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. This is episode number two and and tan the show. I'm joined by Brad Ferris, a Mississippi bow hunter, member of the Premost Hunting team, and a white tail properties land specialist. All right, before we get into the show, we need to thank Lacrosse Boots for their support of this episode of the podcast. And Lacrosse is an easy company for me to talk about here on the podcast because I've personally been using the product for coming up on two decades now, so you know it's it's not a stretch at all for me to recommend them to you. I actually remember my uncle Bill was the first one to show up at our family deer camp wearing his green and yellow Lacrosse rubber boots, and after seeing them and him telling us how much he liked them, you know, my dad and I soon went out and got our own for that next season. So Ever since then, I've been using various models that they put out. Most recently, I've been wearing their arrowhead boots and this year I'll be trying their new elfa Burly prose, so I'll keep y'all posting what I think about the new pair. But based on all my past experiences, I'm confident that just like all those previous models, these are gonna be fully waterproof, They're gonna be warm, there'd be comfortable hike around in, and all of that with the added benefit of being pretty darn sent free given that rubber outer construction. So I'm excited about that. And if you would like to learn more about Lacrosse for yourself, you can visit Lacrosse Footwear dot com. And now welcome to the Wire Dump podcast to you buy Onyx and today in the show, I'm joined by Brad Ferris, and I think for a lot of folks, Brad's a household name in the hunting world because of his long running work with Primos and he's been a consistent face there on their TV shows and videos for many years now, and that's something that Brad does continue to do today. But he's also a white Tailed properties and land specialist and a level too cutium made dear Stewart, which which is a certification program the quality Deer Management Association runs, which basically it means that if you've made it to level two, you've been through one of the most comprehensive white tailed biology and management programs available. So I say all this just to make sure it's clear that what we've got here is a tremendous resource. Brad is is a wealth of information, and I was excited to tell him on the show not because of just all that, but also because he hails from the South, and as I've freely admitted in the past, and as some of you have, you've made sure that I don't forget it, I've not always done a good job of featuring guests from that part of the country. So I'm glad that at least for this week, I can right that wrong. And now after speaking with Bread, I'm even more excited about it, because you know, he's just a genuinely interesting person and and generous guy with his insight and excitement and passion about white tailed deer. So in this one, we chat with Brad a bit about his background growing up hunting in Mississippi and what that tradition is like down there. We talked through some of the different ways that hunting deer in the South can be uniquely challenging UH in different ways. To address those challenges, we talked through things like hunting clubs, UM sharing or buying property with a group of people, sharing property friends, that kind of stuff. We talked through UH tips for hunting and scouting river bottoms. We discussed the Southern rut, and just a whole lot more like that. We really dive into a lot of different facets of how Brad has found success not just in the South but across the country. To UM. So, I think it's gonna be one of those episodes that I think we're all going to enjoy a lot. I'm excited for you to hear it. We don't have Dan with us today for the pregame show, so we're gonna be able to get right into the episode here in just a second. But I do want to give a couple of quick little plugs since we have a touch of extra time here. UM. And the first thing here is that way back on episode two eighteen of the podcast, my buddy Andy Mayo was on the show with us, you might remember, and during that conversation he shared some thoughts and ideas for dealing with target panic We got a lot of great feedback on that. People had more questions, people wanted to see some things. So what Mean and He decided to do was actually put together a couple of videos that better explain and illustrate some of the concepts that he discussed. So if you're interested in that, those videos are now out there on the wire hunt YouTube channel. We've got one word and he's explaining, you know what target panic is and how to diagnose it. We have another video where we show ways to eliminate target panic by using an unanticipated release and how you can achieve that with a number of different um like different actual releases. So index finger release, hinge style released, thumb button released, and then there'll be a video coming out here. It should be out by the time you're listening to this, which goes through some drills that you can use while you're practicing at home to really hammer all this stuff. So definitely check out those videos if you're interested in that concept, that issue. And we've got many other weekly video blogs I've been posting over there all on the wire hunt YouTube channel, So if you're not subscribed to that, please do so, because again this fall, there's gonna be a lot of content on there. I'm gonna be getting some more help on the video side of things, which is something I've been needing for a while, and I think that's gonna lead to much better content. So I'm excited about that. And next, we need to take a quick second to thank Onyx for their support of this podcast. And the Onyx Hunt app is something that you know similarly to what I mentioned a while ago. It's easy for me to talk about because it's something that I've personally been using for quite a number of years now. And the Onyx Hunt app provides me digital maps right on my phone and with the Elite membership, which is something I bought last year, it gives me access to property owner information and public land borders and all sorts of other helpful map layers for the entire country. You can go in there and select whatever states up to five states at a time where you want this in depth information. It's funny just just last night I was using my Onyx app because my buddy further he was telling me about this new property that he might be getting permission to hunt on, and it's actually kind of near my main southern Michigan farm that I hunt. So I was kind of excited to hear about that, and I want to check out the aerial of the property. I wanted to see what this place looked like. But he was driving and he didn't really know how to describe to me where it was that other than the road name and then the last name of the property owner. So he told me he'd sent me a screenshot later when he got done driving. But I'm an impatient person, so I pulled up my Onyx app last night. I started slowly panning along this road he mentioned, and I was just looking at all the property owner names and trying to match up to find this place he's talking about hunting. And I kept going, kept going until I finally I actually found the place. Was able to see the parcel boundaries, was able to see the aerial view of the place. I could see the top old lines, I could see you know that, I could see the swamps. I can see the crop fields and the timber and everything that basically everything I need to analyze the property and be able to say, hey, yeah, further, you should try to hunt this place. Definitely try and nail down that permission, because it looks pretty nice. Um, so I'm hoping that works out because you know, not only would I like Josh Chevin nice place to hunt, but it would be uh selfishly nice for me to have him hunting close here, because if all the stars aligned, I'm hoping he will be close enough to swing on over and help me drag holy Field out of the woods one of these nights. So we'll see. I digress, though, I guess my point here is that I'm personally finding the on X hunt app to be a very handy tool, and if you'd like to check it out for yourself, you can visit onyx maps dot com or head to the mobile phone app store of your choice. And now let's get this show on the road, all right with me? Down the line is Brad Ferris. Welcome to the show, Brad. Yeah, thanks Mark. I appreciate you giving an opportunity to come come visit with you and and talk to things that we all enjoyed, which is obviously white tail deer and all portions of it. Yes. Yeah, I've never had a bad day when I get to talk about deer hunting. That just uh, it's always it's always a good thing. So I understand you've been pretty busy lately though, How how are you doing well? We're doing good. You know. I still I still have a I still do a lot of work with Primos Hunting. I've um I started working there, I guess in the mid nineties, and I don't have any day to day work there as I used to do because now with White Cap Properties, you know, just setting land and farms and hunting land is is my everyday job. But I still work on the Kimmy Shame um with Will Jimmy and myself and other pretty much guys Troy Lake and Jordan's um. So still get to still get to do some of the fun stuff with those guys and every day, so that's kind of my my daily routine. Now. Yeah, that's uh, that is not a bad day to day routine right there. I think a lot of guys would would love that. What um, look, I've been I've been so fortunate, boy asked. I pinched myself every morning to be sure it's it's it's true day. Yeah, it's funny, it's easy. I don't know if you're like this too, but sometimes it's easy for me to fall into, like, you know, everything that stuff just becomes work. Eventually, right, no matter how unique or cool it is, eventually it does become work and you find yourself wake up in the morning you're like, oh man, I got this thing to do and that thing to do and that thing to do. And then I always need to catch myself, just like you said, I need to pinch myself and and and say, hey, the stuff that you have to do. You get to hop on the phone and talk about deer. You get to run outside and take some pictures or check a trail camera and share that online. Like my work. You're so blessed to I'll do that. So I have to always remind myself that we've got a really good and I need to be thankful for that right every day very fortunate. Like I've got to spend so much time in the outdoors, and I tell people it's funny. I didn't I didn't even see a dog would treat bloom until I was about twenty five years old on forty nine now, and meaning that you know a dog would treat boom in the spring. I would just walk by and never realize what a great thing it is. Because I got older, you started seeing that thing and the little things like that started in nature started meaning more to me as an outdoors person than than anything you know, And I guess, I guess I kind of take that from what she said. It's it's those little blessings that we have each and every day we've got to be thankful for. Yeah, yeah, very true. So so rewinding real quick right to what you're saying a second ago, I just want to get a little bit better idea of of what your what your world looks like right now. You said you're you're you're continue to contribute on the TV shows with with Primos, But on the White Tell property side, where are you operating? You know, it sounds like around Mississippi that general area. Um, can you tell us a little more about what you're focused on down there and what you're what you're finding for sure? So, so Chipper Gibbs and he's my he's a partner, my my full time partner with White Tail Properties, and he and I are licensed in Mississippi, Louisiana, and Arkansas. And you know our focus every day is recreational land, farm land, timberland. And um, I mean we have properties that we that we sail two people and four people from from forty acres to I mean, I got one property right now that's n acres. So we we hand a lot of things recreation, timber, and farm, and that's that's what we do every day. Now. As far as houses go, I mean I can sell a house just like anybody, but we do that's not what we do. We are focuses on land and farm and you know, ranch, timber, touched, just just recreational style focused. So um, yeah, we do that in these three states down here, and I've had some I've helped some guys on some elk cranches that west as well, because as long as you have a last license anywhere with a licensed person in that area. So so every day just wake up thinking about you know, hunting land and just trying to make people dreams come true because we're responsible for people really really lean on us to help them make a purchase of a lifetime. And I take that very seriously and not lightly because miss guy and somebody would you know, would not be would not be something that I would would ever do. You mentioned you've got an acre property for sale. It's just happenstance. I think I've ran across this property. Is this the brandy Wine island. It is, it's brandy Wine. It's actually even in two states. It's in Arkansas and Tennessee. Another White Tel agent, David Pritcher, and I have it listed for the for the owner, and it is. It is a truly magnificent piece of property. It's just been protected for so many years and it's it's like something you would have seen, you know, thirty years ago. It's just that been preserved that much. Um and it is one incredible, dear, dear property. Duck and Turkey track as well. Yeah, I was, I was. I've been watching a bunch of the different premost YouTube videos lately and there's an old one where you guys are hunting this place called brandy Wine Island, and so I was watching that, I'm like, man, this place is pretty wild. So so I just googled Brandywine Island to try fair like where this is, and then I saw, oh, it's it's actually an individual property. That's you know, it is actually being sold enough. So I end up looking at it, looking at the listing and wow, that looks like a absolute dream location. Um, yeah, that's that's pretty awesome. So it's kind of funny you mentioned it is great. It's just a big place. You don't see that many single owned properties. Been in that family for, like I said, thirty years, and the man that purchased it passed away, and his wife, you know, still on now, and it's just is she's in her eighties and she just kind of ready to ready to pass it on to the next guy. And I wish I was that next guy. It's a beautiful place. Yeah, so let's talk about that general area down there. I mean, if I understand right, you grew up in you grew up hunting in Mississippi, Is that right? That is correct? Yeah, I grew up in in Jackson, Mississippi. I live in a little small town outside of Jackson now called Raymond, and been here my whole life. And we have a place that I hunt on the Mississippi Rivers called Togo Island. That um, we turned it into a share club and that's kind of got to be a big thing down here in the South and and even in other parts of the country. Where me explaining with the share club is where guys go in and so it's twelve of us own Togo, you know, have undivided interest. You. I bought a share and other guys were winning in put this together, and um, we have rules just like a hunting just like a hunting camp. But you know, you take a big property like that, it's very few people can conbude on their own. So it's been done enough and been somewhat perfected where it just really really works great too, because I place it seventy two acres, which is which is extremely big for a southern property. But you can imagine one guy bite not bullet. That's a pretty big step. But you get you know, two or twelve guys, and it's really an unattainable position for for most people. And and it's just a dear factor down there. That's one of the things that seems very unique compared to like where I'm hunting up in Michigan. Seems like down the southern part of the US, there's a lot of these hunting clubs or sounds like you know, a share a share club. We actually share property that That's something I've never experienced where you might share property with that many people that that all know each other and are kind of working together a little bit. What's that, I mean, what's that like sharing a properly like that with people that are all kind of have a vested interest in it. Anything that used to uniquely think about when when planning your hunts or when actually figure out management plans, or if someone's going to get into something this themselves that they should be aware of before diving in. Yeah, and and it's it's it's really easy to do. Um. So say you take yourself and four buddies of in you're part of the country and say you wanted to and it's you know, a thousand acres in the South to me is not near as big as a thousand acres say in the Midwest. Um, it just it hunts different here. Um that you need more land here to manage dear herds to to a mature page, then I think you do in the west. Um. But the biggest thing is is get you You got to have an operating agreement. You gotta put that together. You've got to have a set of rules. And you know it's not like only in your own place. You you do have to have rules to go by and everybody has to adhere to them. Like we have a board of managers that makes the day to day decision on how we operate. Um, we pay a yearly. Um, do you know dudes that that operates the club pace you know for the food plots, place pace for the equipment and just the day to day operation. The biggest thing I would tell somebody starting one the people are the key to it. You know, you get ten good people. We we we really have a good time and we have as much fun after the hunt, you know, around the firepit, around eating time or supper time as we do any as we do hunting. Um. So the biggest thing is finding people that can get along with each other. Um. We do not sell a share to anybody unless they come spend a couple of weekends hunting with us, and you know, we want them to like us as well. So it's just a said of just taking somebody with a check. We want to get to norm before they we let them in in the you know as a partner, um. And we feel like it's important that they get to know us. Yeah, and it can really work good. It just takes some time and effort, but it's a great way for for full five or six people to go in and and buy a nice sass property and be able to afford it and manage it. So this is something I was just gonna say, this is something I've thought about a lot, you know, going in on a property with a group of friends, because to your point, and it can be hard to afford a big property on your own, but if you get a group together, pull your money share the place. But then at the same time, there's always that lingering worry in the back. You know, what if someone can't pull their own or what if something goes wrong handfully years into it, Like, is there anything if you're actually gonna into a place of this with friends from you know, being a realtor yourself, like from the actual setting up the purchase agreement or how you set that up, or any kind of safety mechanisms that you put in place to make sure you're protected if someone goes off the deep end, or if someone all of a sudden can't pay their share anymore, or anything on that front. If if we're actually gonna buy property with it a couple of friends, or something that we should be thinking about. Well, So, the way most of them are set up is you have like a company, say like a UM, say like a land company. And the way we do ours is you can buy into the land company. But that does not give you rights recreational rights on the property. I mean, and you you own the part of that as an investment. You know, we can never take that away from you, but we can. We haven't set up where if somebody falls off the DPN for whatever five years from now, you know, get some trouble, whatever that may be, we can we can actually force them out of the the recreational rights. It's in the operating agreement that they signed from day one. Um. Now, we can't. All we can do is bond out of the the company side of it. Um. But we do have checks and bounces set up to actually, you know, remove somebody from the recreational side in case that happens. And unfortunately that's that's the unfun part of it. But that's something has to be doing to protect everybody's interest. It's just a simple operating agreement that an attorney can do. And um yeah, but it definitely has to be there because you know, things changed ten years from now a long time and you just don't never know what could happen. Yeah, yeah, that seems smart to make sure you've got the the paperwork, kind of had that operating agreement everything figured out ahead of time. It's easy. I think for some people, especially if you're friends, you know, just like, oh, let's just shake our hands and say we're gonna do this and and just go ahead with it. But to your point, things change, Um, you never know what you never know when you have to. I guess the easiest way to explain it's a business and you have to treat it like a business and set it up. There's a business and um and if you do that, it's it works, It works good. I mean, I can't I can't tell you how proud I am to be be a part of Togo and be able to recreate their year round. And I'm hit it there next week to do get on the bulldozer and we do some food plots and make some new feed plots all week. So that's that's actually more fun to me than than the root crazy Sam. No, I do know that's fun. I in a second, I don't want to ask you a little more about what you guys are doing there specifically, but I want to jump a little bit back towards just hunting clubs in general, because I understand there's a lot of clubs out there where folks don't actually own the land together, but they you know, maybe twenty guys all hunt this chunk that maybe is least from a you know, timber company or something like that. Um So I've heard, you know, people mention this kind of stuff, but again I've never done it. Um But I hear stories and having to sign up for as if a tree stand each day, or different things along those lines. Is there anything you've you've heard or have found as far as how to just that just seems like it would be a little bit difficult when you don't actually get to choose where you want to hunt on a given day. You know, usually I'm making a decision based off of information I have weather conditions, win conditions, access throutes, all these different things, trail camera data that are going to tell me where I need to be on this given day. But if I had to then if I knew where I wanted to be, but then I have to you know, hopefully no one's already there. Kind of situation or sign up the day before that seems like a throw a wrench in it sometimes. How how how do you recommend people handle or make the best of those steps of situations? You know, I hunted it in course, I know what you're saying. You you have trail cameras and you have places you want to hunt, and you know you you waite on a perfect wind. But but that is the thing about a hunting club, even a share club, that you've got to be able to to deal with is is just I kind of say, you gotta you know, you gotta play with others, so to speak, and and have some patience. That's that is the part of it. You know, you're not there on your own. It ain't like you on your own four acres and you can set up ten spots and hunt them when you won't you know, that's the ideal situation. But for for many of us, you know, hard working folks that can't afford that. You have to get in a hunting club that's a timber company owns and you least sacres and it's twenty people, um, you know, and all of them are set up different. Some clubs have it where everybody's got your own lin spots and that's where they go day in the day out. And others have a signing board where you where you draw, which this kind of works good. Where you draw, say, if it's ten of us, and you put your hand in a hat and you draw one through ten or whoever draws one and obviously has first picked that that morning or that afternoon, and then whoever draws ten has last pick. So um and did that. That's the part of a hunting club that you have to be able to to deal with um his whale. And that's that's kind of Deer camp is a big thing down in the South. And while I had a deer camps, but they weren't really good. I mean, everyone's always be there's some issues, but um, you usually don't take people along to weed those bad bad apples out, and and and some people just need to hunt their own place and hunt it the way they want. I guess. I guess when I'm premost hunting, we are serious and we aren't really hard. But when I'm fun hunting, I don't get too I don't get too worried about being so serious. I just like to have fun and I appreciate your time outside. Yeah, you mentioned there's a lot of deer camps. That's a that's a big thing for you guys down there. It seems like there's a really rich tradition down and the Southern deer hunting tradition seems to be a really unique, really special thing. Can you keep talking about that a little bit? What what that? What makes that so special? You know? When I grew up in a deer camp in Jasper County, which is in the eastern side of Mississippi. In this I think one reason there's so many camps like that is because there is a lot of timber company. You know, Timber is a big thing here, and it's a lot of company companies that owned large tracks of land and they least they least out portions of it to certain clubs. And that's just kind of been that way for years. Um. And and that's from east to west, all over the state of Mississippi, Alabama, and even Louisiana to the same. Um, it's definitely important that the gosh I remember as a kid could not wait to go to deer camp on Friday night. That was like what I lived for. I quit all of sports in the seventh grade because they started interfering with my deer campaign, you know, and then that that was just the most important thing to me. It was going to deer camp on Saturday night, hunting to a Sunday at at you know, to a Sunday afternoon, and um, I know many people share that same same way of thinking and doing this this day in time. Yeah. Yeah, we got to have a similar thing up in up in northern Michigan. We've got our Northern Skin deer camps and little cabin up in the big woods and you know, one of the things that we always used to do up there that later in life I found out that some people don't do and they kind of thought was bizarre. Um, but they we have like buck poles. Is this thing up there where you know, opening weekend, a gun season whatever, everyone you know gets your buck and you hang them on these poles. And even like gas stations and you know, grocery stores and stuff, we have these big poles out in the parking lot and everyone brings their deer there and everyone hangs their deer and then every you know, folks mill around all night looking at the deer and talking about telling your stories and everything like that. Um, that just seemed to be like what you just did, and that was like the coolest thing. But then as an adult later I talked to people down in you know, Kentucky or Iowa or wherever. They're like, you do what? You hang all these deer on a pole? Um. They thought it was kind of bizarre seeing these pictures a ten deer or twenty deer all lined up like that. Is there anything unique like that? You're anything unique to a southern deer camp that you guys do that maybe we'd see up here and be like, oh, that's kind of different. You know, nothing like that, like in a community where you take and hang you do it, but I know it every hunting club we you know, we we call them skin and sheds. You know this, the skin and shed like it caught in what we do, all the primo stuff we The skin and shed is kind of like the center place where we always congregate and we meet at. We can't wait to get to late morning and then right after dark to see what happened. So our skin and she had so to speak, is it's kind of our fun place as a group where we get together and do what you just discussed. But if you know, it's just within our group, it's not in a like in a public in town or anything like that. Got so, yeah, the skin and she is an important part of deal camp. Very fun all the laughs and stories. Yea, the social hub that is that is an important part. That's a good way. Yeah. You talked a little bit ago about how thousand acres down there doesn't seem to hunt as big as a thousand acres in the Midwest. Maybe, UM, can you stand on that. I'm kind of curious because because again, um, I haven't hunted down south. I'm always trying to better understand what makes it unique? Donner? What's unique about that situation? Um, why do you think that is? You know, and we have a lot of the deer numbers, We have a lot of deer numbers here. I spent a lot of time hunting in in Iowa, Illinois, Kansas. Um, you know years ago, when you know a five acre farm stay in Illinois, it just it's kind of hard to explain you a mature deer. It's a five and a half year old deer down here, and my experience does not move like a five and a half year old deer in the Midwest. You know, I can remember seeing hunt, just say, a hundred sixty five or six year old deer and hunting him in Illinois and seeing him move every day, trying to figure him out here you have like the first few days of this season, if they're on some kind of summer pattern you have, you know, you might have an opportunity that one of those kind of deer. If not, chances are you gonna have to wait till the rut, you know, before or during the rut to catch them moving. They just they just don't move here typically like they do up there. And a lot of it too is food because you know, late season and you're part of the world. If you've got some kind of food source established, it's so it's you're gonna see some deer. I mean, they're gonna move. We don't really have winter kill here. We don't have extreme cold temperatures that makes those dear moves. So you know, you really really rut time is when when things happen here on those really top end deer. Now backing that up, why does that how does that change? I mean, it's some similarities in the Midwest versus the South, but um, it just it just unt's different. Um how can I put that into words where people listening can understand that, you know a lot of our stuff is thick, uh like on our place that we own it, like many other people. To me, cover is the most important thing you can have. I mean, I know everybody has, you know, all these attractions and feeds and makes food plots, and that's a huge part of hunting. But I look at cover before I look at anything, because if I got plenty of cover, I want to have plenty of mature deer. Um. If you only got one sad so I got a two acre block, and this is kind of nuts and bolts of what I enjoy doing most is because you have a two acre block of land and you've got like, it's a forty acre clear cut in the middle of it and the rest is open timber. Yeah, you're gonna have some some deer in that forty acres. Keep it as sanctuary. But if you take that same two acres and you make four tim aker bed and areas clear cuts or heavy thingings on that twounded acres, you're gonna hold more mature deer in my opinion, because they can spread out. I mean, they're fine this time of you're hanging out together, but once there comes off, so they turned into different, you know, different animals, and you need to give them plenty of space to spread out. Yeah, could could you could you um run their little hypothetical with me here. I'm curious, yeah, because I love the same thing that you're talking about here where I love the ability to um to kind of paint whatever picture you want on a piece of property, kind of do things like that to try to make it better for wildlife, better for hunting. UM. I don't own any land, so I've had very limited opportunities, but I've been don't do this on a couple of little spots. Um. But let's say you've got that situation, that two acre block of timber, um, and let's say you own it and you can do whatever you want with it to try to to try to make it into a better piece of white tail ground. Let's say it's down in Mississippi. It's it's open timber. But you've got, you know, the ability to do some stuff. Can you walk us through this hypothetical two acre property and how you'd approach turning it from just a big block of timber into something you think would be an ideal white tail set up? Sure? Sure not. And it seemed like I do this daily because it's a big part of what we do it that white tail property is explaining stuff to people and helping them. Um So in the and then this is one way I like to think about it and explain it. The uglier a piece of property is the better hunting it is nine times out of ten. Meaning if it's been cut and it's brides and it's nasty and it's stick, I mean, that is the perfect habitat, the perfect place for for white tail deer. That's what they love. If you walk out there and it's open trees and beautiful, you know you've got a lot more timber value actually, but you just don't have the cover and the sanctuary for those for those deer, they just dear deal want thick stuff here. I've seen deer in the Midwest. I mean, bucks just beat on the side of open ridge. You don't hardly ever find that down here, dear beded up. Now, he might be in a if a tree fail from a storm or top. He might be laying in that every now and then. But they just that they don't stay in that open country. They're gonna find that sanctuary every time, those bucks young and old. Um So, how would you set up that? So if you can, if you have the opportunity to make those deer sleep where you want them and eat where you want them as in a food plot food source summer or or winter. To me, that is ideal. And if you set it up with a southerly section and a northerly section, meaning you know, if you got south winds, you've got these this area you can hunt, and if you've got north winds, you've got this area you can hunt. And just draw it out where if you're going in new you cut timber and it gets thick, they will be there that question, they will be there. And then if you lay some open timber in between that and say two to five acre food plot, well you just created a transition area that whether it's you know, from from feed to bed or from dead to feed, you have the ability to get in there and actually hang stands and hunt those deer and make them somewhat move in a pattern that you control. Does that makes sense to um? And then it takes three to five years to create that in some instances, but once you get it done, it can be so much fun. And not not only do you create that and it gives them a safe place to be, but it also gives you you gotta remember, access, you know, getting into those spots and getting out of those spots. That's that's as important as anything, especially getting out in the afternoon. You know, if you got to blow your deer out of a food plot every afternoon, you know, you're just you're putting pressure on them. And that's fine. You're gonna see deer be those older deer just godly, they just don't they just don't put up with it. You mentioned you mentioned the beginning about how you know, rather than having your property with like a big forty acre cut in the middle, you'd rather have four ten acre cuts. See, like you said, spread them out a little bit. When you're sitting at that when you're setting up these food plots, are carving in these food plots too. In this scenario, if we're trying to look at like the ideal, would you then try to pair a small food plot with each one of those betting areas too, or would you have just the one big Yeah? What would you do there? No, No, that's that's and maybe I didn't explain myself, but yeah, I would. I would create a food plot in a bedding area at each of those four locations and maybe have a maybe have a couple more. Just depending on every place is a little different. Um yeah, definitely, you would. I would. You would need to create that, um And and that's why I say you got four, so you got two you can hunt on the south suddenly flow pattern and then you got to you can hunt and orderly you know, flow pattern with the winds. That's exactly right. Just you know, And that's just a little scenario. It could be much bigger than that obviously. UM Now, I do like big food plots. You know, you can have little The bigger the food plot, the more deer are going to use it. And and I love having a big food plot that I call a destination plot on a track too, if if possible, because if a small one you might feed let's just say two to five deer that that that live in that section of your phone. If you have a big one, you're gonna have deer come from all sections of that farm as a as a nighttime thing. That's why when you have fields and you see all you walk in those fields like man, look at the rubs and the scrapes and the deer side. That's because he's deer. That's where they go and spend their nights. You know, that's where they stay and they spend time in there. That's why you have so much buck signed around those big fields. And I love a big field if if that's if you can keep it quiet, you don't have you have it b where you don't have vehicles going by, um And and it's just a sanctuary thing. And that's that's what you have to do to keep those mature deer either to create opportunities for you to to even see them in a day like with a with a bow or gun. Yeah. Yeah. When it comes to food plots, is there anything unique that's working particularly well down there for you or anything that you're doing there that might be different than you know, our great big corn and bean fields and everything that we might have up here. You know, not not really because in like in the Delta portions and the and other portions of the state, we have a lot of corn beans, a lot of you know, ag production, and in those areas with that agricultural influences where our bigger deal idear that way, the most idea that that that are the biggest um just there's all kinds of different blends out there, um Man. As much as is you can get that. You can not to just pick out one thing, but if you can create something for those deer that gets it gets them from October through May or June. Which is a simple fall blond of like wheat, oaks and clover. You know, that's that's that's what I would suggest to somebody. And then you have brassicas that you can add it. You know, you can keep adding to to that January February March food source. But just the easiest is just like a simple wheat, oat and clover mix. Um is to simplify. Yeah, what about growing conditions and everything we got That's the thing about here. You know, we our winners are not bad. So the co front comes through and it gets you know, down in the in the twenties, maybe for a couple of nights and highs in the fifties, and it might get get up a little bit. It's just kind of as those fronts come in. So growing conditions are great here. We have long summers that gets hot, so we when we have a good bit of rainfall here too. I mean I think our average rainfall is seventy some inches and a year or so. It's truly just all about your soul prepped and your preparation because you're never gonna have a year where you can't make anything growth hardly. You just gotta gotta prepare the ground right. And but speaking of food plots, and I considered this a food plot too, what I started doing on some properties I helped people on. So you've got a ten acre clear cut, like we discussed earlier, Well, if you go and everybody wants to know what I go back and replant it with. And we used to do that. The problem with replanet in trees, whether it the pines or hardwoods or whatever, is ten years, which is not a long time anymore. You're gonna be faced with the same problem you were from day one. Those trees are gonna canopy over. You're gonna start losing that understory. You're following me, you know, as a as a mature. Well, what what Rice started doing is taking those ten acre blocks that you've created for bedding areas or sanctuary areas and spraying them every three years with a chemical whether it be from a helicopter or do it from a ground rig, and and just killing those all the woody stuff and letting it start over again. So so you're not selectively doing anything. You're going to kind of doing a blanket spray of everything is setting it all back, killing everything woody, Yes, sir, Yeah, And what happens is, uh, you know, we we do burning times and and that is good. But the problem with burning is you completely clean up your area every year. So that's good for for food for turkeys and deer, yes, but when you're going in and burn, you know all you you're you're actually all your covered leaves were burning it up. So you're back to square one. Um. So I prefer to have a secluded place that I just that I keep totally controlled and keep the grass and the dewberry and the briars and just all the the stuff that dear need to survive their main food sources. That just keeps them keep some thick and healthy. Yeah. The shade is their worst enemy. Yeah. And to your earlier point, that kind of set up not only does that make great cover and bedding, but when you've got all that new growth, you've basically have a natural food platau. Right, That's exactly right, And and and the deer gotta have it because you can plan all the stuff you want. We can, but you have to. I mean the natural stuff that Mother Nature put their form, that's what they need. And if you've give them plenty of that, everything else is just gravy to them. And it it just it really works. And it takes a while to get that process, but it's once you get it, it's it's Man, does it worked good? Speaking of natural forage, Um, you know, when I'm walking around property here in Michigan and I'm I'm looking for maybe an old apple tree or I'm looking for white oaks. Um, I'm looking for that kind of stuff where there might be some some soft mass or some hard mass, might be a natural food source I can find back in the wood and hang a stand there. Um. But for someone down by by you and Mississippi, if you can't plant food plots, but you're looking for these natural food sources that deer particularly like down by you, what are some of those things that gives the key in on the same thing you just said. I mean, of course you got different. Like early on, you're gonna have all your oaks species you're gonna have we have, you know, for simmons, and we call them bean tree, which is a honey locusts and you're familiar with a honey locust. It's got the long black bean on it. Um. That's an important food source for the fall. And here easy like we call them uh water oaks or pin oaks. They usually fall first, so that's going to be in October. And man, when you start finding nose and you walk up under that tree and you see all that deer sign and this fresh signed old sign, you know, that's that's when you get excited. Put that stand up around it. Whether it be per simmon, per simmon is usually fall early October. The honey locusts usually fall in October. Um. We have another specie of oak trees here um well, I call them like a swamp chestnut or a nut all or a stripe it oak. It's a bigger acron if they usually don't fall to November, December even carry on into January. So it's it's basically the same. It's just in some of our big forest. You know, you have you in places you have so many acrons that it's really hard to key in on any one tree because there might be a hundred of them at a bottom. Is it would it be accurate to say that a lot of the stuff you guys are hunting down there is like big timber, like big blocks. There is not as much edge as maybe you'd see in the egg land in Iowa or something. Is that right? Not really you get in the Mississippi delta um there. So it's a lot of a lot of big just thousands and thousands of acres of agriculture ground with ditch roads, with a little wood lots um. A lot of farmers have taken m their marginal ground farm ground and put it into c RP or w RP, which is excellent habitat. Yeah, I'm sure y'all have some of that too, and you know some of the best hunting places in Mississippi or or w RP or CRP places because when they plant that stuff like we just talked about, you have all that natural stuff you stick. It holds the deer's plenty of food and um, it gives him a place to to get old yeahs from the finest spots. Yeah, I can't beat that that CRP in those grasses and everything, that beautiful, beautiful habitat. Deers seemed to just dive right in and kind of do your comment backing up to what we talked about about like the teen acre blocks. Really and truly that's all that that that that I'm trying to create. As I explained that, trying to create that CRP or w RP type scenario just inside a woodlock and keep it, you know, keep it at it's primed life cycle for all the plants. Yeah, do you do you have when you're working on something like that on your own property or on a property you're helping someone out with um and you're making these these little betting area type of things. Do you have like a minimum size? You always trying to make sure they at least are this big? Or can someone go in there and you know, they've got the chainsaws all they have, and half a day and they get a half acre or something? Is that is that worthwhile in your opinion? Or absolutely? And we've done it that way too. I mean it's not always we have big equipment and stuff to do that or the opportunities to do it. But she can go in there with a chainsaw and a couple of guys with chainsaws can make a knock a really good dent in some bid and habitat in a day. You know, if you can go in there and cut stuff. And another popular way it's just not is they call it hacking squirt, where you take a hatchet and you go to your local forestry store and you can get a chemical that you can actually spray, you know, cut the bar, spray it and they will kill that, you know, to kill that tree and stop it from shading. UM. There's several ways to do it, but yeah, it half acre, one acre, a quarter acre. Any cover is better than none. Yeah, yeah, in my opinion, yeah, it seems like to your point, a tool like a chainsaw or the hacking squirt method or something. It's it's so much easier than most people think as far as the way you can transform an area. You can take an area that's wide open timber and turn it into just a white tail mecca by adding that cover. UM. And I know what one popular thing is called hinge cutting. I'm sure you're familiar with that. There's a lot of information about hinge cutting out there, and I think it's a I think it's a wonderful you know, a portion of habitat to create um as well, and even if you have a small place, it's I just can't stress enough how pointant is to give those deer cover you know, don't write a TV stew it, don't walk through it. Um. I have places at once. We we plan our food plots. That's the last time a gas vehicle is allowed in that section. H You know, you either walk in the or use electric. We don't, we just we don't. We want to keep two disturbance at a minimum at all costs after after the food plots of planet, you know, in the following winter. So so speaking of um, you know, making these betting areas. Back to that side of things. I heard you mentioned a couple of times you use the word sanctuary. Um, what's your take on these sanctuary areas When you say sanctuary, is that a place that you will never go in, or is that a place that maybe you'll hunt a few times? Or how how seriously do you take this quote unquote sanctuary. Well, I wouldn't say I would never hunt there. Um. I would not hunt there until the right time of year. Um, And and just keep it and then just keeping it a place where you don't disturb them. And then if I did hunt there, it would just be on the fringes and it would just have to be the ideal conditions far as the winds concerned. Um, it's just you know, those deer will come and go from there if if they're not they're not spooked and they're comfortable. But once you start spooking them, even the old dogs, I mean, it's just they get they they live there. We're just mstrs there most of the time. But that's their home, and you gotta I mean it might sound silly, but I treated as at home and try to respect that. So the more comfortable they are, the more fun we're gonna have, you know, watching the show. Yeah, if you understand me, Yeah, yeah, definitely. What when you're when you're going into your hunts and this is a and Mealy, this is like an incredibly high level question. There's a thousand ways you can go this, um, but you just talked about some of the things you're thinking about as far as trying to keep these deer um as unpressured as possible, make them feel comfortable, respecting their home. Um, what other things are you doing to do to accomplish that? So what are some of the ways that you keep pressure low? What are some of the ways that you minimize your impact when you're going into hunt or manage a property. Um. I think it's obviously a consistent thing between most anyone that has consistent success killing mature bucks is the fact that they are able to somehow create a situation where these deer don't realize that they're being hunted, or at least not as much as they are. Um, how do you go about trying to do that yourself? Well, a lot of it goes back to if you can set up your place that you know, you can get into too, stands, you can get out of stands. Um, you know that's your biggest impact is your movement obviously coming to and front places, and you know, you just have to hunt smartists. Really it's really not that hard, but you gotta have some some patients and be discipline enough to wear Hey man, I got this a country they are killing it. I got trail camp pictures of a shooter there, but the winds marginal. You know, if I if I can only hunt my best spot one time, because that's all the conditions will allow me, that's all I'm gonna hut if you try to, if you and I know, we got you know ozonic Actually they worked great. Sin control works great, but still, um, if you use that with that discipline of of of hunting your spots when only there your conditions allow it, I think I think you'll be much more successful. Yeah each time. I mean that, that's just that discipline part. It's hard to when you got those trail cameras and you got two or three nice bucks or shooter bucks, and that's all you can think about is sitting in that tree stand man. You want to kind of push the envelope sometimes, but I don't. I never do. Yeah. Yeah, So something I'd like to talk to all our different guests about is how they go about making the decision when to strike. So you've got this honey hoole that you thinks can be great, But to your point, you don't want to push the envelope too much. You don't want to go too often, you don't want to go too early. Um, what are the factors that help you decide that, yes, today's the day I need to go? And is it? Is it a weather factor, is it timing factor, combination of a whole bunch of stuff. I would love to hear about that for you. But typically typically it's going to be weather. You know, when you when when you got high pressure and you have fronts coming down, you have some consistent winds a lot of time unless they're right when they first here and it's it's boring too hard than they kind of swirl. But here for us, if we had those low pressure days when it's not much wind blowing and it's warm and humid, and we got you know, we got those that suddenly flow coming coming in, those are the worst days. Now when you got those cool days and you walk upside and it's cool and the limbs crisp, and man, that that's that's when I get excited because if you think about it, the days that we hunt, that's kind of yucky. You don't see many of deer those days. But the days that we hunt when it's nice and it feels good, that's when we see most of the deer. In my opinion, um, and so that's just just let the weather dictated. That's that's how I feel. Is it's so important to make your decisions on on on wind to go. You know, don't don't waste a good spot on a bad day weatherwise. Do you do you give the moon any attention at all to care at all about that? You know? I do, because definitely you see some some changes in movement with the moon, but you know, hey, hunt season short, so I'm more concerned about the weather and the and the and you know, being able to get to my spot without being detected and leave my spot and I am the moon because they still out there. They're gonna move anytime. But if you've got good weather and full moon, I think that's still I think that's still a fun day versus not going. Yeah. Yeah, now I wouldn't take my vacation if had a week of vacation, I wouldn't take it during full moon in November. I can tell you that because that can be a real slow down in the South because I ruts in December here where the Midwest is mostly November stuff. Yeah, can you can you walk us through that a little bit? Because everyone I've ever talked to hunts down in the South has got a different take on how the rut operates down there. When it's really the best time to focus on what's world, What are you seeing where you hunt? As far as the timing of the rut, as far as how you approach it is that is different at all than what you might do in Illinois or Kansas or something of how you hunted, even not really, um I rut here. Our peak breeding days where I hunt are the the Twente. And the way I know that is because we've done health checks with them with the state on several occasions. And what they do. They shoot those, they shoot those and they do tests on them, and they in February or early March, and they then they can count back from the you know, from the fetus back in the exact day that though was bread. So that's how I got those. That's you know, that's accurate information there. So but you can, I mean, you can sense your clock on. I mean some years it's it's it's more intent. Some years it's softer. And now I think whether they plays a little bit of role than that here in Mississippi because you know, if it's sixty or seventy degrees and um, those deer got their coats on. It's you know, they get hot. It's I think it suppresses the movement during the day and and and they get a little more active at night just because of the the weather. So you know, and I know you've had hot days probably in your part of the world in November killer during the rut. Yeah, it's just just they just don't do nothing. You know, I've had my best luck hunting water holes in the Midwest when it's hot during the rut, because you know, the deer just gets so heated up. Yeah, chasing, how is there anything one of the things I feel like, you know, when I traveled out of state and I had to Illinois or Iowa, one of those states where there's just a high number of mature bucks, not quite as much hunting pressure. There's certain things that I can do during the rut that I would never do in Michigan, where there's not as many mature bucks, was a lot more hunters. Um, so I'll be much more aggressive. I'll use decoys, I'll do a lot of rattling and calling, different things like that. Um. What's that like in Mississippi or Arkansas? Can you be aggressive with those types of tactics to those things and not work as well down there? Um? What's your take there? Um? I think decoys, I mean, decoys work here in the right conditions. We've done it, but they don't. The deer don't seem to. I don't know if it's just more it's just more of them. Um, And so they don't the a lot of times about the doe ratios. They're not perfect here because because I I density and it's like the beer not as aggressive as they are in the Midwest. Um by Colling, I've had great success calling here, you know, during during the time of year, and I've told everybody you you have a kin call and a grunt call, and if it only works twice a year, it's worth every effort to top that thing and track because it doesn't spook them. So I want to have those tools in my in my my vest every every day during the pre rut, post rut and rut time. Yes, So for you done there, what's that time frame when you would use that stuff? Um, you start in early December and um you'll start getting some response uh the whole month and even even later in the year, because you know, once once that process starts and you have that triple rut later on in January, it can it can be effective. And I think it's more important where you call from than than even when you call, because if you're if you're in his We've talked about this, no matter what we're trying to call where this turkey's elk or deer if you're in a spot and you're in big open woods and you call on the bucks a hundred yards and he looks and he can see where that sounds coming from. And then I mean, but he's looking at this clear slate with nothing standing there that that typically doesn't work good. But if you're in a and some thick stuff or by a top or on a ridge, and that deer has he he knows where that sounds coming from, but he has to come over to investigate, to see to see it. You know, it's just not open. That's that's your best scenarios is um is where you go from? Now that makes sense? Can he walks through the actual call sequences or or things like that, like let's say you see a buck and he's off in the distance. Can you can you walk us through what kind of calls you would use first, what you would when you would stop calling, or when you would start calling again, or when would you switch to something else? I'd I'd love to hear like your process there? Got you? Yeah? Okay, So one thing we noticed many many years ago is if a deer can hear a can call, and if anybody listens, not for me with a can call this. We call it the can. You know Primos makes it's just a little bleak can and makes a little like a sound of a doe bleating. But when nose deer in the seeking looking phase, did they hear that sound? Godly? They come so many times, and but it's not a loud sound. And you know, fifteen years ago, before we had the buck roll, you had to have a grunt call. If you tried to do it loud, it would kind of sound like a duck. So that's where we sit out because figure out how can we make a grunt call us loud so to to be more detailed. So you see one at a hundred a hundred fifty yards, he's not going to hear that can if he's walking and leaves, and even if he's not, he might not hear because it's a real soft Sam. But if you if you can grunt at him and get his attention, and then you follow that grunt with that can a time or two, then in his mind he thinks that's a book and a dot or book chasing a doe and she's getting close to being receptive. That's making that Sam, and man do they do that? If you can create that scenario for a deer that's a hundred yards from you and get him to hear and look your way. Many they come so many times looking Now, what if you do that? You do? You do your grunt gets his attention, do a couple of times in the can call and he is not coming in though he's still standing there looking around, but he hasn't committed. Do you keep going or do you stop calling off for a ways? What happens next in that scenario? No, I stopped. I stop and just give him some time to watch and watch his mannerisms, watch his behavior, and I might you know, if he's looking I don't want to keep calling that him. Let it let him kind of let let his curiosity start working now. If he doesn't seem really interested, I might do he he knows you there at that point, and then I might follow it up with a can a couple on another can sound and maybe a grunt um. And it doesn't work all the time. And if it's not working, my last resort will be with a set of rattle horns, just a real quick like two bucks fighting over a dope um to try to get his attention. And and and like I said, sometimes you can try all that and if if he's not an aggressive dear, then you know, I don't think it always work. And you've got something deer that are aggressive that we'll run towards you every time they hear that. I know some people before calling they think about the wind direction, because sometimes these bucks will will hear a call, but then want to circle down wind of that sound to kind of confirm whether or not it is what it thinks it is. Is that something you worry about it? Or have you seen that at all? Due factor that in at all? Not? Not really, because I'm I'm hunting my spot based on the scouting, the trail camera information where I think to do are coming from and going to, and so I guess I never go on a spot just to call, and if I do, it might be midday with rattling horn on the edge of like I said, I cut over or sanctuary type place to try to call him out of that. But you're all right there, I'm gonna try to circle down wind, but um, I just gosh, I'm a I'm already I think I have my area figured out when why? So you know, I just go with it at that point gotcha. Now do you ever It sounds like maybe you do, because you just mentioned a scenario where I imagine you would do this, But do you ever blind call just just heading there? And mhm? And with that same scenario, because I like to hunt thick stuff where I can't see hundred and two hundred yards a lot of times, and so I'll do a grunt and maybe a couple of grunts and then one bleak um just you know, maybe every thirty minutes or forty five minutes, I'll do that. But if deer close to you, that's what people need to remember. If the deer's close to you, say at fifty yards, and he can key in on you, well that call is coming from you know. That's a tough one day. Sometimes you have to chance it because that might be the only opportunity to get him ken yards closer. But man, a lot of times I don't hang them up to Do you do anything differently when you're calling in Mississippi versus if you're hunting in Iowa or some states like that, same same thing, same exacting, same scenario, no matter where. All right, let's pause here for our last break of the day to think our partners at white Tail Properties and producer Spencer new Hearth has got another white Tail Properties land Specialists with us today to off for some advice on fighting hunting properties with cash rent opportunities. This week with white Tail Properties were drawn by Tom James Aid land Specialists out of Indiana, and Tom is going to be telling us about looking at properties that advertise with cash rent opportunity. Cash rent opportunities can mean a lot of things and it all relates to the productivity of your soils on on the on the tillable ground. And one thing you might want to make yourself familiar with is what's called the n c c p I rating, which stands for the National Commodity Crop Production in depths and that number usually as as arranged up to about a hundred, so you'll see n c c p I ratings of anywhere from say forty or fifty on the low end, all the way up to eighties and nineties on the good productive farmland. What that means it's too good baseline to compare your productivity of your soils on a national level, So you always want to get bids on your crop ground from from farmers. If you're not comfortable. You need to educate yourself on what the going rates are. I mean sometimes a farmer's been paying historically low rant for long long times just because you had a relationship with the previous landowner. But you want to make sure that the current rates that you could get on that property are up to date with what the standard going rates are. Those changes from year to year hundred and fifty dollars all the way up to three dars in the past, you know, per acred on on ground. So make sure you're into with the going rates and don't cut yourself short. If you'd like to learn more and to see the properties that time currently has listed for sale, visit white tail properties dot com. Backslash James that's j A. M. E. S Something kind of jumping to a different topic than now. Um. I saw a video of yours you were in and you were talking about how some your absolute favorite places to hunt our river bottoms. You love hunting the river bottoms. I think you mentioned a property it was like along the Mississippi River those types of places, is um, can you talk about what makes that kind of scenario unique and then how you hunt that. You know, we're hunting river bottoms and it's it's really not different than anything, um, any other places. It is flat and so terrain. There's not a lot of terrain change, is not a lot of funnels unless you have slums or some oxbow type lakes that you can catch the deer on. Um. I guess why I like the river bottom so much, is it's just it's just where it is. It's two sounds as the smells. Um. You know, the river bottoms can be tough. I mean when the Mississippi River is up, it's mean. But if you weigh out the pros and cons of having to deal with floodwater mainly in the springtime, you know, the benefits of that are so good where I'm willing to deal with the high water half the year to reap the benefits of the falling winter that that it creates. Um. But as far as being there, it's just it's just it's just a terrain. It's just a place I enjoy being yea. Um. If you're really nothing, not much else I can say other than it's just just one of my favorite places to be. Yeah. Do you ever use rivers and water like that to access locations? Is that a part of of how you get in and out of places. Ever, Um, it depends when the when the Mississippi River is low. We have a lot of Mississippi River fronting, so when the river is low, that's really not you know, we don't really have that option to do that when the river seth the river gets somewhat high in in the wintertime. UM, I love to have my boat, and yes, we use that the access places a lot. It's a great way to get in and out. Um. You know, once that water starts coming up, then then we start having those funnel situations that that we don't have the rest of the year because they're gonna follow that edge. And um man has some fun hunt when when the water gets up, because you can it makes them easier to hunt. Not only does it put them on the higher points, but it also creates more places for you to ambush the round water or cross and shallow spots or um that. But but yeah, boat hunting is a is a great way to do it. Yeah, I imagine that something that folks could kind of use that kind of idea even when hunting maybe public land or big timber land where maybe there's not these natural funnels like you might see between a couple of big corn fields a little pinch of timber between. That's kind of like your prototypical pinch point that everyone shows on, you know, on the outdoor channel or something. But would you say, there's a lot of opportunities like this where maybe there's swampy ground and a high point in between, or little points that extend out into water. Um are those kinds of things that people could key in on, maybe in scenarios where they don't have the agg field easy stuff. Yeah, yeah, or you could create that if you're in a situation. You know, that just comes down to some good old scout and foot time finding places like that in river entry and flat flat ground. But a lot of times if you can create a corridor, so if you cut a block a timber, say it can be five a because it can be ten acres or whatever, and I'll go in there and flag a corridor and leaves a corridor right through the middle of it where they don't cut a tree. And that serves two things. It's an access point to get in and out of your stand, and it also gives you that edge effect because you know those dear love to walk those edges. And scrape and rub and and the deer going to travel those easy places as long as they're comfortable there, you know they're going to walk out of that thick stuff and use that corridor order to move up and down as well as if you've got some acrontries in there. It just serves as a perfect place for the morning or egon to move because there it's within there sanctuary area, but it's open and they can travel to and from just like we can. It gives us access point that's easy to get in and out. That that tracking with me on that. Yeah, they're like that path of least resistance and they can get it right right and and something else you can do is uh will Primos and I did did this a lot. We we call it a sneaky roads. So you get you get a clear cut or you get a section that's thick. It can anybody can do this. You don't have to create if they stick, but go in there and just cut you a trail through that thick stuff. And we we we I would access it one time a year with a six ft bush halk and make one pass through there and never go in there again. And you cannot and what you're doing is you're making your own deer trail and you're making those deer come out where you want them to and it. But don't ever go in there, you know, unless unless you shoot one and you track him in there. But if you if you'll do that, you'd be surprised how many deer come out of that thick stuff, come out right in your food plot, come out right by your your your bottom, or your where you have oak trees. I mean, you just you can make that scenario wherever your spot is, and that can be in any part of the country. But just create a little deer trail, but you gotta stay out of it. You can't go in there for nothing. Yeah, yeah, creating your own little funnels almost, that's what it's doing. Yeah. You just give them a place to walk easy. And it's not a big you know, it's not a it's a bigger than the normal deer tral obviously, but it's just that they're comfortable using its path of least resistance and they use it so much. Are there any other little things you do like that on a property to to manipulate or influence movement a little bit? I mean, other than we talked about making big betting areas, we talked about making food plots. But are there any of these smaller tweaks that you that you add that can just kind of give your properties a little bit more of an edge for you? Um, you know that's really good. That's that's really about. What we talked about is is the main nuts and boats of it, But that the cover portion is my focus. I know focuses on food, food, food, and it is extremely important. But if you got cover cover first, in my mind, food second, you can create the cover and the places to for them to be. It just can't be beaten. Yeah, yeah, yeah, So I wanna I want to reframe a little bit of the conversation as we go for I'm kind of curious about some specific examples, um, from a hunting standpoint, or maybe maybe it could be habitat. But do you have you know, if you could look back at last season maybe or the season before, you maybe want to pick a couple a couple of successful hunts where you kill the mature buck. Maybe um that you remember, well, could you walk us through a couple of those where Okay, I killed buck X it was in this scenario and and this is why it worked. Like if you could point to one or two key things for each of those successful hunts, would be really interested to hear how that success came about and what you think you could attribute it to. Do you have a couple of examples like that you could share with us, Yeah, I think I have one really really good one. So two years ago I found this not at all or striped oak as we call them not all tree. This is at cotton Mouth, at that promost place, and I actually shot a dough and I was trailing that dough and I found this tree had gnawed. It was there and it was on the edge of a slough and they were absolutely just killing it. So I got a slew here, I got the tree, you know, fifteen yards off the sloop. But the problem is there was no no places to put a tree standing, and I wanted to be able to I had to hunt on the north wind, up against the water. So we went in there in October and kind of tried to figure it out. We you know, we didn't want to go in there later in the year, and they really got to use it because the tree wasn't dropping in. So we took a ground blind a double ground blind and set it up in there in October and we never went back in there until December. And we snuck in one mid one day across the water. It's about needy, just got hit boots on and and and saw the sign there was a blinds there already. So I think what was key to this working was we put the blind in there, you know, early, so when the when the acron started following, the deer started coming to feed on that acron, try the blind was there, and of course we had brushed in them. And and so we waited till the perfect conditions got in there. I think it was like the first week of January maybe, and we Lake Pickle and I he was running the camera that day, and we eased in there across that water, gotten that blind, and we weren't there thirty minutes. And this is kind of one of those sanctuary places. Were on the edge of it and had a ten point come out. I shot it's like a hundred forty in the year um, eighteen yards. He never even looked at that, didn't. I mean, he was so comfortable in that spot. So I say that give you another scenario. We set that up, you know, two or three months before we knew we were going to hunt it. This goes back with food plots too. If you'll put a a blind on the food plot the same day you plan it, or just before it greens up, I mean, they never spook from it because you know they come out there, they expect to change, it's different, and you something went on there. But when it starts greening up and they come out there to feed and and your blinds already there, you're staying or whatever, then they don't think twice about it. But if you come put a blind in there, say a month after they've been feeding there, and if you don't do an excellent job brushing it in and hiding it, they're gonna a lot of times you'll pick it out and it might take them a while to get back comfortable there. So, um, I guess the important my point is is is really you know, think ahead on your spots and how you set them up, and you know those those blinds are not extremely expensive. And if you if you set two or three am up in places you know you're gonna use later in the year, whether be on a food plotter on an a country or whatever, a country, whatever, they're feeding on apple tree, like you mentioned earlier, once that blinds there from from day one when they start feeding there. I think you're golden. Yeah. Do you think that that access route helped you out too, because it sounds like you came through the water, so you probably avoided walking through or near that best cover? Was that something that was pretty cy to that as well, because if you think about it, you're walking into place and you jump a deer. I mean that can really be a domino effect in a lot of weights. One deer gets up another deer, another deer gets up another deer. Before you know it, you know, you just disrupted the whole thing, um and you put them on alert, and the chances are they're not coming back that way that afternoon. So you definitely you know you're you're you're you're route that you get to your stand. You wanted to be as at least two creasy as possible. Yeah, you mentioned you you were in there walking around you you spotted this this tree, this oak tree. Um you're scouting on assuming in some way could you could I guess one of my trys say here, when you scout a new property or maybe even the property found in the past, but you're there again. Um, is there anything you're doing or anything you're looking for specifically that's unique compared to like the cookie cutter scout scouting that we hear about and most people walk, they look for robs, to look for scrapes, they look for sign. Um, Is there anything more than that that you're focusing on our unique that um that you've picked up over the years is something important to key in on. Yes, And and then we'll go back to pretty much I'm a broken record on this cover cover cover because if I find the cover, I'm gonna find the deer. Then I can find where they go from there. Um. I mean, I might find the biggest, prettiest oak tree in the woods that's got a ton of deer sign and put a camera on it, and you'd be like, man, they're killing this tree. But most of us at night, chances are you know that tree is a is a long way from where those deer are living. And Um, so I want to find where I want to find their their home per first. Once I figure that out, it kind of falls into place the trails and and that kind of thing. Yeah, So if you find a great patch of cover you identify Okay, yeah, this is this is a home base for for a dough family group or some bucks or something. What do you do from that point? Do you just identify, okay, here's covering you market mental in your in your head, or do you then dive in there and look for specific beds or are you trying to identify each trail that comes out of there, or are you planning stand locations around the edges. I'm just kind of curious where your head goes after that point. Yes, trails and ages. Never would I go in there, but you know, not not not if I'm just traveling to a new place now, maybe in February or March. I would love to go in there after the season and figure out what's going on for the next year. But if it's say October and not, man, this is just a lot of deer sign here. I want to figure out that trails and I don't want to stalk hunting the edges, you know, and and and not be too aggressive to start with. You know, if if a guy only has two days a week to hunt, you know, he may he may need to be a little more aggressive because he just don't have the time. Um, but if he's got a week to hunt or two weeks to hunt, you know, spend a day or two on the edges and try to figure out what's going on and then then get aggressive if if your time allows for that. Yeah, So walk me through that kind of process to let's say, because you know, it seems like you travel quite a bit to hunt and when you start a new property, you kind of gave us a very high level there of how maybe starting the edge and work your way in. But could you give us a little more detail of what you might what you're hunting approach might be if you if you showed up on a new property, you've got one week, let's say you've got seven days to hunt it. Um, could you walk us through a hypothetical of how you might start and then how that might evolve through that seven day period. M hm, Well, I would I drive through it obviously first. And of course, with all the apping products that are out there today, you know you can do so much before you ever even get to that property. You can almost know that property before you you even get there to hunt. Um, and I try to identify a couple of places that I think may be good for him, and may be good for winds um and and try to take it easy. And another thing I don't like to do is hunt in the bottom. I like to try to stay on top just because of the wind. Um. I've had so many tough hunts where when you're down low, that wind just swirls so bad. But if you're on top of the ridge, it usually stays pretty consistent. Um. And the way I explain this to people, if you think about a rock in a stream, so that water flowing down that stream and it goes over that rock, what does it do on the back side. It's just twisting and twirling. That's the same thing the wind does when it comes over a ridge, and it just twists over that ridge, and it's just it's it's real hard to get consistent wind in a in a bottom. And I experienced that much more in your part of the world and in the Midwest, and I half here in the South, but there is some places in the South that that you've got to be careful too. Um. So I keep that in mind. Looking for high ridges, I'm looking for cover. And you know, many times you can just look at the trails and figure out what's going on and if you obviously, if you're hunting the rood, I'm looking for the most number of those and the most looking for the highest concentration of deer on that that property. And that's where I want to key in on, because if you only have seven days to hunt, you mean you you really don't have a lot of time to put trail cameras out and try to find a I told you Buck that you would if you were hunting this place all year. So yeah, just just think about the wind, the cover, and the highest concentration of deer would be my first focus. Okay, and you mentioned you mentioned cameras and it's snarily that you might not have as much time. Um, but what's your your typical camera process. Do you use those to identify, you know, an inventory of deer in the area, or you big on actually using the try to pattern deer in some way or what's what's the way you use that tool. I think it's a combination of both. Um. You know, we're getting a deer using this area in daylight? Is there a mature deer here? Is he in daylight? Because I you put five cameras out most of the time, you're you're gonna have one or two two bucks. You're like, man, them deer coming out here in daylight. In these other spots, I'm not getting any pictures except you know, in the dark. And I think that I think that again refers back to where you're getting close to their their home turf, and and if I can get as close to where they're where they're living without disturbing them, I think you're I think I think your money ahead every time because if they move late in the evenings, you know, I want to be as close as I can be to them without intruding on them because and they might not move to that destination field that's a half mile from where they sleep or a quarter mile from where they sleep, and not get into a dock. So if I can get as close to that as possible, if I can identify where that deer is in the daylight, then then that's where I want to try to beat. Yeah, um to catch that day like movement during the rut, they might be on their feet all day. I'm kind of referring to earlier season or or or a little pre rut stuff. Act. Yeah, what kind of places do you like to set your cameras up on to to learn some of the stuff. You know. It just just depends. Um. Usually a food source is a good source. The edge of a field, catching those deer, and if you can create those little sneaky roads I mentioned earlier, or those corridors um, or you do have a funnel at the end of the lake where they're crossing, at the end of a slough, um a natural corridor. I mean, I try to just put them in places like that, just just where I think you know, where do your movie for frequent Yeah, yeah, many food, I guess is what we all focus on. So I feel like, uh, I feel like we need to we need to wrap this one up here in a little bit. I don't want to keep you too long, bread, but I've got I've got a couple more questions here, um that are a little bit a little bit different direction. But if if you were to have, like your best hunting buddies sit down here with us. If if you and your best hunting buddies and we're all sitting down here talking about talking about dear if I were to ask them what it is that Brad does best or what makes Brad a successful deer hunter, if you had to guess what your best hunting buddies would say about you? What do you think they would point a finger at. What do you think they would point to? Is your kind of unique superpower or whatever might be that that makes it work for you. Oh, that's a good question. I'm not good at talking about myself. This is your buddies that your bodies are talking about. I don't know if my buddy that they would probably slay stuff. And I couldn't say right, right, buddy, to do right? You know, buddy, you can say anything to your buddy and uh yeah, we'll give you each other hard time. But I guess I guess probably one one thing that that that I'm probably most proud of is just being able to anticipate anticipation. Like we've been talking about create that spot scouts spent plenty of times scouting after the season February March, i' musically only one scout I placed him. Everybody else is tired to hunting. That's when I find out probably the most information that I stroll away for the next year. Um, But I think anticipating, being able to figure out and be patient about it is is I think one thing that that helps me the most that seems to be. If there's any one thing I could point to that across the people I've talked to, you know, talk to some of the most of the best deer hunters across the entire country over the last four years. Almost every one of them can point to that is a key thing they focus on is scouting, scouting, scouting, scouting, really focusing on learning your property. Learning is dear. Um, a lot of people prioritize scouting over actually hunting in many cases. Um, so that that that doesn't surprise me. That's something that you do well. Now. One one model I have that I that I live by hunting west is I'd rather spend a little time in a good place and a lot of time in a bad place. Yeah, and I always know there's a better place. Now. I might not be able to go find it this hunting season, but I'm gonna figure it out after the season, and I'm gonna be ready for that the next year. Yeah. Um, that's so. So you you gotta be able to do that and ain't work for everybody based on their time and what they do, And you might have to get a little more aggressive, but man, if you can, but hey, how much fun is it too. That's what I like about deer so much, is it's turned into a year round i'most say, year around sports, and you know, and that's that's why I think that's where all of us deer hunters sharing common is is it is a year around sport. We're thinking about we're finding sheds for scouting in February, March, um, you know, getting our summer stuff ready in May and June, and they start to put cameras at July. Seeing how biggie books are gonna be this year. Who doesn't love that the first book pictures of the year. I mean, Christmas morning right there. It is. We're like a bunch of kids, and you know, it's it's just it's just a little and I'm like, I said, I'm going to my Camp's been next week there on the doza um doing some plots that I figured out last winter that I'm you know, I had to wait until I could create them to do some changing of them now. And then we got vetch planeted in soybeans and we got cameras out on some or lick. So yeah, I got a fun week. It's just like it's much fun if like open a week for me. Yeah, in the process the projects and the process or yeah, man, who we load. And I think some of the best hunters I know that. You mean, they've never even ever seen him on TV, None of us have because they just they are just good, hard working love the hunt in their private but their biggest thing is they spend the time figuring stuff out. Yeah. Yeah, they send way more time feeding out where that tree is and they you're just sitting in the tree. Now, what about this? If we're in the same room with your buddies again, And I asked them, what does Brad do that you think is just crazy? If there's something you do that's that everyone else thinks is bizarre, but you you say, no, I mean this works, or I'm going to do this every year because I just have seen it work, or something like that. But everyone else thinks you're kind of weird because you do it. Is there anything like that you can think of that they would that they'd call out, Yeah, I don't hunt mornings at all except during the rut as it explain that because well and what I what I think I figured out, what I believe is, you know, you find all these good places, well, when you walk in there, the deer will be mostly on their feet at night, the mature deer. And you walk in there to that spot, so you got to say country or whatever you're hunting, or this food plots you created, you walk in and you spooked him there out of there, Well, who knows where they're going to end up bed. They might they might end up two or three d yards further away from this spot then they they only would Well, they're not gonna get that tool that afternoon to adult. And you I feel like a lot of times I'm changing my afternoon, my afternoon chances if I hunt morens in some good places because the risk of spook and stuff is so much better getting there before daylight or right at daylight than it is, you know, it to an afternoon when everybody's sleep and comfortable. So I just I just stay at the woods in the morning until until rout time. Yeah, yeah, because and everything changes in Yeah, I've seen I've seen a similar thing too early season in late season, just as it seems like those morning hunts are low chances of success, high chances of risk of of screwing things up, while those afternoon hunts are low chance of of spooking things when you go in there, but high chances for an opportunity, So the odds are much more in your favor for those evening hunts. And if you don't screw it up in the morning, it's that much better, yea. So I just take it. I'll take it easy and shoot my bow, or go look at a new place, or go squirrel hunting if this early season. I mean, I enjoy squirrel hunting as much as anything. And you know, um just still have plenty to do in the outdoors, and I just man, I'm careful, careful, careful with my good spots. Yeah, yeah, final question, and you kind of you already answer this a little bit, so you feel free to go back on your first answer or or give me something different. But you've spent time around a lot of great deer hunters, some of the very best out there, whether it be the premost crew or other folks with white tailed properties, or just friends of ours or friends of yours that we've never heard of. But if you were to look at all the very best deer hunters you know, and if you could then circle what they all have in common, is there anything that you could point to as like this is that core common Maybe it's a habit or an attitude or a tactic that that they all seem to have in common. What would that be? Well, you know, like we said, anticipation and being able to figure when that deer is going to be um is number one. Secondly is patience. You know another another thing and I don't do it, um, but I know guys that you know they're getting a tree at nine or ten in the morning and stay there the whole day and then and they have that. Those are those are the guys I look up to. They have the patients to sit there and I have before when I went again. But it's just not something I enjoyed the camp life. I'd rather hang around with my family and friends and laugh. Um didn't hunt the afternoon. But but yeah, anticipation and patience, but but knowe when when when to spend those when to use those patients. Don't go sit in the spot thinking you might get lucky if if you're you know, if you're in that spot in the condition, don't right, Yeah, like I said, that goes back to spend spend a little time in a good spot and way better than a lot of time in a bad spot. Yeah, that's a that's a great little reminder just to keep in the back of your head during the season. There's a lot of times where it's easy to you know, I think something that I've been guilty of in the past, and I think a lot of other people have talked about where you you can sometimes get comfortable where all, well, I've already got to stand here. I don't really want to tear down this stand, or or go grab a new stand hanging up in a new spot, or I don't really want to be kind of inconvenient to have to go walk around to find this new area, or to maybe I saw mature buck moving a couple of times over three yards away. But to your point, just always remind yourself a little bit of time in the best spot, in the right spot is so much more valuable than being comfortable and lazy in the spot that's already set up but not as good. Yeah, and I always have a you know, if you have a ground line and a climbate stand, and obviously we haven't written to hang on, yes, you have those just pretty much not much scenario, Sarah, you can't figure out. But I love a climate stand for what you just said. You know, so you got your thoughts set up and based on your scouting efforts, and you were a little bit off, a little wrong, and or the deer not where I thought they'd be there Holy yards over there. Well I'll try that if the conditions are right, but I'll take a climber in there, you know, early afternoon, one of too o' clock. Ease in there, climb a tree and see how that goes. But what I also believe that I never do is leave a climber in there. We're not because you've been touching it, you've been sitting on it, and you might as well just leave your shirt hanging there. So I'll always take the climber back off the tree and he's out of it. And you know, I found good spots that way, and then you you just learned year after year where you need to to kind of refocus. But yeah, climbers are good, just don't leave them in there overnight if you're in a hot spot. Yeah. Yeah, I feel like you see a lot of guys who will just leave them connect to the bottom of the tree if they're gonna go back in there. But to your point, it's just a huge scent bomb. Probably you're just sitting there. You might as well just sit there all night. Yeah man, Well, uh, Brett, I've really I've really enjoyed this. I appreciate you taking the time to to talk through all these different ideas and and stories and everything. And if people if people want to see what you've got going on with primost or if they want to learn more about what you're doing with the white Tail property is or anything like that, you know, where can they find that stuff online? Well, of course the premos. You got the premos dot Com. It's where they you know, where they have all the premo stuff and they we do a lot of stuff on premos on the YouTube. On the YouTube channel they have to as far as tips and tactics and basically a lot of the same stuff all those guys do about what you and I've been discussing today. And then you know far as white Tail Properties goes, if you go to whitetail properties dot com and um go to my page, you can see all the listings that that I have there, and we have we have a lot of good stuff on with all things to do with land on there too, with our land Beat series on people can learn a lot of the same things we've been discussing. They the video team, they're White Til Properties, have created some great short clips on how to do land stuff, like you know, Hen's cutting and all that management practices. Yeah, yeah, I've been I've been following that video series and they're definitely doing a good job. And same with Premos. I've really enjoyed the YouTube channel that you guys have been putting together there and a lot of quality stuff. So highly recommend the bull checking out both of those. Well, thank you. Well, it's um definitely been a fun time vision with you and kind of got me thinking, Man, I'm I'm that much more ready to go check out some of my stuff. I'm looking forward to next week. Yeah, yeah, me too. I think. I think as soon as we get off the line here, I'm gonna head out and do some spraying of food plots, hang a couple of cameras and just get right to it. Well nice, nice, well, well, good deal. We'll be safe out there, and I hope you have a wonderful and successful fall. Yeah, same to you, Bred, Thanks so much, And that is it for today's episodes. So just my usual reminder, if you haven't left a rating or review for the podcast on iTunes, would appreciate that. Make sure you're subscribed there as well. Also make sure you subscribed to our YouTube channel and follow me on the Wired Hunt Instagram account. A lot of fun stuff coming up in September once my hunting season kicks off, so check that out. And most importantly, I just want to thank you all for being here, Thanks listening, thanks for sharing this this time with me today. Maybe you were on the treadmill, or driving to work or at work, whatever it might be, we appreciate you tuning in. So until next time, thanks and stay Wired to Hunt.