know, once the season starts. I don't want to muck it up at all. How would you think about things one month off from the season? Now? Man, you just you gotta handle it carefully, and it's going to differ from from, you know, one scenario to the next. But one deer comes to my mind. You know, I was chasing a giant eight point I don't know, six or seven years ago, and he was camped out in a really small swaving field and it was just surrounded by a couple of fence lines and at a ditch, little wooded creek line. And I've been up in a tree a couple of times, and I saw him moving across the field, and I knew the direction he was heading in the evenings, but I had no stands in there, so I waited till I got a good wind. I knew that that deer was not gonna win to me out in that field during the day, had a good rainy day, put some rubber boots on, got all cleaned up, put a stand on the back, and I basically walked a creek creek line up to where I thought he was entering um or exiting the field and hunger stand and killed him the second week of season. Um, you know, coming through the beans and and heading in that same direction. So it's a matter of watching them, seeing what they're doing, not alerting them to what you're doing, and just really being smart about entering and exiting the property, making sure you don't tip them off, being really clean and you know, going in with the stand on your back, minimal disturbance, um, you know, and sometimes even a hanging hunt, yeah, I know, if if you don't have the opportunity to get it done beforehand, you know, you might have to put that stand and sticks on your back and do it and and hang them and hunt the same you know, same evening, right, all right? Is any of this process different? Um on properties? You know? So we we started there and then we went to this new property example. But now let's go back to a property. You do know you've hunted a farm year after year after year, you get a big buck that shows up on your camera on your mineral side on September five. Let's say, once you're opening days approaching, do you still try to get some nights to do some observations this last few days of the last week. Are you still trying to do that or do you know these spots well enough that it's just better not to risk it at all and just wait till that right time to hunt. You know, I love to have things set pre set, you know, weeks or months in advance, but that's not always the case with things changing. You know, with a food source change and or hunting pressure or whatever. You know, stuff can change at the last minute. Or you know, you might have a new buck show up on your property, but regardless, he had to be ready to change it up at a moment's notice. And even on a property that you know, Um, if a big deer year after or a new one shows up in a specific spot during daylight making a mistake, I mean, you got to be ready to dive in and get it done. And one of the biggest deer ever killed was a dear I knew about, and after all the postseason scouting and summer scouting I did on that property, I couldn't find that dear. To save my life, and I kept doing my you know, my distance scouting observation stands. Finally saw that deer show up mid October one evening out in the middle of the field. Um, I was a few hundred yards away. He had no idea I was there. Um sat that field for the next week. He didn't go back up, and then cornfield on on the end of the property went down. He popped out one evening with the doze, and I didn't have anything set up in there. So the next evening I went in with the stand and sticks on my back and hung in. Uh, hung on the edge of the field and had dark right before dark. He stood up about eight yards away and ended up killing him. So so you gotta be ready. You gotta be ready to you know, hanging hunt or change things up at a moment's notice, even during season. Right, it seems like like as much work as you do in the off season, being able to stay on top of the recent intel is just as important to flesh out that full picture. Um yea, you mentioned observation stands. Um, so we're we're in the season. Now, let's say we've done this postseason scouting. We monitor areas in the summer trying to glass fields. We had mineral site. It's out there that were getting pictures of box. Um. But now the season has opened, do you I know a lot of people go in there and actually, I'm gonna take what I just bet said back. Let's not talk about observation stands yet. Let's let's first talk about opening night. Do you oftentimes go in for that opening night kill like a lot of people do, or are you still playing it safe in trying to do use your observation watch, watch, watch, and then zero win on them. Um, what does that first night look like for you? Because that can be tough to do, to have the intel to dive right in and go for a kill the first night unless you can see him from the road or something. Right. Yeah, Yet, I know what you're saying. And just because it's opening night doesn't necessarily mean I'm going to go in. No, I'm not going to go in unless I've either seen that dear making a mistake and daylight or I've got a few things on my side that makes me believe that that deer is probably going to get up in move and that's got to be, you know, a good win for him. Um, a good weather condition prompt that deer to get up and move, or the moon. You know, and anybody that knows me knows I've followed the moon for a long time. And unless there's a couple of those factors, you know, the wind, weather and moon lining up, the chances are I'm not going to go in unless those things are on my side, because you just can't go in and not get it done early season, because that deer is gonna end up picking up on picking up on you. Is Csmelia here you if you don't kill him, catch you coming out after dark. I mean, I want to kill that deer the first time that I go in, And so I want to stack the deck in my favor and make sure I've got the moon pushing him to get up early, some kind of weather condition that's pushing him to get up, um the wind in his favor, so it feels safe enough to move. You know, I want all that stuff lined up before I dive in. And you know, I don't want anybody to to misinterpret what I'm saying. You know, I pay attention to the moon, but if it's not a good moon, even doesn't mean I'm not hunting you know, if it's opening evening and I don't have any of that stuff going on, you know, I might be three yards away at another true stand watching that area, or maybe on a different property with another deer. I'm still out hunting, but if I know where I need to be to kill a specific deer, I want as many of those things in my favor as I can before I'm going to take a chance to go in and try to kill that dear. Yeah, this uh, this big Ohio buck you've got on your radar this year. You said you've been hunting him for three or four years. As that we said, yeah, yeah, do you have or can you do you have a game plan? Like do you already know in your head I think I'm gonna kill him in this spot and I'm just gonna wait for the right time to do it, or are you going to be trying to figure that out in the coming weeks, you know, having four years of history with him, I do have a couple of spots that have kind of you know, set the trap and have them prepared and going to wait for you know, specific scenarios before I'll go into those spots. But then also, you know there's other places on the farm where I think I could kill them. Just all depends on the deer. You know. If you do everything you can to prepare yourself and kind of kind of try to predict what you think is going to happen, and sometimes that's the way it happens. Sometimes it's not. Sometimes you know, the deer changes something up or does something completely different. I mean, the only thing definite about hounding the big deers, and nothing's ever definitely. So prepare for what you can and be ready to do what you need to if things change up. Ye walk me through the scenario. Then let's if you don't mind, let's use that big Ohio buck as an example. Um, let's just say hypothetically that the first few days of the season go by and you don't have that you don't have great conditions, so you're not really diving in there for him. It's it's October. Now, how are you going about hunting him with? I know you've talked about observation stands in the past. Can you just expand on that a little bit? How you use observation stands to try to locate and zoom in on where these deer are and what they're doing. You know, it's a it's a location or a tree stand that's outside of the game. You know, where I'm sure the deer is not going to pick up on me come in or leaving, and where I've got really good visual um opportunities to catch, you know, to get a look at them moving, making a mistake, you know, watching them come through c RP, watching them go through the food plots. You know, I've got trail cameras on all those spots where I think I might get an opportunity killing. So not only am I going to be able to catch him coming through those areas on camera, but if he hasn't discourt the camera, if I'm in an observation stand up, might be able to pick up on that. But you know, I know how that dear moves through the farm where I've seen him in the past. You know his history, um is, you know, coming through the plots that I have set up the White Toil Institute plots right on those Red Moody means. I mean, he's been really consistent on that. It's just a matter of where he happens to be betting at and how he gets to those spots. Just Dear in particular beds and like six different places, so it's really hard to tell where he's going to be coming from. So that's another thing to try to key on on these observation spots. You know where where they're coming from and what they're doing. I mean, you're just looking for a little pieces to the puzzle. Yeah, so you're you're up in the tree, you see the buck I'm imagining you see him. You're thinking in yourself in your head, Okay, where'd you come from? Where is he headed? But what are the other things that are running through your brain as you're trying to analyze, Like, you just have this observation, You just got this piece of the puzzle. What are all the things that you're trying to dissect from this piece of the puzzle, Because I imagine there's a lot of stuff you can glean from this ten second observation. Possibly what's Adam Hayes trying to get out of that trill? It pretty simple? You know, how can you use that information to kill that deer immediately? You know? You get that's when it's when you see him doing something, see him making a mistake, you gotta you gotta react, and you gotta kill him immediately. You know, you don't wait for it to cool off. You don't go in and hang a stand and give it a couple of days. I mean, you gotta go in and get it done. So just trying to take that information and use it to figure out how I kill that deer as soon as possible because things are changing way too much and you never know what's going to happen. And that's that's when you got to get aggressive and go in and get it done. If you observe a deer, then let's say it's October, you see a buck, do something. Are you gonna go immediately the very next set, like the next morning, or you gonna wait for the next evening, or are you waiting for the next time the wind does the exact same thing. When you say go as soon as possible, what do you what exactly do you mean as quickly as you can get in there without disturbing the deer? You know, I don't do a lot of morning hunts in October. I like to know those deer betted when I go into the farm, and you know, beating a big duck, beating a big buck into his bed early season when he's on strip. Feeding pattern is next to impossible early season. So I'm gonna take a chance. And I've tried a few evenings. You could kill him and I can't get it done. And I know right where he's betting. I've got to stand ready or I know the train need to be in for a morning hunt. I'm gonna wait till I get a good moon just after daylight. Seems like that's your best chance to catch them coming back just a little bit late in the mornings during early season. But yeah, I mean, you just can't go stumbling right in just because you see him do something and not put any thought into it in a bust, name and ruin, ruining the whole you know, clue that you just got on what he's doing. I mean, you gotta be smart about it. You can't tip them off. So you gotta keep the wind in your face. You gotta keep your keep your as much of your sin eliminated as you can not leave anything behind. And you know you can't go in and clear a tree like the utility company just came through. I mean, you just gotta you gotta go. You gotta go in and do it smart. Yeah, Now does that change it? Although during the run, because I always I have this internal dilemma myself. Right, if I see a buck do something on October one, I feel like there's a decent chance he might do the same thing October two, because it's still relatively early. He's in that somewhat of a betting to feed pattern that's going to be hopefully kind of consistent. But if I see a buck do something on November two, hell, he might be two miles away the next day, or he might have just been passing through a year behind the dough. If you make an observation in early November, during the heat of the rut, do you still make a move on that observation or are you gonna say that was probably a random I mean, what do you got to lose? You know? At that point, if you see him to do something one day, um, why not take a chance on him doing it again the next day? Yeah, So you go for it, you make you make that move. Yeah you might as Yeah, you might as well go where you get nothing else to go on. I mean, we're not recreating the wheel here. If you see a buck make a mistake, whether it's in October November, you might as well try to capitalize it, capitalize on it. Okay, I definitely want to be there if he does it again, because if not, it's my mistake. Yeah, that's the worst feeling too. If you sit there and you debate back and forth. I I know because I've done this. I've debated back and forth, and I'm gonna wait and see if he does it twice, and then he does it twice and I'm not there, that'll that'll stick with you. Um, all right, can you elaborate just a little bit on you know, how you're going in in season and doing these hanging hunts, because you alluded to the fact that you have to be able to set up in a way that you're not going to spook that dear. Of course, you can't clear out like a utility company. Um. But for those that aren't already doing this kind of hanging hunt often it might be helpful just to hear your specific process. I mean, I'm kind of curious, like, do you go in there with three sticks or four? Do you trim any lanes at all? Or do you just sneak up as quiet and don't touch a thing? Um? Like your entire process would be kind of interesting just to hear how you're actually getting set up uptight to one of these spots in season, is only for evening hunts or do you ever go into hours before daylight and try to do something in the morning like that that's tough to pull it off in the morning in the dark. Um. Yeah, I don't do that very often at all. I'll tell you a trick I did learn though from Andre to Quisto, the original owner of Lone Wolf tree stands, keep going and set up for an afternoon hunt, and then if it didn't pan out, he might dive right back into that same stand the next morning. And I found that, you know, carrying all that equipment and you know, stand sticks, bow, plus all my camera equipment because I'm filming myself, that it's a lot easier to go in and hunt in the evening and then just leave everything in the tree. I mean, I leave my bow hanging, leave my osonics hanging camera set up, everything's ready to go. Just climb up in your all set. And I do that a lot for morning hunts, but it's difficult early season to do that, and you can't do that with a lot of um, with every tree stand on the market and I've used, you know, low wolf stuff forever. You know, being able to go in and hanging stands and a stick within a hundred yards of a two hundred class white tail and not tip him off, um to your presence is next to impossible. But I've been able to do it with their stuff, So I can't say enough about their equipment and the stealth and quietness other products. But yeah, you know, putting that stuff on your back, not touching anything, being extremely sent free with um, you know, from my gear to my clothes to my body, you know. And then when you go into a spot like that that you might not have been in before, you never know what's going to show up on your down wind side. So you know, I'm not going into those spots without my sonys. Um. You just gotta cover all your bases and be prepared for everything. And I do minimal trimming. UM. I don't worry about taking five or six sticks in on a spot like that and being thirty ft up. I hardly ever hunt that high anymore. I'm more concerned about being in the right spot and having a little bit of breakup. And it seems like sometimes the higher you go in the tree, the more you actually stand out. So I'm I'm just concerned about being in the right spot and on leaving any scent behind and being as quiet as possible. Do you have a like a consistent process of how you get up in the tree quietly, because like, this is something I've asked a handful of people about recently. I've just been trying to make my hanging hunt process more efficient and quieter and faster, and so I've started, um, you know, using a couple different gear ties that tied two of the sticks to my hips. I put one stick on the tree, I climb up, I hank, pull the one stick off of my hip, put on the next one, climb up, pull the other one off my hip, climb up, and then I have alignment's or I've got a toe rope down to my bow and a toe rope down to my standard platform. And once I get up to my top position, then I already have those ropes on my hips. I just pull each one up. I don't have to go up and down at all. Um That's something that I've just been slowly kind of working on and trying to make it more efficient. Do you do you have a system place I've tried. I've tried that. If I haven't found anything that works for me, No, it's definitely ill. It makes a big difference. Yeah, it makes a big difference if you can obviously undo all your straps before you climb up into the tree, so you're not messing around with all that stuff. And I use you know, I use that sound barrier tape and a lot of cameo hockey tape on all of my you know, buckles and straps and stands. I mean, I I pretty much eliminate any metal to metal contact on everything, so that it only it only takes one little you know, ting from a buckle hitting your stand to tip a big deer off that might be better close by. So I mean you've got to cover all your basis and not leave anything to chance. But yeah, yeah, I love to have a tree with a lot of limbs so I can hang my sticks on the limbs as I'm going up, so I have to keep climbing up back, up and down, up and down. But I haven't been able to come across anything that really works good for climbing up and keeping all your sticks on you trying to hang onto the tree and grab grab your sticks. It's just you know, it's it's tough, it's a process. What about it? What about this scenario? Um, let's say you're going to go into do a hanging hunt. Maybe you saw buck the night before, or maybe you just are you know, you want to head to us spot. You're walking in and as you're walking in, you see some great sign, fresh sign that looks like it just happened. Maybe maybe it's a huge rub that just got tore up a couple of day or just a couple of hours ago, or last night or something. You see something that catches your eye. UM, I'm curious. Would you say I need to hunt this right now and change your plane and hunt that fresh hot sign right right now, or would you say, well, I'm gonna put that away in the filing cabinet, keep that as mentel, but I'm gonna stick with my plan. It just depends on the situation. And yeah, I just said I'll do everything I can to hunt the freshest sign. So you're definitely going to take it into consideration. But you've got to be able to read the read the area, and you know, read the deer and what he's doing and why he did it, which direction he's coming from, and and just so many things come into play, and being able to read it and look at the big picture and see what's going on. I mean, you love to be able to set up over top of a you know, freshly steaming scrape or you know, a rub that just reeks because it just got shredded by a big deer and be right on the top of it. But it's really about, you know, looking at the big picture and why it happened and why it's right there, and you know the best best way to approach it. So it's tough to kind of wrap all that up into one sentence and say what to do. Yeah, yeah, that's that's the truth. Um well, then explain this to me. What would it take? Like can you imagine a scenario like that that would force you to hunt right then? Um? Like, is there is there one specific instance like I might be imagined in my head if I didn't have a really great game plan for the night. I didn't see a buck the night before, but I knew I wanted to try a new spot, and I'm hiking into that new spot and I see this like you just described, I see this huge tour up rub and it's it's stinky, and it's obviously it wasn't there yesterday. Maybe, so I know what happened between last night's walk out and this afternoon walking in, And I also know that I'm in a typical transition area and the winds right for me to hunt. You know, if a buck were coming out of the betting area is heading towards he might pass through the spot. That scenario maybe to me, would say, Okay, you know what, this is a spot of mature buck might likely come through. And it looks like there was a buck that just came through here last night doing that very thing. This seems like a good thing to set up on right now. Um, is that the kind of scenario that you might jump on that hot set right away? Or what's what's a different scenario maybe that that would cause you to hit it immediately In that way, you know, it's tough just going by sign because you don't know if it was made at the middle of the night, you know, So what happens if you find that fresh hoot sign and he set up on it, but everything is not lining up for that deer to move during daylight? So you hunt there, you don't see him. You get down after dark and you bump him going out because he's still moving after dark. You know. I mean, there's just so many different scenarios to think about. But I mean, you know, sometimes you just gotta go with your gut and if it seems like a good thing and in fresh sign and a great evening and you gotta stand on your back, why not take the crack at it. Yeah, it's hard to it's hard to cart compartmentalize, you know, something like that and say this is exactly what you gotta do. Sometimes you just gotta go with your gut instincts and do it. He thinks, right. But the main thing I'm looking for is is other than sign, is to catch them that you're you're doing something during daylight. Because I don't care what you say, they're just no way to kill a big deer unless he's moving during daylight. Sounds oversimplified, but that's really what it's all about. I do everything I can to catch the big deer movement during daylight, whether it's seating from an observation stand, catching a picture of him doing it, or like I said, just lining up multiple factors. That's gonna put everything in that dear savor to get him a moving early now, because if we're trying to predict what he's gonna do before he does it, you know, and if you got a good win for him, got a good moon, it's pushing him up and it's you know, it's a it's mother nature. You know, it's an instinctive urge for him to get up and feed. And then you've got a weather pattern that's you know, high bre metric pressure or a cool front or something that's gonna push him to feed. I mean, those are things I'm I'm trying to line up. If I'm just going and blind hoping that I'm going to catch a big deer making a mistake, I want those things in my favor. Yeah. Do you ever find a situation where you don't get eyes on mature buck, Like you don't have any observations sightings of a deer you want to shoot, You don't have any daylight trail camera sightings of a buck you want to hunt, and you find yourself in a position where you have to in season actually go walk and look for a sign to help put you in the right position. Or is it always is there always going to be one of those other pieces of intel, So you don't need to actually do a walk about of any kind. Yeah, I've been there before. The last thing you want to do is spend you know, a week or two in October in a completely different spot. And if you've got nothing to go on, no pictures, no sign, I mean, what are you gonna do climb up in a tree and just hope something shows up. I mean, you gotta go find them. So worst case scenario if you've got nothing to go on and it's time to get the wind in your face and stand on your back and start, you know, start cruising and looking looking for something to hunt, and you don't want to spend a couple of the best weeks of the season in the completely wrong spot. Yeah. So I'm not one of those guys that's just going to climb up in a tree and just hope something shows up, just based on the fact that there's a big deer in the area. You know, you've got to have something to go by, and if I don't have anything to go by, I'm going to go find it. We talked about rubs already, m a little bit about scrapes, but what about tracks. How much do you pay attention to trying to find a big buck track? And and does that ever kind of factor into your decisions or into your scouting and use that as a as a piece of the puzzle at all? Very seldom, to be honest. I mean I've heard so many different explanations of tracks and tracked sizes and the dow claws and if they're spread apart, and how to tell a buck from a dough And I mean, you know, see a big deer track means there was a big deer there. I mean, I decided him. I've never put a whole lot into uh into tracks, to be honest. Well, scrapes though, we talked just a little bit about it, But what kind of scrape in season would you need to see to get excited? Um, you know a lot of people see these field edge scrapes, But then there's the talk that that's probably nighttime, So then some people prefer scrapes and other locations. Um, where's your head on scrapes when you're actually out there during hunting season? And how's that factor in new things? Yeah, it really doesn't matter what type of sign it is if it's you know, tracks, and trails, rubs, scrapes, whatever is. You want something that's fresh. But the key that I'm looking for is a mature animal making that sign during daylight. So I mean, they're gonna have a trail camera on a trail, on a scrape, on a rub. Get a look at that, dear, see what what it is, and when he's doing it before I'm typically before I'm going to hunt it. Okay, Uh, you know, when I want some documentation, I'm gonna not gonna camp out on a rub that a big year I'm after might not have even made and ever visited. You know, do you do? You look at a daylight trail camera picture the same as a daylight observation. So we talked about the fact that if you saw a shooter buck in daylight moving, you would go in there and hunt him as soon as you possibly could. Would you do the same thing or the camera If you've got a daylight picture, you're moving in and hunting that camera location as soon as possible. Yeah, he's still moving during daylight. That's the main thing. Where where where do your cameras typically go in season? I'm guessing that you switch them from your summer locations but is that is that true? If so, how I've got them monitoring those mineral sights back in the cover, I've got them on the um food plots, I've got them on the rub lines. I mean anywhere anywhere think I'm going to get a picture of that deer moving through an area that it's gonna help me know where he's at and when he's there. It's all about, you know the particular animal, where he's at, and where I think I need to be to kill him. You know, I have a lot of a lot of cameras set close to tree stands because I want to know when he's passing my tree standing daylight. So you need to have a camera close to that stand on the trail. Do you do anything to try to get better camera pictures? Or do you place any kind of attracting in front of most of your spots to try to get them to stop there, or use licking branches or anything at all on those typical camera sets. I'll use some set occasionally get him to stop. Um. Like I said, I do have a lot of them on mineral sites, so they're going to be stopping anyway. Um. We're putting them on you know, like a rub or a scrape, But you do want to put us somewhere where you've got a pretty good chance of that you're stopping. Yeah, you don't want to put them perpendicular to your trail um because I think you end up missing you know, pictures of deer coming through. You want to catch them coming towards the camera going away from it instead of just you know, you know what I'm talking about by perpendicularly. Yeah, you want to get a little of an angle so they're not just gonna flash in and out of it immediately, right, Yeah, How many cameras are you typically running or how many do you think it's let me rephrase the question. A lot of people wonder how many cameras they might need to effectively cover a certain area. So maybe let's let's let's start small. Let's say per forty acres. If we think that maybe that's like a small property A lot of people, maybe you can access. How many cameras per forty acres on average do you think would be good to get a salad idea of what's out there? Is that one camera is it? I mean obviously depends on how many you can afford and how many might it might be one. It might be it might be one, it might be twenty. It depends on the property, you know, just being able to read the property and know what's going on and how the deer using. I mean, sometimes you can know if a deer is coming in out of a property with one camera. Sometimes it takes multiple. You know, I'm hunting acres where that big deers in and I think we've got fifteen cameras on there, but I want to know, you know, exactly when that deer comes in and off the property and worries at and I've got you know, I've got it wired for sounds. So it's just it's just all about being able to read the property. And you know, if if you've got one specific area where the deer come in and out, it might only take one camera, right right, that's scenario with that big buck. Again. Then we've been talking about how do you think it's going to play out? Like what I'm curious to hear if you if someone put a gun to your head and said, Adam, you're gonna kill that big buck. We think you're gonna kill that big buck this year, But we we want you to guess the scenario of how it's going to happen. Um, You're forced to pick the spot you're gonna hunt. You're forced to make a guess on where he's better and where he's coming to. You're forced to pick the night or the day or the conditions it's going to happen. Um, walk me through your very best guess of how it's gonna come together and what you would have done to make that happen. I've got the three spots in particular that I have ready for that deer where I think I'm gonna if I get a crack at him, an opportunity to an opportunity to kill him. In October, it's going to be in one of those three spots. It's gonna be on an evening where you know he's got a good wind in his favor to feel comfortable enough to get up and move. Um, that there has been notorious for showing up in my food plots on the red mood evenings from the Big Guide. So it's gonna be a red moon evening. And yeah, but the knowing when those days hit this month, I'm gonna have three opportunities in October this year, beginning of the month the middle of the month and the end of the month, and I think one of those three times is probably when it's gonna happen, if it happens, And those those red moon days, just for those if they if they, If you're not familiar with the red moon theory, we talked about it quite a lot in our other episode we did together, So definitely listen to that whole one. But can you give us just that the quick cliff notes um by by what that means and how you're looking at that, just for those that aren't familiar. Yeah, So I've been using the Moon Guide for twenty years and it's just really about it has nothing to do with the phase of the moon. It's about the position of the moon in the sky and the gravitational pool and how that affects maturitier to move because you only have a handful of days each month when that mood is peaking at prime time in the evenings, you know, and it's just another thing added to the wind and the weather to push that deer to get up and move during daylight when he's normally not going to do that. So those are the evenings I focus on, and like I said, anytime you have multiple factors like the wind in the moon, the weather in the moon, or all three, you know, it's about stacking the deck in your favorite. It's you know, putting everything in your favor that you can do. And you know, after you're using the moon guide for twenty years, I've just seen it happen and have killed too many big deer that just normally don't move during daylight. But you killed him right when that moon peaked in the evening. You know it's it's not a gain. I mean, it's Mother Nature. I didn't invent the mood. You know, the moon, the mood and the gravitational pool is strong enough to move the oceans, the biggest mass on this planet. You cannot tell me that that does not affect animals and fish to feed. I mean, I don't. I don't think we've even really scratched the surface on how the mood affects animals and people and and everything on this Earth. But you know, I've read all the research. I've heard it, all the guys talk about the moon. Dad doesn't supported affecting deer. I'm just stop buying it, not until somebody goes out radio colors a bunch of matured deer and falls them during season and proves to maybe on a shadow of a doubt, that it doesn't affect him, because I'm going by what I've seen in the last twenty years, and I've killed a lot of big deer, focusing on a lot of scouting, knowing my areas, and waiting until the wind, weather in the moon is on my side. And most of the time I'm able to go in the first time and kill him if I can wait for that stuff to line up. So if somebody wants to argue with me on on a better on, on a better regiment, you know, for killing big deer on all ears, but I'm just going by what's worked for me, and that's that's worked for twenty years. So that's what I focus on. Yeah, well I can't I can't argue with it. I know that I've seen a lot of the same research that has shown what you said, that the moon doesn't have a significant, statistically significant impact according some of these studies, and the same things that have said that cold fronts don't impact deer movement and other things like that that so many of us can point to as as they're being changed So I've always said that it just seems like what they're measuring maybe is not the same things that we care about as hunters. So total movement over twenty four hour period, maybe it's not any different. But I don't care about total movement over twenty four period. I care about is a buck over four and a half years old going to walk this extra fifty yards ten minutes earlier, and if he's going to do that, and that makes all the difference in the world for me as a hunter. Maybe that's not significant to show up in these large scale studies, but that's the kind of thing that can make a difference to a hunt. So I've always thought I feel like there's something like being lost in translation there um that would be really interesting to see if we could somehow measure what the hunter would be impacted by, that would be really interesting to me. So I'm I'm I've always been game to pay attention to all of it. And like you said, I don't know how important any one of these individual factors is, but I'm gonna stack everyone that I can together because you need every little bit, every odd possible in your favorite because there's there's already so many things out of your control. Why not take an advantage of those things that you can exactly And I'll tell you a great way to measure it. I see it happen every year. You watch social Gidia in October, and every time that Red Moon peaks, there will be guys posting the pictures a big gear that they're killing right on the Red Moon, regardless if they follow the moon or use the moon guide. It happens every year. It's not a hundred percent. You know, guys killed big deer on days that aren't good. You know, a good mood, I mean nothing, it's a dent. But every time that red mood hits, like guarantee, you'll see a spike, a big deer hits the ground right on the Red Moon days. Yeah, I definitely. I think last year wasn't one of the Red Moon uh time periods that like October six somewhere in that ballpark was, Isn't that right? Yeah? I believe so, yep, because I remember I remember a whole lot of deer you got killed right around that time period. And I'm pretty sure if I remember correctly, it lined up with those Red Moon dates. And that was something that a couple of us were discussing as it's pretty interesting to see that there was this very very high peak, um like more noticeable than usually even so, it's interesting, it's something. There's definitely something I like to pay attention to. And um, I'm insured. Why wouldn't you pay Why wouldn't you pay attention to it? Guys pay attention to the web there and their nature, but not the moon. I mean, what's the difference. You know, the moon is a satellite for Earth and affects us Earth so many different ways. Well, why would you why would you focus and be you know, have blinders on to just concentrate on weather and then throw the moon out the window. That makes no sense to me. Yeah, I'll take it all. I'll take it all. Yeah. Why not stack the deck in your favor? Yeah? So, so, speaking of of stacking the deck, I want to dive a little further into your scenario though. So we're waiting until one of these ideal sets of conditions, hopefully a red moon and good weather or the moon and the wind or whatever it might be. Um, but you've got three different spots you think it could happen. Could you describe one of these just to help us understand, like what kind of setup you have in mind to kill a big buck um Like that kind of example I think would be really helpful for people. Yeah, so I think there's a deer um normally mostly beds in two places. One is right behind the farmhouse actually in an overgrown you know, overgrown backyard basically, or in a CRP fielding up close to the road along a little creek bed, and that you know, it's on the most down wind side is farm, which is a very typical fur mature deer in Ohio, we don't really have a southwest wind and nine times out of ten of mature bucks gonna live on the most northeastern part of the farm. So whenever he gets up, you know, he's mainly going to be on the most downwind side of the property and can go wherever he wants to win in his face. And that's what this deer is doing. And there's you know, there's a corn field he could hit up close to the road, which I saw him do last year. I've got a secluded to secluded um uh food plots the back end of the CRP and that he hits. Then another corn field corner in the back of the property then it hits so in his travel pattern right through the middle of that block, he can hit, you know, any one of those four spots. You know, I've got stands and all four of those spots ready to go. When when he shows up normally in any of those spots, it's always in the same spot. So I mean, I've got everything um prepared. I know how to get in and out of the farm without tipping that deer off, which you know, was a big learning experience for me because that deer betted in so many places, and most of the time he was bedded close to the road and knew exactly what I was there, and I couldn't figure it out. He'd show up for a day or two on camera during daylight and I go down and try to hunt him, and he disappeared, that deer dew when I was there. He was watching me come in and out. Now that deer. I parked within ten yards of that deer one time, did he me though? He was there until I got up on my goat, up on my ranger to pull it off the trailer, and he jumped up in the middle of the guy's backyard, you know, And in six foot tall grass. I mean, so it's been a learning experience. But so what do you have to do to adjust that that access point? Do you just find a totally different side of the farm you can come in on, or or what have you done? Now? Yeah? I just had to come in from a completely different spot on the farm, not the not the typical spot where I come in. I can't park the house, I can't park get the pull off where I normally come in. I I basically got a park off right off the road and go down the road and come in around the back side on the quiet cat and complete do a complete loop around the farm so that deer doesn't know him there. What about scenario like this where and then this is maybe a little bit of a stra from the theme of locating deer, But bear with me here. You're out there hunting and you have you don't have anything to work with, let's say, or at least nothing recent. Do you ever go to the idea of blind calling to try to locate a deer? Will you ever be in a situation for like, damn it, I just gotta start rattling a lot and try to pull something in or grunt because nothing's showing up, um, and I need to force the issue. And I know this is a time of year dependent um, but how often does that of a factor into your your thought process. I'll do blind calling in November, but I really don't like to do it earlier when I'm after a specific dear because I think calling success really depends on your setup. You know, can you labor is good? Yeah, mature, You're is gonna try to get down WINDOMVI or coming from down windo of via when you're calling, and my stups. I like to put myself in a spot where either a big dear kid get down wind of me, or if he tries to my location UM that I'm set up in forces him within bow range to try and get down wind of me. I mean it's I think it's deadly to be set up a early season within earshot of a big in his bed and do a little light calling UM while he's still laying there, to give him something to think about in a direction to head once he gets up. You know, I think you're in a little competition in this area and something's going on and he needs to get up and check it out and investigate. But yeah, it's tough to be successful on blind calling, But I mean in November, you know it's all about time in the stand and bucks are cruising. You never know when one might just be just out of eyesight that here's your calling and responds to it. So and all of a sudden I can come together. That's kind of scenario. About the scenario yep, ye. Do you ever get to the point where you're in season and you have to rewind all the way to the tactics you're using in the summer? So by that, I mean you get to the point where you have to pull out of your hunting locations completely and get back on the road and glass fields from the road again to try to find a buck um like in November or late season, maybe deer have all shifted again and you're trying to relocate where these bucks are feeding. Do you ever go to that extreme? Yeah? Sometimes you ask you if they disappear, buck you're after got killed or I mean, gosh, there's hundreds of different scenarios where things change up and you've got to change your tactics and go back to square one. But you've only got a certain amount of time to get it done. So you've got to do whatever whatever it takes during season. Yeah. I like what you said earlier that that sometimes or correct maybe clarify this, but I think you said something on the lines of you scout more then you hunt, even during in the season. Is that Is that accurate as far as spending those times observing from a distance or doing different things, um to just narrow your hunts down. I've been slowly moving more and more of that direction that I'd rather have a lot of information that leads me to a few really, really good sits. I'd rather have that than a bunch of sits that are just kind of willy nilly. Yeah. Yeah, I read um read a story by Miles Killer years ago that talked about hunting from the outside in and what his whole thought process was that he would start from the you know, the outskirts of a buck's territory and just keep classing and monitoring the area from a distance and just some methodically keep moving in closer and closer and closer until he knew the exact tree you needed to be in and the exact win that you're needed, and you know, really kind of adapted that over the years into what I do and you know, it's it's all about hunting and hunting and hunting and hunting, scouting for that you know, that one spot to kill him, you know, So I'd really think it is a lot more scouting. What do I say, hunting and scouting kind of kind of talking about the same thing until you find that kill spot. You're actually hunting for that kill spot. I guess it's a good way to describe it. You're hunting for that you know, special spot, that weak spot or that place, that a spot where you can kill a deer. So I guess that's really the best way to describe it, as I'm constantly hunting and scouting for that perfect spot to kill the deer that I'm after because of what you find it, you know what you find where you need to be, and you wait for everything to line up, you go in and kill him. How how often? How often when you have that situation like, what are you what kind of confidence level do you have at this point in your hunting career and journey? What percent chance do you feel like when you when you find a spot like this that you feel good about and the conditions line up and you're going for your first set is it like a fifty proposition for you? Do you? I mean, I know we're just ball parking here, but what do you usually feel like you? Are you so confident you've got this narrow down so much that seven times out of ten you're getting it done. Now nine times out of ten. Wow, that's that's what it's been with all of my biggest books. So what about the if you do? If you do, if you do all the scouting, define the right spot, and you can be patient enough to wait for everything to line up, and you haven't alerted that dear to your presence, and he's still moving onto his natural pattern and he's got all those you know, natural instinctive pushes to get him up moving. I mean, there's no reason why it shouldn't happen if you do everything right. So, so, since we talked last time on the podcast, you killed your fourth two plus deer and that buck, as I understand it, there was a little bit of this kind of scenario that we've been discussing. It took some some working to locate him with with cameras and then some some observation type stuff. Can you walk through that example, how you located that buck, how you narrowed down where the spot was and where the weak spot was and how you ultimately killed him. Could you kind of walk through that well, it was in Kansas, it was in an area I was familiar with, but I hadn't hunted that specific farm yet. But we had a camera in there on the middle of the property, and that you're just showed about to nowhere third week of October, the middle of the night. I didn't figure he was living on the farm. The farm was located in the middle of a block about two miles long and a mile wide, so I had a pretty good idea he was living on that block, but not on the farm. But he was coming through there, just keeping tabs on does now We had um food out in front of the camera, obviously to attract deer. There's to get pictures of them. So it was a couple of weeks away from the next red moon and within moving in the middle of the night. I wasn't in a rush to run right out there, although I knew it was a two giant, so I just kept kept monitoring the camera. Obviously a wireless camera out there, so I knew what was going on. Started studying, really studying the aerials of the photo of the property, and there was really only a couple of spots where I thought a deer like that would be coming in and out of the farm. So I knew what I needed to focus on when I got out there and where I wanted to look. So the moon was suposed to peak sometime the end of the first week in November. I believe I headed out there on Halloween day, full day drive. Deer were starting to move a little bit closer to daylight, but still you know, after dark, but not the middle of the night, getting closer to evening. Got out there was super hot, new deer weren't going to be moving much. I went into the two spots actually the two back corners of the farm that looked like typical areas where deer would come in and out. Um The camera was set up in the middle of the farm, so I didn't know where exactly he was coming in and out. But one spot really looked to me like it was the spot. I mean, it was back corner, very secluded, really low, really really secluded um Creek running through their multiple fence lines crossing, I mean just like a just like a hub of activity. Deer could come from any direction. And and the key to it was there was a really deep creek bed that ran the distance of the property right back to that corner. So I could literally jump down in this creek that was like ten ft deep but it only had a couple inches of water and get right into that corner without making any noise, without disturbing anything. I really figured that was my best chance of killing that during that corner, so got in there, hung a stand. Um, I really didn't know, you know, like I said, what direction was coming from, because they could come from so many different directions. So I really had to rely on being clean and um counting on the ozonics to cover you know, cover my down wind side. And it was one of those spots where you know, you could get in and out of there day after day and not really worry about spooking anything. So I think I hudded it that spot three or four times that week. I did hunt the other corner a couple of times, but I just wasn't feeling it over there. Um. I knew my chances were going to get better later in the week as the mood got closer and closer to prime time. It didn't really cool off a whole lot. I think it was like seventy five degrees on on that Saturday when I finally killed him. But it was an hour and a half before dark, really hot. Wasn't even expecting anything to be up and moving yet. And that deer shows up in the broad daylight on my down one side, of course, I thank god does on a kee's running. And you know, I killed the biggest deer of my life when there was no rhyme of reason for that near to be up and moving that early on the I think that they're sixth of November. You know, he's just up moving, doing his thing, moving into the wind. Had to win in his favor. The moon was peaking that evening, and it was just one of those things where you read the sign, you just kind of look at the big picture. What's a big deer need to do to move through this property and feel comfortable enough to move um during daylight? And uh, and I don't know what else to say about. I mean, that's that's just the way that it happened. And yeah, I ended up killing the biggest deer in my life. That's amazing. Now you bring up something that I think is worth expanding on which is um, you know, this buck did what he thought he had due to to be safe or something on those lines. And this brings to mind an idea that we we hear occasionally that you know, a mature buck is almost a different animal completely than all the other deer out there. And one of the things that helped me a lot at some point my deer hunting journey was I used to just be like trying to hunt deer, and I would set up in spots where I can see a bunch of deer, but you were never actually getting a shot at a mature deer. Once you realize you have to switch and start hunting this totally different animal, then you have to think about things in a different way, and you start hunting different places or hunting closer to these places in a different kind of way. UM. So all that is to say, what are some of the other things you found the mature buck does differently, or that you're thinking about when trying to guess where he's going to move or how he's going to move. You talked about this area being a hub and all these things going for it. I imagine you were seeing some of these things and you thought to yourself because of this, or because I know mature buck likes this kind of thing, or mature buck tends to move in this kind of way, this is the spot. Are there any things like that that you can that you can speak to that come to mind that are unique to how mature buck travels or thinks or acts. The only thing I really think that is unique about it is the majority of the deer and they and they are a different creature, and the majority of the deer and the deer herd are going to be doing the same things that he's doing. They're just doing it more consistently during daylight. In a big old mature buck is still doing the same thing. He's just doing it on very specific days during daylight. Those big deers just don't make mistakes and they just don't move that much during daylight or or they die. You know, they've learned what they need to do to survive. And the unique thing about it is when they do it, you know, they do it for very specific reasons during daylight. And then you know, I don't think it's rocket science and I don't think you know, uh, animals any different than a mature hundred fifty but I do think the mature animal that's learned the game of survival is doing things differently, just from the sole reason that his main goal is to survive and he's not going to make any mistakes. So you've got to really hone in on not only what he's doing, but when he's doing it. It's all about timing. The timing. The timing is really the key to it. When is that you're going to do it during daylight so you can kill him and not tipping him off before you do it. Yeah. Yeah, getting those high quality hunts. Getting a couple of high quality hunts just seems to be so much more important then than a whole bunch of credits. Yeah, it's all about quality over quantity. Hunting smarter not harder, novembers. When you want to hunt harder, you know, there's guys that their hunt and then there's a guy that hunt specific deer. When you're on a specific deer, you've got hunt smarter, not harder. Yeah. Is there is there anything that we've missed when it comes to this specific idea of locating them of zeroing in on them. Um, I feel like we've covered a whole lot different facets of it. But is there anything that's still jumping around your mind that you think that be horrible if we left it out before shutting things down here? I don't know, man, you've been pretty through on my brain that we've missed anything. Okay, Well in that case, um, you know, where where can folks find a couple of things? Because you're doing a lot of really interesting things out there in the deer hunting world. You're producing content, you're help putting out the moon Guide out there in new ways. Where can people find everything that you've got out there? Oh, Team two Hunter, there's everything content wise that we're doing. Dot Com is the website for the show, and you can catch it on Waypoint TV, which is a free app runs on the Pursuit channel. You know, we've got a lot of great content on the show. And then as far as the moon Guide goes, moon Guide dot Com we just launched a new app. Um you can get it on the Apple Store or Google Play search and Deer Hunter's Moon Guide, um, you know, and you can get either of them from from the from the website, so perfect. And then of course social media, the team to Enter TV Facebook page and moon Guide Facebook page, so awesome. Well, I just got to check out the moon Gut app and that's really nice having that right there on your phone there easily shows the the moon rise and rise and set times, the sun rise and set times. I like the fact that you guys then call at the peak activity times and where to focus. So for anyone that's intrigued by the moon theories, if you want to learn more about that, I know, Adam you've got a whole lot of different videos and you talk about in your your TV show, but we also dove into it in a lot of detail on that previous podcast, episode two, and um uh it's it's very interesting intrigue and I definitely follow along, and um I keep it. I keep it as one of those tools that can help guide me when I need to know a little bit. Just like you said, all the little odds you can stack in your favor and when you're trying to pick the right time, I'm going to consider every factor. So it's something I'm looking at and I appreciate it, so man, glad to help. I think I think a lot of folks are going to learn something from this today. And um the only downside that is probably gonna be more big deer hitting the ground, which means fewer for you and me in the future. But we appreciate you sharing, sharing all your experience, Adam, no problem, man, I appreciate you having me on the show again. All right, and uh, let's talk sooner than four years from now. Okay, yeah, yeah, let's see that sounds good. Alright, good luck hunting the rest of this season too, man, Thank you, and that will do it. Hopefully you guys enjoyed this one. Lots of great info and ideas from Adam and Man. If you're not already hunting, it is almost here, so get ready, get excited, and until next time, stay wired to the beat. And became