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 three and today the show, I'm joined by d I Y bow hunter Keith Cisco to discuss in detail exactly how he locates studies and moves in on top tier white tail box. All right, welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, brought to you by on X. Today the show, we have got another good one for you. And I might be biased here, but I feel like the last month of shows has just been loaded with great white tail knowledge. Joe Rentmester, Any ma Ustin Hollandsworth and now Heath Cisco. That's just a stacked lineup of deer hunters, and that of course is by design. Hunting seasons quickly approaching and as all of our preparations are ramping up as we head in the hunting season, I want to make sure that we're ramping up the podcast and all the knowledge that we can bring you to. So we're going to continue that in the coming weeks and months. We've got some really great how to stuff coming up, and today's episode definitely fits right in there with that. You know, Heath Cisco is a very experienced big buck hunter from Ohio. He's been involved with filming for Don and Candy Kisski, The Learning Curve and White Tail Addictions, where his most recent hunts have now been airing. He's hunted in a variety of places all across the country, ranging from farm country scenarios to hill country and all along the way. He's targeted top tier bucks, you know, just pushing himself year after year after year to become better. And here's the thing. You know, whether or not you want to shoot a doe or a young buck, or any buck or a big niture buck, whatever it is, whatever your goals are, you can learn from somebody like this, Because I think that when you've got a guy who is setting high standards for himself and he's figured out ways to meet those goals, you know what someone that's had to learn a lot, who's had to test a lot of new ideas, who's failed a lot, and then try to figure out new approaches, and then they have to do that over and over and over and trying to get over that next hump, over that next personal goal. Uh, you can learn a lot from somebody like this, regardless of what your goals are. And I think that I think that I certainly didn't. I think you will to learn some things from Heath. And here's the other thing that's pretty interesting is that Heath is actually hunting Buddies with Justin Hollandsworth, our guest on the podcast last week. And I did this on purpose, you know, having them on back to back episodes, because I think it. I think it is kind of interesting to compare and contrast their two approaches and these two discussions, because you've got two guys here who share ideas, who think about things in some of us in some similar ways, who swap hunting stories, who share hunting properties, even and you think that they would do the exact same thing. Maybe, but that's not entirely true, or at least it's not. It's not entirely true when it comes to how they think about some of these things and how they communicate them. So I think by having these two conversations back to back like this, by grilling these two guys separately in detail about how they hunt, we've kind of gotten a really cool master class on this aggressive style of hunting that they both use, but through two different sets of eyes, two different sets of experiences, and uh, at least from my vantage point, it turned out being very interesting and helpful. UM, and I'm I'm armed now with some new ideas that I'm excited to give a shot. So that is what we have in store today. Uh. I think you're gonna enjoy it. I'm excited for you to hear it. I appreciate you guys tuning in. Man, we've been around a long time this podcast. I mean years and years and years, three and fifty some episodes of the main show, and you know, dozens and does and since dozens of radio and all this stuff, and you guys have stuck with us. I hope, I hope that what am I trying to say here? I hope it's because we've been helpful enough to make this a worthwhile, valuable part of your day. And if that's the case, I'm tickled. That's that's all I can ever wish for. So all that is to say, thank you. Enjoy this one. Sit back, grab a pen and paper because you might want to take some notes, and let's get ready to talk bucks. All right. I'm excited now to have on the line with me, Heath Cisco. Heath, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me, Mark appreciate it. Yeah, this is UH, this is gonna be a good chat. I can already tell I've I've been listening to various things you've done. I've I've seen various videos you've done. I've talked to people you know, UM and so I know you are a wealth of information. But before we dig into all sorts of things related to how you target big, old mature bucks for people that aren't familiar with who you are, can you just give us the quick rundown. Who's Heath Cisco? How did you get to this point? Sure? Well, I started bow hunting at an early age and set my goals for popeon class Bucks at the age of eighteen. I the following year I was successful with that. UH. Several years later, I got into video and and got to be friends with UH guy by the name of Don Kisski and worked for UH White Tail Extremes for a few years and videoed, and then I got back out of it because it took basically two people to in a tree to do the video and stuff. Got back out of it just was a hardcore bow hunter trying to pick up everything I could from different people of the means of Miles Keller, GANE Winsor, Roger Rothar, Bobby Worthington, different people like that. And then in two thousand six, UH stumbled onto a guy by the name of Andre de Quisto, and my hunting completely changed after that point, and I've been very successful over the past several years. Yeah, you've got a heck of a lot of UH impressive mentors and influences there that a lot of us have learned from from Afar, but you've actually been able to have some of that up close experience. And it's funny. One of the guys that I know that you run with now, a friend of yours, Justin Hollandsworth, was just on the show UH previously here. I chat with him last week. I think it'll be when this one airs. And I've never done this before, had hunting buddies back to back, So it's kind of kind of sets up an interesting thing and correct me if I'm wrong on any of this stuff, but it sets up an interesting comparison where two guys that have hunted together in the past, that know each other's ways. You know, I'm asking Justin last week what he does now this week. I'm gonna be kind of picking your brain and it's gonna be interesting to see, you know, what you guys have in common where you guys deviate and I guess I should ask you first though. Would you say that there are any big things that you and Justin differ on? Is there something that he thinks you're just nuts for doing? Or vice versa? H No, nothing jumps out at me. I mean we each have our own little thing we do, maybe just a little bit different, but most of them are the same. I mean we bounce ideas back if if he's doing something that I'm not doing, our conversations lead me into doing something like that or vice versa. I think because we bounced so much stuff off each other. Yeah. Can you can you think of any recent time when one of you guys brought up a new idea to the other that was like, ah, that's a damn good idea. Can you think of any example like that? Sure? Well, several years ago I was into making mock scrapes and running cameras over him, not necessarily hunting over, but running cameras over and I just happened to stumble onto using white pine branches above the scrapes. And I don't know what it is, uh the sap, maybe it holds the scent more or whatever, but it seems like if you hang these white pine branches in the woods over a scrape, the deer kind of, uh you know, our funnel towards him. And it's great for getting trail camera pictures. And I tipped Justin off to that and he's been doing it with great success. It's a good little tip. So do you see you're cutting off a white pine branch somewhere else and relocating it to a spicer? Yes, and I don't I think some of its visual, But then also I assume that they're you able to leave more sent on it. And I don't know if they just like the pine limon or in their face or what, but it works very well. I just tried it one day, and uh, every place I've been it's been very successful. And like I said, I'm mainly for out of state like in Illinois and Iowa and stuff using those where you're not allowed to use let's say, some kind of bait or attracting or something like that. Setting up mox scrapes within pine tree limbs have been great. And how are you attaching those limbs to attachment to a tree or to a post or where? Where? And how are you doing that? Sure? Well, I have and one of my food plots I've got I've got a post with a piece of rebar coming out the top of it, bent over, and then I attached it to that rebar in the woods. It's mainly just taking some wire ties and tying it to another brand inchka and letting it hang, letting it hang straight down. Okay, Yeah, those mox scrapes are some of my favorite ways for forgetting those pictures like you described. But that's a good it's a good idea with the specific type of branch um. So back to back to justin for a second. Then, Am I right that you guys have in the past shared hunting property hunt the same place at the same time, Is that right? Yes? Absolutely, yeah, we did this past uh this past fall we were hunting on a new one noise farm together and he actually, uh, I've seen the buck that I took a couple of days from stand and then I got out there and was able to get on him. And get him down. Yeah, that that's what I saw. And so here's my question then about that, is what's the dynamic like when you guys are sharing a hunting property, Because I think this is something that that I've encountered but haven't really talked to other people about, Like what are some of the right ways or wrong ways to manage that when you've got two serious hunters or several serious hunters who are hunting the same place and in the back of their minds, they have a certain spot they want to hunt and you know there could be some competition going on there or I don't know, how do you guys manage that so it doesn't become a negative thing where someone's jealous or upset because someone gets the better spot or somebody killed the other guy's buck that he really wanted or anything like that. How do you manage that? Sure? And you gotta watch that because like me and Justin are really good friends and we share information on the properties that we hunt in Illinois. And uh so I used some of his information to actually tag this buck that I did. And it's not that he couldn't have done it, but when he was out there for his three or four day time span. Uh, it just didn't work for him. He was he was basically unlucky. He picked one stand and the deer was by another one, and then it just didn't work out for me. When I went out there, I just got really aggressive and jumped right in on his bed and end up killing it. And he was tickled to death for me because we had other deer to hunt. So it's it's okay if you have several deer to hunt, if you only have one particular buck that you're both after, that could it a little harry? Yeah, So do you guys pick different times to hunt, or when you guys are there together, give a system for who gets first pick of what spot they want to hunt or anything like that. Uh, we usually don't do that. I mean, it's just whatever works out for him. Like I could have went out the same time in late October that he did, but I just decided to give him four days on hunting and then I would jump in afterwards. That way, I had the whole farm to myself. But at times, you know, we may be out there at the same time during the runt, and uh, we'll just use each other and try to team up and take advantage of opportunities. Okay, okay, it makes sense. So so I want to rewind out a little bit to something you mentioned the beginning. You said that when you were eighteen or nineteen years old, you pretty quickly jumped into having some kind of goal attached to your hunting, and you decide you want to try to kill pop and young buck, and I hear i've heard recently that you've continued to advance that goal to now you're targeting one seventy plus white tails. Um, ideally, I'm just kind of curious to hear what was that process like for you, going from just trying to figure out hunting too, then deciding you want to set up type goal, and then bumping that up year after a year to where you are now, Um, why do you do that? What's that process been like? And what do you what do you what are you trying to get out of that? If you know what I mean? Sure, So for one, trophy hunt is trophy hunting isn't for everyone. So each person has got to set their own goals and do what they want to do. I don't look down on anybody for targeting smaller bucks or even dose. It's their own personal choice. When I was eighteen years old, when I was hanging out with a couple of guys that were older and had taken poping young class deer, and I just wanted to step up. I killed a couple of bucks. I wanted to step my game up. It actually the following year I was able to meet that goal, and I just kept my goal. Every year was at least a one thirty class, dear, and then it would jumped up to a couple of years later it would ump up to a one forty, and then you know, it's I can't say it slowly progressed because it's backtrack several times and stuff as well. I went down in score, and then some years I didn't kill a deer. But uh, it's just a goal I set for myself. And uh so going through the whole process. Uh in the beginning, it was like, can I kill a good buck every two or three years. Then it got to a point to where, okay, I'm doing that. I want to kill one every other year, And then it got to where I wanted to kill a good one every year. And when it got to that certain point of killing one every year, uh my, I kept raising the bar on score wise. And it's not that I try to set my goal to kill a bigger deer than what I killed this year next. It's just a personal goal I set for myself so I can ohio. My goal at the beginning of the season is a one seventy class buck, and I'll pass up really good deer to try to meet that goal. But when it gets close to uh December, when our gun season comes in after December, if I'm not on a really good buck, my standards drop. And I tried to hunt a really mature buck and then come into late December and January, that really mature buck maybe a hundred and twenty in buck and maybe a hundred forty buck, but that's what I'll target. I'll change my target goal towards the end of the season. Do you ever find yourself upset because you passed on a buck like a hundred and sixty inch great buck in mid October that in December you would have loved to get a shot at and then you don't or are you always pretty happy with that just because it was the process and that that pushing yourself that you're really going for well in the beginning when I first started setting my goal higher and higher. Yes, it was. I was upset a couple of times because one of the bucks I passed was a hundred and sixty some inch ten and three days later he got hit by a car and I was the reason I passed teams because I just knew he could be a booner class next year. And that was kind of tough. But over the years, uh, just like this year, I passed up a really good buck in Ohio, couple of them, and then end up killing a lot smaller deer, but it was an older age class deer. And you know you, I mean, you set your goal. That's what you're gonna do. I'm happy with it, especially now that I got a camera with me all the time. You know, it's just like I've killed the buck, I've got any more on film, and it's great footage I can show my family and that's satisfying enough for me. Yeah, that is fun, and you can kind of relive that moment over and over and that's still pretty cool. Yes, Uh so, so tell me this then. So over the years you've set these goals, they've been growing over time. You continue to push yourself and continue to reach those goals most times are it. Sometimes I'm curious what have been the biggest changes in how you operate that have gone along with it? So from when you're eighteen and shooting one too now when you're targeting these one seventies at the beginning of the season, what have been the biggest changes in how you operate as a hunter? Has there has been you know, I don't know if this will be the case, but could it be like, you know, every year I've gotten more serious about this type of thing, or I'm just kind of curious if there's like a handful of things or one particular thing that you could see as the most dynamic changing factor in how you hunt that has allowed you to progress higher and higher with these goals. Sure, I would say there's several things. For one, Uh, I've taken my scouting to a whole other level. Used to all my scouting was done in January and February, and I would lay out my plan to hunt particular farms during the rut the following year, and I would already pre hung my pre hang my stands, get all my spots set up, and that worked. But it didn't work great because a lot of Some of the farms just don't have the caliber bucks that I'm after, and I would spend time in there just knowing that a buck was of the caliber I wanted on the farm, when in all actuality, there wasn't one. So I'm running cameras now to determine which farms actually have the deer, plus scouting on top of that, because a lot of times you can hang cameras on a farm and uh not get pictures of a big buck, but could be one in there. I just run multiple farms, UH, do a lot more scouting, uh, and I hunt. I try to hone my skills. Let's say I got pretty decent at killing bucks during the first week in November, Well, what do I gotta do to kill one to last week in November? What do I gotta do to kill one the first week of October? What do I gotta do to kill one the last week of January. I start, you know, rounding myself out as a good hunter in all phases of the season, instead of just sticking with hunting the rut, which what I That's what I used to do when I first started. It was just hunting the ruts, spending as much time in the woods and on a stand as possible and just waiting on one to walk by. And are you are you honing those skills simply by just spending more time focusing on those time periods, so actually being in the stand at different parts of the year, or are you doing anything on top of that, like I don't know, reaching out to other people and asking your buddy Andre, your buddy selling slowly, Hey, how are you killing bucks in January or whatever it might be, in the starting to try to, you know, proactively find these ways to to kind of sharpen the blade for each different part of the season um or maybe studying past history. I don't know, are there any specific ways you're doing other than just being out there? Sure well, And like you said, I'm looking into people who are having great success early season. I started having really good luck in early season, first couple of days the season, which normally I wouldn't even hunt. I would hold off, say my vacation for the last uh last week of October, the first two weeks in November. Now, after talking to in two thousand six, like I said, when White Teledictions came out, completely changed my outlook on pursuing white tail. Just the aggressiveness tactics that Andre applied and and his hunting is I mean, he loves October and I hardly hunted in October back then. Uh So what I did was I started listening to him, listening to other people, and started going in and trying things. And I would try something. I would try setting up a certain way on a buck, uh you know, in a feeding area on acorns in second week of October, and then if fact didn't work well, then I would try to find his bed moving closer. I would It's trial and error, listening to people that you believe in and taking note, taking their tactics and applying them in a hunting setting and figuring out what works, and when it works, you just build off of that. And that's what I've done. And then picking his brain and the same way with picking Justin's brain and several other people and just trying to apply that and seeing what works and hunting less skills. Yeah. Justin was talking the other day about how one of the biggest, biggest kind of shifts for him when it went from having kind of average success to above average success was when he started pushing outside of his comfort zone. That was his big thing was was getting outside of the normal, getting outside of the routine, getting uncomfortable doing things that usually he would think, oh, I shouldn't do that. But once he started doing those things, then he started learning more, growing more. Um would you would you agree that that was kind of similar transition you went through when you started being more aggressive with some of those the questo tactics and whatnot. Absolutely so, basically I was real conservative, set back, only hunt certain farms, certain places at certain times. I relied more on the rut to get the bucks up and moving. Uh. And now I go in and I scout, I run cameras, I scout, you know, boots on the ground, try to locate travel corridors, beds, and hunt bucks accordingly. And I hunt specific bucks and then uh, you know, it was always my main thing was it was fear of failure. I didn't want to screw it up. I finally started getting over that hump because if I screwed up, I screwed up. But if I don't push the envelope and get in there and try to make it happen, I'll miss out on an opportunity. The last ten years I've had so many great bucks that I've had the opportunity to hunt, but I kind of tiptoed around and set back. Now I get it in and just get after it and UH and make my first hunt count. And if it doesn't work, I tear down and I moved to another spot, scout out hang, and I make that hunt count. Yeah, just don't fear failure is uh is what probably is the biggest limiting factor for bow hunters in my opinion. Yeah, I can definitely test to that. I've certainly had a long period of my hunting career where that's that was kind of the state of operation where I was constantly just trying not to screw it up. It was just so worried about blowing a deer out that that, Yeah, you can just become paralyzed and and never really put yourself in a position to succeed because you're so worried about messing it up. So it's a great it's a great point. Now with these high standards that you're setting for yourself, you're setting pretty aggressive goals. You're going in after specific bucks. You mentioned that you used to do all that scouting the spring and then come back and hunt later in the fall, and sometimes these bucks who were after warning even the neighborhood. So what are you doing now to to actually locate that best buck? You know that the typed tier buck. Does that Does that start in the summer with glass sing? Does that start with just trail cameras in season? How do you actually locate that number one buck or two that you're after each year? So several different ways. It may start during the previous hunting season. It may start two seasons prior when I've seen this buck or got some pictures of it. It may start when I'm scouting a new farm in the spring and I locate some big sign and then if you know, put hang some cameras in there over a mineral liquor whatever, just trying to locate and figure out what bucket is and you go from there. Or it could be driving around on the back roads, uh you know, in mid August glassing bean fields anyway. Or it could be just from a rumor of somebody saying, hey, you know, we jumped the big buck back here in gun season and nobody got him, you know that kind of deal. Then I'll try to uh figure I'll look at aerial photos, figure out property owners, and then dive in after that if I can get permission. Do you ever go into a summer period where there's not a buck from previous years that you're really thinking you're gonna be too interested in. You haven't picked up anything on camera, so you you actually go out proactively searching for a buck like that in the summer, knowing that you're gonna have to get new permission, but you're just gonna drive around until you see that one seventy or that one eighty or that special buck, um, knowing that you're just gonna have to figure out access somehow. Sure, well, I haven't you know a lot of farms that I can hunt I have access to in Ohio, and uh so a lot of times, you know, the quality of buck may not be on one of those farms, or maybe there's a couple bucks that are good bucks, but maybe I'm I hear about another just absolute giant on another farm, and then I try to pursue permission on it as well. And then you know, I like, I like having three or four bucks that I have on my list to actually go after, because something always happens, another hunter moves in here, or you lose permission and or this buck just disappears and then you know, like this year, I had a buck that I was pursuing in Ohio that would I would have thought that would have hit that one seventy mark, and he disappeared on me. He lived on a farm that I didn't have access to, but it had access to the neighboring farm and he didn't live on me. So I hunting it, hunted him sparingly and hoping that during the rut he would slide over through there with a dog because I had a lot of dose on my farm. And he ended up disappearing on November eight. I never got another picture of him again, never seen him. But I was I can't say I was. I was somewhat in the game, but it was a rut game that I was playing. I was hoping one of the ladies would drag him over. It just never happened. Yeah, that's a it's a risky game to play, just never know sure. And I was not able to locate another huntable buck of that caliber, so uh, I spent my season season looking around trying to find a buck like that and end up getting on an older age class Buck in late December and was able to take it in January. Nice. So let's let's keep talking summer. Um. Can you walk me through your summer glassing. Is that simply a matter of driving around the neighborhood by properties already hunt or do you have I don't know. Do you ever look at the maps and say, man, this is a good looking area. I want to explore this spot and start driving around. And I don't know any specifics as far as how you try to locate summer bucks in that way. So I'll take a few trips in my truck glass and bean fields from the road, and I've had some success with that, some pretty good success with that. Then other ones, uh they'll be like a hidden bean field or a a isolated uh CRP field to where I know some deer hangout throughout the summer, maybe staging to go up go on out to the road where maybe beans are and stuff. So I use that a little bit. I'm mainly try to run my cameras in different let's say water holes, because you when it gets real dry in the summer, you find seeps and subside of these hills and then maybe there're a pond or and in Ohio you're allowed to run minerals, So running minerals is great to get pictures of bucks in July and August. So I'll try to locate them that way. Like I said, I haven't had a lot of success driving around, but I have had some pretty good success. What's your what's your routine with the summer cameras. How often do you check at that time of the year. Well, I'll I put my cameras out this coming weekend. It's always round right around July four, and then I'll leave him out till late August, and then I'll go back in late August and replenish the mineral and uh and pull the switch the cards out and then I won't go back in there and tell um mid September and pull the cards again and then uh. A lot of times where we I hang cameras and stuff. You know, the deer aren't living there in the summer. Some of them are some of the mark they're on out staged in other areas, on other farms where the food is because it's all about food. So and if I don't have anything come you know September that I know there's some areas where deer always when they do their transition from summer patterns to UH fall ranges. Uh, they'll move in and I can usually locate one that way. Yes, So what's then the shift? When that shift happens, you get into September, dear kind of relocate. How do you transition your trail camera strategy are you I'm assuming maybe you move to new locations. Uh, just the mock scrape locations with those pines he mentioned, Or do you do anything else? Well, I don't. Usually I don't put the pine tree limbs out. Tell about the first, first or second week of October, and in almost all my pine pictures or mock scrape with pine tree limb pictures are UH the second week of October through the first week in November, and then I'll get some more I'll leave them out, but it's mainly that time frame, and then at the end of November I'll get pictures again on them because during the usually during the breeding phase, and don't get bury made pictures because they're usually locked down with the dose. But I transition my cameras back to UH. A big goal is to find the acorn acorn trees that are producing. Let's say, if I can find a white oak flat that's uh loaded with acorns, I just know the deer are gonna stack in there. Down here. They they've cut a lot of timber and there's not a lot of You may have a acre farm and there's only let's say thirty white oak trees. If you can find them white oak trees and they got acorns on them, you can guarantee you that the biggest buccaneer area is probably gonna be in there eating acorns at some point in time. Uh, if there's no pressure and I set up cameras associated with food and so that that's an interesting thing that I'm constantly debating, trying to find those in seasoned food sources like that. You know, it requires you moving around more, checking out new areas, and going back to what you alluded to earlier. The whole fear of failure. I am always worried, you know, if I move around too much looking for something like that hot oak tree, Um, I couldn't bumping something around. How do you balance that? How do you get in there with a camera to check for oaks or just to see it yourself and stept to hunt without doing it too often? Or in the wrong way. Sure, well, I'll give you a quote that andre Quisto told me. He said, you gotta bump some deer to kill some deer. So, uh, if you've got to think about it. If let's say you have access to this two underd acre farm and there's also a squirrel hunter that has access to it as well, or a coon hunter that goes in there, do you not think those deer are not getting jumped by that rabbit, that squirrel hunter or that coon hunter. They're getting pushed around. It's it's what kind of pressure you're actually applying to it. If you go in there and you trump through the woods and you avoid certain betting points and this and that. You know, you're just going through there one day and the deer sees that they were able to avoid you, Uh, they got away. Uh. You know it worked for him. But if you go in there every day tiptoeing around, sneaking and acting like a predator, you know they will start acting a little bit differently. But you just gotta keep the wind in your face going there and scout different corners of the farm, going there a little bit deeper at times. Uh, I like going in a week or so before season and just tearing a farm apart to figure out everything you can see the sign, and then when season gets here, already have a game plan on where you're gonna set up the first day, and then once you hunt there the first day, tear your set down, scout around just a little bit tiptoe, don't let your scent blow into the betting area, don't go up there and push the betting spots, and just set up again on fresh sign and hunt in and just continue moving around, and then as the season progresses you should be figuring a lot more out. Then if it gets to the timeframe like happened to me last year in Illinois where it was the last week of October and you still haven't been able to get it done. But you know around about where that buck's betting diving there, scout it out and hang a set on their bed if everything works out right. So so you gotta you gotta walk me through that week before opening day scouting session. First off, is that something that you're that you're gonna try to do every year on some of your top spots, no matter what or does it have to be, that you have to get that right wind and it has to be a rainy day or really windy day, or something that allows you to be particularly stealthy with it. What's you know, what are some the qualifiers there? Sure? So if if I have my choice, I would prefer to go in uh during the day when it's going to rain that night. I want a good, good heavy rain after I'm already through there. If at all possible, if it's a couple of weeks before season, if I can time it that way, then great. If not, I'll just go in there, tramp around, you know, do the best I can cover every inch of the ground to see, you know, where a dear betting at what acorn trees are dropping in your feeding on? What kind of sign of a laid out to this point? What kind of tracks have I seen? Is the crossing that I've seen in the spring? Is it? You know? Is it? Are they using it as much as they were before? Because it's a it's a week or two before season. So I go into that one day, tear it apart, and then leave and I'm not back in there again until I'm going in there that morning to hunt. Mhmm. You said something that kind of stuck with me. You mentioned about some of the things not to do. You said, if you're walking all over too often, sneaking around like a predator, you might spook these dear more so than otherwise. So when you go out and do this preseason scouting session, and you're going into that one day and you're tearing apart to learn everything just before, are you actively trying to be louder than you had to be? Are you trying to kind of be like, hey, I'm a farmer walking through here, or I'm just like a random dude walking with my dog um or do you sneak and you can kind of get away with it? So the two weeks before, usually I just trumped through there, like you know, I try not to, uh. I try to keep the wind in my face as much as possible. That way, if I do jump a buck, he doesn't get wind of me. He'll just know that something scared him up out of his bed or whatever. But I just I trump around a lot. I want to leave no stone unturned. Uh. But then when I go back into hunt and and then I do my scouting, then I kind of tiptoe a little bit, you know. I keep the wind. I keep my wind out of the bedding areas that I found two weeks prior. And then I just go down and look at this crossing. I go up there, look at this tree and see if they're you know, eating acorns or it started dropping order. If I seen a big rub over here, is it still look like they're using this trail, then I'll jump over and hunt those. Do you have any kind of system for recording everything you find? Do you mark up maps, do you write down in a journal what you saw? Or do you just kind of store in your mind and just remember the very most important stuff? Well used to I, Uh, I just wrote down in logs. I kept everything. I'd have an aerial photo and I would write down different things I've seen and uh and where my tree stands were the sign and stuff. Now, uh, I can't say I've used it. But because I just this Father's Day discount they had for on X, I just purchased. Justin talked me into that. So he's a good salesman. But uh, but I'm planning on I used hunt stand before, but I had some issues with it. But yes, I like uh, I like putting way points and different things like that on different locations that I find maybe in the spring or maybe you know, the two weeks before when I'm in there looking around. But usually if it's just two weeks, well it's it's not going to leave my memory. I'll remember it pretty good. So yeah, now, what about the scenario you outline there where you're walking through when you bump a deer and he doesn't win you, but you bumped a buck. Um, Let's let's lay two scenarios. One scenario is the week or two before the season, and then the second scenario is is actually in season you're scouting in season you bumped the buck, would you do the exact same thing? Um, Like, would you go right to the bed and look at it? Or would you back away and say, Okay, I bumped that buck out of here, but I don't want to mess it up anymore. I'm gonna wait until hunting season. What do you what's your next move after you bump a buck up? So it depends on if if I bump it pretty close, then I'll just stand there and look around and surveying the situation and then try to, uh, if I need to move over twenty yards, if I need to go up and look at his bed, just to see what he will see what he can see. I will do that if I'm purposefully going in to jump a the buck out of a certain bedding area, then once I jump him, I'm gonna go over and check out what he's stand up or buy his bed, just to kind of try to find his travel route into that bed, and then I'll back off, hang my stand and then I'll be there to the next morning. But I definitely don't during season go in jump a buck. I don't purposely go in and jump a buck unless I'm gonna hunting the next morning during season. Now, what what do you how do you actually do that next step? When you described actually going in there standing in the bucks bed and trying to learn how he comes in and out and what he's doing. Can you walk me through like exactly what you're looking at, exactly how you kind of read the clues. Sure, so, I said, if if I'm purposely going in to jump a buck out of the bed, for one, I know what the wind direction is that day, and that tells me where this buck's probably going to be bedded from where I seen let's say a couple of weeks before or the prior spring I'll get the wind in my face, head into that bedding area and just you know, ease forward, ease forward, and and eventually hopefully jump that specific buck and see exactly where he's bed and where he runs off. When I do that, I'm thinking, Okay, the wind this morning, at let's say seven o'clock in the morning, was blowing this way. It's still blowing this way. It's coming out of the north, let's say. So if I know that, I know that he's gonna try to get as much nose wind from that bed as he can before he gets up into it. If the wind had stayed constant that day. So I'll figure out how they're kind of jay hooking into that bed, whether he's coming in out of a ditch down below, walking straight up towards it, or he's coming down a ridge and just making a little loop out into that bed. Then I'll set up my stand from there, uh to hopefully the next morning. Usually when I go into too hunt bucks bed or look for a buck's bed. If if there's gonna be a rain that night, it's a perfect situation because it'll wash away my scent and then I have maybe a day or two to play with it. If it isn't going to rain, but the wind's supposed to remain constant in the same direction the following day. I have more confidence than going in there knowing that if I jump him, I can set up on that and the wind is gonna be the same the next morning, and he's going to take the same travel path more or less into that spot again, and I can take a bandage of it. But I would not. I would not do that if if today the wind's coming out of the north, I'm going to jump in the buck out of his bed, but tomorrow morning is supposed to be coming out of south, I would not do that. I would I want the conditions it could change, but I want the conditions to be the same wind that day as it's going to be the next day. We're on the same wavelength. Heaf. That was exactly what I wasn't ask you about. What, um, what type of scenario would you have to be in to do that to actually proactively go in there and try to bump a buck out of his bed. Is that when you get to desperation mode and you're thinking, all right, I gotta make something happen, UM, or I don't know what gets you to the point where you decide that you're gonna go and use that strategy other than just the consistent wind direction thing which you just mentioned. Sure, well, one of the main things is you got to know when to lay back and let things, uh, you know, develop theirself, and then you've got to know when you gotta lay on it and get it done. Uh. I've sent back too many years in the past and just waiting on things to develop, and maybe the neighbor kills it, or maybe the buck disappears. Knowing the roundabout area bucks betting in what I usually do is hunt travel corridors, food sources, and stuff in early October the first week or two. Then when it gets into the uh to the going on the third week, and if I'm getting nervous, that's just something's gonna happen to this book or whatever. I don't think that I'm gonna be able to have time to get it done, then I'll get aggressive the same way. Out in Illinois this past fall, Justin had four days to go out there and and hunt. And he went out there and hunted and seemed to buck a couple of times. It was the last week of October. I got out there on I didn't have time to screw around. We knew this buck was in this block of timber. I had scouted it before, uh not that season, but the any years past, and I kind of knew there was several knolls or fingers that this these uh older age class bucks like betting on. So it was supposed to rain that night, the wind was supposed to stay consistent the following day, so I dove right in there after I suspected that most of the deer would have been moved down into the field. Dove in air, scouted out several points, located a couple of big beds, some big rubs, and a couple of big tracks, and I could see kind of how I knew by the lay of the land and the way the wind was going to be blowing that how they would assume would be approaching approaching the bed. And I hung a stand and and you can see in the video and white tell addictions to where the bucks were looping right in. They got a little nervous, Uh the wind was gusting back and forth a little bit, and they decided, for some reason they wouldn't go bed under this big hedge apple tree where all these beds were, and they decided to cut down the bank to go to the other bed and that's when I was able to take my shot. Yeah, I saw that. I was. I was struck by the timing of your scouting session because, like you mentioned, Justin had been seeing this buck going out to a field and so you I feel like the first thing I would have thought would have been to hell. I don't know what I would have done. You had to go into a betting area in season and try to scout it out, but you planned it in a way so that that buck would hopefully be already on his feet heading to the food source. I think I remember hearing or seeing the video or somewhere that you headed in there like four o'clock in the afternoon or four thirty in the afternoon to go scouting. Um, how did you how did you tell? Maybe I'm wrong on that, correct me if I'm wrong. But secondly, how did you plan your your route in there so you weren't spooking a bunch of deer? What you know? How did you actually scouted out? I gotta imagine that must have been high stakes, high stakes, high intensity sneaking in there when he could have still been right in there. Sure well, uh so Justin told me when he's seen him out in that field a couple of times he was out there. Most of the deer got out there around four thirty, and the buck was shortly after. So my goal was, I thought, you know what, I I know this area real well. My goal is to dive in let's say the winds coming out of the north. My goal was to dive into the south side of this uh block of timber. Slowly worked my way up through there, and my plan was to get as much scouting in from four thirty till dark as I could. And I was hoping that either the deer would have already moved out into this field to feed, or if I did bump them, they would already be up and headed that way. So I come in from the south side. I checked out two knolls, or it is that I thought that they he could possibly be on. One of them had some big beds, but didn't have really any sign meaning a rubs or or big tracks. But the beds have been used, you know, within the last couple of weeks. Then I went to the other ridge and it was just like a lightbulb come on. I mean you you could just feel a big buck with staying right there, several big rubs. I've seen a couple of big tracks in these huge beds, big as a car hood, and I just knew that was his. And what's funny is I did not jump a single deer that evening when I come in from the backside at four thirty. Normally, what I would do is I would go in around noon and try to scalp this out. But I thought, you know what, I'll just let the deer move out and I'll come in behind him and and figure it out because I knew that I could find that buck's bed and I didn't need to jump him out of it. I just I knew he was on one of these three points. And when I went in there, like I said, it was just like a lightbulb went off. When I seen it, I thought, this thing is dead. If I can get a stand up in there and the windstays can stim it's kind of genius. And it's not something you hear about a whole lot. I don't know if I've had anybody else talk to me about waiting for a deer to leave in the afternoon and evening, scouting out their bedding area and setting up for next morning. I've heard of bumping them, but I've never heard of people actually trying to wait till they left. It's a it's a small little shift, but it makes a lot of sense. Um, how did you actually I know you describe some of your thought process there, but what the tree set up? How did you What was that actual tree? Where was it set up? In relations where you saw that bed. I just kind of curious about how you exactly picked that spot, because that decision picking that tree close to a bed seems so crucial. Trying to guess how they're gonna come back in the next morning, all that stuff. It definitely isn't and you're gonna The only way you can learn that is to screw up, uh, set your stand in the wrong spot on numerous occasions before you start figuring things out. Every situation is a little bit different. But I know that just these bucks weren't gonna just come come from the south end of the farm and walk in with a nose wind and walk straight up to that bed. I knew they were feeding to the north, so I knew that they were gonna have to make a little bit of a loop to just get enough of that bed to where they felt comfortable to walk up into it. So basically, the bed was northeast of me about thirty yards, if that makes sense, with a northerly to a little bit of a west northwest wind. So I'm I'm off to I'm off the edge of that wind just a little bit, so I'm kind of south. I'm kind of south west of the bed. The bed is northeast to me with a little with a mainly north wind, but a little bit of west to it. And what about Yeah, what about the ridge? So this is on a little knoll. So were you downhill from it, off the side of the ridge from it, right on the point with it? What was that looking like? I was where? I wasn't right on the point, because that's where the bed was. I was damn on from it down towards that ditch. That's why I got up pretty high. I was probably uh pushing maybe thirty feet, But it's just because of the the drop in elevation of the tree. And you set up that evening, am I right when you scouted it out? You picked the train got set up right then. Yes, I I went in with a stand on my back, and that's uh, that's one of the great advantages of having a altar light tree stand in the Quista series. One point, I had it on my back, had my backpack with UH, and I had my trimmor and stuff with me and just went right in. And the whole purpose was to uh find that bed and set up on it immediately, and I was. I got out of there right after dark. You mentioned that your trimmor. How much trimming did you do in there? I didn't have to do much at all. I had one limb I needed to cut that was dead, it was only about two ft long. And I had another branch that I needed to trim that was I got an extended poles all and I reached up and cut it down and got right out of there. Do you usually out to keep it pretty minimal like that? Or at times if you're going in this kind of scenario where you're just basically trying to kill him the next morning, would you be willing to do a bunch of cutting if it requires it, just because you're so dead set on it's a swinger. A miss is a home run kind of situation. You're either gonna go for it all or nothing. Well, you gotta be able to get the shot. So if I need to trim a couple of tree limbs, what have you, I'll do it, Uh, because when he comes back and then realizes what the heck happened, you better have an arrow in him. Yeah. But in this case, I could have trimmed, in my opinion, as much as I wanted to, because a big storm was coming in that night. We had X amount of rain and then it turned to snow, so whatever I did was going to be gone. I just didn't want to make things really obvious. But uh, I didn't have to trim hardly anything. That's nice. So here's here's something I feel like most people in the scenario you described where your buddy had been hunting there and he saw the deer come out to a field in daylight multiple days in a row. Most guys at this time period in October would think, all right, I'm gonna kill him in the evening. I'm gonna go back to that field or sit back from that field edge a little bit and try to kill him where my buddy's been seeing him. Why didn't you do that? Why did you instead want to kill him in the morning. Well, and that questionnaire is exactly why I end up killing him. I had four days to hunt. Uh. The first day, the first evening when I got out there was burnt hanging a set. It was the end of October, it was. I got out there on the twenty, I got out there on nine, and I killed the thing on October thirty one. I knew it any second that Buck would be hooking up with a dough and be gone, be on the neighboring property, being who knows where. I didn't have time to waste. I could have set after and played the game on the edge of the field and possibly got a crack at him because he was coming out there almost every evening. But I didn't have time to gamble. I didn't have time to get out there and you know, set a couple of evenings and maybe he cut my track, maybe he busted me. I wanted to. I knew with the lay of this farm and those betting points, I knew that I could get in there and get it done, especially with the everything added up, the weather conditions. Justin saying he's seeing him out in the field of four thirty the end of October, all that played together. If it was a week prior, I would have probably sat back and played the edges of that field. So when you when you want to make this gopher broke move, when you really got to get it done, you gotta kill him. Is taking that morning hunt swing in the betting area you're is that the go to move or could another option in a different set of scenarios be an evening hunt but just pushing and really tight um. I'm kind of curious about that. So a couple of things in my opinion, uh, late October, like that the morning hunt in his specific bed is the way to go because that's where he's coming to. If I'm hunting the edge of the field, I know he's coming out in that field. But Justin said he come out in that field two different times, in two different spots. So do I take a gamble and get over here in this spot and he comes out in the other one, But then when I'm exiting the field that he bust me or another one bust me. Or do I take a gamble and jump on the other spot that he said he come out of and maybe it not happened, or he end up cracking me while I'm on the stand and then starts playing that game and avoiding that field. I just knew that getting in there, with the timing and everything. Like I said, if it was a different time frame, different weather conditions, I may have played a little bit safer, but I went for broke. Yeah. How early do you try to get in for those morning hunts? Because I feel like that's always the biggest worry, especially in October, is that these bucks are going to come back to bed earlier than you know you'd normally or earlier than you want them to, and then you might they might beat you there. How early did you try to get in there? Sure, So when I'm hunting, when I'm targeting a buck bed and going in and hunting that specifically bad a couple of things that I play. The weather. You know, if there's a storm late in the afternoon and it could possibly keep them bucks out feeding longer the next morning. If the moon I go off, the moon guide go off, the overhead and underfoot moon times f it's a red moon, and it's saying those bucks are gonna be feeding within the first couple of hours of daylight. That's the time to jump on that bed because they're gonna be late coming back to it. And like I said, to the weather, the weather Trump's moon, always Trump's moon. If I can play the weather conditions, that's what I'll do. That's whatever's going to keep them on their feet longer in the morning. That way, they're delayed getting back to their bed. But when I go into a hunt, Uh, everybody does a little bit differently. I know that Andre and Cody, Uh, they get in there, they don't get in real early. I get in real early. I get in there at least half an hour before daylight. I like things to settle down and get situated because you know, pack and camera gear and all that kind of stuff, and just get comfortable. And it takes me a lot longer to get to my spots because I make sure I don't you know, break a sweat, stay as clean as I can and quiet as I can, and slip right in there. What if you do everything you try, you do everything you describe, you never do everything as best as you pie stably can. You're in the right spot, the conditions were right. Uh, you you picked the right area. But he comes circling in and the wind swirls, or he comes in just a little bit different than you thought and he busts you. Your your high risk, high reward scenario doesn't pan out, and you spook the buck. What is your game playing after that? How would you just how do you relocate him? Sure? First off, you that was a great learning experience. You tried it. He did something a little bit differently. You learned that for the next time. What I would do is I would, uh, I would back off. I would move to another location in that wood lot, maybe that that there's some good sign good travel, and I would I would hunt that. Or I would back off and just go hunt another buck for a day or two and then bounce back in there. Not necessarily into bed, but uh, but maybe hunt the edge of the field. See if he's still coming out, because you know they're not gonna I mean, if he cracks you on that bed, more than likely he's not going to come back to that bed. And he's just moving over two ridges, you know what I mean. So it's you just gotta know it's it could be. But but the most of the time what I found is that they just move. I mean, he may move over to ridge just he may move to the south end of the farm. He may move to the neighbors. But you know, I could sit back and play this game and he may move there. Anyways, why not go in and uh, if I know where he's at, go in and get it done or at least or at least put myself make an opportunity for myself. If I fail and don't succeed with that opportunity, then I worked my butt off to get me another one. What about the the actual ways when you said you said you go hunt a different spot on the farm, or go hunt a different farm when you're trying to pattern a new situation, pattern a new buck, or repattern a buck or relocate him. Uh, you you've got cameras out, You've talked about that. I know that you're scouting in season, walking around, moving around, but what are you what are you specifically doing to try to find a specific buck? Is it simply doing all those things with one buck in mind and just adjusting off that. Were there any particular things you do when it's hey, I want this buck, Like, how do you tighten the news on them? So, for one, it depends on what time of year it is. Every situation is different. If it's early season, I'll do these these things. If it's mid to October, I may do this. If it's the last week October and may do this. And then if it's the rut, it's just a crapshoot or late seasons completely different. I'll sit back and watch fields. I mainly go in and try to scout and find the biggest sign I can find, and then find the biggest tracks, especially if I already know a buck is on that farm that I'm wanting to target. Usually I can go in there and look for the biggest sign and find the biggest tracks, and that's usually him. I have done that before and it turned out to be a you know, just a big body. You know, let's say a hundred and thirty inch and I'm trying to kill it one seventy. It just depends. You know. Some of these dear heck, they if you get pictures of them, you need to go in and inspect area where he was getting pictures, especially if you got them over a scrape, and see what kind of track you got, what size of track? Is there any identification things that you can note about that track, and then if if there is, if you can measure it, you know, when it's not skewed in the dirt. And you may see that track two days later and say, how that's him, you know, because here's that sign, and then start building off of that. What is the how big of a track is that to be? To get your attention? Well, I mean, I mean I like three to three and a half finger track when I'm looking at them, you know, one that's not screwed in the dirt or slid or whatever. But I'm looking at the the track I put three fingers in it. If it's bigger than that, that gets my attention. I try to look and if you can see where they've let's they walk down the edge of the creek or whatever I want to. There's a couple of things you look at. Uh. Older bucks are usually the bigger bucks, of course. And older bucks, uh you know they're they start getting arthritis and stuff like that, so they have they have a little bit wider shoulders, and there arthritis and stuff in their back legs and stuff in their spine. Their feet their back feet don't cover don't completely cover their front track. So if you look at a track, it's three fingers wide or wider. That back foot does not come all the way up or cover the front track. That usually is an indication that it's an older buck, especially if the shoulders are a little bit wider and the back foot goes on the inside just a little bit of that front track. So what makes sense? Yeah? It does? But what do you do when you find that track? So you're out there, you're poking around. Um, you come across this big track, it's a three and a half finger track. You see, you see these things and tells you okay, yes, this should be a big old buck. Do you stop and say, okay, I got the intel I need? Or do you follow that track of ways? Um, I'm curious what are your next steps after that? Okay? So it depends on where I found that track. If I out of before and I know that they bet on this ridge here, and I find this track and it's headed away from that bed, but it's still a couple of hundred yards from the food source, I look at how I can take advantage of that particular spot, or in my mind, how they're gonna work their way up through there. Let's say there's another rub on up the on up the hill. Let's say sixty yards. So I'm thinking, okay, I cut his track here, here's where it crossed the creek. Especially if there's multiple there's a fresh track and then maybe a couple of old ones of of what looks like the same track. Then I'm like, Okay, here's how he's headed into that being field or whatever. I can take advantage of south wind by hunting here, or I can take advantage of a north wind by hunting here, And then go ahead and throw a stand at it and set on it. And that's how you're gonna find out whether he's moving in daylight in there or it's a different bunk. I heard you say somewhere that, um, you feel that mature box, especially in certain different types of areas, laid down more or less signs. I think you said that you've seen in old country the bucks left a lot less signed, while in farm country you see a lot more. They just tear stuff up. Um, yes, can you is that still true? Do you still feel like that's the case, and and just elaborate on on why you think that is? So? A couple of things. For one, every deer is difference. They each got different temperaments. Some of them are just angry, mean bucks that are dominant, they will tear up everything, and in some are kind of It seems like a lot of times the bigger rack bucks are kind of shy, kind of stay back, aren't really hardcore going into the rut kind of bucks or whatever. Of But what I do is, uh, well, in in the hill country, what I found is the deer density is a lot less and the sign the deer travel a lot further and there's not they don't leave as much signs. What I found, I mean I was. I mean, a buddy of mine was hunting a two D class two hundred class buck a few years ago, and you would have never thought, other than tracks that there was a buck of a hundred and fifty inch range in that whole on that whole farm, there just was zero sign, but there was big tracks, and we were getting this giant on camera. Then you go to another farm, let's say hill country, or not hill country, but a farm land farm. It may have two or three one thirties on it, and it looks like a world records in their tearing up jack. I assume because of the population, you have a higher deer density, more competition, they're leaving, laying down a lot more sign. In the hill country, it's fewer bucks, fewer deer, and there's not as much competition, and they travel a lot farther. I'm assuming, and just like I said, the temperament of the deer, Yeah, that makes sense. Would you would you say then that a big track is the number one most important piece of signed to work from when you're looking for these kinds of deer, Well, uh, yeah, I mean I like to see big rubs, don't get me wrong, but I definitely like to see big tracks. And for example, a deer I found dead out in Iowa this year had one of the biggest feet foot tracks that I've ever seen, and it had the crappiest rack that you've ever seen. M But then again, I know out there on Andre's farm they found a two hundred and fifty inch and non typical that had to attract the size of a small dough. So so that doesn't So if you can if you can add you know, if you take several things, if you can get a picture of a buck, whether out a mineral leck, mock scrape or whatever, and know that that specific buck was in there that day, and you can look at that track and associate that track with him. That helps you. If all you see is little, little small tracks, and that's great, but that buck was in there the day before, then hey, he doesn't have a very big track. But if you go in there and you haven't got a picture of this buck on, that's great for three weeks. Then all of a sudden, he shows up one day. And when you check the cameras all these other times, all you've seen small tracks, the net buck shows up and you check the camera and you see them giant foot tracks, then you know what to look for. Yeah. Are there any other things like that when it comes to behavior differences or any kind of difference between your farm country hunting versus your hill country hunting that you've noticed over the years with with how dear acting or how you need to adjust. Uh, Like I said, in hill country, it seems like they move a lot farther, uh when there's not much pressure, especially during the rut. Uh In farm country, you know, they I mean they move a lot to they just don't I say cover as much ground in my opinion. And uh, but definitely, I mean, you know, like in hill country. Uh, and even in farm ground. A lot of times the bucks are traveling areas that don't have there's not a defined trail. Uh, there's not a you know, war and a dirt trail. They're kind of you know, moving through the area on their own. For instance, I had just one wood lot that had a big had a high fence through it, and there was a good buck in that area. And uh, he was a kg buck that I've had pictures of for two years, and I wasn't hunting him that year because I was after another one. But I wanted to figure out where he was crossing down through that woodlock because there was a high fence through there. I say high fence, a four foot woven wire fence with a strain of bob wire along the top, and there was two openings in it where them deer could cross through. So I hung cameras on it. But when I went in there to hang cameras on it, there was there was a tree that fell across that fence, and I thought, there ain't gonna be there's not gonna be any deer crossing where that tree is at. When they got an opening down here and an opening over there, because it would be awkward and kind of you know, there wasn't any deer traffic across it that I could tell by just visically looking at it. I hung a camera on all three of those locations, and that buck, every picture I got on him, was crossing where that tree was laying down. It was it was out of the way path for him to get up through there. But he did not want to follow where all them other deer went. He wanted to pave his own way. Interesting, So that that then makes me wonder this. So, so going back to your own personal history, right, you started targeting a certain size of buck or age of buck, and every year you've you've ranked, you've ramped it up more and more and more till now you're after the absolute top tier buck. Have you noticed a few I mean, I know the gennary things, but has there been any thing or two that you've noticed about these absolute top tier hundred seventy class bucks, five six year old ers, whatever they are as far as their behavior, I know they're going to be more cautious. I know that they you know, are smart, etcetera, etcetera. But have you noticed any specific things that those types of deer do differently than the four year old one. For it is it used to be chasing. Sure, well, uh, they're not out there running around like crazy most of the time. In the first week in November, seems like they usually the action starts picking up with those around a six or seven from what I've seen, But then also seen too that most of them have smaller cores areas. So you may go into a farm and think, you know that this buck's nocturnal, he's just not moving, so I need to wait till the rut. Well he's in there moving, but he's just got a small tight area he's moving in. And then it depends on personality to Uh had a bucker a few years ago that was an older age class buck, and he was a traveler. I mean, you would seem all kinds of different places, so he didn't have that small core area. But most of them that I've seen you talked to start talking about, you know, six and a half year old deer or older, they got a small core area, and to kill them outside the rut, you gotta get in that circle. So what about in the rut with that kind of buck, would you do? You do you stick with standard rut tactics when you're after that buck and just hope that you get lucky or do you have to do anything different during the rut for that caliber. So what I found in several circumstances is hopefully you've got some history of him during the rut prior to that, let's say cameras, because you're talking about a five six year old deer, So hopefully you got a little bit of a history with him. If I see an area on camera that I got the previous year where he was at, let's say on a certain date the year before, I kind of play in my mind and I'm gonna try to get over in that area around that same date, hoping that he's doing the same thing. A lot of times. To these older bucks, they've been through this game several years. This is a this is a rut phase, and they have learned which does come in first. Let's say, for instance, uh uh, the year before I got a picture of this buck, uh hitting a scrape really hard in this one area the last week of October. Well, I'm gonna I'm gonna hunt and scout and hunt the sign. But that last week of October when I got pictures of him the year before. I'm gonna try to get in there because I'm hoping that he does the same thing before. But I'm also playing my game of Okay, there's fresh sign over here. Here's what he's doing. This is what I need to do during the rut, though it's it's kind of a crapshoot. I mean, the dough can take him off to who knows where, And my opinion, I mean, I've struggled a lot in the rut. I say in the rut meaning from let's say the fifth through the uh Thanksgiving, I've just struggle cales, I'm after a particular buck and you just don't know where they're at. It's that time of year. It's being in the right stand locations, whether it's funnels or hunting dough betting areas and putting time in the stand. What about time of day, I've I've talked to some guys that believe that they've got a better chance during the rut, during the midday for those top tier bucks or other guys. I've heard say a time of year difference. So during the rut, I've heard that sometimes that last part of November is your very best time for the very best buck. Have you seen any of that kind of thing or is it all across the board? Possible? Uh? During the rut, especially if I go out of state, I mean, I'm out to hunt, so I'm going to get up in the stand before daylight. I'm gonna at least hunt that stand and tell one thirty to two o'clock. Then I may end up getting down and moving towards the edge of a food store, so I'll be back in bedding cover and stuff like that until about one thirty or two, or I may hang out in that spot all day long. But normally, when you're back in the finals back into dough betting areas, the actions a good up until around one two, and then I like relocating to a food source and that way I catch that action coming back out to the food sources. But yeah, hunting during mid day is always great during November. I say great, as you know you're gonna see it's gonna be a long set. But at any chance, at any point in time, a giant buck can come walking by and you just gotta be there. It's time on stand during the rut. And that's why I don't I don't care for it as much because I'm I'm I'm hunting in October. It's on my terms, you know what I mean. It's gonna happen in the morning, it's gonna happen in the evening. I don't have to worry about midday because I'm scouting and resetting up for the that evening. During the rut, it's just you know, button your stand. Okay, So this this is an interesting dilemma to consider. You are. I know you're pretty mobile. Um, I'm assuming, and I guess I don't even know if maybe I didn't ask you this. I guess Let's ask this first. This question. First, if you're setting up somewhere it's morning hunt. Let's say it could be morning or afternoon. I guess you see the buck you're after, and he moves, he does something, he's out of range. Let's say he's eight yards out of range or something. UM, My question is would you immediately tear down and move to go hunt that buck? You know at that spot you saw him? And so I guess the question is answer me that, but answer me that for two scenarios during the rut versus sometime in October. I'm curious if you would do things differently during the rut because it's more random versus mid October late October, when they're on a little bit more of a pattern. Sure, I would definitely do it differently, uh, each depending on the situation. During October, I would let the if if he I've seen one cross and uh, let's say eight yards out in front of me at eight thirty in the morning, I would probably play it out until about nine thirty, let things settle down. Then I would tear down my stand and I would slip up there. If I seen some things that led me to believe that, you know, he's crossed here more than just once, I would definitely hang a stand and be back in it the following morning to hunt and hopefully catch him crossing back through there again at eight thirty at least give it a good shot to see what happens. And I may even set that evening on that spot if the wind plays out right, uh during the rut, And it all depends on a situation. If I'm setting in the spot because I've seen all this stuff play out here before, then I'm gonna set where I'm setting. If I'm gonna stay where I'm at if if I'm just in a spot that is kind of mediocre or whatever, and I see that happen and one buck cuts through there, and then possibly another one I may tear down immediately and jump up there. What kind of situation would make you believe that you are in the spot. I know that it's always gonna be various different things could be telling you that. But I'm just kind of curious if you could paint the picture of of a scenario where you would say, oh, yeah, this is the kind of spot that I'm gonna stick it out, and what does that look like for you? Let's say, possibly the the down wind side of a bedding area on a ridge to where a lot of does are bedded in, and I just I've had little bucks and different things come up there where and clue me in on exactly where the bucks are traveling, or at the top of a ditch hunting a rut funnel, or at the uh, you know, at the at the we're a bottleneck of the woods bottles down and heads over into another block of timber. But you know I've set the I've set those funnels on the block of timbers where it narrows down and goes to the next one, and then you know, one year, Uh, everything's traveling right underneath of you. Then the next year you see one or two bucks and they're cutting across, you know, upwind of you, cutting across the open field and then cutting in. There's some reason they're doing that. Normally I'll jump over there if I see uh multiple deer go through that same area. Uh. But I've also screwed up and moved and looked back and it was happening where I was at. So I just gotta every situation is different, and you make the best uh, you make the best decision you can, and you live with it. Yeah. I've definitely felt the uh, the negative effects of that decision on occasion myself. I've played the cat and mouse game the wrong way sometimes, sure, and you you you can only learn from that by uh failing doing it and failing then you just learn from it. Yeah. So is there is there a buck like this that you already have on your mind for the season? Do you have the one already picked out or in your sights? I have a couple that I'm hoping to show back up. Hopefully I'll be getting pictures of him here in the next month. And uh, I've already got you know, ran through my mind several times on how I'm going to approach hunting it. Uh. You know this buck has been active before in early October, and he definitely gets active the second week of November. So we'll just I'll play it by ear. I'll scout and uh when uh, when I see that, I need to, you know, get in there. That's what I'll do. I gotta know more so he he's he can get active in early October. So I'm curious how are you going to monitor him leading into October? And We've already discussed some of your generic ideas, but I'm curious specifically with this buck. How are you gonna get heap tabs or no when to strike early in October? And are you willing to go hard at him in early October even though you know you'll get that maybe better chance in November. Or is it you want to go really hard in October because he's patternable while in November he might be more random. What's the thought process there with this guy? Sure, so what I'll do is hunting the whole time. But I know in October from years past, the last couple of years that he's been active on a certain feeding source the first couple of weeks this season, so I'm gonna try to I'm not gonna, you know, dive in their deep, get onto bed or whatever. I'm gonna actively hunt that feeding source when you know when the conditions are good to go in there, like right you know the's on high pressure days, right after a weather front, a rainstorm or whatever come through. When I know that's it's primo dear activity evening, I'll jump in there and hunt in the morning. This buck in early October, I don't I don't have figured out, so I'm gonna have to hang back. I'll when I hunt in early October, it'll be hunts that uh that aren't I'm not jeopardizing a lot. I'm not giving up a lot. Uh. And then if I can continue scouting in there tiptoe around, then later on in October, I'm gonna jump in there where I think he's bet and if things aren't playing out for me, and I'm gonna go in there and see if I can bust him out of his bed, because there's betting area that I think he stays in he could be betting in multiple spots. So if it plays out and I get into the last week of October, I'll tiptoe in there with the wind in my face and see if I can bust him out of there and get in there the next day and try to kill him. If not, I'll probably blow him out of that spot, and then I'll have to play it for about the fifth or sixth of November. And knowing that he prefers these different no betting areas and I'm one hunt those do betting areas and funnels in between. You've a couple of times through our conversation you've alluded to these spots that you know or that you think he's betting in. UM, and I haven't drilled down more into that, and as should. Can you describe some of the types of setups that you typically find these bigger, older bucks choosing his betting areas. Um, there's a handful in my mind that I can think of, Like, hey, if i'm if you know, if I'm expecting or if I'm trying to figure out where a buck might be betted, I'm gonna guess, well, my first guest on this property would be this thicket here, or it would be this knob on a ridge or something like that. I'm curious what the generic types of scenarios you look for when trying to find those buck beds. Sure, well, it's just by trial and error mainly, uh in the past, different forms and off enough hunting for several years, and uh you may think of bucks betting in this spot and it turns out he's not, because I've guessed a lot of times and been completely wrong. But what I do is you go in and scout, and like I said, two weeks before, you go in there and jump all these spots that maybe that you uh maybe that you found in this in the spring, or maybe you're just it's a new farm and you're in there trumping around looking and you end up coming up and it's like, oh, yeah, they're betting in here bucks. Especially with rubs, big beds, it's usually on a uh let's say a ridge, uh inside of the timber uh with predominant you know, like in southern Ohio we get predominant of southwest winds. So you know he's gonna how he's gonna be setting up to uh to take advantage of that wind. And and they like to be able to look where they can see out in front of them, and then kind of want to know where they can bounce off on one side or the other and disappear. And it's just time and time again going in and looking at these areas and jumping deer out of them and hunting these spots. Actually figure out what they're doing. Someone may be doing it a little bit differently, but they're all trying to survive, and they're trying to protect theirselves from a kay slipping up on them, a hunter or whatever, and they manipulate them just maybe just a hair different, but but they're all still trying to do the same thing. They want to look at their back trail, They want their back kind of up against some cover, and they want to be able to catch that wind coming over their shoulder. Yeah. Do you find any similar um patterns when it comes to how these oiler bucks or bigger bucks move when they're heading defeat? I hear I've heard very some people think they're always gonna move with the wind quarter and two or in their face. Some guys have said they've seen tail winds. Um is it kind of everything for you or do you kind of live sorry? Do you go into hunts with certain assumptions about how they use wind in those scenarios. Sure, well, uh so for one, uh I mean dear trial. You know, with a tailwind a lot their most vulnerable spot on them is their back trail because coue is coming up on them. They don't know if people can can track them or scent track them or what. They don't know. So what I found a lot of times is the deer will travel quartering down wind or just kind of headed down wind. A lot of times I know that in the morning, when you're hunting beds the wind, their travel is completely based on wind. In the evening, it's mainly on where they want to go. If if they're wanting to go to a food source that's to the north of them, and they got a south wind, well they're still going to go to the north because that's where they want to go. They may loop a little bit more out, but that's what they're gonna do. They're gonna use more of their eyesight then the wind because they don't have the wind to their advantage. Now, when hunting in those situations, you want it depends on where they're going. If you can get it to where they can if they are using the nose wind, let's say, to get to that food source. But then you gotta take a advantage of that by just getting off to the side of that wind. If if that's uh, if you could see what I'm talking about, you just want to be off to the side to where you know he thinks he's comfortable with what wind he's getting, and you're just on the edge of that where your winds blowing out down that way, but he's too far over to one side to get it. Yeah, but it's not impossible. You're saying that he might come out there with it blowing right out into the middle of the field completely away from him, making it super safe for you as a hunter. But you know you've seen some bucks do that sometimes too. Sure, absolutely, And like, for instance, you got a north wind, the bucks bedded to the south. He gets up out of his bed. Let's say the wind isn't that strong that evening. So the bucks back here messing around doing whatever they do, feeding, maybe making some rubs, making scrapes or whatever. Back in his bedding area. He hasn't moved too far. He feels comfortable in that little fifty yard bubble because he's been layding there all day, and let's say he's waiting till the un sets a little bit, and then he's moving over towards closer towards the field, and he's starting to catch them thermal's coming from out in the field back into the woods. And if you notice a lot of these bucks like coming out in the low spots of these fields, it's like a the thermals all pulled down to those lower spots, so he can stand in that spot. Especially if the wind isn't blowing very hard, even though it is coming from the south to the north, he could be headed north. The thermal switch, everything starts sucking down to those cold spots, which are the low spots in the field, And he's gathering all this stuff uh in the field through his nose before he even steps out in it. Plus he has all the dummies out there that's been out there half an hour to an hour, all these other young bucks and does and all this kind of stuff. So it makes me feel more comfortable. How do you as a hunter play that scenario when you've got a high deer population where there's going to be a bunch of deer out in that field. So you don't want to have your wind blowing too much into the woods because there's a lot of doughs and young bucks coming out. Um. But at the same time, if they get past you safely and your winds blown behind you into the field, they'll eventually catch your wind and blow out, maybe ten minutes before the end of daylight, and then the buck gets you know, cascaded back to UM. I heard Andre de Quisto talk once about how he really likes a right along the edge of the field wind in that kind of scenario. Um, is that something you look for to or is it? I realize it's gonna be dependent, but what are your thoughts on that. It's definitely dependent? Uh, I mean, I completely understand the concept of it blowing down along the edge of the field. Normally, if it's blowing like kind of back into the woods, I usually hunt back into woods forty yards or so. You know that way I let the deer. If I let the deer get past me and they get out there in the field, you know what I mean, And my winds blowing back into the woods, but it's off to the side of where I suspect suspect the buck's going to be moving out and through so and in wind, you know, hunting the edge of the field with the wind blowing out into the field, it's tricky because all the other deer can possibly wind you. I hope that if I do hunt in that situation and the deer actually win me, that it's early and they head out the other way. Yeah, and if they head out the other way, you know what's what's gonna be tricky is is when a buck comes out less that you stand in her an edge, if you don't see any other deer in the field. He may get a little larry or whatever, but hopefully he's got another young buck or something with him or out in front of him, and they don't catch my wind until I get an opportunity. Yeah. Well, this scenario I've had happened before where I've I've been out set up in a scenario where a doe kind of wins me. I had a kind of risky wind, but I'm counting on that buck coming in late, and I'm hoping that I can get away with it. But a dole gets something, she's not happy, but she's not gonna blow right out. So maybe let's say it's forty five minutes till dark or an hour before dark or something like that. It's kind of getting the prime time, but it's not the very end of the night, and she's getting wonky. She's doing the foot stomp. She's bobbing her head up and down, and maybe she's maybe she blew. Once she blew, she bounded off five yards. Then she looks back, she does the foot stomp. Her head's going up and down. I've been in that situation where I've I'm cursing myself, I'm upset. I want that deer to leave. Would you ever proactively do something to get her out of there completely because you don't want her to linger there for another twenty minutes blowing every once in a while, or do you worry that if you were to spooker even more it can make things worse? How would you handle that? So it's gonna get Every situation is different. If it's early and I know that no other deer has another chance to uh see me, especially if she if she knows something's up, and maybe a couple of little ones or other ones that are out don't I will look around and when these other deer are looking the other way or doing whatever, and she's staring at me unless they should see me in the stand, I'm definitely gonna make some movements to try to blow her out of there, just to get her down over the hill and out just wander away from me, and used to I would just I would almost just end the hunt if I got busted by any deer anymore. Over the years, I've learned and by talking to other very successful hunters that you know, as long as it's not the deer y're after, then it doesn't matter. And then you know, because if they snored, if they run, if they you know, blow or whatever and run off, well that buck doesn't know. If it's a coyote, doesn't know. If it's somebody driving down along the edge of the field, doesn't know, if it's a hunter, they don't know. I mean, if you've been setting in the woods before and heard deer over there blowing and acting up or whatever, you don't have any idea what they're doing over there. It could be a coon, So don't let that ruin your hunt. But if I can, if in some way, shape or form other than send in an era through her, UH can get her to leave. I've waved my hat before to get them to leave. Yeah, yeah, I've I've yet to purposely spook those doughs away, but I've gotten to thinking that that's probably the smart thing to do in some scenarios. So I think I'm gonna start doing this. Is Uh, this is good stuff, Heath. I've been enjoying this. Um. I've been keeping it here for a while though, And I know it's even later where you're at on the East coast or east part of the United States versus where I'm here on farther west. I gotta let you go, but uh, I want to end this. If your life was dependent on someone, you know, killing a big, huge buck, killing a six year old one seventy plus, and I said, hey, if if such and such person doesn't kill a boon and crock a buck within this week, you're done, Heath. I'm taking away your bow, I'm taking away your hunting rights, I'm taking everything away, and you're you're going to jail or whatever whatever it is. If you had to bet your life or your hunting future or whatever it was on someone killing a buck like that, who would you pick and why would you pick him? So I know a lot of people in the hunting industry. Uh, mainly all the big famous deer hunters or whatever I've I've met, talked to listen to podcasts, followed along with him or whatever. There's one guy that I would that's at the top of my list every time something like this would come up, and I hang on every word when he's speaking, and that's Andre de Quisto. He is the most lethal, deadly killer that I know. He looks at everything differently. I mean he's like you can stand here in the woods and talk to him and the guy is looking over your shoulder, he's looking out the side, you know. I mean he's he's he's a predator and that's who I would have. That's uh, I thought that might be it. He I certainly wouldn't want him hunting me. No. No, his boys a chip off the old block, which is scary, it seems like it. So he If people want to follow along with your hunts this year or anything else you got going on, where can they? Where can they find that stuff? Sure? My videos are on why Tell addictions and that you can go to a Lone Wolf custom gear YouTube channel and watch them and uh, look for all the new equipment coming out from a Lone Wolf custom gear. They got their point five stands coming out that are less than six pounds. Uh, several things coming out here in the future, hopefully before season, so look for all that stuff. Awesome. Well, I'll be looking forward to watching the future videos and see how you guys do this season. I uh, I'm hoping that you get that one big buck down early October and we can chat again and hear how you did it. That sounds good. I appreciate you have me on Mark, and good luck to you this fall. Thanks he alright, guys and gals, that is today's episode. I hope you enjoyed that one as much as I did. Um. You know, if you wanna see what Heath spin up to and justin as we talked about last week, make sure check out that White Tail Addictions YouTube channel. Um, there's some cool hunts over there. And if you want to stay up to date on what I'm up to, make sure you are following my articles over in the Meat Eater dot Com. I'm right, weekly columns over there, lots of good stuff. Make sure check that out, and then of course follow Wired Hunt on Instagram where you're gonna see my stories and what's happening in my hunting world and the other things I've got going on. So appreciate you tuning in, appreciate checking it all out. Good luck out there is your scouting and preparing for hunting season, and until next time, stay wired to hunt.