Ep 588: Patterning Public Land Bucks with Jake Bush

month of Patterning Bucks that is our October series. Here in two we kicked it off with my story of my opening week success in October, how I developed a pattern of these bucks here leading to the opening day and end up getting one killed in Michigan. We followed that up with a master class with Mr Mark Drury talking about how he patterns these deer with some very detailed analysis on his private land spots there in Iowa

and Missouri and those next of the woods. And today we're going to take a different angle on this whole idea of patterning bucks by talking public land. Yep, we're talking about going out there into the masses. We're all sorts of folks are out there chasing deer too, and gonna see if we can actually dial in a plan on a deer and that kind of spot, and our guest today has proven that it's possible consistently. Jake Bush is a terrific deer hunter who's been getting on some

really good bucks in Ohio, Kansas, New York. He's got a pretty interesting story, which we'll get into a little bit here once he hops on. But to give you the cliff notes, Jake grew up in New York and loved deer hunting so much so that he eventually said, you know what, I'm pulling up stakes. I'm upbroading my life. I'm selling my house, I'm leaving everyone I know, and I'm going to the big buck land of Ohio and I'm gonna start a new where I can chase my

deer hunting dreams. I think a lot of guys have that dream, but just talk about it and never do it. Jake did it. Jake walked it. He didn't just talk it. And now he lives in Ohio and he's killing big, giant, kind of freaking nasty bucks in the public lands of the southern part of the state, or you know, somewhere around the central southern who knows. I'm not asking the details, but wherever he's at, there's some big deer and he

knows how to find him. So we are discussing all of that with Jake today, how he locates these deer, how he develops you know, develops that pattern, how he accumulates all the data he needs to make good decisions on how to hunt, on when to hunt. We talked through everything he's doing, you know, in winter on to the summer, and then a lot about what he is doing in season, both data collection in season and analysis of that data to help him put together really solid

hunt plans. And he's kind of in the middle of that process right now himself as he's trying to still locate a buck he wants to you know, really focus on after unfortunate bout of eh D in his area. So Jake's dealing with some tough hunting circumstances right now, but he's still grinding and I think we can all learn from that too. So today, if you hunt, you know, pressure private land, if you hunt public land, even I think if you hunt private that's great. You're gonna have

some interesting things you can learn here from Jake. I am excited for it, and uh, heck, I think we should just stop beating around the bush. We should get into the show. This is a good one, patterning public Land Bucks with Jake Bush. Check it out. Let's go all right here with me on the show. We've got Jake Bush. Welcome to the show. Jake, Hey, Mark, thanks

for having me. Yeah, I appreciate you coming on. I've been uh, you know, keeping tabs on you from afar in in as non creepy of a way as possible, and I'm glad that we've finally been able to connect and uh and make this happen. So, uh, this is uh, this is my kind of conversation. We're we're talking Bucks in October. We're talking about patterning them, and uh, that's one of my favorite things. Would you rate that somewhere

high on your list of things you'd like to do? Oh? Absolutely, Yeah, it's I tell everybody all the time, it's all about the chase. For me. The kill is just you know secondary. I I really like trying to figure these deer out and play the chess match and uh, you know, give them their spot and then just try to beat them however I can. Yeah, the chess match. That's that's it

right there. So so you are someone who has I mean, there's a lot of us that are obsessed with dear, but it seems like you have taken it to a slightly higher level than most because you uprooted your entire life to get after these suckers and uh as. As we already described in the intro. You know you you picked up from New York, you moved to Ohio and I think you're in year four now being down there. I guess my big question for you is this was

it worth it? Uh? So? Yes, absolutely it was. Um. You know, the cool thing about what I did and anybody that's done this is you uproot. You uproot your life. And you know, I sold the house to quit my job and moved down here. And at the time I stayed in a little six d square foot apartment for the first year. Um, but now I bought my dream home close to where I hunt. I have a family. You know, I've basically built my life around what I love to do now and that just makes everything so

much sweeter. Um. So yeah, I've I've had a blast. Yeah. So what about like expectations, has there been didn't didn't meet expectations? Like? What it what it feels like what life is like being down there in big Buck Countries didn't meet expectations. Has it seated? What's your take there, Oh, it's exceeded my expectations. Uh, by a lot. It's been absolutely awesome. You know, I live for it. I there's something about the hills down here that just kind of

draw me in and and captivate me. Um. You know, I'm getting excited for the leaves to fall off. I would say my favorite thing to do down here is scout and shed hunt and just try to, you know, locate the next one. And I can feel that in the air already. Um. I have a tag in my pocket still this year, so I get to incorporate that tag into that feeling, which is awesome. You know, I'm really excited to continue to try to find a good deer down here and chase them down and figure them out. Um.

But yeah, it's definitely exceeded expectations. Man. That's that's good news. Would be a real bummer to rip your whole life apart, show up and be like, oh man, this is not what it was all cracked up to be. But man, it seems like you've been able to figure it out pretty quick down there, and uh put together what seems like a year round kind of regiment that that works. And I guess that's you know, we don't need to

beat her on the bush. That's what I really want to dive into, is is what that year round process looks for you. Because we're we're doing this month Jake all about patterning bucks, and you know, there's a lot of different ways to go about that. There's a lot of different definitions I think of what a pattern means. You know, we just last week talked to Mark Drewy about how he patterns bucks and you know what that

means for him. And I guess I'm curious right out the gate, you know, for you doing you know, what's what's seemingly a primarily public land kind of thing. What does it mean to pattern a buck for you? You know, is that would you define it just like anybody else patterning deer on a farm and private land? Or is it a looser kind of idea for you on public What's how would you define it? What does that mean? Yeah? I would say that it's a much more loose idea.

Um for me, it's really about anticipation. And then capitalization on that. So, uh, you know, I'll locate a good deer in an area, and when I find a spot that I think either could hold a good one or I have some sort of actual intel of that deer, I like to tear the area apart with just boots on the ground. I like to find all the different betting areas and like the specific beds within those areas, so I can really put my plan together on how

close I can get when I'm hunting those spots. And then once I find the betting areas, I like to find the food sources. So I like to find secondary food sources, which would be like a briar patch on the way to a scrape, or a single white oak tree or a single red oak or late season chestnut oak. And that's kind of their first thing they're gonna hit before they get to their destination for the night. You know, there they have a destination in mind, and how are

they getting there? How can I capitalize on the bed to destination movement? But how can I capitalize on that early season when they're willing to move in daylight? And so I have to be pretty close to the bettings. So I'll try to you know, just pick those areas apart and look for little weaknesses. Like it could be something as simple as there's a betting area here that

he has a really good visual observation. But I can walk up a creek and there's a fallen tree, and I can set up on the back side of that fallen tree and watch him walk to that scrape at twenty yards. But if I access from any other direction,

he's got me. Or another thing that I'll do is I'll find a buck that's survived by UM, you know, going down in the drainage a specific way every night that there's a northeast wind, for example, like last year, and I knew that the only way I could kill that deer was making this big giant circle around the deer and actually coming in from up the wind of him, but staying just off wind enough on my access for over a mile to get around him and actually jay

hooking on him instead of him jay hooking in on me and kill him like that. So I'm just trying to locate a good deer, locate the betting, locate the food, and just find a weakness in between that that I can capitalize on UM and then obviously, and to spating

how he's going to shift throughout the season. That's why in a lot of these areas, it's really important for me to have multiple betting areas, multiple food sources, because when I'm working my way in on a hunt for like today, for example, I'll stop at the first food source and if that's not hot, well I'm going to continue. Well, I just bypassed that first betting area. I'm going to go to the next betting area because I didn't find what I wanted at that first food source or around

that area. I'm gonna continue working in and all of a sudden, okay, well there's a little scrape and there's a little rub and things are starting to heat up. And then I get into that last white oak flat and there's squirrels everywhere, there's acorns dropping, and there's a ton of deer. Sign Okay, this betting area is hot now. And I already know how to hunt this betting area

based on my scouting and those weaknesses I've found. I'm gonna go in and I'm gonna set up on that deer and try to capitalize and being able to anticipate how they're going to shift like that throughout the year is really important to me. I would hate to have a betting area and uh oak flat that I'm relying on and going there and it's not hot and then I don't I didn't anticipate what was going to happen when that dried up. You know, where were they going

to shift to? Where the red oaks at? If it's late season, where the chestnut oaks at? If you have agg nearby and it's a standing cornfield, how can I hunt that? Where's the betting area for that? Specific things? So those are all things that I'm trying to factor into the equation all year. Yeah, it seems like you've got like a huge mass of environmental factors that you need to kind of have dialed in, Like you need to know where these red oaks are, you need to

know where these little patches of briars are. You need to know where these different betting areas are. Um. You know Mark last week was talking about this with you know, so many people focus their patterns on just you know, what do the trail camera pictures tell me? And then what do I think they'renna do tomorrow? But really you have to factor in all those environmental parts that impact

what the deer does and why he does it. This has got to take a ton of time to figure out where all these betting areas are, where all these different food sources are. When does that patterning learning process start? Does that start in February? Does that start in the summer when you get eyes on a summer buck? What does that look like? To be completely honest with the market hasn't stopped in the four years I've been down here.

It's Uh, I really don't take any time off. I mean, it's something that I just I love doing that so much. It's my greatest passion. Um I. I just enjoy it so much, and so I just find myself consumed with

a year round. Uh. You know, It's it's hunting season down here right now, and I've only sat in a tree twice, but I've been in the woods ten or eleven times, and I've had days where I don't even take my bow with me because I'm I'm just out there trying to locate a good deer and figure out all those weaknesses on the fly and try to capitalize on it as quickly as I can. Um. I would say my favorite time of year to do that is going to be like late December through late April, but

year round, it's it's possible. And that's what I'm just trying to do. Is like you said, it's a ton of data that needs to be collected. Um and obviously the more time that you give yourself to do that, the more thorough you're going to be. I don't want to find myself rushing like I'm out in a rush now to kill a deer. I I have until early February here, so, um, I have plenty of time to find one and then come up with some patterns and stuff for him and anticipate a couple of things and

give them some hunts. But yeah, it's just a no rush approach. Just take my time and collect the data is thoroughly as I can. Yeah, So to quantify this,

I heard something that was pretty I don't know. I opening to me, I heard you say that in the typical season, and correct me if I'm wrong on this if I got wrong, But I think I heard you say typical season, you find up to one hundred mature bucks leading into the season or by the season, and then you fine tune that down to the top five or the top buck or two that you actually want to target and hunt. Uh. Is that is that true? Is that right? I would say very close to one

different bucks. Not necessarily mature, you know, even the two year old down here is they can be pretty decent deer, like they can be a hundred and fifteen inches um, but yes, very close to that number. And then normally that gets fined down, fine tuned into you know, about fifteen deer that are in the one FI plus range, and that was about the same thing this year, and then I'll have a couple that just stand out, and uh, I had one this year that stood out and he

died a VHD, And so I have two options. Really, I could go kill one of those other ones, or go hunt down one of those other ones, or I could go try to find that in that next level, dear, and I just really enjoy that chase of that next level deer. And so that's what I'm kind of looking for now. I'm just broadcasting my cameras back out, moving them around. I'm trying to just locate another one to

go after. Uh, what would that next level be? Is that like just a super unique huge buck or is that like man I want the oldest deer in the world, or what what's gonna turn you on? You know, I asked myself that all the time, and I think that I don't necessarily know if I have like an age or an antler size that is like the determining factor. Necessarily. I think that when I find the right deer, I'll just know that that's the one I want to go after. That's the one that I want to chase and give

everything I have towards. Um. And I'm just you know that could that could end up being a really old, gnarly and massive eight point or something like. I have no idea at this point, but I do think that once I find him, I'll know that that's the deer that I want to chase. UM. Yeah, yeah, man, love at first sight, it's real. Um. So you talked about how this is like a year round process. Let's let's start in those early months. Um, Really, you know what

you're doing to dial in? Like, like I guess that first steps like locating a deer and then starting to dial in that process. So in the maybe that's the question when you're trying to locate a deer or start the actual pattern is is that actually starting, you know, in those spring months or is that more so fine tune on deer you already know about and then you're locating like, oh yeah, this is a brand new buck I really want to shoot. Does that happen in summer glassing? Um?

Or maybe does? Does it not matter because you're just doing it all the time and you're slowly building the file on new deer and older Yeah, it's kind of all the time, and I use all of those so um obviously I'll go around in the springtime and I'll be checking new areas looking for like, bumping a good deer while he still got antlers on his head is a really good example. Like that tells you, Okay, I just saw uh, really big bodied, mature buck, like he's

got a lot of potential. That's a deer that I could see myself wanting to relocate this summer and then this fall to see what he turned into. Um So I'll do that. I have a ton of trail camera inventory from the past year, Like I run a little bit over sixty cameras, so I've got cameras distributed pretty much throughout southern Ohio. UM So I'll use that inventory to kind of say, Okay, I think these top ten deer going to turn into something, and I want to

keep tabs on these other ones and that whole process. Uh, those would be like the two primary things that I'm doing early season, like early in the spring. And then once I go in and I scout those betting areas and I'm I become really familiar with those areas and I feel like I have a good idea of what's going on, I'll start to venture out throughout shed season and shed season for me, like I love picking up antlers.

I would say normally I pick up anywhere from forty to fifty of them down here, and that gives me a really good idea, like real time intel, Hey this deer is in this general area. And yes, you know, they'll shift around quite a bit depending on how the location sets up. Um, you know, if it's the right spot, they really don't shift a whole lot. It's got a lot of clear cuts, or it's got uh different variety of oaks, or it's close to agg or things like that.

They could stay right in that one system. So I'll use those antlers as another form of inventory, and I'll do the same thing when I find a good antler, I'll go through that same area and scout it, just like I did the areas for the trail cameras and for like finding big tracks, and so I'll have all of that scouted out, and then once we get into June, I put my cameras out. I don't touch a single camera in the woods until September to check them, because

I'm anticipating that shift that's going to happen. If I check them too early, there's a good chance that those deer haven't shifted into those areas, and I might pull my cameras out, and then a week later a good buck moves in on some white oaks. I missed the opportunity at that deer. So I stay patient with the cameras. But what I do all summer is I glass a lot,

doing the exact same thing. Just I'll take the girlfriend and take my son and we'll go get ice cream, and we'll go for an hour drive and just check different areas and just see if we can turn up a good one like that. And if it's an area I have scouted, I can run and throw cameras at it. If it's an area that I haven't scouted. I will scout in the summertime and do the exact same thing. Uh So, yeah, it's just that year round, trying to

gain as much inventory as possible. Yeah, so let's let's start with the first thing mentioned, which was that early in the year bed scouting. Um, I understand, like you're walking around, covering a lot of ground, trying to find, you know, where these ideal bedding locations are. Can you tell me what you're like? What's the nitty gritty when you're when you're doing that, How how do you pull

as much data as possible from that? Because some guys will walk around a ridge system and they'll go out on a point and they'll see a bed and they're all right, buck bed, and they go walking onto the next one and then they find something else, like a couple of beds. All right, got some beds here, And you know, maybe the average guy will just keep that in their mind or maybe they'll pin it. But what are you doing above and beyond that to really pull

as much info out of that as possible? So it starts with the scouting, and I'm trying to locate very specific areas that set up a certain way and I've just had good success with finding big deer in those areas, and then I'll basically go into those spots and eliminate them throughout just boots on the ground. So uh, as far as he's scouting, I'm really looking for systems that set up with a lot of like a variety of topography and terrain on leeward ridges. So yes, dear bed

and live on the windward side of ridges. I just feel like the areas that I'm in and I've had better success and more success finding more mature bucks on those leeward ridges. So what I like to find is a system that sets up with a bunch of leeward ridges that kind of create a thermal hub down in the bottom. That thermal hub generally will have a really good scrape in it. I call it a hub scrape. And uh, you know, if I can whatever I can

stack into that system will make it better. If there's private egg nearby at like the head of the drainage, that's a plus. If there's a bunch of clear cuts on all the points of those ridges or in the bowls of those ridges, that's a plus. If it's good standing oaks, that's a plus if it's got a drainage that runs to the north or to the east. That's a plus in southern Ohio for me because our typical wind is south or west. So I'm scouting areas that set up the way that I feel like I can

hunt them efficiently right off the bath. Like, I'm not spending a ton of time in areas that would be difficult to hunt. And I think that might be one of the reasons that I have a little more success early seasons sometimes is because these areas just set up the right way right off the bat, Like I I don't have to go in with a weird wind or like have you know, different factors to help me out. They just set up really good the majority of the time.

Um obviously like hunter access. If it's a difficult area to hunt or I feel like it's going to be overlooked, that will help as well, especially if it's like around private, like you have to like go in and circle around Private to get back into this hub system, or if you have to go up and down a couple of ridges that seems to eliminate a lot of people right off the bat. So once I find the areas that I want to scout. Let's say in a year, it's

ten different spots that set up that way. I'll go into each spot and I'll go down in the hub system first, and I'll verify that there's good deer signs. Almost every single time I am I getting a hub down here, there's really good buck sign and there will be that hub scrape. And then once I find that scrape and I verify, okay, the system is getting used.

It it looks like what I thought it would and it's not too steep or too narrow or brushed out, or there's not like mud slide or a bunch of down trees in the bottom, and it's actually usable by

deer and it provides what they need. Then I'll branch out into the points of all of those ridges that kind of point down into that hub, and I'll just start looking for deer sign I'll start looking for you know, basically going to and from their betting areas and um, you know, I'll pick out all the betting areas that I can on a map, but a lot of times I get into these locations and the betting will be

set up a little bit differently. Uh you know, if it's uh area with a bunch of clear cuts, it's gonna set up differently than area that's just like old standing timber um. They use them totally different. And what I found is like the train position lines will show you pretty much what you need to know as far as clear cuts to standing timber um. But yeah, I'll get up on on the points of these ridges, I'll

look for beds. I'll look for beds in the bowls of the ridges, and then once I start verifying those specific beds, I'll start marking all of those down on the map. And then once I had that information, I'll start branching out to the trails leading to and from all the destination food sources and trying to pick out this specific food sources. Okay, do you do any more

fine detail work on specific beds? Like I know some guys and I think I've heard you say this before something like this, but a lot of guys like to get in the beds and really think through how close can I get? What are they? When are they bedding here? YadA, YadA, YadA.

Are you going to that level of detail yet at this point or are you gonna wait until you fine tune down to your top Bucks and then be thinking through Okay, if these are the real, you know, top couple of spots I want to focus on, now, I'm going to dial it. So it depends on the situation. Um. Sometimes I'll wait until I find the food sources that I'm looking for, and sometimes I will always do it regardless of the deer that I find there. Basically, but

it depends on at what point I do it. It It could be the first dam in there when I'm finding the beds. It could be the second day in there when after I locate all the food sources. The one thing that I like to do, yes, absolutely get down in the beds. In each bed I like to be able to see what they can see, kind of like visualize what they would be able to hear, what they

would be able to smell. I'll do a lot of wind mapping in this time, um, and I'll also verify that it's like an annual bed like year after year by going through the different layers of leaves. If it's not completely worn to the ground and you start pulling back different layers of leaves and you find hair and all of those different layers, well, now you know it's not just the winter bed or like a seasonal bed, it's used a lot like they're they're they're more often

so those are priority beds for me. And normally when you get in these systems like you can, you can find the primary beds and they're they're typically in uh, like let's say, like a the acres circle, and then you'll see like subordinate betting, which is a lot less used, or it doesn't set up the right way, or it has like a direct weakness right next to it, like they would be out in the open, or they wouldn't

have cover behind them or things like that. The best beds will always be, in my opinion, where the biggest bucket is going to be. Um, he's kind of taken over that spot over time. But yeah, I'll go through all those different things and then just try to formulate how close that I can get based on that food source. And that's gonna be the really important thing is It's

not it's not just finding the betting for me. It's finding the betting and saying, Okay, if he's betted here, he's feeding here, and if he's feeding over on this other ridge, he's not betted here, he's betted over in the other betting area the majority of the time. So if he's if he's betted here and he's feeding there, how can I get close to him. Let's say subs on that route and I don't really care about the other routes leaving this betting. I care about this specific

route to that, like one white oak. How can I get close to that? And That's what I'm trying to really come up with these spots. It's like that one, that one weakness that he has that I can kill him on, and then I would just move to the other system once I once I find what I need in that first one. Yeah, So with that level of detail,

like on just one of these locations. And then also I'm sure you're thinking through a well, they're feeding on this thing probably in September, but once we get to late October, maybe they're off the acorns and they're on something different. So maybe you've got a couple of different transitions throughout the year planned in your head to for each of these different possible locations, and then you've got dozens of these locations. How do you keep track of

it all? Do you do you take notes? Do you have like I don't know, do you have just all of this on Onyx or whatever map app tool you use, or how do you keep track of not just like where these things are, but then also like all the different betting defeating combinations and when stuff is happening, and how do you do that? So for him mental worry, I have an Excel spreadsheet and then I have a bunch of folders of these pictures based on like the

specific deer. I'll break it down to specific wind directions or even food sources for that specific buck. Um. As far as like actual routing goes, like how I think he's gonna get up and move, or how close I can be, or pictures of my access routes. You know, I'll take pictures and say like, okay, you need to go under this log because if you go over this log, he could see you for the two seconds it would take for you to get over top of it, or um.

Things like that. I will use a journal, Like so I had a journal that I would just write down for a long time. I've moved to journaling just in my apps, and that's that's helped me a lot. That way, it's it's easier to go through. It's a little more mobile for me. Um. But yeah, I'm logging every single thing I do. I mean, there's there's no way that

I could keep up with all that information. Um. And then one thing I really like to do too is I like to make sure I'm zoomed all the way in on my app when I'm laying down, like a pin for a bed or a pin for a specific food source. And then I'll draw like the travel route lines with just like the line tool to and from that betting that I think they're going to use. And that helps me a lot too, because you know, checking these areas in the spring and then only going in

one time, it looks a lot different. Typically when you're gonna hunt late September early October, and I find myself, I mean, I'm staring at my phone the entire way into the woods when I'm accessing these spots. The only the really the two things that I'm doing is I'm staring at my phone. I'm throwing milky at the entire time on an access for a hunt. I mean, it

takes like I I really don't. I typically don't hunt mornings, especially early October, because I like the whole plan of the afternoon that I have where I'll leave the house around ten or eleven o'clock. I'll do the exact same thing today. Actually, i'll leave the house probably around eleven. I'll go out to an area and I'll just like methodically work my way in, and a lot of times it takes me. Let's say it's a half mile access, I might not be in the stand for four or

five hours even. I mean it is a very like I do a lot of crawling. I do. I make sure that there's some sort of other noise when I'm stepping over anything that's loud, like if it's crunchy leaves, I'll take one step every five minutes. If I have to waiting on like a squirrel, the chatter or the wind to blow. Because I just with all, with all this work that goes into a year round, I would really hate to mess up my access and blow that deer out when I could have just taken my time

and been methodical. And on the flip side of that too, I don't want to miss any intel on the way in, like, oh, there's this tree is hot, and I didn't catch this one in my scouting. Maybe I need to set up a little bit differently, But yeah, I'm I'm paying a lot of attention to the to the logs and my phones. I study those journals and those notes before I go out every day, and I just try to be as methodical as possible with that one fall up on the sheds.

You were talking about the shed hunting aspect two of your spring scouting, um, and the fact that that that does help you a little bit, But I'm just curious. You know, the actual location of a shed you find a big angler? Is that? You know? How important is that? I know that it's important. I know it tells you,

oh wow, big one made it. But do you actually look at that bed you found the shed and say, Okay, even though this is February or March, this is still an important data point or in your mind, are you thinking, man, he's not gonna be anywhere near this come October next year. I know he's somewhere within a mile, or I know he's somewhere within fids, But I'm not too obsessed with this actual aler location, Like how much does that factor

into a pattern. There's a lot of factors that will that I'll base my decision on that around um, you know, It could be if it's a really warm spring and we have a bunch of south winds and I find his shed in a betting area that sets up for a south wind, like let's say it's like a northeast slope because we don't have any snow. Um, then yes,

that that's gonna hold quite a bit of value for me. Now, if we have a foot of snow and these deer moved into the only chestnut oak ridge within five miles, that's dropping any acorns, that's gonna hold a little less value. But I will still say, Okay, he's in this system somewhere, and then I can I can work on going through my maps and picking out those leeward ridges for hunting season again, so the south ridge or the north facing

ridges for like a south wind h and things like that. Um. And then it depends on how close it is to like a specific food source. There's gonna be a lot of different factors. And that's really for hill country too. And my thought process when I was in New York was totally different because we would get anywhere from you know, we could have two ft of snow on the ground, we could have four ft of snow on the ground up there, and it would shift the deer a lot,

like it would shift them miles. We're down here in southern Ohio. We're lucky to get a couple of inches of snow a year, and I don't feel like they moved there. They shift their patterns as much um. Another factor to that is a lot of the areas that I'm targeting, I'm trying to find spots where I think the deer will spend more of their year there. So if I find like there's two areas for example, so the first area is a hub system that has a

bunch of clear cuts and a variety of oaks. The second system is an area that has private egg out at the head of the drainage, very few oaks and no clear cuts. Well, the egg was let's say it was a standing cornfield that got cut way early, like late September, for example, and there's no food left in that field, and then there's no oaks up in the ridges and there's no brows for these deer, They're going

to shift a lot. But if it's in and they'll shift throughout the year, and it's gonna be more difficult to pattern those deer. But that first area that I described has the clear cuts, so it has brows that has better thermal cover for winter, it has better bedding cover in the summertime they're eating that browse. There's a variety of oaks throughout the fall to where they can kind of stay in that system, like it's just going

to hold deer better. And so I will focus more on spots like that because I can get more intel out of that location than I can an area that they only spend a month in. Yeah, it's a great point. So let's some let's push more into the summer now and focus a little bit more. And what you talked about, you do a lot in the summer, which is taking the family out for drives, glassing up deer. Um, can you give me a little more detail about the specific

specifics of that. I understand you're covering ground, getting glass on these fields that you know, last hour daylight or whatever it is, but you know, do you get specific do you get that for specific bucks and like obsess over a specific field or two because you know your number one is hopefully in that area, or you know, more generally if it's not that kind of thing, you know, how are you keeping tabs on this stuff, and how

important is that summer sighting? Again, back to these patterns, is it just okay big bucks in this area, or is it okay big buck is in this specific field with a westerly wind. So I think, you know, since this is August, he's betting here in October, that might mean X or Y, Like how detailed does it get for the summer settings. So that shifted a lot since

I've been in Ohio. When I was in New York, I had a lot of success glassing like alf alpha fields all summer and then making a play on that deer the first day or two of season when I had the right conditions. Uh, And that would work quite a bit. Down here, the focus is a lot different. Um. You know, a lot of our egg that I'm glassing is bean fields, Like the majority of it's going to be bean fields, and those beans typically will dry up and get cut before season. This was an odd year

down here. They planted him late, so that we still have some green some green beans actually around my area. Um,

but typically those beans will get cut. And so all I'm trying to do is just get that visual observation of a good buck, and I only need it one time, Like, if I know he's there one time, there's no sense of me going back and watching him go to the bean field five nights a week when I know that that's gonna get cut and then he is going to revert back to the acorn flat three quarters of a mile away. Um, And my cameras are up on those

flats anticipating that shift that's gonna happen. They're not like even on public egg around here. My cameras aren't necessarily on the public egg because I can glass at, but I utilize them better back into the woods where I believe they're gonna shift come early September. So that's something that I focused on. But but yeah, mainly it's just once I get an eye on a good one in that area, I kind of you know, okay, there's a good buck here. I think that he's gonna do this.

I already have my camera staged or I don't, and I'm going to go in and put those cameras up based on that, and then I'll moved to a new area. Um And you know, every once in a while we might just make a drive and go past that same field as like fun thing. To do, or maybe it's closer to home and we don't have a bunch of

time or anything like that. But yeah, typically I'm just gonna keep moving and keep finding different deer and just try to add it to that list as many deer as I can, so casting a pretty wide net in those early months. Um, you mentioned cameras. What are the trail camera locations you use generally at this you know, for this kind of patterning and is it you know, can you talk through how that might shift throughout the

season two? Yeah, So for the most part, they're gonna be in the same locations year round for me, And it's just whether it's early season, whether it's summer, whether it's the rut. I find these deer using these hubs a lot. Um. You know, you talked to like Andy May for example, and Andy hunts a lot of these hub systems are like where there's a lot of UH topography that comes together during the rut and he's the

best hunter out there. So they work. They obviously work. Um, But yeah, so I run my cameras and I'm pretty much year round, and I have inventory on these hub scrapes pretty much year round. I mean, now, whether it's

February or whether it's June or October, November. I'll have bucks hitting these scrapes year round own down in these hub systems because they're dropping out of these beds, and because the points of these hubs that drop down set up for a lot of different winds typically, like they'll even set up for a lot of north winds, especially northwest if the drainage goes east. Um. But yeah, so

I'm running the majority of my cameras on hubscrapes. And now it could be the primary hub down in the bottom, or it could be like so, okay, where the where the main ridges come down. So you have two drainages that turn to one, so you'll have three ridges. You'll have like the center ridge that's facing east, and then you'll have a ridge that faces north in a ridge that faces south. They meet at like that X. That's

gonna be probably the best spot for inventory. And I run cameras and pretty much every one of those that's

in a system that I like. And then as you go up those two drainages that converged, typically what you'll have is you'll have more hubs as you go further into those drainages, and you gain a little bit of elevation where you'll have like sub ridges or even a lot of times better bedding ridges because they're smaller, they don't get as much activity that will dump down and create another hub, and those are like secondary hub systems.

I'll run cameras in those secondary hubs as well, and then uh, and then I'll run them in like some of the terrain features up higher in elevation, like it could be at the top of a hog's back when in between betting and a white oak, for example. I run cameras in a lot of spots like that. UM. But yeah, typically it's going to be in some sort of trail convergence in these systems, and if I don't do that, it's gonna be on like terrain feature to just try to catch a general movement. Every once in

a while. You mentioned that you usually find these hub scrapes down the bottomost thermal hubs. What if you don't find one there, do you make one? Do you make a mock scrape or do you just place it where you think that convergence is, UM, tell me about that. So I've started doing mock scrapes recently and now, yes, I will do that down the bottom for a long time.

If I didn't find that hub scrape, To be completely honest with you, I wasn't as fired up about that area, and I would just try to find one that had like that natural scrape because that's telling me that there's been mature deer in that area, like kind of battling over that section for a long time. If you find like a big, old worn in the ground community scrape, there's been a lot of activity there. If you don't have that, I kind of asked myself, like, is there

not any good bucks here? Is there only like maybe one good buck and the system doesn't hold a multiple good bucks? Because that's what I'm really looking for, is I'm looking for that competition between deer. Like let's say you have two to three deer in one of those systems that are four or five years old. Because of all the different subridges and little bowls and little pockets that they can bet in, it will hold more than one good deer. They just seem to use that scrape

more often. So I've kind of noticed that on my cameras too, Like if I do create a mock scrape, they do work, especially for one deer, but they might not get as much activity in some of these spots because they're not like the activity wasn't there to begin with, So I'm trying to just like create that activity almost. Um with these cameras. What is your you know, breakdown between standard traditional cameras versus cell do you do you

use cell cameras? If so, do you place those in any kind of different location or do you have a different way of utilizing those. So southern Ohio doesn't have a ton of cell service. Um, if it did, I would use them differently than I do. I would probably run more cell cameras down in like the hub scrapes. I feel like that's probably that's one of the most lethal things that you could do in in hill country with the cell cameras running on one of those hub

scrapes in the bottom. Do you have service and then if it heats up, I mean you can go and kill that deer on the right condition without intruding and

checking cameras. That is a huge advantage. UM. What I do with them, Like, I run probably six or seven cell cameras and they're on the tops of ridges and they're really trying to catch a deer like shifting over the ridge mid day if if there's like a wind shift day, and that's just like inventory that I could use to my advantage come season, even if it's in let's say early September. I get a buck at ten am.

He was betted down for a south wind and we just had like a south and north wind change around that time. What I've noticed, if that wind shift happens early enough, is a lot of these deer will shift sides of the ridges, especially if the top of that ridge is brushy and it has a little bit of cover. Um. What I've started to find is I'll find these scrapes on the top of ridges that are in between those betting areas that he's using, and he'll check that scrape

mid day on that wind shift. Well, now I know that that deer is in the area. So for me, it's an inventory thing. I can say, Okay, I'm not going to kill that deer there there. I probably wouldn't even set up on top of the ridge to kill that deer unless I had like the perfect condition, and I'm not using it to target that deer there. But what it's telling me is that deer was in the betting area that is for the south wind on the

specific day, and he probably uses it more often. The only reason I caught him was due to that wind shift. But at least I know that he exists in that area, and now I have a beat on him, like I know he's there. I know that I can make a play on that deer on this condition if this oak flats hot and it could be like I said, it could be a south wind all day and I could go target that deer. But I caught him on that switch. Interesting.

It's very it's very interesting to see those little kind of little habits that you can identify with cameras that way. So if most of your cameras then are traditional cameras, and it sounds like a lot of them, you're running deep in these thermal hubs, a few up on the ridges and stuff. Um, I guess the question is how do you access those cameras and when do you access those cameras to get data that you can actually use. I know you mentioned you put them out in the summer.

You check them for the first time in mid September ish, that's going to give you your first read on Okay, who's in my area. Now that that September shift has happened, what about from that point on, how often you check them from that point on, and how and when do you do that so that you're not messing up your hunts. So it really depends on what the first camera poll gives me for intel on how I'll go in and

check those spots. But I do have a rotation this year, for example, where I don't have my tag field yet, and so I'm basically on the on the correct on the on the day that the conditions are correct to go into that spot and hunt it, that's the day that I will go on there and check those cameras and I'll normally check him with my stand on my back, take my my tree stand, my camera gear, everything that I need, and I'll hunt my way into that spot

just like I typically would, and I'll check that hubscrape camera and if that hubscrape camera is hot. Like let's say that I had a target buck on there three days over the last two weeks, but it was on like a southwest wind every day. Well, I'm going to take a shot at that deer and if he was there, and if he was coming off of multiple ridges and you can see him entering at different angles. That's going to change my approach a lot. If that's the case,

I'll out the hubscrape, especially if he was daylighting. Um, but if he's there like right after dark a lot of times, what that tells me is I need to push up onto that ridge system and get closer towards that that secondary food source that I was telling you about earlier and try to hunt him going to that secondary food source. Um. I'm only going to be as as aggressive as I need to be in that situation to like, like I said, if i can kill him

on the hubscrape, I'm absolutely going to do that. But yeah, basically I will. Like today, for example, I put uh four cameras out last week in a different location. It had really active food source. The white Oaks and red Oaks were dropping like crazy, and it had a really good hub that had a ton of sign in it, and so I put some cameras on that. It sets up good for a southwest wind where they're better than

a clear cut that's facing north. So today, after the podcast, I'm gonna get all my gear ready and put my stand on my back and I'm just gonna work my way up that drainage, and I'm gonna check the two different hubscrape cameras that I have, and if they're hot, I can make a play on that deer. And if not, my thought process is, I have four cameras in the

truck and I'll just back out. I'll put my stand in the truck, I'll grab those four cameras and I'll go into a totally different system and lay four more cameras out. Um. And that's just kind of how I'm how I'm doing that right now. I'm checking cameras early, and if it's ready to hunt, I'll hunt it, and if not, I'll back right out and I'll go to a new spot and lay down more cameras, and if it's completely dead or the food source dried up, I will even pull those cameras so I have more for

the next spot, you know, a couple of days later. Yeah, what about this? What if you go in there to day and you get like the one on camera but it's not daylighting yet, but you you get one that gets all your fuzzies up and you're like, oh wow, this is this is the one I've been looking for, and he's showing up here an hour after dark still, but he's around. Are you going to change your camera or patterning process in any way now that you've found like the one Are you all of a sudden going

to put four more cameras in this zone? Or are you going to take those other three and zoom them all in tighter to the one spot he was a bunch? Or do you do anything different to start collecting data once you've narrowed it down to to the one buck you want? That would be really situational. Um, but I would say that I could I could see myself doing all of that, and I could also see myself if it's an area that I'm a lot a lot of the spots where I'm putting cameras right now, I already

have scouted pretty good. It's just I didn't run cameras there because I had like my top five locations. But say that this is like number ten or number eleven, and he's just there. I knew it had potential, but I don't think it has as much potential year after years the other spots. So so you know my top five spots didn't do good this year. Um, so go into like number ten for example, and the situation that

you just you just said happens. I already have a lot of that scouted, and I would probably take a shot on that deer and just scout my way up further based on my previous scout acknowledge. And that's what's so useful about having all my logs and journals on my phone for those spots and then having like those specific routes. I could say, Okay, he hit the scrape, you know three times. The wind that day was south wind. Okay for a south wind, he's there's two betting areas

that set up here. This food source is hot, but he's not getting here till after dark. He's probably in that other food store and the other betting area, and I have the secondary food source marked for that other betting area. I'm gonna go take that chance of that deer right now, Like I'm gonna be really aggressive and just go for it. Um. But that would be situational. That wouldn't be something that I do every time. If it would just have it would depend on the situation. Yeah, okay,

I want to dig into something you've mentioned there. You talked about like you found the pictures you saw that it was all in south wind and you happen to have a south south wind that day, So you would take a step when you look at this data like your pictures, how tight do the conditions of the appearance on camera? How have to line up with the conditions on a day you're considering hunting for you to actually

try to use that pattern, you know? I mean, like for example, in Iowa private land, you might say, well, I know that when this buck you know comes back into this betting area on trail camera with anything with a westerly wind, I know he's gonna come back out to this food plot, like you can really tightly sometimes

figure the connections out. Or if there's a high pressure cold front and day, I know he'll come out in daylight on a public land situation like you're describing, do you do you obsess over that specific link like you just mentioned the south and south because of the betting or will you say, well, he showed up on south winds, but I only have a west wind today and tomorrow, so I gotta go for it, yes or no? Any

of that. I that's a really good question. So I would say that it's it's pretty loose to be honest with you, and it it's gonna be on how they like. These areas all set up differently. Like, for example, my betting area could be bull in between two sub ridges that jut out on the main ridge, but it could like work out into those ridges where it provides better

betting for like different winds. Um, I have spots that set up only for a south or only for a west, but a lot of these areas do set up for like a southwest or you know, a version of that wind. I would say, as long as it's as long as it's close, I would I would take that opportunity as long as I think that I have the advantage at the spot I want to kill him, So like can I get in there? Can I Can I be clean with my access? And can I just take a shot at him? Um? I would probably do that, And that's

that's probably pretty aggressive. I find myself doing those more, those sort of sits more often. UM. But if it was like a north wind, for example, then I wouldn't probably be in that system unless it's set up really good for north wind betting. It's just it's gonna be it's gonna be really situational. UM. But yeah, I would find myself probably, I don't know. It's situational. Man, that's a tough one. Well, how about this one. Here's another

kind of situation that I think pops up. Sometimes you get a handful of great you know, either observations or daylight photos of a buck year after and he's daylighting over the course of a week, and you finally go in there and check your camera and you see that you say, oh, wow, the last six days or whatever, he has daylighted three or four times in here. That's great. And you're in there right now and you've got a couple of days off and you can hunt today or

tomorrow on the next day. The problem is the conditions you have right now are are not good. So maybe he was daylighting when it was kind of cool and nice, and today and tomorrow the next day it happens like

really hot. Do you push it, like you just described, even in that circumstance, even though he was moving on the cold front, and now it's hot because you know he was daylight yesterday or two days ago, So I gotta go for or would you back out because man, I realized now, like it's just too hot and creuddy or it's like winds or something that's not really would make you back out, I would hunt it. I would

definitely hunt that. And uh the reason being is a lot of these hubs and a lot of these cameras that I have are within like let's say, maximum like two yards from the betting and so I don't see, uh, like, those cold fronts are great for general movement, but when I'm hunting that tight to betting, I don't see a lot of difference. And whether it's a cold front or it's ninety like two out of the last three years,

I've killed my dear in over eighty five degrees. My biggest buck ever was ninety five degrees at three in the afternoon, but I was sixty yards from his bed, and so that's something like I would definitely take that opportunity. As long as my wind isn't completely wrong, the conditions wouldn't matter, wouldn't hold a lot of weight for me at that point in time. As long as I have a good wind where I'm not going to just blow out the betting area, I would definitely take a shot

at that. Interesting, what about any of these other factors that folks like to obsess over. Do you do you give any credence to move own stuff? Barometric pressure stuff, does that factor whatever? As I get later into season, into the rut, I think that I could find myself focusing a little more on barometric pressure, um the moon.

I've never paid any attention to, to be honest with you, I've, like I said, I'm just so close to the betting normally that if the deer is there for that specific win day and the food source is hot, I'm like, typically he he doesn't have to move more than thirty or forty yards and I can shoot him. And so that's what I'm more focused on. I'm focused on just like just the betting plan and how close he's gonna be, and like where he's gonna travel. And I think that

I don't. I've never seen barometric pressure hold a deer in his bed until dark. Like I feel like they, at least in my experience, they typically if they're in that bed, they will get up and move a little bit. It might be ten yards or twenty yards, and it might be at last light. But I always feel like there's a little opportunityy there, and that's what I'm trying

to capitalize. On like I. Yeah, I could sit back in some of these spots and hunt them four yards away, and then I'm sure I could wait for the stars to align and wait for all those factors to come into play, like barametric pressure and like a red moon uh day where the movement times up perfectly and all

those things. But being on public and having other people hunting these deer and having these deer shift around a lot based on food sources, when the opportunity is in front of me, I just have to go in tight to the bedding and take the shot. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. You know, one thing we haven't talked about, and I gotta believe you have. Some of this is history from previous years, you know, whether it be sightings from past years or pictures from past years.

Does that factor into your patterns at all? Or with public? Does that stuff not hold up? Daniel patterns not hold up in your neck of the woods, No, it definitely does. That's something that I focus on quite a bit where if I have a buck that I've been following for two or three years, and I've had cameras in that area, and then I see like how he's shifting through that system throughout the fall. I will definitely play that to my advantage and I'll use it for like planning my

access routes and to kill that deer. For how I want to lay my cameras out, you know the following year, how I would want to check them um, and then basically how I would how I wouldhunt that deer. I'm I'm looking at that inventory and the intel a lot um. You know, I've had a lot of deer that as they ship, like I might have my tag field already,

but I'm still gaining that every year. Uh two years ago, I chased the deer based on that information, and I knew that a specific spot really heated up with his activity, like he would be on the scrapes every day in this one betting area late October it was like the November four There was like a six or seven day window there, and I targeted that deer based on that and had two or three different encounters with him and

just couldn't seal the deal. But it got me in the game on that specific deer where I could have been out somewhere totally different if I wouldn't have had that in that until Yeah, what would you say is the best time of the season two pattern a buck on public lands pattern kill a buck. I've heard you talk a lot about the early part of the year. Is that is that the time? Is that why you love that time of year or is there some other part?

Early season is to me, hands down the best opportunity at targeting a deer and killing him like and the reason being is you you can spend all year gaining that data for that one hunt, all summer gaining data. You can put all the pieces together and then go in and just take that shot at him, if you know, like this year, for example, early seasons come gone and we're coming into mid October now and things are gonna

start changing. So I would say that the best opportunity for me to do that now would be late season here, so we get to hunt in January, and I would say that early season has been like through camera data and then being out in the woods, early season has been the time that I found like the most consistent deer movement and the most like I can just I can I know what they're generally gonna do. But late

season would definitely be second. Like January, I have just as many good bucks that are very consistent that time of year is just normally I'm tagged out. Um, but

I do try to get other people those deer. And so that's something that you know I have in the back of my head this year is I have spots that heat up late season, where like I haven't located a good buck yet, but some of these spots, like a chestnut oak ridge that's dropping really good, We'll have deer from miles come to that ridge late season in some of these areas, and so there's a good chance that there would be a good one there, like there's been the last two years, and I can get on

him and chase him based on not only that the annual data like we were talking about the historical data, but based on the fact that he's just gonna shift back into that area for that food source. YEA, So early season, late season best times of year to pattern a buck. What do you think about the rut? Can you pattern a deer in your kind of area? I'm public land during the rut or at that point do you throat all off the window? Um, I'm I'm probably the worst person to talk to about the rut because

I love early season. I focused on that so much, and I've been fortunate enough to feel quite a few of my tags in that first like week time frame. Um. I did fill my tag in the rut two years ago though, and I ended up filing my tag hunting

a buck betting area like I've walked in. One day, I found a bunch of scrapes opened up in a bottom, and I told myself, he's in that betting area and he's gonna come out just like he normally would like, Yes, he's probably going to go look for doze that night, but I'm gonna hunt him just like he said in his bed, and he's dropping down out of this drainage. And I went in and he did. He stood right up out of his bed and came to eighteen yards. Uh so yeah, for me, I don't I can't find

a pattern there. Maybe the only pattern would be that historical like three to four day windows when some of these maybe the dough groups are are going into heat or uh like the deer just filtering through these areas for whatever reason. But typically for me, it's a free for all. It's they're all over the place, and I feel completely out of my element because I'm not playing the chess match necessarily, um, and there's guys that can do that and that are very good at playing that match.

I just down here in the hills, I haven't had very much success doing that. Yeah. Well, I don't think you're too unique in that. I think there's a lot of people that heather heads scratched, the scratching their heads when it comes to uh early in mid November when they're after specific deer at least, it's it's it's definitely

a little bit wilder. Um. You know, something we didn't talk a lot about, but I mean you've mentioned here and there, but what about like the physical actual sign on the ground when you're doing this in season patterning. You know, let's say we're we're you've you've cast your wide net already and you've narrowed it down like there's a deer year after, or there's a couple of deer year after and a couple of zones you're focusing on. You've got your cameras in the hub scrapes, you've checked

them a time or two. You have a little bit of history with these deer. So so there's a lot of data not to work with. How does you know actual tracks on the ground or bigger rubs or scrapes factor into you know, your data set, is it? Do you not even need that stuff because you've already scouted it, you already had the pictures and now you're just hunting or you still looking at that stuff and tweaking and

fine tuning stuff. You know, in October or whatever time of year, it is, yeah, that that ground data is going to be hu especially this time of year, starting to get into mid October, when the deer shifting around, like almost on a daily basis, some of these white oaks are drying up and they're shifting off the white so on the reds, or they're shifting over to some sort of bag, or you know, they're bouncing around a

lot um. So a lot of times I can get into the right drainage and within like fifty yards of walking into that drainage, in my head, I know whether I'm gonna be close to killing one or not. And it's just like you start walking in and it's like scrape, scrape, scrape,

They're all opened up. Well, I know that those are the secondary scrapes where he's just running out the strainage at night, But I know where his primary is and if these are open and his big tracks are here and they look like they got kicked up this morning while I'm in the game, and I'm gonna go in

with you know, I'm going in to kill um. But if you get into the you know some of these drainages that have historically had that really good sign, if I go in there and they're just dried up, I'm I'm gonna have a lot of different approach to that, especially this year with the h D thing down here, that's gonna play a big role because if I get in the areas and there's just no deer sign, like you know, before the podcast, we were talking about a couple of these white oak flats I found that have

very little deer sign on them and they're actively dropping. Well, there's a problem there. Something something's not right, and I'll probably just vacate that area and not spend a ton of time there because there should be a bunch of sign there and historically there has been, and something is

just off this year. So you know, if I go into pull cameras and my cameras are telling me there's nothing there and there's no sign, it's it's I'm just gonna vacate that area now if I go in to pull my cameras and my cameras aren't hot, but there's a bunch of sign and I'm just off with my cameras. Well, I'm gonna figure out how to hunt that spot and figure out what kind of deer is in there and how I can target him because I'm just not set

up right. Yeah, you know that brings up a question, Um, you know, actual observations of deer in season when you've got us scenario like that where you where you think there's something going on in the area, but your cameras haven't quite told her what it is. Do you do you do observation type sits in that kind of habitat? Is there a way to do that where you're, you know, trying to be low impact and learning with your eyes, but you know, not necessarily plunging right in for a

kill hunt. Can you Can you do that on public land and you're kind of habitat? Yes? Absolutely, And the more the leaves fall off, the better those opportunities get. So by late October when most of the I would say the majority of the leaves are off down here, Um, I can sit on an adjacent ridge with like a south wind in my face and watch that north slope

all morning with just glass. I can glass like you would be out west and just watch the deer filter back into those betting areas and then I can make a play based off that. And that's something that I will do quite a bit this year, especially late season, like late season, having that having the eyes on the deer that morning is going to be huge to me

if I get in that situation. Um, And I'll even do it now, Like the sits that I've taken this year are are basically observation sits because there was signed in that area, so I haven't had the data that I need or basically knew there was a buck there I want to target and I don't want to completely blow out that area, so I can sit back and just watch an oak flat from afar with a good wind and make sure I can get out of their clean And I'm just observing some of these spots. So yeah,

that's something that I focused on quite a bit. Do you do any kind of UM, I guess I don't know, is is UH is shining or anything like that legal in Ohio. I can't remember what it is down there. No, it is not legal in Ohio unfortunately. Okay, do you ever do evening drives and and actually look for deer on the edge of fields at all in season? I don't know if these big bucks ever rolling down to

egg in daylight at that point. Probably, But is that something that ever happens when you're really struggling to find these deer or something like that. I haven't done it a whole lot down here, to be honest with you. And it's a lot of that has to do with the egg just getting cut and enroll and then it dries up within a couple of days, it seems like, after getting cut. But yeah, the majority of it's going to be trying to find spots that I can observe

in the woods, like in the hard woods. Okay, well, let's let's zoom out just a little bit more. I feel like we've got a good sense of you know, how you're getting all this data. I'm kind of I wonder if I wonder what your nights look like. Well, this is gonna sound weird, you know, Like on an in season October night, I'll be sitting on my computer or sitting a bell on my phone. And there's that

scene in The Hangover. I don't know if you remember this, but there's the scene the Hangover where Zach Galafanakis was playing something in Vegas and then he's doing the whole rain Man thing where you see like all these numbers in his head and he's like trying to dial in exactly what's going on. There's a great little gift the people share these this time of year, where basically he's thinking through every possible scenario that could happen in his

card game. I feel like that's me in season, where every night I'm like looking at my pictures and looking at my spreadsheet and looking at the weather and looking at the wind direction and looking at my maps, and my nights are just this endless analysis of what might happen tomorrow. Where should I go tomorrow? Or or when should I shift to this place during the weekend. What does the typical in season night, if that's when you

do this kind of stuff look like for you? And can you kind of walk me through an example of of how you pair down or come up with a plan for the day. You know, are you looking at a really wide area still and thinking there. Well, today, I could do this, but I don't have the right wind or these cameras tell me x So I'm gonna do something different, Like what does the analysis part of your process look like in the season. So you pretty

much nailed it, honestly. I mean it's hours and hours every night, whether it's on the couch or at the table or laying in bed, just going through my phone, going through all my logs, going through any data I have, trying to come up with a with a plan for

the next day. Um. You know, last night I was on my maps going through everything, and I decided, after looking at the wind, looking at the hourly data, looking at like windy for the specific directions of the day, and how I think these currents are going to play into some of these areas, I came up with an access route for today for that one spot to check the cameras I was telling you about. And then if I get in there and that's dried up and those

cameras aren't telling me anything good, I'll back out. And then you know, last night I found a new area that's uh probably twenty miles south of there that I want to go check. And it's it sets up good for the wind of the day, and that's one of the biggest things. It's like sets up good for a for a southwest or a south wind. Uh So I'll go into that system and then I'll lay down those new cameras And that's kind of just my same process over and over right now until I located Deer. Now,

once I located Buck, that's gonna change a lot. I'm gonna really fine tune on that specific area right now, you know, I'm just casting the giant net out and then as soon as I get a hit, I'll say, okay, I need to really find too and focus in. I might pull resources from from other areas if I need to. If it's an area that I'm really familiar with, I'll

have a better idea what's going on. But it's going to be the same process, going through the maps, going through the weather data, going through everything that I have, trying to just come up with that game plan for the day. Yeah, that's sometimes the most fun. At least

I love that stuff. Oh yeah, absolutely all right. If you were to look back over your years of doing this, Jake, what would you say is the biggest mistake you've made When it comes to trying to pattern during public claim, does anything jump out to you that now looking back, you realize out what a dummy I was. I would say early on the biggest mistake was just not being aggressive enough and trusting my gut. And I've went to the complete opposite side of that spectrum now where if

I have the gut feeling, I just go with it. Um. What I've learned over the years is like you know how it is, you get into a spot and you're like, should I should I push on? Should I stay here? Like my guts telling me this, my brains telling me this. I don't. Is there more rubs up there? This is really hot and it looks really good, but maybe I need to push further. Like now, I just whatever my gut tells me, I do, And a lot of times

I'm still wrong. But I feel like you just evolve so much better from trusting that instinct, and then your instinct changes over time and it becomes, you know, correct more often like you get you end up being closer, you get like that spiky sense feeling. Uh So, yeah, I would say definitely, hands down. The number one thing that I've learned is just to really trust myself to be very confident in what I'm doing, and sometimes that requires like a false face of confidence, but it works.

I'll find myself. Like if I tell myself when I leave the house, I'm killing today that buck is beded in that bed and I'm gonna go and find the sign. I'm gonna figure out how to set up on him. I'm going to kill him. I hunt a lot differently than if I go out and I say, well, I'm just gonna kind of like meander out into the woods and see what happens. I just like I'm so much more fine tuned and focused on the minor details when

I go in with that killed mentality. So that's one thing I either hopefully have for the day or I'll try to like put on that face for the day, um before I go out. Dude, those are the best days. I love that feeling so much. When you like have that feeling like this is a kill set, that is just the the thing I live for that. Yeah, me too.

It's uh, it's it's an awesome feeling, and it's like it's so hard to explain, you know, Like you get the goose bumps on the back of your neck, and your hair stands up and you're just like, Yeah, today's the day I'm going for it. Yeah, that's that's the good stuff. So so here's like a flip side kind of that question, which is, you know, can you think back to any specific moment when you had like that

very most important ah ha kind of moment. Is there any hunt or deer or or day where you can think back like all of a sudden there was like a light switch event where you're like, ah, this is what I need to do or oh, this is how you pattern deer down here? Is there any specific kind of situation that you can think back on like that that that you could talk about. Uh, I would say

it happened before I came down here. I grew up kind of hunting the same type of terrain, Like it was a little more mountainous, not quite as much egg, but it's set up really the same way where they were betting Leeward and they were kind of having they had the same like general routes and things like that. Um. But growing up, yes, I had a ton of those moments. And one that really sticks out to me. Funny enough, isn't really a hill country Aha, moment. It's an an

egg moment. But when I when I could first bow hunt, I would go all with my dad and my grandpa all the time, and we had like typical New York like hunters. It was just how we were all brought up. We would sit in the top of this big shooting tower, so it was they had a coffee pot down below that they go downstairs and brewing coffee. And this is, you know, early October, we're doing that, and we would just sit out there and we would never be really

close to killing a deer. We would wash them all in the fields all the time, but we were two yards away from the field, so you got to see a lot, but you were never really in the game. And one day I told my my dad and my grandpa, I was like, I'm gonna go like we had We've been sitting up there and we watched this buck across the corner of this field like three nights in a row, and every night we knew when he was going to come out, but we all just kept sitting up on

top of that shack. And this was like the mobile hunter moment for me, where I told my dad and my grandpa was like, hey, I'm gonna go down there and sit on that hedgerow and I'm gonna kill that deer. And they both looked at me like I had twelve eyeballs. They were like, you're not gonna get anywhere close to that, dear,

you have no chance. And my dad he's passed now, but he used to tell the story that him and like I got down and they see me take my bow and I'm going through the ushed and I'm headed over that way, and they're like, this kid's nuts, like what is he doing? And I couldn't They couldn't believe it. But like thirty minutes later, that buck popped out in the corner of that field and I'm at like five yards, and uh, it was really cold, and I couldn't. I drew my bow back and I had a glove on.

I couldn't reach the trigger of my release because I had an old flect hunter back in the day. But I was full drawn on this like really good three or four year old buck for New York at five yards and they were just watching this whole thing happened. They couldn't believe that it happened. And the deer ended up running off and everything but like that was the moment for me. I was like this this works, Like if you see him doing something, just go over to

where they were. And that's how that evolution started for me, where it was as simple as watch it be on the you know, the tree stand the field and watch him come down and then just go ground hunt over by that spot the next day. And that's how I killed deer as a kid. Like that was how it all started for me. Um, yeah, it's just evolved. That's awesome. Alright, So last question, want to wrap up tie a bow on this thing if you were to, I don't know.

Let's say you're writing the three Commandments a Patterning Deer on public Land, written by Jake Bush, and we're gonna take this and put them on a piece of rock on a mountaintop that all the deer hunting folks that want to be like Jake could go to and read your through your three commandments for patterning deer in public land?

What would these three commandments be? These three most important rules two dialing in the pattern on these big old deer on this tough ground where everybody else can hunt them too. Can you can you come up with us three most important things, Jake, and I'm sure we've talked about them, but the highlight those three most important rules for me, I would say boots on the ground scouting, and that's putting as many miles as you can a

year on your boots. Like I try to be roughly around five miles a year scouting around the hills looking for a dere uh. Sometimes it's a little less, sometimes it's a little more, but that mileage is what gives me that data. Without that, I'm just throwing guesses at the wind and I'm not even gonna be close. I could look into one every once in a while, but

that's where that's the fund. Like, the foundation of this is just being willing to put the work in to go find the deer and find the data that you need. After that, I would say that it's gonna be just really trusting your thought process and your beliefs and staying focused on what you need to do. Um. I have a lot of guys that I know that are really really good hunters that kill every year, that want to be better at the early season game, but they just

don't trust themselves enough. And a lot of times, like a lot of my buddies, I will tell them, you have everything that you need. You did all the work, You've done, the scouting, you've done, the boots on the ground, you have him on camera, you know where he's betted. Why are you sitting back two or three yards away from that deer? Go kill him? And like, well, what if he's not there? Just you gotta trust what you did,

Like you did all the work. If if you trust your gut and your thought and you go in there and you get like you you're going to be close to killing him. And if you don't, you're gonna learn a really valuable lesson. So that is a is a huge thing. And then uh number three would really be just the willingness to adapt throughout the season, throughout your scouting. Um, you know this, this is constantly changing due to the

e h D thing. This year. I could just give up and I could either go kill of a different deer or I could just give up on the season. But like I'm adapting and I'm trying to just go try to trying to go find another deer and then continue that process. Um and or like out West for example last year, where I kept running into hunters in Kansas, and then I went to like six or seven spots in a day and a half. It kept running into hunters.

I got back in my maps. I just you know, I told myself, Okay, everything you did the scouting wise is wrong. You need to adapt. You need to come up with a different plan. I found a spot I didn't have many trees, and I went in the first time day two and killed my book. And so just the willingness to adapt to anything that can arise is

going to help all out to Yeah, great advice. Well, Jake, if folks want to follow along with you either this season or see some of the past success you've had, where can people see that and connect with the online yep? So the Jake Bush on Instagram, Jake Bush on Facebook, and then Legends of the Hunt on YouTube was where most of my hunts are filmed and posted. Awesome, man, I really appreciate this is this has been fun and it's great to get to, uh get a peek behind

the curtain of how you're doing this year. You're getting on some awesome deer down there, whether it's Ohio or Kansas. And I know you had a lot of success in New York. So it's it's really cool to see how that all comes together. So thank you for sharing this. Yeah, thanks for having me Mark. I appreciate it and that will do it. Thank you all for tuning in a

couple of quick updates. Make sure you are following me on Instagram at wired Hunt to be able to kind of follow along with my worry throughout the rest of the season. Please head on over to the meat either YouTube channel and check out Dear Country. The whole season is out now, all six episodes. I hope you've been enjoying that. If you haven't been able to give it a watch, please do so. Give it a like, go to subscribe, let me know what you think. Thank you

for that. Uh. Otherwise, get out there, get hunting. We are quickly approaching the rut the Super bowls almost here, but we've got some good stuff right now, so take advantage of it. Enjoy these late October days. Stuff is getting good. Let's have some fun. Thanks for tuning in and stay Wired to Hunt.