Ep. 585: A Masterclass on Patterning Bucks with Mark Drury

I'm very very excited. We have got a great episode for you today and it is kicking off a series. This has been the year of series. It's been a fun way to organize our months as we've gone throughout the year. And after killing my buck last week in Chigan, I spent some time thinking about what, you know, what led to that success? What was I doing? What was

I geeking out about? And it was really patterning. I was having so much fun looking at all the data, thinking through what are these deer doing and why are they doing it? And where are they going to do it again? And when are they going to do it again? And all that was part of what led me to you know, hunting where I did and killing that buck the way that I did, and I got to think there's a whole lot more we could be discussing on this idea of patterning bucks, and the month of October

is a great month to pattern a buck. So October is the month of the pattern and we're going to kick that off. If we don't include last week's which was kind of like a soft kickoff today, the real kickoff of this month is this masterclass with Mark Drewy. You should all know Mark. He's been the podcast many times. He's one of the co founders of Drewy Outdoors, host

of many different deer hunting TV shows. You can find him on the deer Cast app, the Dury Outdoors YouTube channel, all over the place, and he is an absolute wealth of information. And there's two things that I think he specializes in, maybe three, but one of them is really dissecting and deep dive understanding how environmental and weather factors impact dear movement. We've talked to him several times deep on that topic. But another one that we haven't gone

quite deep on in the past is patterning deer. How he kind of collects and analyzes data about specific deer and then helps develop a pattern of what they're gonna do and when they're gonna do it, so he can be there to get a shot when they do. And

that is our topic today. We go into all facets of patterning deer, everything from how he collects the data to how he correlates different factors with his observations and pictures, all the way to how he chooses when to actually act on that stuff and try to take a shot at these deer. We talk early season patterning, we talked learning during the rut, we talk late season, all sorts

of stuff in between. This is a banger episode. And if you want to kill a deer this month in October, shoot even if you want to kill in November or December, you're gonna learn something today that will help you do it. I loved it. I think you will too. I want to give you a couple of quick updates before I let you go. H one. The final episode of my show Deer Country drops this week, so if you haven't yet, headed over to the Meteor YouTube channel and check out.

Deer Country is the six episode series that documented my hunts last year as I traveled the country, met with different regional experts, sent spent one day learning from them in their neck of the woods, and then I spent the next three days to seeing if I could replicate their style in their general area and pull it off myself.

This last episode was all about looking behind the curtain of how you know folks in the Midwest managed for Big Deer and actually in this case run an outfitting situation. Very interesting, very new kind of situation for me. I would love it if you could check it out. So that's number one. Number two. This is a big one this week. If you're listening to this when we dropped

this episode, this episode is coming out October. If you're listening on October two or the next couple of days afterwards, I want you to know that this week is meat Eaters white Tail Week. We got a whole lot of exciting stuff happening when it comes to white tails at Metator. One of them his first Lights white Tail Sale, all of first Lights white Tail gear. Inspector is off off any of that first Light white Tail stuff you might need, the Catalyst, the Solitude, whatever. Check it out if you're

in need of some last minute stuff. Twenty off Number two Phelps game Calls. It is the game call company that's part of metator right. They've done duck calls, they've done elk calls, they've done turkey calls. This week they're launching year calls. We've got a bunch of new grunt tubes Fond Distress call bleats uh I personally have really been liking and using the Beta Pro and the Alpha I believe in the names of these two grunt tubes. I've gotten to test them so far this year. I

really like the sound. There's some really good things with them. I'll get into more detail in these calls in the future, but just a heads up. Phelps has got new grunt tubes. If you need a grunt tube, this is worth checking out. More to come later. If you have been thinking about this kind of stuff, this is probably going to be one of the best opportunities. You've got to do it to get it for cheap, so heads up on those

type of things. There's several of the Deer's deals from timber Ninja, there's discounts on our white tail logo where there's uh she, some deals from f HF. There's a lot going on. I don't want to drag us out anymore, but Mediator Whitetail Week is going on to October six. Heading over to the mediator dot com, go to the Mediator store, go to first let dot com. You're gonna find it all their good stuff. And that's it for me. That's my only other update. We got a master class

to get too, folks. So enough of me jabbering on h I love patterning bocks. I love this stuff. I love nording out on the data on what these deer we're doing and what they might do, on where I should be to maybe take advantage of it. It's so much fun. And Mark Jury is just one of my favorites. I love this guy. I love his approach. Uh, I have nothing else to say. Let's get to it. Mark Jury on the podcast master Class Patterning Box one. Dud. They go all right back with me. We have the

great privilege of having Mr Mark Drury on this show. Mark, thank you for coming back on the show. It's my pleasure. Thank you for having me. How are you doing this morning, Mark? I'm really good. I'm really good. I fill the bucktagon Michigan opening night. I went to Ohio and did some scouting yesterday, so I'm I'm just basking in the glory of deer season, man, pick here you in the family. I mean that that really put a smile on my face. And I know your smile is probably still there from

that moment. That was pretty awesome, dude. It was it was the first time that the whole family could be together for that and um my, my the first track job for my youngest So I'm a two year old, so so yeah, super cool. And it was funny after we recovered that. Buck, We're all sitting there together, and my oldest son ever, he's four, he kind of turns and looks at the family and he like shouts, like really loud. He says, it's our first family Buck. I

loved it. I just loved you. That's a true statement, those bucks. You know, the family allows you the time and allows you to have the passion you allow right that you have. So that's a cool thing when they get who you are and embrace it. Uh, it's a beautiful thing. When they don't, it's it's a rough, rough

time for most others. Because I've known guys like that and I'm sure you do too, where the bouse or the children and probably maybe get a little jealous over the time and the selfishness that we all have when it comes to this time of the year. So you're blessed to have a family that is aware of your passion and embraces it. Yeah, very very very true. Uh, speaking of things worth celebrating, I saw that you had a pretty exciting night last night too, and probably late night.

So I gotta thank you again for for hopping on the phone here this morning after what seemed like a pretty uh eventful night. Can you uh, can you fill us in on what happened? Dude? It was such a cool day yesterday. I did an interview in the Blind and I had intel on a really nice dear that I was in on last night, Wade, which is the one you're referring to. I had intel on him, and Terry had intel on a giant. So all three of these deer like one plus type deer, and all three

of them were on them. And I did this interview and I told Harry, I said, I don't ever recall all where we had intel and all three of us are on giants the same night, And I said, I feel really good. Somebody's gonna kill And I said, I think it's gonna be weighed because that buck. We had a self picture of his going to bed that morning at eight oh nine something like that, and he was he was heading south out of the field or a south wind, and the access to that spot is very good.

In fact, I don't know if you recall the deer that I killed Leicester December twentieth. We called him the fork buck, and he grows a little over one ninety. Well, the last time that blind was sat was that night December twenty, and then last night and then Wade killed eight out of it. So the hit was just a little bit back but quartering away. So I got opinions from tracker John and Bobby Coverts in the same two guys that are in deer cast track, you know, giving

me advice in there on track jobs. And we waited the appropriate time and then took up the trail. And you're right. It was a late night. The deer travel about five or six hundred yards, but we found him dead in this first bed on a really good blood trail. It went stomach, liver, lung, and uh, the celebration began and then all the of course, all the work begins.

So I went to bed about about two thirty and I was I still saw three o'clock UM last night, and then I woke up this morning about six thirty the normal times, so it was it was a sharp night. But you know what, that's what, that's what we do, and we love it. We live for those nights, you know, we live for those because no sleep nights. You know, who cares about a night where you get seven or eight hours? I'll take those two our rights every time.

That's what. That's the good problem to have right there. You you want to have reason to miss sleep this time of year, big time, big time. And it was Wade's biggest deer. It was a main frame eight point and it had ten kickers, so it had eight team total score for points. It was a six and a half year old deer. And the cool thing about this deer, and it really really kind of blends into what we're

talking about today. When this deer was four and a half in two thousand and twenty, I had a few pictures of him scattered throughout the fall on this tractor ground. This farm is about four acres. It's right on a major highway. I lose deer to the highway and um I had a sprinkling of pictures, So I didn't consider him like one of those dear you know how it is. You could get him every day and you're like, hey,

it's a homeboy. And I never considered homeboy. Last year and that year he was probably a hundred high thirties type eight point, but he wore it well. He had that white friend. Last year he was probably high forties, low fifties. Had him all summer. I got one hard hearted pick and he vanished, I mean gone. And all year I kept waiting to get a picture of him, had more cameras out, couldn't get him. And all of a sudden, late December, he shows back up, and I was like that son of a gun, he left the

entire fall, at least presumably left. I didn't have I didn't have photography of him. We hunted the farm a good bit that was where the four buck lived lived, and I never saw the buck, never encountered him. I just assumed he was dead from the highway or another hunter. There's a lot of pressure around that farm. And then

he shows back up late December. So this summer, when he showed up in Velvet, we knew he was a giant, you know, right away I guess the deer in the one eighties somewhere and I'm like, oh, that's that's the deer that disappeared last year. And uh, you know, this year he shed his velvet. I got more pictures and

I'm like, he's sticking around. But in my heart, I was like, this year is gonna again transferred to a fall range in my opinion, which I I eventually talked to a gentleman that that had the buck off all and they passed him, uh because because he was an eight point and they were on another different target deer. That farm is probably a mile all mile and a

half east of mind. So my assumption was he was again going to switch home ranges this year or fall ranges, and that's why when he stuck around, we made an extra effort to get on with cell cams and and the food plots that he was using went back to when he was for researched where he was the most, and ended up killing him in one of those two fields where he was at the most what he was

there during this period. So it really speaks to exactly what we're talking about, how patentable they can be when their home range overlays from one year to the next, they really do a lot of the same things. So yeah, so this is a this is a great example, and maybe we can kind of dial in on a few

things with this story. You know, the focus I really am hoping to dive into is just everything on how you pattern these bucks mark And the first thing I'm wondering with with a buck like this or any deer, when do you start the patterning process? Like when does a buck show up on your radar and you say, okay, this is what we have to you know, we're gonna label him as X, or we're gonna create a folder, or we're gonna you know, when does that start? Are

these two year old bucks a three year old bucks? Like? When does the the file start getting developed? You know? I have a lot of trail cameras, as you know, and I run probably nine cells and another hundred and fifty normal reconics cameras annually. Now that's across three states, has crossed a lot of different farms and leases and so and so forth. And I will answer that question

by this. I have a a file of photos that starts in two thousand and seven that includes every racked buck I've ever taken a photo of and every photo of that rack buck from the time that they are two and a half until they disappear or we kill them or whatever. So I try to start putting a pattern on them the moment they have a decent rap and if it's a year and a half old, that that shows real promise. You know, you know, I don't keep spikes in four corns and six points and that stuff.

But if it's a year and a half, that shows real promise. I keep files on them as well. So you know, my my entire fall is just swallowed up looking at photography. I don't know how many pictures I'm at now. I mean, I used to always feel like I was at a million, but I'll bet you i'm one point five to two million photos annually. Of that, I'll keep maybe a hunter thousand. And I've got those all stored in in my computer and in hard drives from OS seven through present day. Oh that's a lot

I've got. I've got like nine different directions we could go with this, and I'm not sure where where I want to. I'm like, I'm like the child that's addicted to candy that goes to Willy Wonka's candy shop, you know, and just sees every thing all around him that he

wants to that he wants to have. I wanted this is like the thing I nerd out about the most too, So I guess, I guess let's just jump into something you just said right there, which was you have a hundred thousand pictures that you might be keeping, and you are keeping photos of bucks from the time they're noticeably you know, unique, So maybe oftentimes that's two and a

half years old. When you get a deer like this one that Wade was on, and you realize, okay, this was a buck that you know, we noticed last year, we passed him. Now this year he's back and he's he's definitely want to shoot. How do you go about sorting through everything you had, Like, how do you make how do you find all the past pictures of his? How do you have it organized so you can then see, Okay,

here's all the photos of this buck. Here's the way I'm going to think through pictures from last year versus this year. How are you able to find it, compile it in a way you can actually analyze and then make the scissions from Given the fact that you have just so much out there already to sort through. I guess my big big questions, how do you sort through

and find the most important pieces within a haypile. It's it's it is a haypop because it's a time consuming deal to go through and and and find him again. Because I have in Iowa, I probably have you know, fifty different locations within reconics buckfew. And that's the program I've used in so seven and it it has served me quite well. Um, and you know, so I will I would designate a farm, call it the the this farm, for instance, call it the two seven, all right, because

this track was two fifty seven. I eventually I bought it, uh and attached it to a one sixties that I owned, So now it's four seventeen. But this particular pieces two seven acres, So I have it in there as the two seven. I have a long bottom file. I have to fifty seven ridge. I've got every different can camera

on that farm label accordingly. And then as I look at the cards and as I look at the pictures, I am shuffling them into all those different files so I can go back, you know, to thirteen, fourteen, fifteen whatever year it is, and and look at that particular camera area and see how the how the deer deer moved, and then I can start finding that buck once he appeared within that farm and find out what days he daylight and when he was there, so and so forth. So I don't then peel him out and create a

following him. Sometimes I do, but that's not the file I'm looking at. I'm looking at all the other aspects that might affect a deer's movement during daylight, So I'm looking for other deer um. I have notes within deer cast our app as to what the uh crop rotation was on that field or in that area, not only

on my farm, but on the outlying farms. I have files of the weather data from those years, so that if I find a daylight picture, call it when he was four and a half years old and two thousand and twenty, and I find two or three in a row, I can go back and research what was the weather like, what was the food like, what was the mass crop like, what was the rainfall like, and then start to put together why he did what he did. So it's it's data at a fairly high level, but that's how we're

killing them. And I do these deep guys. When we get a target buck, I go backwards in my file. So that's why it's important that I keep every single rack Buck photo because you're building that buck's history and that buck's life. And then when he if he stays around and if he gets the five or six, and if he becomes a target, which by and large most do not. They fall off the map at age three h four eag. You know, through time, you lose a lot or they they're there here today, gone tomorrow. They're

on a walk about outside of their home range. You get pictures and I keep them just in case they walk about again. But a deer that is a semi homeboy like this, I had some pretty good data points that I could go back on and and and figure him out. So and he really wasn't that hard to figure out because he was so so confined. Two spots

that were in both years, uh we're bean fields. Actually in two thousand and twenty, he who was on a bean field that I did a green to green transfer, and then he did it again this year and that's where he killed him. The other field where Wade and counteredy mat the end of the night, which is only about two yards from where he killed him, is a big ridge field that they love to go bed on this north face on hot days. That's the other thing

I learned about the farm. And then this bug. And right below that there was a big giant bean field and twenty and its beans again this year, so you know, perhaps the crop rotation had something to do. And it was also a good acrn near in twenty and two. So all of those things come into play um when it when it comes time to kill a deer, So it's not about the deer always, it's also about the environment and that's one of the reasons we did the things we did within deer cast. You know, we we've

always had the predictive bottle. We extended that to fourteen days this year. But this year we came up with our mapping solutions. Well within that, we have the wind, and we have mass crop, and we have overall rain with our rain stations, all the things that people really need to focus in on, I think to help them take their game to the next level. So you know, there's there's better mapping solutions out there. In my opinion,

I think there's absolute better mass. But I don't think there's any out there with better tools to help you kill a white tail than than what deer cast is. We stayed in our lane and focus directly on the white tail deer and the hunter and the armor that they lived in. Yeah, that's some pretty cool stuff. I

love that rain gage feature. That is that one just jumped out to me as gosh, I would die to have that kind of information for over over the years of food plots and whatnot, exactly like it's it's so important to not only like our success. Like okay, basics. I put the sea in the ground, I don't get rain, it doesn't grow. I put the seed in the ground, I get two tents of inch of rain. The seed swells,

it doesn't grow. I get a two inch rain. Holy cow, I've got the best looking food plot I've ever had. So that in it's the way we look at it, you know, on the surfaces, like that's important to my success. Well, what happened in April, May and June that this deer grew forty five inches versus the last two years when he was a one forty one fifty and all of a sudden this year he's you know, well, guess what, we had a wet spring. What happened five years ago?

We had a wet spring, and when he was a fawn, he was off to a good start because we had a tremendous acorn crop that year. So rainfall is so important to the overall health of the herd. You know what happens when we don't get the right amount of rainfall here at the right times of the year, All of a sudden you have the h D and that

affects overall daylight pictures and overall daylight movement. So I think outside of just the um, the trail photos that you keep, the notes you keep about your environment also help you put patterns together through the decades because as things occur. Now, Terry and I have been hunting long enough. I'm fifty five. I started hunting when I was fifteen. Terry sixty five. Well, we've seen many falls come and go.

We've seen great acorn crops, we've seen terrible ones. We've seen crops fail, we've seen them succeed to the point that they're two hundred bushel corn and you know, seventy bushel beams. We've you know, we've seen it all before, so therefore when it repeats, we have a better understanding how to succeed. And and a lot of this is mental notes, but a lot of it is written notes and stuff that I've I've journaled through the years about what happened when the weather was like this, and that's

how we came up with the algorithm for deercast. So it's just really paying attention to every detail. But it's gonna be a time stuck for you if you want to take it to that level, like it's it's almost seven throughout the entire fall to really hone in on all these different things I'm talking about, because the environment and the food sources are just as important to the deer ultimately his health and how he's going to move, you know, daylight versus nighttime that year, there's a lot

of different factors that to plug in on. Yeah, you really gotta love it. I was for now, I don't know what's two nights before opening day here in Michigan.

I was sitting at like eleven o'clock at night at my computer, had both monitors up, and I had a spreadsheet with all of my daylight trail camera photos of my main target buck and all the different weather factors, YadA, YadA, YadA, all the different data points there that I had a note document open where I had listed out everything this buck had done in within like a ten day window

of opening day. And then I had everything he'd done this year so far for the last three weeks, and then I had notes on the two locations I was considering and what other deer had been in there last year and this year. And was looking at all this stuff and I'm having the time of my life. And I texted some of my buddies in my group chat and they're like, oh my god, that looks miserable. You're a nut job. And in my head, I thought, this is the best part of it. This is the best

You really got to love that. I agree. I love data, you know, and I love stats, you know, and it's it's pretty cool because they are potable, but you've got to have the pieces of the pie to pattern them. Yeah. So you mentioned, you know, keeping track of the environmental factors and all the other things outside of just pictures. And this is one thing that I have struggled with actually over the years and not done a good enough job of that. Is like keeping track of all of

those outside things. Um, I've I've started and stopped multiple hunting journals where I'm every year I'm like, okay, I'm gonna keep track of everything. And I do it for a few days or a few weeks, and then I lose I lose it. Uh what does that look like for you? Do you keep a consistent journal? Do you, you know, do track stuff just during the hunting season or are you writing something down online or in a book or you know, how do you personally do that?

I keep a lot of notes within deercast because we allow for it, you know, within the different way points and whatnot. But a lot of it is honestly in my mind. Like I don't know. I think I was lucky that I have a mind that Like I think it's because I'm so hyper focused on killing them, Like I know how important it is, so therefore I remember it, if that makes sense. Like I can't remember. My wife can bring up ten subjects in a row and I'll

have barely a memory of any of them. But when it comes but it comes to a d R the barametric pressure, the wind speed, the wind direction, I mean, there's not a deer I've ever killed that. I couldn't spit it out if you ask me, you know, I mean, I just I've been very lucky to have it. And again, I think that's probably a selfishness on my part because I'm so obsessed with them. Uh, you know, so a lot of it is just memory. Now, yeah, I can't,

I can't say I have that same memory. So jealous of that, I've got to figure out a better way to lock the stuff down on paper. Um, we'll see if this is the year I can finally do a better job of it. Here. Here's something I'm curious about, historical weather data. Right, that's something that, of course you've mentioned as being something you'd like to take a look at and see, you know, how it correlates with daylight

pictures in the past or daylight observations. This is a two part question, and one part maybe you don't want to answer, and if you don't want to answer, you don't need to. Second part you can tell me. But part A is can we get historical other data in deer cast someday? Because I would love it if I could see that right in my dear cast app firsts having to go to a different website. That's part day, and then part two is where do you personally go

to get your historical weather data. I've created my own okay, so two answers. Deer Cast looks at the future and the past. Okay, So on a on a daily basis, if it's giving you a prediction, it's looking backwards and it's looking forward. So say you wanted to rewind the clock five years, it would have to look backwards several days and look forward several days to recreate the prediction

for that day. That was an algorithm and the cost of an API that was cost prohibitive by not by a little, but by a lot, like put puts got a business, you know, when we asked the question, can we do this because we have an ap I like weather is for the most part, a predictive model in an itself. So the API comes in, we pipe that into our algorithm and it all works right because it's all recent, it's all right there in their computers to

go back and dig it up. Was they're They're like, well, no one's ever asked for that before, you know, and and other words, it was impossible and the quote was cost prohibitive. So I do it myself. I screenshot my dear cast every day and I keep a file and I have since it came out, so I've got every day's weather data for where I hunt since the start of it. So that's the best way to do it, Okay, Well, I uh, because then it's is all there. If you look at our screen, everything you want to know is

all on on that hourly forecast. Put it at you know, noon, or put it at eight am or six pm, and screenshot it, and you've got every single readout you want. But going back and doing it is just absolutely cost prohibitive. Yeah, I can see that. Uh, well, I can dream, I guess, and it's cost prohibitive because of how many days equal

into the prediction for that moment. Right, We're giving you an hour by our forecast, but in reality, it's looking forward and looking backwards to give you that hour, and then if you wanted to rewind the clock five years, it's it's almost it's so tangled up you can't do it. Yeah, that's a doozy. Well back to back to pictures then, Um, one of the things I don't want to spend a ton of time on, but I do want to just

run by you real quick. We've had previous conversations over the years about how you use trail cameras, how you place them, Um, you know, when you're checking them, when

they're when you're moving them, stuff like that. But when it comes specifically to patterning bucks, like not just getting a basic inventory in the summer, uh, not just trying to get you know, what's around, but when you are actively trying to pattern a specific buck like this deer for example, that way just killed when he showed back up and you realized, oh wow, we've got a chance of this dear, but we gotta figure him out asap

before he disappears. How does your camera placement change, if at all, in that kind of situation when you're like, we need to learn this deer and put together a pattern. Now, just do things change or do you always have your cameras in the same places and they just stay there. They are historical cameras everywhere that stay there, that are

on great travel routes or hubscrapes or places. You know, when you watch a farm or watch a field and you're hunting it, you go, I need a camera right there, and then it always produces for you you know, and you watch a certain food plot and that's got the movement. The rest of the plot's got twenty right, so you know, but then when we find a target, then we might go from three broad looking cameras in that area to ten.

I call it the blitz creeg with with cams. So you know you're going you're trying to win the war, right, everybody knows from history that the term blitz grieg. Well, you're going there. You gotta be wise about it. You can't run him out of there. Got to be smart and get as much intel as you can. And you know, you know, six seven years ago, before the advent of the cell cams, you didn't have real time information. Now

you do. So my my methods have changed from strictly looking at historical patterns and trying to predict the future to that coupled with real time in the now um information through cell cams, and it's uh. I can tell

you those subcams are are a deadly deadly tool. When coupled with historical infusion from a file that you've you've kept on a deer, it is a one to punch that is unbeatable for mature bucks, particularly particularly in phases like this one on on Greener Pastors were in phase two from our show start team, and they're just not

moving very far. If you put a buck to bed and you've got a decent deercast prediction that afternoon, chances are you going to see when you do this blitz creek and you go and you increase the concentration of cameras. What are what are the kinds of places you're going to place those extra cameras, and how are you doing it so that you don't mess up you know, your

chances of still seeing him. What's what's the best way to do that in a low impact way where you get enough information that's relevant but not so much so that you never see him again. It changes throughout the year. This time of the year, they're not moving very far because they're on food source. They haven't started expanding their

home range hardly at all. And I'm on entry and exit trails in and around a food source that I'm trying to take the deer, or I'm on an acorn flat that has a bunch of you know, acorns falling, and I'm trying to figure out where he's coming from, where he's been, and I probably have an idea based on historical you know, hunting of the farm, and I'm I'm trying to kill him in and around that food source of an afternoon, unless by chance I get a strong north wind, then I'll try him of the morning.

First north is always gold, and we've talked about that before on your podcast. I love the first morning the winds out of the north Tomorrow morning? Is that for us here? So, um, if we don't have too many cocktails when Matt us here tonight, we might have to mark. If not that we'll be out there tomorrow afternoon. But um, I love that. Now that will change as you get into late October. Then I'm I'm on scrapes, man. I've got every scrape covered that I can find in what

I anticipate to be his home core. And then suddenly, instead of the blitz Creek being very concentrated on a small area, it expands as I anticipate the home range is going to expand. In other words, Wade's deer was fairly fairly consistent two hundred yards apart two major fields. He was daylighting on both of them in the evenings. Very rare for a six and af year old deer

to do. But you get into late October, all of a sudden, home range is gonna expand, and you've got to have a lot more scrapes covered to figure out where he's gonna because that's what he's hitting at that time. Right now, he's hitting food source. Late October, early November, he's hitting scrapes. Get back through the rut, then I'm on just where the heck is he gonna be at a lot of randomness, so I'm on trails oftentimes then and then late November I'm back into scrapes and food sources.

So you know, as we transition through the season, these light switch events that we talked about in thirteen and in Deer Season twenty two, then you know you can you can adjust your tactics and all of this is laid out in Deercast, like we talked, we break these phases down, um, you know, as as deeply as we can to help people understand what the deer doing at different times of the year. Well, if you adjust your camera strategy to what they're doing, you're gonna be so

much more effective. If you find a target buck, put a lot of cameras on him, you're gonna up your eyes for killing definitely seeing possibly killing him. Where does where does glassing or observation fit into your data kind of mix these days? Is that something you do much still or with the advent of sell Kam's, do not need to do that as much? I still do a lot of it, a lot because a camera only shows you one little spot right like they tell you a lot.

But they also don't tell you a lot if you will. And that gets especially true in terrain and country that is more difficult to anticipate and interpret. In other words, like big open country throws hunters for a curve because

there they can be anywhere everywhere. You know tall grass, big swampy areas that's all the same, all flat river bottoms, big crp expanses, big tillable, those types of examples where the it's really really big cover, they oftentimes are much more random within and they're far much more difficult to pattern. Contrast that with where we were last night, brushy, brushy, heavy security cover, food right next to it. He's not moving very far, he's got bet, he's got food, he's

got water. When that gets big, it's much more difficult to pattern them. So I spread out and I watched that. Oftentimes, as opposed to depend on cell cams, sometimes cell cams or cameras in general will almost lock you into a pattern and handcuff you or put you in a straight jacket to where you can't make a good decision. And sometimes you've got to get back out there, put eyes on the ground, boots on the ground, and figured out that way. So it really depends on the environment that

I'm dealing with. Yeah, and like when would you do that kind of thing? Is that like, let's say you're an environment or situation where you realize that I need this additional intel, I need to go out and watch. Are you just doing that on the nights and the conditions aren't right to actually go in for a strike and for a kill And you're like, well, there's not a great opportunity to kill something right now, so I'm going to sit back and watch. Or are you doing

this every morning in October when you're not hunting? Or what does that actually look like? You hit two nails on the head. Both of those examples are exactly when I do it, and then I do it when the camera reports and the cell cams have me scratching my head. In other words, is like this buck was here last year, but I'm not getting him this year. Did he switch to one part of the field, you know as buck's age. That's another part of the equation and another part of

of pattering a deer. What they do at age three varies differently from four or five, and then when they get to six or seven, suddenly things start to shrink. If you took a circle, and it would be very large at age three, it's slowly but truly shrinks. As a deer age is you get into six, seven or eight, if you could find where he's at, you could kill it because he's not moving very far. They get slow. Their metabolism slows way down. They get almost a little

bit lazy. I oftentimes use an analogy of an older pet and older dog as you watch them age through life. Take a cat, you know that's you know, age one or two. That thing's bouncing off the walls half today. You know, by this time that's ten or twelve, it's laying around, sleeping all day. And dogs are are very

much the same. Puppy versus you know a dog that's ten, eleven or two, well and deer are this exact same way, So you have to always keep in mind what age is he and water His mannerism is gonna be like, and am I off of him just a little bit? Is he here but my cameras aren't seeing him? I need to go watch from afar if it's possible, and perhaps try to find him, and that that has worked

many times for me. So it's it really comes down to the environment and the age of the deer now and and the weather right like we're in this terrible pattern two years in a row of these every day it's ten degrees above normal temperatures. I don't know if it's like that three oup in Michigan, but it has been for us here. And it's like the Law Ninia force that's out in the Pacific has set a new

normal to the to the deer movement. What used to be a poor on deer cast is now really and okay because the deer have adjusted to these warmer temperatures. That's gonna switch in March or April when it turns over to to an l Nno. But the Law Union has really smoked us here in the Midwest, both in overall rainfall an overall average temperature the last couple of seasons. And we've gone through these before, um you know, in years past, so we kind of know how to adjust

to it. I don't have you been above norm there where you live. It's been pretty warm throughout the summer. Yeah, we're in a little bit of a better place the last like seven eight, nine, ten days. It's finally can't drop down. Finally got two normal, right exactly, So now normal is the new coal front. It hasn't get for the last seasons. It's it's crazy. And that's all through that Londini's effect on us out there in the Pacific. It's it has a huge effect on overall environment rainfall

and thus, dear moment. That's interesting, this this situation in which we realize that we need to get more intel and we need to go out and actually watch. The perfect situation, I think is is where you can drive to somewhere and sit in your truck and glass from a hill, let's say, a super safe, great view. You've got an opening you can looking down down into. That

sounds easy, like that's an easy option. But what about a situation where you don't have that hill that you can safely get up on top of and you if you wanted to learn more about what this deer is is doing, you would have to get in there and climb up into a tree or something. Do you ever do that kind of thing anymore, like an actual observation sit And if so, how do you do that in a way that you feel confident you can get the intel you need without damaging things? Is that you know?

What's your thoughts on that? I actually absolutely do it, and um I did it on the nine of October two. I was sharing that story with you before we started recording. There was a buck that I had pictures of them in brand new spot, and you know, I went in there. We have a blind kind of set up where we think we can kill him, but we're also like, we're probably gonna have to move this or go to a different tree or whatever, so let's go have to sit

there and see if we see him. And what do you know, he walks in twenty five yards and I goofed the whole situation up and I don't even get my bow draw because I was in a bad position. I kind of had my head out of the game, and I got very excited, very quickly, and I really really botched it up and and just screwed up on a really big deer. But I was doing it that night.

So I do a lot of observation sits. And I think one of those situations would be, you know, like say it's a big timber track and it's just lots of timber, and you know the deer in there, but you know outside of camera photos, or you're not gonna observe that timber because you can't see him there. You've just got to be very wise about the days you'll go in there and where you're gonna sit and how

you're gonna set up. Like I love. I love high pressure days thirty point give me thirty point one and rising, and I feel much more confident going into a timber and affecting less then on a point eight with cloud cover and swirly winds, where you're gonna affect a lot of stuff. So be wise about the weather conditions when you choose to go do it, and be wise about your access and then affect less. I don't walk and scout a tremendous a lot tremendous amount during the season.

I do all of that in the off season, I walk the you know, leather off the bottom of the shoes shed hunting and the off season, but come season, I am really cautious about getting in there and scouting an area unless the weather is just absolutely pristine and perfect, because I think the worst thing you can do as a hunter is bounce a deer out of where you're trying to kill him. I mean, unless you just don't care, you know, unless you're you know, like you know, I'm

not in it trying to pattern the bucket. I'm in it to go and enjoy myself, and I want to go cover some ground on this track of ground today and see what the deer sign looks like and jump into tree saddle and see if I kill one that's okay. The great thing about deer hunting, there's a lot of different techniques where you can kill them. My personal technique and my personal desire is to never affect the deer and try not to let them know they're being haunted.

That's because that's worked for me in the past. So therefore I'm very cautious about those days that I'll go do that that technique where I'm actually trying to gain intel by going into their world, if you will. Yeah, So when you're doing an observation sit or you're glassing, what specifically, And I'm sure the answer is everything, but I guess I'm looking for a little bit more nuanced as far as what specifically are you looking for? Like what are the things like you sit, you see the

buck pop out in your mind? What are the key data points that you need to preserve from that observation? Uh? And how do you then do that? So you you you see the buck, let's say, do you go home? Do you go pull up deer cast and put in the notes like Okay, I saw him and he came from here and he did X and and all that, or how do you take advantage of a sighting and squeeze that for as much as possible? Maybe That's what

I'm getting at. It definitely goes back into that overall data bank, if you will, of what's the crop rotation, what phase are we in, what time of the year is it, what is the weather like today? What made him move during daylight? Where did he come from? Where is he going? It's really as simple as what I just said right there, Where did he bed? Where is he heading to feed? Or if it's a later and I'm speaking in terms of where I'm at right now in the season, which is you know, early October, and

they're they're on food patterns. That's going to change drastically coming up here because the home ranges are going to expand. And then in November it's you know, bar the door there, they're all over the Dad Come place. So all of those different factors have to be either journals are remembered, are put into that overall data bag of of your personal dear memory slash history, slash predictive model, whatever that

is for you as a person. It has to be documented some way so that you can and eight years, ten years, seven years, go back, not necessarily to reflect on that dear, but reflect on what the dear in general do with those conditions when they repeat, because when weather conditions repeat and mass crop repeats and crop rotation repeats, the dear in general will most likely act and bed the same way that they are when you made that observation.

So something you said there made me. It triggered a situation that I've oftentimes found myself in wondering about UH, and I think it has it's tied to this kind of observation type situation where you see a deer do something and then you think about, Okay, what was the wind doing on at that particular time, and why did he come from where he came from, and why was

he going where he was going. One of the dilemmas I oftentimes find myself is that I'm looking at a daylight photo or I'm looking at some piece of data that says, okay, that buck was in here on this day. What was the wind you know that day? And I'll say, okay, it's a northwest or whatever. But then maybe it was different in the morning versus the evening. And I guess I'm curious, what do you think matters more when it

comes to predicting what a buck's going to do? Is is the wind in the morning when he went back to bed the most important thing to predict what he's gonna do? Or is it the wind in the evening when he comes out to his food source, like which is influencing his behavior more? Um, I don't know if I'm explaining this question, what does that make sense? Mark? Are you? Are you talking in terms of speed or direction? I was thinking direction, but both of the interesting um,

wind speed is what I pay most attention to. I pay almost no attention to win direction as it pertains to a bucks paninable and predictive movements as much as I do speed. Um, I am not one that conforms to the thought that the direction of wind will dictate a lot for a deer. I'm sure it does, but I don't think it's as important as as I as I think some people think it is. If that makes sense,

just that's just based on my observations. I'm much more interested in the speed and his overall demeanor, which I think speed has a great deal to do with. Then I am the direction of the wind, So tell me a little bit more about that then. So if if the speed is really what might be influencing, I mean, are you saying my influence whether or not a buck were to come out in daylight again, or if you

know he's will be more active? Absolutely? Yeah. And that's combined with a lot of other weather factors, and when when a lot of them optimize, that's when you see

those magical days. It's like, holy shoot. So three shooters tonight, you know, or I saw thirty deer, But you know, the other night I set the same place, and I saw three deer, and you know, a lot of things were similar, but all of a sudden when several things optimized, like we're about to do that tomorrow and the next day at least here in the Midwest, there's a bunch of weather factors that are optimizing, and we're we're very anxious for this this next three or four day period here,

can you can you in a way that won't you know, give away too much information? Would you be willing to walk me through you know what you're how you're gonna take advantage of this optimal set of conditions, and how you are going to you know, pattern or try to take advantage of a pattern that you've been developing with with the buck of your own. Is there in the example you could share of like this is what he's

done in the history, this is what the pictures tell me. Now, this is how this lines up with the current weather pattern. And is there a case study that we have here that might work to discuss Uh? No, because of the

three of the I shouldn't answer it that way. Yes there is, but in this year this instance, three of the bucks that I'm hunting are bucks that don't home core on my farms, like I'm waiting for them to show and then I'm gonna go hunt them, and none of them are on there right now, so because I hunt a lot of small parcels and therefore I'm just off oftentimes, so i gotta wait for them to come in.

Um So, in direct answer to your question, and then the other one that I'm hunting, I've really got four targets that I'm hunting this year, and the other one I think does live there a lot. However, the wind direction is completely wrong to hunting over the next few days. So um So, that's why my simple answer was no. In terms of who I'm hunting right now. However, Mattson Perry's got a tag. So there are other bucks that I think are going to play quite well through these conditions,

and that's looking at historical data. They're bucks that have been there at their lives and the conditions are lining up. If we can put them to bed, we should see them and possibly kill them. It's exactly what we did last night with Wades. So and the reason I say that is because I've had many days over the past ten days where I've had a buck early morning on a sub cam and go he's not coming out tonight.

The weather conditions aren't right. I don't think he's gonna daylight tonight, and therefore we choose not to go in there, and more often than not, he did not. That's going to change um here with this weather front, we're gonna be below normal temperatures. We've got cold north winds, and these weather fronts, I will say that through an union, when you get them, they're that much more important because

we get so few. When you get one, Holy cow, man, they're all on the feet, and they're moving a little bit further than moving earlier than moving a little farther, it's pretty cool. What's about to happen here in the middle of So that raises another question. Then we've got maybe three main categories of data. I guess you could say that might help us make a decision. One of those categories is historical data, so past sightings, past pictures.

This The next thing is like our recent intel. So what are our cell cameras are telling us right now? Or what is the regular camera that we checked within the last few days tell us right now? That's the second category, and the third category is all of the weather conditioned environment type stuff that might impact something. Now that we have that recent you know, now that cell cameras have entered the picture, how is that? You know, how has that changed the value of one of the

those different categories. Is historical patterns? Is that less important now because you've got this recent intel or is it? Is it still on equal plant Is it in equal playing field? It just makes it that much more effective and validates what your assumptions are much quicker for you, right, are invalidates right? So Raconics has a saying, see what

you've been missing? Well, South Camp's also you have what you haven't been missing, Like I've got suitors that we had summer to intel on that I have anticipated to show up on certain forms that they just haven't yet. So it tells you not to go there until they do. So the fourth piece of that, you name three very important ones. I would divide the weather in the environment

literally into those two categories. So weather data guess and then environment which I always look at prop rotation and mascots, so food source. You know, weather is going to affect how they feed, what's planted where, and what the mass crop is going to affect where they feed. So those two things in combination can help you get ahead of where he's going to be as as opposed to behind. Yeah,

what about when some of these things conflict? So what if you have a uh, what if the weather is lousy, if it's not as good as it should be, but you have a two year in a row kind of annual pattern that this buck always starts cruising through here the last week of October and he's been rock solid here, you know, going crazy the last two years, and now that arrives this year and you're just not loving the weather. But you know the historically he's been moving in daylight

during that time period. In that kind of example or some other example where two or or three of these different things don't all line up, do you, dude, which do you trust? Like do you always fall back and say, well, history says he's going to start moving through here, so I to give it a shot, or do you now wait until the cell cameras confirm it? You know, irrefutably,

it's it depends on the time of the year. So in answer to that question, at I'm hunting him whether it's great weather or not, because his testosterones at a level it's gonna kind of trump the weather a little bit. You don't need nearly as great a weather to kill them then as you do now. When they're in a food pattern and moving the hundred yards from their bed to their feed each day, even though it's less of a distance, it takes much better conditions for them to daylight.

And I'm I'm speaking in terms of older deer. That doesn't mean that a year and a half or two and a half won't do it. But if you're hunting five or six year old deer, man, things better be awfully perfect to get that sucker up and seem during daylight, because they're walking slow, they stand up, they stretch, they browse around. They're just late moving during daylight, you know. And it's it's very difficult to get close enough to see a deer of age six of an evening or

of a morning. It's extremely difficult to get in that short period are a short distance that they're going to move during daylight. It's much easier to do so in late October earlier November, when the distance increases and when testosterone is higher and they're actually moving moving better. You know, they just move better this time of the year. They're finicky. Man, it's got to be all the all systems have to be green light to really expect to see a deer

of that age class. So I answered that a little long, but I believe that's the correct answer to your question. Yeah, yeah, I follow you kind of back to the annual pattern thing. One other thing, I'm curious about how cell cameras have I guess you kind of said it. Sometimes they confirm what you what you believe, or you confirm your assumptions. But how has your thoughts on annual patterns evolved over the years, especially now that you maybe we can confirm

them or or disprove them more accurately. Do you do you still see this to be a a pretty consistent thing that you can plan on. And how how tight of a repeat have you, you know, now seen things to be. Do you look at this and think, ma'am, if they did it the last year, they're likely to do it again on the same day, the same week, the same condition. Like what, I guess give me more on any better? I hear you and I get where you're going. And yes, I still believe that with every

fiber of my being. However, there are factors that affected slightly. And I've mentioned in a few times in our conversation the environment with mass crop and and overall. You know, crop rotation affects it, cover affects it. You know, a farmer cutting a field one year, here's a great example, um brush got out of control on the CRP farm and that's where the buck was betting. And ff A got on that farmer's tail and said, you've got to clean that brusho off of their Last year it was

all six but tall. This year it is seven inches tall. Those types of factors affect deer's bed and behavior greatly.

So your overall awareness to your environment is just as important to the patterning of a deer as it is sitting in a computer and writing down all your notes and then looking at the notes and then looking backwards, like I always say, why, no matter whether it's a picture or a siting or anything else, why is he doing what he's doing today, whether that be direction of travel, whether that be moving, whether that be not moving, whether that be a neighbor saying, hey, I just saw this

certain deer and you go, wait a minute, that's the deer I'm hunting over here. You know, I always go why what made things happen, whether that be something that happened consistently or whether it's something that changed. So, yes, I believe it with every fiber of my being, but you also have to be very nimble in the moment to accept change and go, dang it, my plan that I made in July in August is not coming to fruition.

Why is it not coming to fruition? I had all this laid out, Man, I was gonna kill him on October the five. Well, why aren't you killing him? Um? There there's reasons because they it's the chess match that I think people get so addicted to. UM. So if you figure out the wise, and the more of the wise that you figure out, the more dear and the more mature dear you're you're gonna kill. So so let's go back to a little bit of the um, you know,

the analyzing of all this data. So there's these different categories of data we've we've been discussing, and then there's what's gonna happen tomorrow or what's gonna happen next week, and we're trying to decide, okay, based on all this data we have of what's he gonna do tomorrow? And where stead I hunt? There's these different pieces of data that we can connect back to, back to history. So back to the picture we got yesterday, or back to

the pattern he had last year. How tight of a connection or how many of these things have to line up before you were to go in there. And so my example would be, let's say you're trying to decide where to hunt the first week in October. Let's let's say later we'll say that, you know, last week of October, and you have daylight pictures of him, you know, yesterday and the day before with a certain wind speed and you know, good cold front kind of conditions that came

passing through. Now you're saying, what should I do the next day? If the next day, if if you don't have that same condition, the same set of conditions in place, do you still move on it? Or do you want to have like Okay, I want the same location matched up with the same conditions before I jump in there and try to kill him again. I generally it's more often than not, you know, it's it's really about the weather. For me, Like, as you know, I am a slave to it. And I mean it's why we create a

deer cast. Like I firmly believe that there are windows of opportunity each year that you're given with a daylight opportunity, and that all revolves around the weather and how close you can get to that dear's bed depending on the time of the year and and how far they're moving

at that time of the year. So I'm pretty pretty discipline when it comes to making sure it's the right opportunity because I go back to my statement earlier saying I never want them to know that they're being hunted like that's I just I don't want them to kill me right like I'm trying to kill them. So in my mind, it's this me against them game of chess, and I want to be the one saying checkmate. I

want to be the one. I don't want him to smell me, because to me, if a deer smells me and figures me out like it's it's just dangner over every time. I don't know if you've noticed that through time, but when they when they get you, they got you, So don't let them get you. Said, that's that should be a tee shirt when they get the gut because man, when they figured you out. Buddy, they're a lot better. They're a lot better at this than we are. And they're good at living. I said all the time. They

are good at living, and they're terrible at dying. I mean, it is hard to kill a mature dear. And if you mess up and goof him up man alive, does it make him tougher that year and years years in the future. So I'm always I'm always betting on the come and betting terms. So I'm waiting, I'm waiting, I'm waiting, and I try to strike when when things line up, I want optimized everything to go in there and try

and kill that deer. That's just me um. So you know, other days I'm out shooting those other days I'm filming someone. But if it's a specific target that I'm trying to hunt, I actually hunt him very few days, if that makes sense. I think back to the deer I've killed over the last few years. I've spent very few days actually where I thought I was going to kill him. You got a target buck that shows up, you get sell picture

of him. Let's say two days in a row with north wind, nice good weather, and for whatever reason, you you couldn't be out hunting in this location because you went to Texas or you were somewhere else. But he's day letting twice in a row, day three totally different conditions though not as good, but he was daylight two days in a row. Are you Are you saying drop wind, speed, dropped clouds, rolled in, Yeah, or I may not go try him, but you're already behind a little bit like

that's have you ever noticed about a mature buck? They seldom almost never daylight every single day for a week, right, If you you know you'll get a day here and a day there, there's some randomness to win their daylight. And that again, it's another reason we did our predicted model. It's like, why why did you day Oh? There, it is there, it is there, it is You put it all together in an algorithm with thirteen different variables, and we try to help people predict when the best movement's

going to be when the optimized conditions are there. So I'm trying to pick those days for me personally, and I'm using historical data that I've compiled on that deer, on that farm, on the crops, everything all combined together to go there it is. There's the day. Here's where I'm gonna try and just try to be right more than you are wrong. But I'm still wrong a heck of a lot more than I'm right. I still I

make a lot of bad judgments. We all are right, you know, like in in baseball they say you're very successful if you get you know, you're about two fifty. Your your successful one fourth at the time. Well, and in hunting, what would it be it was one hundreds of a time. You know, it's you're batting, you're batting under a hundred. I know that for a mature buck, you're batting way under average, very low. If you just

what do you get the whole season? Maybe a chance to a chance to two or three and that's you know, that's hunting a lot. You don't get many chances. So when you take your shot, you know you need to try and have everything in your favor that you can. And that's one side of the equation. The other side of the equation is persistence and the numbers game does come up, there's a d factor and everything. In fact that night that I sat there and I saw that target.

In my pre hunt interview, I talked about I haven't had a daylight photo of this deer. I've had one in the last month since he shut his velvet. I had had one daylight photo of him. And I said, but I believe he's here because I'm getting nighttime photos and there is a dow factor in hunting, and he's gonna daylight again soon. Sure enough, he daylighted that night and I goofed it up. I jacked it up terribly. But the two factor does come into play. But I

have a locked in, freaking access. I had a perfect wind speed, I had a perfect wind direction to access it, so I felt safely that I could get there and then leave into that what is kind of a quasi observation set. Yet I might still kill him here. Well, it worked, but I goofed it up. So there's one of my chances this year. I know that I knew when it happened, got out there, I'm like, that's one of my few opportunities I'll have. And he's he's a he's a whopper man. This steer is really really big,

and I jacked it up. I left there that night thinking I'll probably not have that chance again this year. That was my exact thoughts. So when you have this is this is off topic, but I can't help it. Ask like, when you have something like that happened, even someone has experienced and who has had as much success as you have, how do you, like says, deal with

that and move on from it? Like, how how did you handle that night sitting and sitting in bed at home after you had this monster within range and you couldn't pull it together? What what do you do? Closer? In baseball's mentality, I have a lot of baseball analogies because I I watched every single pitch of every Cardinal game since I was like Ted right, I'd love baseball. So closer's mentality really terrible memory. Get over it quickly

and move on. That's the best thing you can do um when it happens, because if you if you wear it, if it's in your mind and it's working on you, you're gonna goose the next one up and the next one up. Like you have to get over it within seconds and move on. That's all you can do. It happened, It's ancient history. Now use it to better yourself in the next situation. But get eliminate emotion from making mistakes. You have to or it will eat you up the

full season. You're gonna goof it up. Trust me on experience, because when I was younger, I was I was the dumbest hunter man. I get so mad at situations because those bucks met so much to me. Right well, as I've aged, I've learned that you've got to get over and move on to the next, the next opportunity, because if you're not thinking with a clear head, you're not gonna put yourself in the right position the next time. And that's that's kind of mental side of the game.

We're getting off topic here a little bit, but I think it is a very important part of the game, is keeping a clear head and keeping a positive attitude. I can't tell you I'm like a very optimistic person in general. And like I've learned a long time ago

from a legend in our county, Paul sex Are. I was like maybe fourteen or fifteen, and he took the time to sit down and talk to me about turkey hunting and turkey hunting tactics, and the one thing that he said in that moment that night I had with him, he said, and it was really Joe, his brother that

pointed it out. He said, Paul hunts like he's about to kill a turkey every single second of every single hunt, and that's kill so many and that type of focus and so it's reality you're talking about focus that will help you kill more game, especially with a positive attitude. I'm gonna kill him. I know I'm gonna kill him. He's here tonight. And you know what, Mark, I didn't have that on October the second I mentioned before we got on the phone. I went in a little rusty.

This was my only second set of the season, and I was a little nonchalant about things that night, and it cost me a giant I should have been ready, I should have lived by the advice that I've lived by for all these years. And I didn't, and it cost me a deer. I didn't even get my bow drawn. I was so little prepared, and you know, and I've been in that situation a lot of times, but my mental games sucked that night and it cost me a deer.

So it's not meat. But you know what, by the time I got to the truck was over it and I was thinking about the weather for the next night's time. I have learned that, like you gotta have a closer mentality, get over it quickly. Yeah, that's that's great advice. So, speaking of your target Bucks, I did want to return to a question I had related to your other target bucks. You mentioned how most of these deer are all like, not homebodies. They live somewhere else and they just occasionally

come into your neck of the woods. How does your approach to patterning a deer change in that scenario when you when you have a deer that you know it's just an infrequent visitor. Does does anything we've talked about Is it different because of that circumstance in anyway? Deeper dive, man, deeper dive find every That's why I keep every picture. They're on their seldom. So every piece of every piece of the puzzle you get is so much more important

than a homeboy who you get all the time. Right, It's like, um, you know, it's like that friend that you can see every day at the bar and go have a beer with him. You know what he's gonna do, right, you know when he's gonna be there. You know what he's gonna say when you sit down and have the beer with him. You know what stories he's gonna tell when he's had too many beers. Okay, the guy that you only see once a year, you can't wait to

have that conversation. What are you gonna learn new? And you you're a little bit more in tune with that guy because it's it's it's something that occurs seldom. So there far, I have files on all of these deer. I know exactly when I've had pictures of them in the past. I know what the conditions were, I know

what the crop rotation was. And in fact, the deer that I'm what I would consider my number one targets, he's really really large, but he was he was only on me I think, based on what I can tell a few hours last season. However, when the crop rotation was the same in two thousand and twenty, he was on me several days. So therefore my confidence is much higher about him this year. Who he is aged, he is aged, he was five six, he's seven and a

half this year. My confidence is fairly high that when he gets to my farm, he if he's still alive, is if he hasn't been killed by another hunter or a car or e h D or something like that. If I get him I think he may stay enough days that I'll possibly have a shot at him. So that goes back to that environment. Cross rotation is exactly what it was in two thousand and twenty, not only on my farm but all of the surrounding area because

I look at everything when it comes to deer hunting. Okay, so I know this is going to be situation dependent. But if we had to generalize, if you have a buck like this, do you in this kind of case in the world of cell cameras, are you always going to wait until you get the camera pictures say always back? Or is that sometimes too late? I want to be the camera, so I'm gonna be sitting there waiting because I've never taken very many pictures of him, so I

damn well better be there the day I do. So I'm gonna use historical data to be there and try and be the camera. If that makes sense. So is it different different type buck, different type personality? Man? If you miss your opportunity, you're out. I've got great locations, I've got great access in and out. I'm gonna use them. I'm gonna hut them, and I'm gonna hunt on much. I will take my shots on lesser weather than what

I normally would on a homeboy. On a homeboy that's not leaving, I don't want to run him out on a deer that seldom there. I better be there when he's there. So I'm gonna hunt a little more often. Okay, Um, what about you know, we've we've talked a lot about how patterning, you know, can be a pretty important thing in these earlier parts of the year, but when we get into the rut, things are a little bit different. How how does your approach to patterning deer change once

we get into those rut phases? And and do you even think you can pattern a deer during the rut? My pattern changes ahead to texas well? There it is, there, it is. I am one of those guys that I don't want to say I hate the rut, but I much prefer hunting October and December O October and deer scemmer than I do November because the way that I hunt me personally. I hunt based on expectation and data and data points rather than hope. And when it comes

to so it's expectation rather than hope. We're real good in and around the food source I mean, we kill a lot of deer, you know, food source, tuck close to cover. That's a that's an equation that has worked well for Terry and I for for quite a while. Now. When you get to November and they start spreading out and suddenly home core ranges get just go like shotgun approach,

it's much more difficult to run into a deer. They're chasing those and and uh, we still kill them during that period and I still hunt them, but it gets much tougher to kill a specific deer, which is what I'm typically trying to do in November than it is, say in October and December. Yeah, does does any does any of this stuff still applied during the rut? Like are you gonna get you know, annual pattern type data and say, well, I'm hunting here the second week in

November and he did this thing last year. Do you ever expect that kind of stuff to repeat during that part of the year or do those things it's just two random Yeah, they still repeat, like different things repeat though, Like let's fast forward out of October. Let's fast forward thirty days and go into early November. Fifth, seven, three or four of the best Dad Gum days, they're still hitting scrapes, they're still checking food sources for the first

available dough. They're covering a lot more ground, so you can go back and look at that data and kill that deer doing those exact same things. When I speak of my disdain for the rut, it's really in and around once they start locking down. So twelve Levet's twelve and November through about the tenth eighteenth, that period right

there is a very frustrating time for me. Um. I would much rather be in Missouri with a rifle in my hand, or where my range is extended, or in Texas where I feel like the bucks are still doing things like they were doing here in late October, because the run is later down there, so I kind of I kind of go south to get on a more palatable period, or I go to Missouri where we can have a good time and it's rifle season and you can stretch it out a little bit if you see

a buck tending a dough, those types of things. However, just prior to lockdown and just after, absolutely you can go back and look at pictures and figure out a buck's pattern. It's just that they're covering more ground. And and and walking more during daylight. So therefore you you change where you're sitting. You're no longer sitting on a food plot, right, You're not. One of the dumbest places you can be is on a greenfield. You know, I get into transition, I get into the bedroom. I start

hunting mornings, I start hunting full day sits. So the tactics changed drastically. But yes, you can absolutely kill buck in his bedroom. Uh, during that period of the year, especially when he ages. You take a deer, say you've been you know, fooled by this deer when he's three, four or five, and suddenly six, he may not move as much. Uh when he's seven, when he's eight, all of a sudden, he's gonna daylight a little bit more. It gets hungry a little bit more often, and you

can start taking advantage of his weaknesses. One of the toughest did dear to kill is like a price, a deer in his prime at age four and five, They just they don't daylight quite as much. So six is also another another challenging year. So you always keep in mind the age of the deer, the overall environment. But yeah, you can you can smoke him during the run, you know, before they get with the does. Once they're with the does,

that's when it gets a little real challenging. And I think, if you kill a deer that's tending a dough, you should really go buy a lottery ticket that day because you probably got fairly fortunate on that day. And that's the truth. But that's where that's where DO factor comes in. That's where I'm in good country. I know he's here. I Am going to spend every single solid daylight hour in a stand every single day to increase my odds. That's how you kill them once they're locked down, just

absolute seat time in the stand. Yeah, let's say we're after one specific buck in a scenarre like you're describing. There's there's just the one guy that I really want to get and we do all the things you describe that do factor get out there, spend a lot of time being the general area. Is it a waste of time to chase cell camera pictures or to chase um?

You know, well he did this two days ago. I think I got to be in this little corner um during that particular time of year, you know, November three th or something like that. Um, specifically, it's not a waste of time because you know he's there, and that's part of the equation that time of the year. Um, you know, you get in the rut, you go, oh, uh, where's my target. I haven't had a picture of him in six seven days. Well he's standing there looking at

a girlfriend, you know. So when you get a self picture and you're like, I'm still here. So that's important. Just just having the deer in your hunting area is half the battle. So therefore get in there and hunt his butt, you know. Uh. Not having him changes that

a little bit. Uh So the rut brings about like if we were having this conversation, I think a lot of what I would be talking about might switch up a little bit because right now my mind is so center focused on greener pastors early October, you know, food bad, that type of stuff. If we're having this conversation November five, I might answer some of these things differently, But my mind's wrapped around this right now, So I'm trying to fast forward and think how I will be thinking that time,

you know. So it's it's different, you know, But I love fifth, six, seventh, eighth, and ninth absolutely love it. Mornings are great, does crisp cool mornings, you get good weather, You've got buck walk until nine ten o'clock in the morning. It's pretty exciting. I mean it can be a buck factory in certain days. When you get the right weather and and uh the right hot dough in the area, you you find the magic circle and you're gonna kill a deer. So it's it's an exciting time of the year. Yeah.

So you mentioned that you you really prefer for your style of hunting the early part of the year and the later part of the year. Uh So, let's talk

about the later part real quick. Is anything different in the late season when it comes to patterning deer compared to what we just described for that early, earlier stuff, or do you go right back to the same plane the vastly different that similar plan, but vastly different strategy in terms of food source, your keying in on, and most importantly, the thermal cover you're king in on where those bucks bed right now is going to be different

than where they're bedding in December. Right now, they're trying to stay cool and they've got cover everywhere because there's leaves on all the trees. Get rid of all the leaves, change the temperature by thirty or forty degrees for daytime, and you've got a different system in place in terms of what the white tails trying to do. Uh, he's also in recovery mode as opposed to the mode he's in right now, which is eating everything he can because he's about to go crazy during the rut. So a

lot of dynamics change there. Does that change it? Although how you actually try to pattern him like is the same kind of data. I understand that the the environmental factors are different. But when you sit down at night and try to say, Okay, what's this buck going to do tomorrow? Where should I hunt tomorrow? Are you are

you weighing things differently? Are you more confident in behaviors, repeating, or anything else when you're actually trying to develop that pattern In December, I'm a little less confident, and in in December, I think December requires a much more optimized win or not win. But whether um occurrence then does October October, they seem a little more patterned bowl and a little more likely todaylight with perhaps a little less

weather than in December. Man, it's got to be perfect and again I'm speaking in terms of not deer in general, but a target buck like a five six seven year old deer. Uh, they just act different in December. They're very tired. They may all of a sudden, if there's a little secondary estros, all of a sudden, you'll go do that. So you know, right now, in October you don't have much of that. December you do get a lot of it, especially if you're your herds out of balance,

so that comes into play. Uh, December can be tricky, But I look back at historical patterns and I honestly like I almost preferred to Christmas and later. Like you take December third, somewhere and there all the way through the end of the season January ten, with the right weather conditions on a major thermal block, with the right food source, you're gonna go in there and see a pole of deer and possibly kill your number one target. Yeah, that does sound pretty pretty good to me. It sounds

good right now. On the hot side, we can dream, we know what's in front of us, but you know, you gotta take each each day as it comes. And it's it's exactly why we did the show thirteam because so many things changed throughout the season, and as they change, our tactics have to change. Yeah, so let's let's zoom out a little bit. Let's talk a little bit more generally here again, thinking patterning deer, what is the most common or the most egregious mistake that you see other

folks making when trying to pattern deer. You talked to a million deer hunters, You've been exposed to the whole community for decades. Now, what's that thing that you see keep on popping up that just makes you scratch your head or makes you want to, you know, shake somebody by the shoulders and say, don't do that anymore. I get asked this question a lot, and I answered consistently. But I'll add to this answer in this question because

of the sub matter. Today, people underestimate the quarry. I think white tails are so good at living that they're almost impossible to go kill. They are so tough, and again I'm speaking of mature bucks that have been around the block. You take a six year old buck, and Buddy, he's a tough, tough son of a gun to even see during daylight. He's tough to take a picture of.

He's even tougher to see, and then you got to have the capacity and the ability to kill him and then make a good shot and all the things that it's it's so hard to kill a giant. Okay, So you couple that with what all they've been through and the overall you know, health of the deer, and I think people just group deer as a deer. A buck is a buck is a buck. A deer is as good as gonna be just as healthy this year as

he is next year. And I think they just the side of the fact of all the things that are affecting a white tailed deer on a daily basis. Imagine what they go through on a daily basis. First of all, we're trying to kill them. Second of all, you know, they're dealing with all these different changes, all of a sudden, as acorns everywhere one year, next year there's none. Uh, we're going through a drought. This year. You've got the h D hitting them, Kyle populations up. Holy cow, I

got harned in the side. I've got an infection starting. I'm older. Oh I broke a leg. Oh oh, Trulie got hit by a car. I mean, there's a lot of different things that affect white tail behavior. And I think people gloss over that, and they look at every deer as a deer as a deer, and I think there are as different as people are um and and I will I will extend this answer into a general lack of organization. If you're trying to pattern a deer.

There's nothing wrong with not being organized, because I know guys that aren't, and they go out and there they kill dandies every year because they they're just good and their prowess is good, and they're they're skillful. But I think people can help themselves if they're having an organizational trade and they keep good notes and they keep all

their pictures. We all know this guy that's got a handful of SD cards and he just went through all of them and then he goes and puts them back in his cameras and he never kept one picture off. On one car cringe, there's duck, there's dust on them, they're sitting in the truck, there's soda and coffee spilt on them. You put him in the camera, they don't work. You go to the camera the next time. You didn't

get any information. We all know that guy, right, And I'm not knocking that guy, because he's got every right to do that, as I have to be anal and obsessive over it. But I do think a general approach with more organization would help put people in better positions more often. Yeah, he you know that, Mark, I do know that guy taking by the shoulders. Next time you

see I will. Oh. I'm curious and I don't know if there's many opportunities for you to have this happen anymore, Mark, But can you think back to the last time that you learned something from another really good deer hunter about patterning deer, so specifically about this idea of patterning deer. Is there someone you can think of who's really really good at it. Do you have that buddy that is as good or better than you at this and that you said, oh, wow, you know that's a good idea,

or wow, I never thought of that. Is there anything that comes to mind? Brother Terry? Um, we talk almost daily during the deer season, and um, we just compare notes. What are your deer doing? What are you seeing? I mean, it's almost like coaches meeting or something, you know what

I mean. We just talk and we pick up stuff from each other every day and I I love collective UM strategizing, so myself, Wade, Perry, it is ad nauseam for our wives Tracy Marista style like I. I think if they had shock callers with controls, they would buzz us every single dinner we have together during the deer because it is all we talk about from the moment we see each other in the morning. We're together usually ten two hours a day, every day, seven days a

week deer hunt, deer season. But that collective thought comes to really good UM decision making. I do it with Terry, I do it with Wayne and Perry. I do it with Josh and Carson. I do it with matt Um. You know, Grant Woods, He's the all time goat as far as I'm concerned when it comes to dear behavior in the science of white tail deer, like Bobby Culvertson

Tracker John. There's certain people in my circle that I talked to a lot, and I talked to him Um as much as I can so that I can pull information. I'm selfish, man. If there's something that somebody's gotten his mind, I want it, you know, because it's it's going to help you, and I'm happy to share it too. Like I think the more we talk and the more communication we have, the better we all get. It's why I think your podcast is so popular. Uh, you're constantly trying

to teach. I think it's why, by and large, we've survived thirty three years in the outdoor industry. I say it all the time. We're not very good looking, we're not very funny. We better be informational. So um, I'm not saying you fit in that category. You know. I think if you're trying to teach and your teachers learn right, they're they're hungry for information. So I do it all the time every day. I think that what just what

makes us better. And also I'm at a very interesting time in my life because I'm fifty five, and I think I forget as much every day as as I remember. So therefar there are things that Wade and Perry will tell me, you know, last year you were saying this, and I'll be like, oh, yeah, that's right. I've forgotten some of what I knew. And if people out there that are in their fifties will relate to that comment. So it's it's a little tongue in cheek, but it's honestly,

there's a little truth to that. So I use these guys, I use their eyes and ears when we're in the blind, and I'm starting to use their mind to remind me, hey, what did we do in this situation when this occurred

last time? And they they have better memories than I do, so uh, it's I think collective organization and collective thought is a beautiful thing and it's gonna lead you down really good paths in life, whether that be you know, in terms of deer hunting, or whether that be in terms of your business, or whether that is in terms of relationship. I love communication on all facets, sports, life, religion, politics,

deer hunting, you name it. I'll sit and talk with anybody for for hours, because man, just just be the sponge out there and learn all you can. Yeah. Yeah, I love that idea of collective decision making and it's it's a lot of fun doing it that way. But then also I do think, you know, like when you're trying to figure out what this buck's pattern is, you can sometimes get stuck in your own head or stuck

in your own assumptions. But if you just get one other set of eyes on it all of a sudden, they might notice the one thing that you never saw there in the corner, but actually is the key to the whole thing. So talking these things out, you know, getting other perspectives on it can help you see the larger pattern within the data sometimes. So that's such a great point. Um, absolutely open mind. Right. We also know that guy, we know that guy knows everything. You're not

gonna tell him anything. You've met him, you know, And don't be that guy, you know, don't be the guy that already knows it all, because that's the me I'm learning every day I try to figure something out new. I love that collective thought because you hit the nail on the head man. You never know when somebody's gonna bring something to the party that helps the collective group. Last night, Wade shot the deer, but we all as

a group killed the deer. There were a lot of different people that were involved in that moment, and we were all there when we recovered him. And that's every hunt in this camp. It takes a village and one guy shoots it, but the whole village killed it. And and and that's why it's so important to enjoy the process going through it as you lead into the hunt, and then after the hunt enjoy it together. That's what

makes this sport so cool. You get emotions and and this unbelievable range of emotions and gratitude and happiness that I can't find anywhere else in life. I've been looking, but it doesn't exist. It's right out there in the great outdoors. Man. It's so cool. There's some really, really good stuff, that's for sure. I want to tie a bow on this mark with one last question, and feel free to take a second to kind of collect your

thoughts on this. But if, but if we had to create right now, Mark Druries three rules to successfully patterning bucks. If you had to have three statements, three things that everyone's got to keep in mind, or that the three rules they have to follow to become as good as you are at patterning bucks, What would those three final things be that we need to keep in our heads this season. First and foremost, keep every single solid picture you can um and then study them often. So pictures

are one part of the equation. Make sure that you keep them all and then every single picture you look at, ask why and then figure out why Even that two year old did what he did, and that will help you become better in the future. That's step one. Step two, be a slave to the weather and everything you do deer hunting. And I don't care if it's July one,

November one, or February one. Pay attention to the weather, and pay attention to what you're doing, how it affects the deer movement, how it affects your personality, your movement, and be a slave to the weather. Uh. Number three, when it comes to patterning, bucks, start taking really detailed notes about mass crops, about um overall crop rotation, about hunters habits. That's another thing you can pattern, not necessarily the dear, when's your neighbor hunting? Uh? When am I

in your hunting? Am I being too patternable for this? Dear? So analyze yourself and your environment and everyone around you as much as you analyze the deer. If you do those three things and then collectively add them all up and try to create plans for the future, you're gonna be a much better deer hunter and and and find some rewards out there that you aren't finding now. Yeah, great, great advice. I love this stuff. This is my favorite

thing to talk about. So so thanks for humoring me, Mark and getting on here to talk through these things. And I want to give a one last chance to uh tell folks where they can connect with you, where they can see all the great stuff you guys are putting out. How can they find deer Cast? What do we need to know about all those things? Absolutely deer cast dot com. Best way to get it. We've got a free version. We've got a version that's just prediction,

that's either nine or ten dollars. And now if you want your environment a lot of things I've been talking about here today, we've got a version that's that will give you one stake's plat data or unlimited for for seventy nine nine. So we've got a price point for everybody from free up to seventy five bucks. Deer cast dot com that you see everything in there, every social post, every deer that gets killed, every every deer season twenty two are semi live series. You can catch it there

or you can catch it on YouTube. Our staff is doing an amazing job bringing the stories out within sometimes within hours of when the deer goes down, or of course Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, where wherever you can find there outdoors we're there and happy to happy to talk to people. We've got a team of people that are that are just the best to the industry. In in my you know, biased opinion, I just think our team is just amazing.

We you take what Matt and Taylor and Josh and Carson and all our guys in St. Louis are doing, and Wade and Perry and Forest and Ben, I mean, they are really putting some unbelievable content out there for people right now to and we stay in our lane. We try to. We just stayed in our deer hunting and turkey hunting lane and we try not to get out of that. And you know, we try to love up on people as much as they've loved on us. Yeah. Well, you guys, UH continue to do world class work. I

love it. I've loved it for decades. I appreciate you, Mark, and Uh. I personally appreciate you, you know, always being willing to hop on here and chat and to answer my questions and to help sew so many people out. So thank you, thank you, Thank you absolutely. Mark. You're You're not the guy at the bar that I get

to see every day. You're that guy I get to talk to once or twice a year, and well, I can't wait to hear some some more stories from me down the road once you close the distance again on that big guy who evaded you the other night, or one of these other guys. So it's a good luck, my friend. I appreciate you, Mark, good luck out there. Be safe and that's a rap. Thank you for listening.

I hope you enjoyed that one. I hope that you, just like me, are going to be studying some trail camera photos tonight or maybe looking back on your journal of observations and thinking, m, what is this son of a buck gonna do? I am looking forward to it. I appreciate you, dear. Season is here. This is the good stuff, my friends. I'm having a blast. I hope you are as well. And until next time, stay wired to hunt.