Ep. 591: Patterning Bucks During the Rut and Beyond with Jeff Sturgis

of patterning bucks. You heard about how I pattered a buck in early October. We talked to Mark Drewy about his art form of patterning deer. We talked to Jake Bush about patterning deer on public land. And now we've got an other mastermind, Mr Jeff Sturgis. And if you're not familiar with Jeff, he's been on the podcast a number of times. He's one of the best out there. He's written a number of terrific books on hunting mature deer and habitat management. He runs the Whitetail Habitat Solutions

YouTube channel and website. He does consulting, he has online classes. He has so much incredible content helping folks fine dear pattern deer, hunt deer, managed for deer, improved dear habitat all this kind of stuff. Jeff is is truly um I said, all right, he's a mastermind. He's one of

the people I respect most in this uh sphere. He's one of the folks I've learned the most from and just really really excited that he's here today to discuss this topic and to talk about patterning bucks during the rut. How we can do that here in the pre rut at the end of October, how that plan needs to adjust as we move into November or wherever it is that you have, you know, running activity, if that's January

and Alabama or just member in Texas, whatever. We'll talk about what a pattern during the rut might look like, how to do that, and then we actually just dive into the details of Jeff's entire process to patterning deer, whether that's in September or October, December, all points in between. We get into the nitty gritty, which I love doing with Jeff. We talked through how to use historical data and trends, history of what you've learned these deer do

in the past. We talked about how he uses sign to put together the puzzle pieces, and of course you can't talk about patterning deer without trail cameras, so we dive into that. He's got a really great mock scrape strategy that helps him get pictures and really get clear data inputs to make these plans. So that is, Uh, that's what's in store for today. I'm excited when this podcast drops. It is the end of October. The rut

is staring us right in the face. Man, I mean, is there any better time of year to be a deer hunter? This is what we dreamed of. We're about to step foot into the super Bowl. Friends. This is what we've worked for. This is what we've dreamed of. This is what we've planned for all these days out in the spring and summer. It's all let up to now. So let's do this. How about you bear with me here for a couple simple kind of leading into the rut. Words of wisdom from your old friend Mark Kenyan. Uh.

Number one, you heard me say this before. If you listen to the podcast, You've heard me say all of these things before. If you listen to the podcast, but I want to you know touch on some of the

greatest hits. If you are hunting over these next two, three or four weeks and you're in the rut, and you personally get into a rut if you find yourself like torn, kind of confused, paralysis by analysis, stuck, not sure what's going on, not sure why you can't get on the deer, not sure why you can't find that buck. Things aren't going the way you expected them to, and you're kind of stuck trafficker out. What should I do?

Remember at that point in your trip, in your week, in your weekend, whatever it is, step back to the basics and remember the pillars of rut hunting success. Always go back to this whenever you're stuck. Always go back to the pillars and think to yourself, well does my

plan fit into the pillars of rout hunting success? Number one one of these pillars hunt the does either dough betting areas or dope food sources in the evenings, if you're near one of those, if you're in it, if you're just downwind of it, that is always a great place to be during the rut. These are those locations where bucks are gonna be traveling to, so are you in or near a dough hotspot? Number two? If you're not one of those places, are you in or near

a funnel something that concentrates deer movement. Maybe that's a thin piece of timber. Maybe that is a piece of high ground between two ponds and you've got a bridge in between the two. Maybe this is a little, I don't know, ditch with brushy cover that goes between two big fields. Anywhere we're that buck traffic, which is increased

this time of the year. Anywhere that can be narrowed down into a narrow sliver a smaller section is going to help you find a buck as they are traveling throughout the day trying to find those doughs ready to breed. So that's number two. Funnels, and then finally number three. During the rut, get your button one of those kinds of places, and then give it time. Get out there for as many hours as you can during the morning through the middle of the day, if you can through

the evening. You gotta be there for the magic to happen. That's it. There's so many of the things we can talk about during the rut, but if you can always remember those three pillars, you're gonna give yourself a good chance. And I want to give you one other thing, one other thing here. When it comes to the mental side of the rut, stuff's gonna go wrong. Remember that, except that be ready for it. You're gonna be thrown for loop. Your plans are gonna fall apart. Something bad's gonna happen.

You're gonna miss you're gonna get lost in the woods. You're gonna have trail cameras don't work, you're gonna have trespassers. You're gonna have something. Be ready for that. And when it arrives, if you have already thought through these things, if you've already come to terms that there's gonna be tough stuff ahead of you, you'll be better prepared to push through that stuff, because now is when mental toughness

kills deer. So be ready and just push on through, grind on through the crap, because good things always lay on the other side of those speed bumps, and finally, have fun, enjoy this stuff. We've waited all year. We

talk ourselves up, we we dream about these moments. Like I said, already, it's a shame if you let the rud arrive and then just stress out about the whole time because you're out there all day and then you were miserable because you haven't taken a break where you're miserable because you haven't shot a deer yet, or you're miserable because everybody else seems to be shooting a deer and you can't find a single buck. Whatever it is. Trying not to let that stuff ruin this thing for you.

Keep it fun. This is about fun. Enjoy the process. And if you ever find yourself kind of leaning towards that over stress, I'm not enjoying this kind of feeling and vibe, that's a clear warning. Son, Maybe you gotta take a step back. Maybe I've taken night off, take the family out to dinner. Maybe you need to go meet up with your hunting buddies and just get back

to the commune and camaraderie of this. Maybe you need to sleep in for one hour in the morning, get your head right, have a good breakfast, take your kids to school, remember why you do this thing, and then get back out there. Have fun, be a human being, push through the tough stuff, stick to the principles. Did you do those things? My friends, is going to be a great Rutt, and I think Jeff has got some other great advice for you as well. Today. I'm excited

for you tune in. I'm excited to hear from you all in the coming weeks. I hope we all have a lot of success stories to share. Uh. Speaking of that, make sure you're following me on Instagram at wired to Hunt if you want to see how my trips are going. I'm about take off for the big one week in November trip. I'm gonna be heading to uh the ne Bbraska, and Ohio. So I can't wait to share those experiences along the way. Check them on out over on I G and UH. I will have the stories here in

the podcast as soon as I can as well. So without any further ado, let's get in today's show with Jeff Sturgis. All right with me now back on the show is one of our all time favorite guests, Mr Jeff Sturgis. Jeff, thank you for being here. Yeah, thank you, Mark. It's always great chatting with you and Uh. It has been a long time. I don't remember how many times have been on your podcast, but uh, I know the years have flown by, but it's been a few years. It has been. I mean, you're one of the O

G s. Jeff. I think that I think you were within our first five episodes, if I'm if I'm thinking right, I think you were within those first couple ever recorded. And I know you and I were talking and you know, doing stuff even well before the podcast even started. So um oh yeah, yeah, I think well that my food plot book was two thousand and fourteen and you wrote

the forward for that. Yeah, I forgot about that. That that was a little that was eight years ago, just right there, and we had been talking, you know, for

years before then too. Yeah. Man, well I've learned a ton from you, and uh, I've always appreciated you coming on here, and I always know this is going to be like one of our best of the year, maybe selfishly because I just love the way you think like you you think about things, you process things, you approach things in a way that very much jives with with me and how I like to go about it. You're you're super analytical with it, which which just fascinates me

the way you go about it. And that is why I thought this series we're doing this month, that you would be one of the perfect people for it. So the series is you know, we're we're focusing all on patterning bocks. Like the month of October. Everyone we've talked to has been all about patterning deer and and this one, Jeff, that we're gonna do is going to drop at the end of October. So when people send into this, yeah it is, they'll they'll be hearing this, you know, hopefully

end of October or beginning of November. And I think there will be some people who might say patterning bucks, Well, it's November. Nobody can pattern or buck in November, and they might be thinking that this isn't for them at this point. So my question for you is this to kick it off, Jeff, can you pattern a buck during the run, because a lot of people say you can't. Um,

I sure do think you can. Now you know that being said to me to really lock into a core home home range, um, from whether it's mid October and of October and then all the way through a lot of times in early December, and and they'll spend the majority of their time what I see in that location.

And so in that respect, yes, you can pattern them. Um. You know, it's a little bit different than I think every one thinks about patterning is these these bucks are going to an evening food source in September and October, and you can pattern them that way. They might even have them locked into their going to this betting area, which is a little bit more risky hunt. But you know they're going there and they're betting there, they're feeding there,

and they get locked into that pattern. But um, that doesn't mean that they don't have rutting patterns and that you can capitalize on and that they repeat every single year. Yeah, So how would you define a rutt pattern? Then? I mean you used to give great examples of what a September October pattern might look like. What can we realistically call a rutt pattern or what's an example of something like that. I still think they hit, They hit their

afternoon evening food source. That's a priority to them. And I think a lot of people look at the rut as a little bit more random just because you know, Preussures applied hunting pressure in September and October and then Box seemed to find a way to gravitate towards those food sources and habitats that they want to hang out during that specific time and really hunting pressure, changing food sources, changing the quality of bedding, or the security of the betting.

They'll move a long ways and I always look at I call it the five percent club, but it's really those properties five of all properties that really attract mature bucks. And so a lot of bucks are leaving their September early October areas and going to these locations. There are those locations that are capturing them. And then they're still hitting their afternoon food sources on a somewhat regular basis.

If there's water holes that they want to hit, often they're hitting those water holes, uh, foods or water hole sources.

And then at the same time, you really see the same box being in the same smaller location between dough betting areas and buck betting areas, so you really see I'm hunting more and and really during this time some of those patterns almost referred to it as vertical um perpendicular for where you're looking at bucks are going straight from not straight, but they're going from a betting area

to a food source. And then that can rely flips around this year, this time of year where they're more paralleling those food sources, paralleling those betting areas and and so trails that you didn't hunt in September October now become a very pattern of mole because they're they're flipping around and they're going between those betting areas, between those food sources. It's it's completely different game, you know, stands that we don't even use the rest of the year. Yeah,

that's a great point. I really like that that vertical versus parallel or horizontal type movement is so true. Um, I kind of want to do I'm gonna do a weird kind of chronological thing. I want to focus kind of first on, you know, these rut ideas and the I'm probably going to bring us back and ask about some of the things that you're doing outside of the rut.

But but real quick, if you had to pick like the best time of year to have a buck pattern and kill a buck on a pattern, what would that window be where it's like the primo time to have this kind of success. Is it like late October? Is it right now or is it that early season time period? What do you think or something else entirely? Oh boy, that's a tough one. Well, we're talking about the rut, so do we need to talk about the early season.

You know, it's kind of like the early season. You have a short window, meaning that um, it seems like those early season patterns are fleeting, especially in your home state of Michigan where the openers October one. Well, those box change your pattern. It might not any have anything to do with hunting pressure, but think about all the hunting pressure that's applied. Well, when they get locked into their fall range where they're really going to hang out

for late October, November, December. Then to me, that late October pre rut time where those aren't necessarily ready but the bucks are is just such an outstanding time because they'll move a lot more. To me, they move a lot more during daylight. They finally moved during the morning hours sometimes to me, uh, several times more than they do in the afternoon evening where they're more relating to that food source movement. In the morning, it's still cool.

They're still making rob scrapes moving around you the betting areas, and they still might not leave a ten acre area, but they're really active within that area. So to me, for a longer window of time, you have more of a predictable amount of time that you can actually pattern a box during that pre rod time, and then when he gets into the rot he still could hold some of those same patterns. But you know, let's stacey, he could be on a dough mile oy that he's just

some ringandom chance that he's over there. Um, you still hunt, you know, you still can hunt those same patterns. You can still kill that target buck um. But to me, he's in that window a little bit less time. He's really consistent at the end of October, which might be more like early November for someone in Kansas, Tennessee, Arkansas,

West Virginia. UM, a little bit further song. Yeah, I've definitely seen that myself in some places where you even though there is the crazy rut stuff going on, there's still a general kind of cycle that's that's happened that you can kind of pattern, like like you mentioned that

doe betting area, checking doe betting to doe betting. You know, I've seen bucks repeat like Okay, they're gonna hit this betting area and then they're gonna hit this next one, and then they hit that next one, and they're gonna come through and hit it again sometime in the next day or two or whatever it is. Of course there's the chance to get on a dough and disappear for two days. But you know, you can kind of develop

that predictive capability based on some of those observations. So I guess that that is relevant because I'm I'm curious what specific things are you doing that are unique to this time period when you're trying to pattern and buck during the rut, that that's different than what you would do in September or October. Like, what's what is unique to your rut pattern in development or execution for this time of year. Boy, there's a few things, mark Um I wish I had to lift, But there's one one

of the things that I think is really critical. And we'll just start off in the early season. I'll notice when it's really hot, when it's really windy, it just doesn't seem like those boxes are moving during daylight. They don't have to. Their big bodies, they have a lot of fat on them. They're just putting on fat, and they seem to be a lot more doscile. They're just they're just kind of you know, you can catch them

in that pattern. But to me, when that weather really plays an important role on how far they're going to move during daylight and and and it's not that they're you know, they're they're moving that much more. It seems like it's just they might move ten minutes a half hour before dark instead of ten minutes a half hour after, same movement, same amount of time, and it's just just a little bit different timing where when it gets into

closer to the pre rod an evening hunt. For example, last night was about forty nine degrees when we came in from hunting, and that's a really cool temperature. Um it was it was after three days of warm up. We had some really cool temperatures earlier in the week. Um, I think a low of twenty seven in the morning. But deer are really active in the evening. And it's almost like I don't really need to have that giant cold front to go sit on a nice cool evening.

I'll place more of an uh of a priority on hunts in the evening that I wouldn't, you know, say, an average temperature day to the average highest fifty two, and so we have a day that's fifty four. Well, let's not that far off. And when you get into the pre roun th box are active and unless it's

really hot, really windy, there something extreme going on. I find that they're moving more during daylight, and so I'll focus on more average days during the pre rod where I wouldn't have sat those average weather days um during September October. If that makes it so, that's one big thing. I'll start hunting a little bit more frequent. Those mornings are really key on those cold mornings, and so I'll start to flip the morning stands during this time of year.

I've sat one morning now unless I have a box pegged in the early season where I I really believe that he's betting in this location. And I'll give you an example. Let's say, uh would it's surrounded by agg fields and one side is planted maybe in corn. Let's say they're hitting the bean side. That's where they're at every night. Do you think you can sneak in that corn side? There's a ditch bank pack there, there's a little mound or something where you think those bucks bad

and you can sneak in. Law you're sitting back in the corn because they're not eating that corn. And on October five and you're waiting for those bucks to come back to you. That's an example of a really good morning set up. Maybe you're walking through brush, non deer area, swamp water, you cross the creek, river, you get into the back of the wood lot, and you wait for those bucks to come back in the morning. That's that's just a really defined use for a lot of people

don't have that opportunity. And I normally don't even around here on the properties that hunt, So I don't hunt a lot of mornings because evening can be so predictable. Like we talked earlier, that's just they're doing this, they're moving from here to here. But when it comes to this time of year in the pre rod, we even see on our trail cameras that that the box are

very active in the mornings. I saw one of the five year olds this morning and moving across a small food plot about an hour and a half after daylight. He hasn't done that all year. We haven't seen that, And so right now is when it really starts picking up where morning opportunities are great. I'm placing a little bit more priority on those average sets in the evening, but I'm still looking at it that this is a morning stand here, and this is an evening stand here.

I think it's very important as people getting into November in the rout that they talk about, you know, really defined, this is a morning stand, this is an evening stand, because if you spend all day in the morning stand back in betting areas, those bucks are going to focus on food in the afternoon, even if they're moving for dos that's where the dolls are going. Then you're going to spend half of your day in an unproductive stand.

So I like to really focus on morning and then flip around to hunt that evening hunt, even if I'm sitting all day. Yeah, that makes sense. One thing that I often think about is is, you know, when it comes to the rut, is the speed maybe that's beat, it's the the duration of a pattern during the rut. So, for example, the opposite of this might be a September pattern where or in October, let's say like late September

in early October. Here in Michigan, I had some bucks that were, you know, very frequently mature bucks moving in the evening in daylight out of a swamp into a green bean field. And they would do it almost nightly or every other night or something like that. And that was going on for for weeks on end. I was getting relatively consistent daylight pictures of mature buck doing this thing, and I knew, you know, until those beans changed or someone went there and blew it out, he was going

to keep doing that. And so that was a pattern I knew had some time on him. But on the opposite side of things, when I see something pop up during November, Let's say a buck shows up on my cell camera and he's in a bean field tonight, or a buck shows up on a scrape back in some transition cover or something like that. My question to you is how fast do you need to jump on a pattern if you see something happened twice in a row

or two times in a week or something. How fast you need to jump on something like that during the rut or how long will it last? Because my my assumption has always been like these things are very fleeting during the rut um. Has that been your experience or how do you look at the speed of taking advantage of something you're observing during that time period. I think it depends on the box. So now you you're talking November. Let's say it's November five and you have a box

that you haven't seen all year. You maybe even knew he was alive. You made it through the season at trail camp Pitchers in February or whatever it might be, you're waiting for him to show up. All of a sudden, he's there. Well, it's almost like he's told you at that point of the season that hey, you're not you're not right in the middle of my wheelhouse house, but you're part of my wheelhouse. And I look at it

like you need to jump on that immediately. So if you see him, he's there, he's cutting through this funnel um. Maybe you see him from a distance. You need to jump on him right then, because he's going to go back home eventually. He's going to spend the majority of his time at home. And he's already told you're only a part of my wheelhouse. You're not my wheelhouse, you're not in the center of it. So you're you're on

the fringe area of his On the flip side. You have this buck that you've been watching, and he's consistently started to go hone in on your property more. October tenth, October fifteenth, he starts seeing him more often. There's more sign popping up that he believes him pictures, whatever it might be. That's that box that he's going to be in your area half the time. So I'm not saying you don't jump on that sign. I'm always looking at like, if he just was there this morning, I better get

there this evening if I think he's coming back. I've watched five six year old buck go up with a dough assumingly breeder in a certain betting area that he went in one way because of the wind. I just sit on the other side of that betting area, but I waited for him to come back, and you know, come out, and he comes out that evening, so you know, you just have to jump on that right away. And he might have been in back in that betting area

three days later or four days later. But that's a case where a day, you know, the same day matters. So really, some of those bucks are there consistently. But then you have some of those giants. There's one in uh in Wisconsin I'm waiting for I've had one picture of them so far. I know he's alive. I knew we made it, he made it through the season, but boy, i'd love to see him and so when he all of a sudden starts to be more consistent on the land,

I don't want to miss out on that opportunity. Yeah, so that's that's not an uncommon thing to have, like a a rut buck, like a buck who you never see except for a handful of times during the rut um. Yeah, how do you how do you handle that kind of situation, Like how do you plan or put together a plan to hunt that buck or develop some kind of pattern or idea for how to kill that buck when you know that's the situation, Like let's say, like last year,

this buck did that thing. You now see, Okay, he's a rut buck. He list somewhere else, but he's gonna come through, you know sometime in this window. Now it's two you're expecting that to happen again. What was the plan? Maybe you can tell me about the specific buck, or if not, just give me a generic example of what you're specifically doing to a watch for him for when he shows up, and then be how do you approach it like in those following days, are you just gonna

hunt what he did last year? Or are you gonna put out more cameras in the area? To try to pick up on what he's specifically doing, or how would you go after one special deer like that in that scenario? What's I love that um type of scenario because a

lot of people look at it like um. They could look at it like, well, I'm gonna sit every day and I'm gonna shoot him or I'm gonna have an opportunity yet and then and then wonder why they never see him, and then other folks who might look at like it's just a shot in the dark, you know, needle in the haystack. You know, how how are you going to get a chance in a box that's just

a ghost and you're never on your lane? And I would say about half of my amateur box the oldest ones are have been those kind of box where they live somewhere else. And the thing about those boxes for two or three years, you might have two years of pictures maybe even three that they you might have fifteen pictures total, but they've told you that I'm gonna be there in this window, be seen November three. He might

have had one picture. You might add another picture in November tenth or twelve, and you know they're going to be there during that window, they're going to move a lot because they're already they're already moving wherever they're coming from. If those bucks are shown up in the middle of the night once or twice in October, they're telling you, I live a mile away or a mile and a half away. So when he gets to you, he's already moving a lot, so you can count on him not

to just sit around. He's there for a purpose. He's looking for dose. And so that makes me think that I can sit on funnels in that area, whether it's joining wood lots or a swamp edge in that area, areas that I can blow my scent safely somewhere else, and I can pick around and have a reasonable chance of of shooting that buck because he's told me for two or three years he'll be there, even if it's just twelve fifteen pictures. And then when I look at

that window, he's there. During the peak rod, he's already bred a dough or two back home, and so in the pre rod he finds it. You know, all the bucks get invited to the party. He gets to find a dough. Every other buck gets to find a dough, and then that second or third one comes a little bit harder. They only breed two to four I think in that first primary run, and that's any buck. So that second or third buck he starts ranging out a little bit more, and that's when you start to see

those trail camp photos. And in our area that would be November two, third through the tenth, twelveth somewhere home there, maybe even the fourteen fifteen be towards on the on the back back side of that window. Well, then if he's coming a long ways and he's coming a long ways from home to be there during that time, and he's told you that for two or three years because you just had a handful of pictures, maybe a couple of sightings, well then he's not going to move over.

When it's let's say northern Ohio, I don't know what the average high is in early November, but I would guess that it's low fifties to mid fifties, just just a guess, maybe high forties, but somewhere around in there, let's say it's seventy five and thirty five hour winds. I just don't think he's gonna make that long track. It's too windy, it's too stressfully, can't hear can't see as well. I just don't think he makes that that

long trek over to the land. If it's really really windy, thunder lightning, extreme temperatures, extreme wind, extreme snow hail, sleep, whatever was, I just don't think he makes that track. So you look at that ten day forecast around there, from the second in November to the fourteen in November, and you say, you know, these are three or four really solid cold front days, or these cold fronts passed.

This cold fronts passed through, nice morning lows. The winds are subsided, not necessarily, kind of like when there's a little bit of wind, but instead of being thirty five November winds, they're now twelve or fifteen hour winds or eight miles and and so that that front has gone by. So I'm looking at like you could take that ten day window and say, you know what, I bet if he's here, it's going to be on one of those

three days. So then I put a priority on hunting those funnels where I know that he's been around in the past, making that assumption he's going to be through that funnel, And it's amazing how you show up the hunt. One rolls on a good cold front evening or morning, and he falls right into your lap. Here a bucket only after twelve pictures of over a two to three year period, and you haven't even seen that year um yet on the land. And then you check. You might

check the trail Cameron here. There's three or four pictures on there that he's been around. But to me, it's not that much of an needle in a haystack when he's told you for two or three years you're a part of my wheelhouse. When you can narrow down to those good cruising days for him with the assumption he's traveling a little ways to get there, and then you can sit on some known rut funnels in that area that are a little bit thick might be inviting to him.

You know, he's actually probably be out through an open hardwood wood lot or open field. He's going along a thick edge somewhere, and then you're going in and popping in for him and you shoot him, and it's it makes it sound easy, but it's almost like you you plan on that happening. He's told you he's going to

be there. You watch the weather, if you look for the good days of set you go sit on a funnel, and you've done everything to prepare for that moment, and it's really he hasn't told you he's going to be there the seventeenth of December, or mid December, or even mid January, or August or September, early October, even the end of October. He's told you he's gonna be back during that window in early November. He's gonna be there during daylight. And you just narrow it down and pick

the right stands and you hunt. You can hunt three or four steps for that box if you're just picking around on those funnels, and you might find that you moved by two of your other stand locations that day too, because he's moving around so much. So to me, you hunt a buck like that and it becomes a lot easier than you might think. Yeah, so you touched on one of the topics I was curious about, and I'm wondering if your perspective on it is different outside of

the rut. So one of the things I was curious about is what happens in your mind when a historical trend, like an annual pattern, those dates arrive, but the conditions don't match. So his window of of showing up for you is usually like the seventh of the twelfth, let's say, And this year, though, the seventh of the twelfth comes

up and you've got high creddy weather. Um, so what you just told me during the rut would be, well, you're gonna try to find the best cold weather days within that window or close to it, because he won't make that move on the hot weather day. Um. What about if this situation, if this was a historical trend we were trying to take advantage of not during the rut.

So if this was like man for whatever reason, he always shows up mid October and he hangs out for a week or something like that, or maybe same thing but December. Um, does the match between dates and conditions matter more or less outside of the rut? Yeah, that's a good question that to get depend on. You always have to ask yourself why is he's showing up at that time? Um. For example, we had a spot in Wisconsin that we would have some odd box show up

in mid October. Well, then we found out the neighbors from Chicago were coming over and that's when they would go into their cabin and they had a big hunting weekend and they were in the middle of a hunter and sixty acres mostly open hardwoods or cabins in the middle, and they gross uh, side by side ATVs to their stands, and it was just a big moment to push deer

off their land. And so if you knew that they were there, we got to where we would actually drive over and see if their date was open or not to know what stands to sit in, because we would make the assumption they're gonna push deer off their land as soon as they came, as soon as they showed up, as soon as they went hunting. And then in December, I see a lot of cool boxers. A buck last year, I was really hoping to hunt him, you know, shoot, even though I only had two or three pitchers of

them throughout the entire season. I shot him during the middle of muzzleloader season in early December in Wisconsin, and uh, it was the first time I saw him in person, and I was just hunting late season food sources and I was making sure that it was with muzzleloader. I shot him at like a hundred nine yards. It was a little ways away, but it was a spot where I could let those food sources sit not disturb them, and uh, and just wait for that buck to show up.

And there's one other one I would have liked of shot too, But between the two of them, you're just waiting for one of them show up. And so I guess you'd have to ask for the conditions. And in those conditions right there where they're on feeding conditions, Yeah, it's really windy and stormy, they're probably not out there. And um, and then in that early season, um, whether you know, maybe they're making a transition from their their

summer range to their fall. Um, maybe they only stick around because you know, there's a lot of people to overpressure their lands. So this box shows up, they come in and get a couple of sits in there and spook them off. Um. You know, so there's a lot of When I go to clients, it's always interesting because it's kind of an interview of yeah, we have this big buck that shows up now, And so you start asking, well, when do you hunt? When do your neighbors hunt? When

your food sources peak? Are your food sources dwindling at that time? Do your food sources run out the end of October? Um? You know, there's there's a lot of conditions that you could you could really discuss and explore with that, and that's part of the you know, like you like to geek out that stuff too. It's kind of like not just accepting that he's doing that, but

why he's doing that. And when it comes to that that early November time, you know, I look at it like you have about a ten day window, and and you're gonna have about three really good days during that ten day window. You're probably gonna have three or four average days. I'd still hunt those average days, of course, and then you're gonna have probably two or three dud days and not say you don't hunt. A lot of people have a rudcation and they need to get out

in the woods. So but I would slant my best efforts are best fans towards those best weather days, and us you're just constantly picking around and and kind of going in making like jabs, kind of looking at like, well this is uh, even though it's ten days, it's still a marathon, not a sprint, and you're still making smart decisions. So yeah, I guess we touched on a few few things there. But I always ask yourself why there's That's the fun part about it, is why why

is he showing up and leaving? Why is he not? So speaking of one of those wise and a condition of sorts that I'm always wondering about when I'm looking at pictures or observations and I'm trying to ask why was he here? And do I think he'll come back again, you know, tomorrow or whatever day I'm trying to plan out. One of the factors that I always wonder how important is is is the wind direction? So like, was he here because it was a south day? A south wind day?

And do all my pictures of him in this spot end up being south wind days? Or is there some kind of correlation between direction and him showing up in these places or not? Um? Do you look at wind direction as being one of those big things that dictates, you know, if a buck will show up in a certain place or bed in a certain place, or travel in a certain way? Um? And how important is that to you? And looking at a historical trend if the wind direction you have coming up doesn't match even though

the dates match in history or something like that. Yeah, I love that question. One of the things I really look at it. I look at it very methodically, meaning that, um, there's a buck moving in a certain area, whether it's historical patterns that you've seen or you see current patterns. And I have two stands in that location, I feel like I can get in and out to one a little bit better from morning, want a little bit better for evening. Maybe I get into them both from morning

and evening, and I'm going to pick out. Okay, I want to hunt Thursday. It's a decent day, and I'm going to go hunt to stand that's best for the wind and hope to see him. And I'm not gonna look at it like he's only moving in that area on a south wind day or north one day. I'm gonna look at more of the absolute or lowest hole in the bucket, meaning that I only have those two stand locations. I'm only going to hunt him when the

wind is good for each stand. I want to try to shoot that box, So I'm gonna go in and try to shoot him regardless of what that wind direction is that I think he's moving on. I want to just go hunt the stands based on those winds. So then I just I never even consider that, um, that he's only moving in the spot in the north wind, because I'll see the same buck moving the same spot with even betting area locations. You'll move in or out

of that with different winds. And so I think you get kind of into a trap where almost overthinking or over analyzing that he's only gonna move on this wind. He's moving somewhere during the other wind. And so I want to make sure that I have a south wind stand, and that means i'd hump this side of the betting area, and if I have a north wind stand, I'm gonna hump the other side. You know, they're they're different conflicting winds,

and that's what I got. You know, it's kind of like these If I mean he's in the betting area, I'm not going to miss the stop spot to hit him because I only think he's moving on north winds. And uh, I'm gonna try to have stands for alternate winds and just just chip away at him. And that's what I've found. Just you chip away at him two

or three times and you get lucky. I feel like I need to bring us back to the beginning a little bit too, even better understand how you're getting some of this information because I got ahead of myself a little bit because of the rut. But but probably to get the information that you're talking about, this historical information, these real time pictures, these observations, we got to talk about how you get that data, um, because that then gives you the tools you need to make a decision

on November one or October, November twelve, whatever it is. UM, So can you walk me through what your process looks like when you are trying to pattern a deer. Let's just say the previous season had ended, it's the last it's the first day of a new season, UM, and in your mind, you know, hey, there's there's a buck I know made it and I really want to kill him in whatever so you want to be in. Can you talk me through what you're doing throughout the year

to build or to determine what that pattern is. Everything from what scouting matters in this patterning process to what camera work you're doing matters for this process. Two, if you do any observation stuff that might build this out. UM. You know, I know you're doing lots to have a test that there's tons of other things you're doing, but just specifically to the trying to develop a data set to help you pattern on this deer. What does that

part of your process look like leading up to this season. Yeah, that's a good question. There's um I again, I love talking about this stuff with you, Mark, It's fun. But the uh, there's you could fast forward that all the way to write current in the season and all the way to the last day. You know, the day after

this season ends. You know, for one thing, you're knowing that he's there, and you know, knowing it easy or whether whether it's by personal observation, troll camera or signed and so you know a lot of times when we'rend privately and around here, we know what bucks made it through the season. You know, neighbors might share a picture, you might see them, you might get your own picture. You might find a shed you always around. Then you start thinking about all the places that you saw and

you really start to narrow down. Now, some people will go to a go to a map, you know, I use hunt Wise, I use Onyx, and you know whatever someone uses. But you can start placing pins for those box. Some people take a paper map and they'll actually put

it on a whiteboard. Almost they're marking where they think that Buck is I I just remember my head, you know, where where we've had pictures where we've seen them before, and then I'm making a reasonable estimation when I'm out shed hunting, walking the property in the off season, you know, especially right after season ends, is what kind of sign

am I seeing to back that up? And you're looking at like me and that you know, I've gotten pictures of buck this certain buck here, and here, I found a shed here, I got pictures here, and then I'm finding this really good sign in between, and you start to like put the pictures together. When he comes through this area, he's moving in this location. And then you're going into the season with how can I have a plan of attack where I can hunt here, here, and

here with different winds. Maybe a morning stand here that's closer betting, an afternoon stand here that's closer to food. You have that stand assemblance for that box, and then you're actually going in and just chipping away at him at that time where your pictures, your personal observations, the signs popped up that you think is his, and then you're just going and for me, I picked those better

weather days. So if I was going in for a buck like that, then I want to make sure that the wind is perfect, that the weather is decent, and then I'm going in with all that leading up to it. I think he's moving through this funnel. I think I can hunt this stand, and I'm not so much worrying about, you know, what the wind direction is or anything like that, other than I have these these three stands I have

set for this book. He moves through this area and it's that time of year where he's around the signs popping up. I'm getting pictures on whatever or historical and so then I'm just making that methodical decision. While it's a southwest wind, it's the evening stand I have. I can hunt this one stand, So I go in on it and I don't put much thought into it. I kind of go at it a little bit more black and white so that it doesn't cloud my my thoughts,

you know, you just just what I have. I'm gonna go on them, and and that can even apply to uh, Like there's a real nice buck to the shot. I think it's going back to a little boy two thousand eleven on public Land in the up of Michigan. I went to scout for opening day of gun season, and I'm way out in the swamps, raised to hunt on public land, going about forty five minutes. My son Jake and I were actually their last chant opening day in Michigan, UM,

which was a different story, but uh that. Uh. I went in there and there are some giant rubs. And when you find rubs out in the public lane in Michigan, you start looking for bait piles. And if there's no bait piles, then in these rubs are a few and far between. You start to think, man, this is a daytime pattern. You know, it's way out away from bait piles, other people, other access points. You start to think, man,

this I could be onto something. So here I'm hunting sign I'm hunting big robs, a couple of big scrapes. I'm thinking, okay, I can go through this marsh, I blow my scent out. I can sit in here in a little cluster of conifer. I actually took the boys out on opening day with me, drug them back there. They were like eight and ten chairs and pop up and everything. Sit there all day. Dante, my stepson, thought he saw a giant bucket one o'clock in the afternoon.

I didn't see it other than a body. He said it was really big, and he's not one to make things up. We said we had a four point walk right bias. And so that was a Tuesday opener, I believe. And then two days later on Thursday, I went out there and went out for a morning hunt, and he ended up walking right into my lap. And I'm sure that was the buck that was making that sign, ended up being close to hunter point. He's beautiful. If that was an example where I'm hunting sign, I'm hunting funnels,

I'm hunting. This is what I have. I can hunt with west winds. I don't care what you know. It doesn't I don't know what windy's moving on, but I can only hunt with westerly winds on the edge of that swamp. I'm not gonna walk through this funnel where I think he's moving through. So it worked out on Thursday that happened to be a pretty good co front that moved through Tuesday night Wednesday, so I went out.

It was chili frosty and and uh, he ended up coming right through to me, and that was I didn't I didn't know what do you look like? Until literally I walked up to him, and he was dead, you know, other than partial mature antler big buck, you know, at forty yards or whatever it was and shot and and I got lucky and fun so kind of the same scenario. This is what I have for stands in that area. That's where I think he's moving. This is the time

of year. I have evidence these there, whether it's i'm pictures, personal observation. And then you're going in with your planet of attack, being careful. You're not going in too soon, You're not going in too often. Meaning I have some people someone asked you that are day on YouTube. They said, what what happens you want to hunt this box certain stand location? What happens if the wind's wrong. I just don't understand. I don't even consider it. It's it's just

something that I have. These three stands are good for these winds. This one, these two are evening. This one's morning wind, you know morning stands. And UM, and I look at like, okay, when I get that wind and that's a decent day, I'm going in for him. I can't remember if we've talked about this, Jeff. If we did, it's been a while. Um, what's your take? I mean, you sort of answered this when I asked you about that wind direction correlation or not correlation to whether they

moved there or not. But but a lot of folks, you know, talk about hunting spots where the wind is right for the buck, where the buck can quarter in or have the wind in his face, and then the hunter tries to set up with a just off win like a wind that's just gonna cut off the corner of where they think this buck's coming. Do you do you what do you think about that? Is that something

you I think we've talked about that. Now. If if I had my preference, it would be a little bit um in the buck faver where they have that assumption of you know, it's kind of like when we're hunting in the hills around here and we're hunting high in the morning. He's got those thermals rising from below, and I think he's walking because he has that advantage of scent checking down down below him. Um. You know, he's

walking to a purpose like that, um and uh. And so for the rock this ideal, he's walking between embedding areas you can send check down below for a hundred hundred fifty yards. But again I'm looking at that um. You know, a buck I shout out here two years ago, Kermit um there was. I went out to that stand a day or two days earlier, and it's a stand we called the Kermit Stand now. But I went out to the Kermit stand. Had a reasonable expectation that he

would in this area based on trail cameras. I hadn't seen him personally, and uh, we had trail cameras starting the end of June, but I he wasn't. We didn't have a lot of pictures of him, but enough to know he was in this area. I was in his wheelhouse and went out to that stand. And the wind so imagine I'm looking into the woods, not even thinking about direction or anything. I'm looking into the woods, and the wind was kind of light, and it was going like from left to right, a little bit of an

angle out behind me, if that makes sense. I'm looking straight downhill into the woods. The problem is is because it was forecasted to let's say, three or four miles an hour at dark and then getting calm two to three hours after dark, the wind always basically foreshadows what's going to happen, and so I'm sitting there three hours before dark, and I'm looking at like, Okay, this wind is really good for favorable for him if he comes from the right side. Where he comes from the left side,

I'm on a bench point. There's a deep steep drawings in front of me about thirty yards, so he comes through this pinch. The problem is the closer it got too dark. I knew as I sat there. I'm sitting there three hours before and when the wind let up, my sons starting to go right back downhill because the carminals were gonna eventually pull it right downhill. So I actually left that stand and went to another stand where I could count on the wind in a better location.

Went back two days later, and now the winds right in my face, blowing right out to the field behind me. So in that case, it's a ninety degree wind. Um it's he would have had to move through ninety grees. He has zero, um zero benefit of that wind. But I went in there and I ended up shooting him that night. So it's kind of one of those where if I got too hung up, but I needed to hunt that quarter wind where it's kind of a grangle

and it's coming into his face a little bit. What happened is after I shot him went down there, we pulled that camera card on that scrape mock scrape that I have right there. He came in that night where I first sat. He came in from that direction of the wind, and I think more than fifty chance he would have winded me and I would have never shot

that buck. That would have been my opportunity. So if I would have held on too much to that quarter wind instead of just making sure that it's a safe wind mostly and just hunt with what the stands I had available, that I think, uh, I think I would have ruined that hunt if I would have placed too much for a priority on that. So um, again it goes back to these are my stands. And you know, of course, if I could move in and set up you know, hanging hunt really quick and get that done.

I've done that in the past, um and and had success. You know, it's crazy they did that in the past. And it was two thousand three, shot a real nice buck, and and it was I did a hanging hunt and he came from the exact opposite direction. I thought it all worked out. But you know, it sounds so smart that I saw him go in here. I saw him fight in the morning. I tried sneaking up on him with my socks on, and frosty Grass got close and didn't realize how close he was. He ran off on

another buck and the dough. They weren't a certain to reaction. I thought he'd come out a one betting area. It came out the exact opposite. I happened to be on the downwind side of both, you know, kind of that barbell in between, and uh, and it worked out. But um, you know again, it was more this is the wind I had for the conditions, and you just go go set.

So you mentioned with that public land buck that you had really used that sign to key in on him, because you know, rubs are not a super common thing in that big woods public land kind of stuff, So when you see a concentration of him, it's it's it's

a particularly good sign. That brought to mind the question for me of how helpful physical sign is to patterning specific bucks, Like I know, like general sign will tell you, oh, I'm in an area with with good deer, maybe like if you're just trying to shoot a deer, but if you're trying to shoot like the deer you mentioned. You mentioned that sometimes you'll try to you signed to clearly

tell you something. But I guess what I'm trying to get here is is what kind of sign or how what level of detail have you ever been able to get with sign tying it to a specific Bucks pattern? Like have you ever found a unique thing on a Bucks track and use that? Or have you ever looked at rubs and said, okay, anytime I find a rub, this got this super huge guage right down the middle. That's got to be this one buck with a sticker point or is there anything like that that you look for? Yeah,

I guess you know. With um just sign in general. I love historical sign and so when I'm looking for where he might go through a funnel, UM, I want to find old robs, new robs, and just something about

sign in general. When you're hunting public land, like I I'm hunting big public land in southeast Ohio, um Shawnee State Forest, Wayne National Forest, or uh, you know something big like that, the rubs can be few and far between unless you're near private land and they have food plots, and so you you might be out there looking for sign and you need to realize a big rob on a funnel might be every two yards, like it wasn't the Up of Michigan, where it's big, big open wilderness area.

It might not be concentrated, meaning concentrated for that area, where on private land that might be really clustered. In short, I had a buck in the up of Michigan, um going back early two thousand's maybe, and he had a broken track, so on one of his tracks you could tell his toe had had broke off, So it was kind of blunt and uh and short, you know, half

instry corn. It was very distinguishable. And so I actually kept scrapes opener patches on the land we owned and out on the public land, so that I could when he came through that area. It was very easy to tell whether it was on our sand trails, on a scrape, or on an open patch on a trail that was in front of a tree stand that I had made

a patch. It wasn't even necessarily a scrape. Then I could tell when he came through, and it was interested him because when he came through, he'd come from the east. He'd go into the property, and then he'd go north and and then i'd lose them. So it's almost like an l of movement. And that l was half mile that way in three quarters a mile to a mile to the north, and so the pretty long area. It was interesting when he came through, he kind of make

that whole loop. So I'd find this track here here here, and so again it was okay, I can hunt him with this wind and this stand, this wind, with this stand maybe more morning here. I thought he was coming from the north, moving south and then cutting east, so I consider that, and it was in the evening. I shot him on the northernmost most trail right made a clearing and I just found his track and I shot him right on that same spot. Um with a bow. I was a December time, and he ended up having

that broken track. And that's the first time I actually knew what buck he was. You know, that was him with the track, and it was a medium sized track. I would say that he was a two and a half to three and a half year old buck. Um. In fact, I would I would lean or towards two. Um at that time was about twenty years ago. So but um, he was a you know, that was a

fun one. Gouges. What I really like is is looking behind the rub and above, so you have the face of the robb, i'd call it, and then you can his antlers are angled, and so that upper beam that's on the back side. That can tell you a lot too, because you can start to guestimate about how wide that buck was that made that rub. You can see if

there's any stickers or kickers. And when you're in an area like some of the big wilderness, serious public land that might not have as good a habitat or food sources, then it's it's uncharacteristic to have non typical genes expressed. When they're younger, they don't have a lot of stickers, kickers,

little forks. And so when you start seeing that in some of those areas that are kind of remote, you think, man, this could be a this could be an older box just because it's got some stickers and kickers that aren't that common and on those cleaner racks when they're younger, and so something like that too, or I'm really I like, like, I don't take a lot of I don't put a lot of credibility and that that same box is gonna

go right back by that same rob. But it lets me noise in the area, and then I'm back down to hunting funnels and how can I get in and out? I think people can get wrapped up and Okay, he's got to be moving through here. But then you forced to stand location because um, there's really not a good spot to sat or you have to walk through that area and leave your scent when you could shoot him just as easy on a funnel nearby. Yeah, this is

this is kind of an interesting thing. I just realized we've been talking about patterning deer for like forty seven minutes give a take, and and we have almost not talked about trail cameras at all, Like it's been kind of referenced a little bit lately, but we haven't really hammered it yet. That's kind of incredible that we've talked for forty seven minutes and not gotten into cameras because so many people rely on cameras almost for their scouting

and patterning. Um, so I'm glad that's actually been the case because I think it's important to point out to folks that patterning deer is not just a trail camera game. Right. There's there's all these other things. There's the observations. There's the history, there's what are gonna say, Well, yeah, you

know what's interesting. You might have trail camp pictures from two or three years ago, but if you know that box around you, for whatever reason, you've had the historical movement and patterning, you just neem to always there to

go and kill him. I was gonna mention though, is it's interesting you'll see uh, you know public land hunters that do something a certain way privately and hunters that do something and and I know, Mark, you've flunted a lot I'm privately and on public land, and I know you it's I know you know, it's darned hard on

both for different reasons. It's interesting. I saw a mean going around where, you know, someone had eight camera locations on a forty acre property or a d acre property, and someone that public land hunts was saying, you know, you know something making fun of that kind of like, yeah, let's let's pattern this spot. This is gonna be difficult. And you know, eight cameras on forty acres, you know how many cameras ruin it for people? Meaning that they

go back, they can't leave them alone. They're they're going in and checking them all the time, they're changing batteries, they have too many a box TM, it can spook them away. And it's really hard on forty acres because if you mess up on forty acres for a particular buck and you're using trail cameras and you're really pushing things too hard, you have nowhere else to go. You

might not be back. You might not be back that season where I'm publicly and you can at least go a half mile away over here, quarter mile away over here. I mean how you can drive fifty miles away and hunt some other spot. And so I'm not saying it's easier on one day or the other. But I think it's funny that you know, traill cameras can be picked on a little bit um as it makes it easier. When the way a lot of people use them, I

think it makes it harder for them. They know the bucks there um and but there's a certain percentage out there or it can really hurt their hunt. Yeah, you make a great point, and I guess that's you're doing a wonderful job of helping me as a host here, because that's a perfect segue to the next thing. I think we had to cover. How do we how do you recommend we use cameras two pattern deer and not do what you just said, which is educate the deer. Mess this up, make it harder than it has to be. UM,

I know you've I've watched lots of videos. I've heard you talk about your your thought process behind placing cameras where you hunt, like right at your stand locations, which is another thing most people don't do. UM, could you talk a little about your location choices and then how you're doing that so that you get the data you

need to pattern a deer without educating him. Sure, I've you know, and it's I really like, UM, And I do this out on public land where identify a natural scrape and a funnel that I want to hunt or want to know about. You know, it seems like it might be that X of movement between clear cuts away from people, lay the land, uh pinch point of something, and so you're you're putting a camera on a scrape.

But I'm I'm using those cameras. I would say, my cameras are are within bow shot of my stand locations, and I'm doing that because I want to know effective that stand location is for one. UM, I like getting pictures at my stand locations. We use mock scrapes. But I what I'm doing with those cameras, and I'm making sure that they're not part of the picture, meaning that they're most of the time there are six ft high, or they're hidden back in a v meaning that um,

there's covering on both sides, the profiles hidden. UM, it's just kind of like they're shining out in a cove and there's really not much of a reason for you to walk by. M C M. Notice some I'm using blackout cameras so that um or low glow, so you don't have this red glow UM. So that time you play them high, you place them on something typically that's wider, typically their profiles hidden. Then it becomes a non fact

to the deer. And then I'm only changing that card when I actually hunt that stand, And it might be that I hunt a stand, and then on the way out in the evening, I know those deer feeding somewhere all night away from where I'm hunting, so I might change to other cards on the way back because it's a similar access route. So I'm not taking this eleven o'clock drive on the a t V to go out and change trail camera cards. I'm keeping the cameras hidden.

And then what I really like about that is when we use a mox scrape and it's right at that location, a lot of times you have that buck come in, they're focusing on that mock scrape. They're they're literally staring at the scrape. They don't notice the camera, they don't know this us in the stand. And whether that's a natural scrape that you're hunting on public land or a mox scrape on private land, it's a really good tool.

I mean even for younger hunters or inexperienced hunters where you can actually have take the focus away from them potentially moving in the tree and a deer looking up at them when they're really focusing on We see those and pons focus on those scrapes just as much as those those bucks that come through too. Yeah, kind where uses cameras? You know, I I use him at I

like having him at the stand locations. And at the same time, you know, of course cellular cameras um are our big advantage, but it can can aggravate you because you're hunting one spot and last night Dylan and I were at one stand hunting and the buck were afters at another stand, and when he left that camera, I

didn't even tell Dylan til later. We're both hoping each show up, obviously, but if he would have come our way, we've got another one or two pictures of them, and by him only giving us one picture, that means he turned left and went away from us. So it can be frustrating because you know, unless you make some giant loop or something active, god happens, he's not He's not coming our way, so or he's there and it's close

to dark and he's not where you're at. I want to come back to the cell camera thing, but before that, I want to touch on the mock scrape thing a bit, because you you have a unique approach. You've done some great videos on it. So I definitely recommend folks that if if they hear about this and they're intrigued, they should go to your YouTube channel watch the videos. But could you give us the quick cliff notes on that again, just in case someone hasn't heard you talk about this

in the past. How do you make these mock scrapes? It just seemed so they seem particularly effective for getting these deer to stop in front of that camera and give you that information you need, you know, for patterning or a shot. Well there, Yeah, there are a lot of fun and um you know, I kind of stumbled upon it because in the past there's people like Tonio la Pratt in southern Michigan, I would say late nineties, early two thousands. Um, there are other other individuals to um.

I want to say bow hunting told the Wenzel brothers might have used this in the past two maybe that's where Tony got it from. But anyways, they're using a rope um and hanging up for um a branch And so I'd see these ropes in the early two thousands, and I'd go to start going to properties and I'd see I went to one property, they literally had five scrapes on two acres and they're all robe and a few of them are getting hit here and there, but nothing really that jumped out of here. And then I

start seeing these. Some of my favorite natural scrapes I see on client properties are scouting in general for myself are our vines that are hanging down and it's just crazy. And some of the first scrapes I ever saw back in the eighties, back in Clarkston in Michigan, in that area. Now it's all deerwoods estates and subdivisions, but you had

these noles back in the hardwoods. I didn't even know those scrapes where I had to show a guy out bigger from church, So what are these like these deer around here, like those are scrapes or making them under those vines and so anyways, I got the idea of just hanging those and who broke jackpine branches in the

up and Michigan and then hanging those vines. And what I found was is that when you put a camera on them, we'd hang these vines and more of a deer trail area, not off to the side of the traditional scrape at the edge of the like at the edge of the field. We put it where they're coming in and out in the trail or on a funnel. And every year that walks by, because it's right in the trail, we hang him at waste time. Instead of a traditional looking branch, it's chest tie where a buck

would mostly hit. So then when they come by and it's about waste tie, it's right in the middle of the trail, we have dose fawns and box leaving their scent on it, the preor oble to gland scent every time they come through. And so then to me, the more scent that included on that, the more deer hit it. It just becomes a part of their travel pattern. And

I really strongly feel that. You know what, when you have a scrape like that and it's a vertical scrape paint over a branch where all deer can participate, then including phones, we have some really cool lots of footage of fawns coming in and dancing around the scrape, playing with it, going back. You can imagine this fall. It's not even two months old. They don't even know what all those smells are. Their tails are flickering, they're curious,

they run around, they come back to it. But when every deer's leaving their scent there, you can take four or five trails Nario and narrow it down to one where that's where they're going to go. And so then we put a camera on it. What I find is during the summertime, well I'll have cameras on my cruising

scrapes just to know when a buck comes through. They'll always tell you they're alive, you know, meaning that maybe they only come through once in July, a couple of times in August, couple of times in September, but they'll come through that that funnel where you expect to shoot him in the fall. And so all of a sudden he comes through. Anything. Man, that's that buck. I want, that's him, that's that target buck. And he's he's coming, he's licking at and then I think he likes all

that smell. I' it's you know, we we can't comprehend their noses. You know, we go buy and smell bread. They go buy and smell the ingredients and approximately which one stronger than the other. So they're they're they're completely I mean, think about a beagle where they hit a track of a rabbit, no snow, no rain, no mud, and they know exactly in the moment which way to turn and follow that rabbit based purely on set. So

their noses are so unique. So they go by and they small these liking branches and those that peri over the gland scent. To me, it's that accumulation of all those gear together, and so they're about waist high I hang roast those branches like jack pine up north vines down here. Um oak branches work really well. It's anything that traditionally gets rubbed quite a bit or scraped under hemlock in some areas well. Then I'm hanging that. Usually there are five to seven ft long. I'm hanging them

from a rope a branch. Typically, if it's really open, say you're hanging it like in a two track area where there's a big hardwin on both sides, not a lot of branches. I might make that vine or branch more like eight feet long seven or nine ft, and then I'll put a rope um twelve feet up in the air or thirteen feet up, stand on the back of the tailgate of the truck, or use the steps on a from a ladder to get up a little bit on either side. And uh and so it looks

more natural. You don't want to have this one ft piece of vine just there. I think that's unnatural to them. So a little bit longer when it's more open like that, but we're usually using three quarters of an inch to an inch. It seems like smaller will still attract them, but it's not as visible. But it'll break and then larger. At some point it's just too big, you know. Uh,

it was a baseball bat hanging there. They might rub it, they might not, but it seems to be that sweet spot that we found about three quarters of an inch to an inch. We've had those scrapes last for five, six seven years before we've had to change them, and so it it's crazy. We have footage of box mature box, five six year old box that go up to those and after they leave their scent on it, they literally moved their antlers away from the scrape the licking branch

and keep walking as if it's sacred or something. They just left their scent. It's a former communication and so it's really cool to watch the behavior of the box around there. You can you know, they can regressive for about ten days out of the year, maybe another week during the second roun, but other than that and might have some snap but for the most part, um they're

leaving them alone, they leave their scent. They might play with them hard here and there during the peak of the rut or right at the pre rod or something, but for the most part, it's crazy to see the number of bucks we have that literally move their head away from it to walk around, and they know exactly, of course how wide their antlers are, just to not touch it with their antlers after they left their sun so. Um, we usually put them in definitely on a flat surface

within shooting distance of the stand location. And I'll start those a lot of times in May, June, July, and cleared out three or four feet, kick it down door. I'm kicking out ruts and everything with my feet. Um. Sometimes I'll actually pee on the scrape when I leave. Sometimes they don't, and and then we put a camera on it and see what happens. Yeah, it's interesting you.

I think a key thing to point out is that you're saying that not only do these mock scrapes help you get the pictures to confirm you know there's deer here, but it's been at your experience. This is actually tightening the funnel of deer movements. So not only are you identifying when they're coming through more often because this camera location is so great, but it actually is a draw that takes what might have been four trails that buck might have possibly taken in an area, and now instead

he's almost always taking this one. So it's it's giving me giving you grant great data, and then it's tightening and making the data coming through even more consistent because it's an attractive location. Um, So that's and two two

things with that too, markets what's cools. We've had some mature box we've never had on a scrape, a scrape that's only two months old, and they'll literally will see them walking from it away with their head pointed right at their nose pointing at the scrape like they can smell it or see it at night they can smell it. They walk right to it and work it like they've been doing it all the time, and it's it's really cool.

And I was just gonna mention now. The second cool thing is that's free except where we figured out I think it was likety cents for a parachute cord for ope usually on average, so it's next to nothing. We don't use any scent. But it really is cool how they'll see that from a long ways away and just come right into it like they've been, you know, first time. It seems like the first time anyway, So here's here's

the next question. Then, though, what if someone's listening today on October or November one or something, and he hears this and he's like, oh wow, this sounds like a great way to get better trail cam data or or whatever. We've talked about the various benefits. Um, is there any way to use some portion of your mock scrape strategy

still at this point or is it too late? I mean, what's your what's how would you approach this if you were starting now, like you're on a weeklong rut caastion and you don't have these places all set up, but you've got four cameras in your truck, and you showed up at your lease with a seven day period ahead of you, and you're thinking, man, I gotta get some intel, and maybe for whatever reason you don't have stuff out already.

Is there some way to put up new mock scrapes right now, put your cameras on and still get some available intel for the next few days or is it too late for all that? Yeah? Definitely, and especially if you're putting cameras out already. To me, the disturbance of putting a camera out, you might as well hang a mox scrape if you can, you know, especially if it's off the branch um. We're cutting a fresh vine or a fresh stick, trying not to put your handprint down there.

That can stay there for a while, but we've had deer hit it within a day even with doing that. And then we're putting it right over a trail fare we expect to shoot a deer hou we're putting it

in shooting distance from that stand. So if you're going in to either do a hanging hunt or put a trail camera out, then you might as well throw a mock scrape out there, especially if it's before a lot of rain, you know, true, if it's if it's moist or damp out, then that's I used to warn beetles a lot well that was that was a great scenting condition for the dogs. It was damp, wet, snow wet ground. But when it becomes saturated, there's a lot of rain

that washes sent away. So there's that tipping point. So if you see that there's really good in coming, what a great time to go out right before that rain and put your mock scrapes out and make them look natural. Of course, that's why we're using longer vines, longer branches. We always recommend at least five to six feet, but when it's an open you know, seven eight feet and uh about waist high right in the center of the trail.

Just scratch up a big area. If I scratch up a big area of the stick, I throw the stick in the brusher. I take it out with me. If I clear any branches for that camera, I take those out with me. Try to use the saw grab with one hand, cut with the other. But UM definitely can get those out now. If you're going back into your favorite run stand in the morning and you haven't been there all year, and you have high hopes and you're getting into that stand, I wouldn't take the time to

go put a mock scrape in that situation. But there's definitely whether it's on the edge of a food source, or you have rain coming, or it's in an area that's well away from betting your feet and you can get into on the side of that movement. Add that make an addition real quick, not leave a lot of scent behind. UM. I would say that in most locations, you'd say about those areas you could you could add a mock straight right now and get us out of that.

If you're careful. That raises another question when you bring up this idea of you know, going into a spot to hang a camera, and in my mind, I'm thinking about the impact you're making to hang that camera. And one of the you know, one of the things you talk a lot about is in a trail camera strategy, you know, not letting those cameras hurt you by going in to change batteries or SD cards or whatever too

often or at the wrong times. And that's why you put these at your hunt locations and only check them when you're gonna hunt. But you mentioned this earlier. Cell cameras have changed the game. How do you utilize cell cameras two pattern deer differently than with traditional cameras, if at all? Do you play them in different kinds of places?

Do you value that data differently? Is there anything different with your cell cam tactics versus traditional Um, I'd say, boy, there, I think with the cell cameras the only way it'd be a little bit different as I have a tendency to place still cell cameras in locations where I can't where I'm I'm not going to walk by, I'm only going to go in there and hunt that location. It's

a pretty remote. We have one cell camera here in Minnesota that's in a spot where we just can't hunt, and so we pack it with fresh batteries before the season begins and let it ride and it's on a natural vine scrape that's hanging down and uh so I just I have that there just because it's good for inventory. It's a cool spot. In fact, Mark you were there because I threw a track on the side by side right down there. It was down there, that exact location. I we threw a track. I threw a track, Mark

and Dylan just just watched me, uh being idiot. But anyways, but it was we had fun. But uh but regardless of it was, Um, that's the one spot down there. But for the most part, I'm putting my cell cameras in a little bit more invasive areas where it be

harder for me to change batteries and cards. But overall, um, it might be that you know, you have six cameras three or cell camera three or not, you have nine cameras three or cell cameras six or not or four or five, whatever it is, I put every other one then, so I'm using them purely for inventory. I just want to know more immediate. Obviously, you can make hunting decisions more immediately. UM like that, So are a little bit different than a regular cam. UM. But the regular cam

two is we get to see that buck behavior. We get to see a little bit clearer picture of exactly where they're coming from and going to. We get to see that behavior around the mock scrape it else if they're being really aggressive or not, I can tell you about the personality of a book a little bit differently. UM. You might have one that comes in super aggressive. Can you imagine going out and sitting that evening and using a grun call or something. He might come right into

it because he's aggressive. Or you may have one that seems super shy and comes in and just barely touches it, kind of as you can tell he's timid. You can see those things with video on our regular trail cameras, UM, where we get a fifteen second, ten second or twenty second clip, or a cell camera, you can't see some of those behaviors. So that's why I still like both. Um. They're both both fun, and I think the differences. You know, a cell camera might use it a little bit more

of an invasive spot. Yeah, so here's a scenario that I think has popped up more often now. Well, absolutely, it's popping up more often now that people have cell cameras. There's you know, let's say we're in the season and we have this plan. Um, we have a pattern that we've been kind of working on based on all these

things that you and I have been talking about. Maybe there's a window when we know he traditionally starts to daylight, and we've got some stuff set up to hunt there, and so we're kind of waiting for that window to show up, or or the right conditions to appear, whatever might be. But what happens if he daylights all of a sudden you get a daylight photo of him and you weren't expecting it. Some would you How do you

value a single daylight photo? Do you say, oh, he daylight last night, so immediately the next day you gotta go in there and try to hunt him the next morning, the next evening. Or if not that, what how do you use that or what do you need to see an addition to the simple daylight activity to move Yeah. I really like that strategy because again it goes back

to the y question. Um. For example, sometimes we'll get a daylight picture of a buck and he's hurrying through and it's on Saturday at nine o'clock and we're next to public land or next to our property. There it might be someone honey invasively. And I'm not saying he's not coming back, but why is it they are at that time? Or maybe this is a traditional time. You're waiting every day from the move in, and then when

he moves in and you get that daylight picture. Well, if it's daylight, let's say he's going to a spot and it's um six forty in the morning, it gets shooting light at five to seven, so fifteen minutes later may mean he didn't have enough time to cross a big field or open hardwoods to get back home. So then you ask what betting areas in? And isn't it you know I have a stand here, I have stand there.

It's again, it's kind of like you went into this betting area you're about because you don't think he could go anywhere else in that time frame. He's probably pretty close because he's going to bed soon and uh, and then you're going in and saying, well, I have this camera for the or this stand for this win? Did this stand for this win? You're making that game time

decision no different than UM. You know, he comes out of a certain area in the evening, it's daylight, and you think, dang it, that buck was in that betting are. He had to be because he and move where where he came out of. There's no way he could have moved that far to get to that location from any other direction. He had to be betting there. Well, then as he dived in bed there the next morning, there's a good chance it's not, but it's you know, maybe

chance for twenty it's good chance whatever it is. So then if you have a stand that you can take appropriate, you know. And that goes back to I don't it doesn't matter to me what way the winds blowing, other than I have a stand for this wind. It's on the edge of that betting here, I'm gonna go on it, you know, and make that decision. That and so that's how I use that, UM like a cell camera to

that effect. UM that that But you know, I'm trying to think of, trying to think of I've had stands where or sits or locations I've funted specifically for that. It always it always seems like when I go in there that time, that I don't shoot him, I end up shooting the next day or the next day on a different stand nearby, a on a funnel, just kind of looking at it like well, I'll hunt here and then i'll hunt over there with the wind, and and then all of a sudden you shoot him. And it

was on a on a spot. You didn't even have a picture of him. You just knew he was home, or he knew he's back on your your property. You said kind of along these lines. You said something earlier about how you know when you know a bus in the area, either with the cell camera picture that tells you he's here, or a historical trend that tells you what, I know he's in this zone during a five day

window or something. You've you've said this twice, I think where you say you'll take two or three stabs at him and kind of like you know, poke around, take two or three stabbs, poke around. Do you typically do like a cluster of sits like that? Is that a thing like you're doing on purpose and you're not doing

an isolated hunt? If you if you think he's in the area right now, you're gonna actually say, well, I'm gonna hunt him three days or two days, so you you you poke around several options so that eventually one of those three times you intercept him. Is that Is that? Am I reading that right? Is that on purpose? Or yes? Yeah, there's not necessarily on purpose, just more opportunity. Where typically

I'm clustering stands. So if it's good enough for one stand, it's good enough for two or three in this area this five or ten acres, and so I can come into this stand from this angle, and then I can come into the east two from another angle. Out of those two ones of morning stand, one's an evening stand.

For these reasons, um or or the winds, for example, especially around here with the thermals, I can use this with a um let's say a south wind, and then because I'm on the side of this ridge, it'll trend downwards at night, so I can use that. But if I use that that stand in the morning with the south wind, it's gonna stay up top on the ridge where the deer are and all. If that makes sense. But we'll we'll have stands like that that. Yeah, this

one's better towards morning. This one's better than evening towards evening, and so I might have two or three stands in that spot. And so then I'll look at Yeah, I'm I'm getting northwest wind, cold front winds. They're turning westerly to southwest, and then it's going back to a stable wind for three days of the south southeast. And so

they're right there. I know this bucks in the area, and I can go in and hunt them on northwest wind here in the morning, hunting on a southeast wind here, and I'm gonna southwest morning stand coming in from this one. And so you're kind of chipping away at them, and each one to me because you might find the you know, if let's say you have cameras and you pulled cards later, he walked by two out of three of those stands. Almost every day you're in daylight, it's just a matter off.

You're making the smart decision of which I wanted to hunt by wind, not wrapping yourself up too much that I gotta hunt this standard that stand, just looking at more methodically that you're you're hunting those clusters stands by opportunity. You can get in and out pretty low impact. You're not putting one stand in the center of that spot and going all in for broke, because then you have a lot of you have more probably more chance you spook them than not. And now you're now you're done

for that buck. So I'd rather lightly take a jobs here, take a job there, and uh, overall your your your odds are really good. Um, you know you're taking a job every time job instead of going off for broke at losing them. If if the wind is the same, let's say over a three day period and you've you've determined you want to start taking some shots, you you just describe a situation there where you bounce from this stand to one little over to one that's a little over.

Is there ever scenario where you'll have that same wind and you've got three days with decent conditions, you know he's in the zone. Where is there a scenario where you say, actually, just staying in the one spot and hunting all three days in that same spot is the right approach because you know that he might not show today, but I know within the next three days he's eventually going to come through here because I have this pattern. Is that ever I think it depends on the stand location.

So some stands are more invasive than others. Um where you know, getting down here, it's a little risky getting in or out, and so in that case you might you might take a different approach where, yeah, you have this cluster stands here, you go in there and hunt it. But it was pretty invasive. Maybe even spooked the dough or fallen or something else. You know something that ran um a couple of dolls that come in a young buck. Do you think, man, I might have buggered this area up.

So instead of just going back and sitting in there, I'd rather go on a an adjacent stand that might be two hundred yards away. Three hundred yards. Well, if I spooked him here maybe and it was light, meaning like I didn't spook camp, I spooked another deer, kind of buggered up that area, Maybe I'll go two hundred yards over there to that betting area, the back side of that betting area, because I can hunt with that same wind, different approach, and he'll be none the wiser.

So if I spooked him in this location, he'll probably be over there. I had a spot I went in this year, and I've hunted to stand five times. It's actually a blind down the bottom where we get away with Once we're there, we get away of northerly winds. It's pretty cool spot. Usually go down there and I haven't spooked any deer, and so I went down there this time, and sure enough there's a doop high spooked him.

There was um, a really nice the tur buck down in the draw to my right, about sixty yards away. I spooked to me, went right up the other side, watched them. I think I know what buck it was. And then I got down to the blind and there's a deer blowing at me on the other side. Well, the very next night, that main buck I was after, and this is that was a bad one. That was really bad for for six for me. I don't normally spook a lot like that, so it was really bothered me.

I just looked at like, I'm just gonna relax here in the blind and have a nice night. And I didn't see any deer and um, but the very next night, UM on a spot about two hundred fifty yards away, on a water hole that box names bowl. He showed up on that water hole, which happened to be I think the fifteenth of her sixteenth of October, So it

wasn't that long ago sixteenth. He was on the sixteenth there where I buggered him up on the fifteen and so baby buggered him up, but it kind of and then that was the last time we saw him there, Dylan, I said, there last night, we didn't see him. We haven't had any other trill Camp pictures of him there. We haven't seen him around any any other location. So

it makes you wonder that bump him there. And and then I've had opportunities like that where you know, if I would have been thinking and it was the right wind, maybe I could have gone over and hunted that adjacent standing. That would have been a good play. So you're not forcing it in the same spot, especially being spook, But then you have those other stands red going, you know, spook anything you feel really good about your act, and that's what he kind of goes back. You get back.

If you're hunting with some somebody's you get back, and you know, it's cool to talk about what you saw, But what did you spook? You know, that's a really good question, is what did you spook? Where did they go? Where'd they run? And Uh, And that's often it is just as important as as what what you saw in an area. But if you get in and out really clean and you feel good about it, I definitely humped that stand three days in a row if it's the same wind. So it really really depends on the stand,

location of sets, what happened on the set. Uh. This whole idea of what did you spook? Brings to mind another kind of situation I'm often and where I'm thinking about, you know, usually not always, but usually you have to give up something, you have to sacrifice something like every time you take a hunt, you're always there's always the risk of educating deer. There's always the risk of your win,

your winds gonna blow somewhere, right, there's always something. Um, what is the scenario when you are building out a pattern and figuring out where you want to take a stab at and when you want to take it a stab at a deer? What's the scenario the data point or set of data points that you would be willing to like swing for the fences knowing that you're going to have a high impact, Like it's a spot that it's gonna some deer will know you're there. You have

to push into the interior. You have to go into a spot that's tough and in some reason or way, what do you need to see to make you confident in that. What are the pieces of data or circumstances where you're willing to do that. It's more timing, So I wouldn't do that, UM for a general set or strategy, meaning that I think a box in there, summon to go. Do you know I'm gonna go sit in a standard I know that's there or whatever and take a chance. Um. I would look at like, um, it's I have nine

days of rutcation since the last two or three days. Um, I know the spot is in this betting room in our bedroom. I can go do a hanging hunt. It's going to be a little bit invasive or risky, um, and I'll go kind of off for broken go in. So it'd be more of a timing where, um, I'm there for it's October and I'm not coming back until the sixth of November. I can afford to be a little risky because I have three weeks of forgiveness for

the local deer heard. Um, So I'm looking at it more like that, not that this is an actual option on the table. For me, it's I don't want to be risky like that. I want to live to hunt another day. Kind of going back to the private land thing, where on private land it doesn't matter if you have five hundred acres two acres a D forty five. If you make mistakes, you can really mess up that property. Where public land I can just go somewhere else. So

public lands a different story. There were I'm gonna I'm gonna be more invasive when I know my time is limited and running out um on a on a private land. Personal public land, on the other hand, that's a little bit different because if you're scouting public land a lot and you know you know several good spots, and you know you might have several good bucks that you're familiar with, or or maybe good spots that have a good box. Maybe you don't even know what bucks are in there.

Then I can go in the morning and you're looking at like man in those public land hunts, you might have be able to afford to let a spot just mature all season, and you go in there at the perfect time in early November. You might want to hit that hard in early October, you might want to hit it again. You might have more pressure, so do are being moved around a little bit more, and so public plan is different. I would be a little bit more aggressive.

And then and then you know, of course you have some of the areas where you might have a small parcels surrounded by agg and some of the big buck rich areas Kansas, Kentucky, I will western Illinois and you look at like, I know this area always holds mature box. You go in there and you spoke a buck out, Well, another one just takes this place in the next two or four days. I don't have those areas to hunt, but there are areas like that. Then you can be aggressive too. You can go in there and so so

again kind of back to the y when. Um, there's a lot of different conditions. But and for me personally my general hunting, I don't push I don't push it or take chances, because, um, they'll have a devastating effect on the property so much so that even when we go get deer, we go get them after dark, if if it's cold enough, and I shoot a buck and I had them on the ground during gun season, Um, even both season and you went into a certain betting area. Um,

and it's nine o'clock in the morning. If I can sneak out, I will, If not, I'll stay there until dark. We'll go in there with leave the machine running voices low. You're just trying to do anything you can on that privately and not to spook here and and so lope, that makes sense, you know. I think there's a case to be aggressive, but not as a general strategy unless

you're on public land. But it's completely different. But then you might ask some of those areas that you know it's your back back to our public land or this is where you go hunt public land in Michigan, Well you might want to look at it like, you know, you're going in a wage you're not seeing a lot of other hunters that you can almost look at it like you're managing that area as if it was a big private land chunk. Yeah, yeah, that that does make

sense for sure. I want to I want to start tying the ball in this and wrapping it up so you can get out and get your packing ready for your big trip. Um. So just a couple of quick last questions. One thing that's that's more of a general question but I have forgotten to ask you about it. You know, we've talked through the sign that you're seeing. We've talked through the historical trends that you're observing and

keeping tabs of. We've talked through how you're getting pictures of these deer and how that helps you pattern them. But what we haven't touched on is is how do you actually actually keep track of all this data and organize it? Do you do you write any of this stuff down in the journal? Do you have a spreadsheet or anything where you track deer sightings and observations or daylight photos or anything. Do you have a way you

organize your photos on your computer? Is there anything like that that helps you keep track and analyze all this stuff? Mark this is gonna be, um, not helpful to your listeners. And I'll and I'll say this, um uh, my memory is really good. Um where I remember certain box, certain times of the year, leaves or no leaves, early season, late season, morning evening there in the day. Those those things really stick out, stick out the sign that goes with it. I see it like a big puzzle in

my head. And it's kind of like when I go to a client property there's client party. I could just about redraw my first property. I went to drew it on graph paper with a pencil and ruler back at oh five in the eastern side of the up. And there's things like that that stick in my head. I would read a history book in high school and get to the end of the page and after re read it, I don't even know what I just read. And Hunting magazine I can tell you, and I bet you this

same way. I can tell you just about to the page number where a certain ad was on a Field and Stream magazine when I was ten, and so like it doesn't help because I don't keep journals. I don't um, you know, use any fancy software. We had some software back in the day for keeping track of boxing where they were and it wasn't that it was a bad software.

Is this that for me? Well, you know me, with like sponsors, partners, products, I don't use them unless I don't I don't partner with somebody unless I'm gonna use the product. And and we don't have like product days where we just go out and take videos of a bunch of sponsored stuff. We we actually use it. And so if I'm not going to use it like that data collection for Carol Camera. Then it wasn't a good partner to have. And so it doesn't matter how much

money they give me, I'm not gonna do it. Um. So that was kind of it's it is bad for me. Um. If I had to organize it in my head, it would be certain colors or letters for certain bocks, and where I've had pictures of them in the past, I'd probably change the color is something I thought about in the past to be cool to do. But I'd probably changed the color to the frequency. So it was red, he's there all the time. If it's yellow, he's not

there that much. If it's green. You know, I'd have different colors so that I could look at a map and see those hot spots of where that buck would be the most. But it's kind of like I already had those in my head where he's at. And then it comes back down to that cluster stands in this thirty acres or this edge, And if I know he's in that thirty acres, I'm gonna chip away at him on the outside with the right wind, and they'll stands. And it's it's amazing how if you it's the little things.

If you're if you're being smart how you hunt, you're not making a lot of noise, you're blending into the woods. Um, you can even get away with a little bit less strategy and still be very consistent on shooting those target box just because you're not buggering them out and you're hunting safe and you're making smart decisions on when to go in. Yeah. Yeah, well so yeah, Like I said, it's kind of gonna help your listeners. So, but it's just it's kind of um. I think we can get

so bogged down in those details. It's information overload. I'm the type of personality that I keep those in my head. If I wrote them down and made charts or graphs, to me, it would almost take the fun out of it. But that's me. That's just my personality. I'd rather spend more time scouting or having friends is over setting around the fire. I don't know, you know, it's more um. To some people, that's really cool, you know, like they love doing that. I don't blame I have a friend Tim.

He records and he's a really close friend of mine up in the up and Michigan, up in Market Michigan. But Tim keeps a journal and he records literally the weather, the movement, how many hunters around the land, what deer he saw, where they came from, and and imagine the history that he could look back on twenty years from now, thirty years his grandkids. So you know, I'm missing out

on some of that stuff. I know, well, I can tell you as one of those people, as one of those crazy people, sometimes it ken lead to some stress and over analysis. So there's pros and towns. Yeah, yeah, and that's where yeah, there's already. I mean, you know, it's we're both really busy with what we do. It's kind of like you gotta you getta balance what uh

you make a priority and what you don't. It's not that you don't have time, it's as you spend your time on almost a list of priorities, which you podcast. You know, like you said, we're getting ready to going. But I always, I always love talking to you. So it's kind of like when Mark Kenyon calls, I'm gonna

I'm gonna do a podcast today. You know, we get request for podcasts all the time, but I've always enjoyed the history with you and and talking about this stuff, because um, it always leads this down a rabbit hole of good rabbit hole of um a lot of detail and strategy that some people either gloss over or they

just don't care to talk about or really relate to. Yeah, yeah, well, I I really really really appreciate you taking the time to do this, and uh and I too really enjoy how we can geek out and get into this level stuff. So let's just do one last question and then get

you out the door. If if you had to right down, like if I had a stone tablet in front of you, like a big chunk of granite, and I gave you big old piece of metal you could scrape, you could engrave some words into this stone tablet, and I was gonna say, Jeff, right for me, your top three rules for patterning Bucks. You can write these things in stone and everyone will see for the rest of time. Jeff sturgises Keys to patterning Bucks. You've got three things you're

gonna write on this stone tablet. We're gonna stick it on top of a mountain, and every deer hunter in Wisconsin and Minnesota has got to make a pilgrimage to it and see this to help them kill deer in the future and many other states as well. What would you engrave on that stone tablet Jeff Three? Three main rules. I put an asterisk down the bottom. Mark Kennion only allowed me three. But anyways, I'll think of things tomorrow

when I'm driving to where we're on. It's gonna be But um, I know the one of the first things is look in the past almost more than you look in the future. What I mean by that is look for historical sign look for historical presence. Um you're looking for this historical patterns. Those historical patterns might be a Bux you knew, or it might be in a new area, and you're finding different ages of robs and the presence of scrapes, and knowing that multiple bucks have used this

over a number of years. And so I think sometimes we look forward so much and we think we're planning all these great making these great strategies, and we forget about all this stuff that's been there for two or three years behind us. The second one of the things, just these are three things that popped into my head is the second thing is really, um, learn to hunt like a predator. And one of the ways to do that, And I know this sounds corny, is to really imagine

the deer head guns? You know, would you would you use that stand whether its noise or or stick out? Would you use that stand if the deer had a gun and doesn't allow you to hide? Are you really hiding? Um? Would you sit in that area and take that chance around that deer? If that deer could shoot you if a knew you were there? Um? Your approach in and out? How how would you hunt? Different? If you had to be more like a sniper on a hill? How would

you how would you ambush? I think about a mountline or a cat sitting on a ledge and the unsuspecting prey that goes by. I think that's kind of cool. That's the way I like to hunt. The other guys in Pennsylvania they made fun of us from Michigan for coming out and sitting they call the sitters and where they like to walk and still hunt and and they shot bucks too. So it was just that's how I like.

I like to be blend into the woods, be a part of the woods, and then you get to kind of soak in everything to you're not an obtrusive, unwanted guest. You're you're part of the woods, and then you can to me, you can enjoy it more. So you know, first of all, look look in the past. Second, really blend, and then third when you do choose to hunt, really

choose to hunt by um picking the conditions. There's something that I had to do in the early nineties because I had two weeks vacation, I could take a half day off of the time, and and I didn't have And then when it got a two kids in the early two thousand's, I had to hunt for two or three days at a time, So I had to pick my days. I was. I was lucky as it got later, I was a real estate appraiser for eleven years on

my own business. So I kind of slant my hunts towards the good weather and the good days where I thought dear would move. And so that's been a gift to me to be able to do that, because it doesn't matter like it's a weekend, you have wh I could take a Friday or a Monday. We'll just slant it towards the best weather days. At the best weather day is Monday. Kind of look at it black and white. That's what I'm gonna go and maybe Saturday stinks for

the weather, so spend some time with the family. Yeah, you get less hunting time, but you're able to spend time with your family and friends a little bit more too. Maybe at work, maybe you're able to impress your boss a little bit more because you said, you know what, I'll come in on Saturday, and do you mind if I take Monday off instead of Friday or so whatever, But you can slant it a little bit and so not you know, not holding. I talked about this all

the time that it. You know, people say you can't kill him from the couch. I think that saved more dear more bucks than any other phrase and in the history of hunting, because people look at it like, well, I'm just gonna go sitting that stand ten days in a row. And what you find is there's a diminishing

return every time you sit there. And uh. And so if you if you really look at the past, if you learn to blend, and then you learned to really pick your approach on those high percentage days, then to me, you combine those right there. And even if you're hunting out a poor property or habitat property, smaller property a little bit more pressured land, and you're gonna be successful a lot more than than you're not. I love it. Those three things. Those are good. Those are good things.

And uh and I know that if if folks visit those granite tablets and read through your top three rules, they're gonna say to themselves, Man, I want more from this, Jeff, guy, Jeff, where can folks go to get more from me? Because, um, well your stuff is great. That's really some of the best out there. Well, I appreciate that, market really do. And you can tell. I mean, I lived this stuff.

So this is what I do. You know, whether it's with clients, um around a hundred a year being in the woods hunting, and I like to do a lot. I think we're going as a family down to hunt Public Land in Ohio this year for their gun season. Opener Um. I like to do a lot of do it yourself and so that comes through. And for that, I feel like even on client properties, we get to learn every time we go on another client and so then when I think I learned something, I love to

teach that. So the YouTube channel white till abitat Solutions dot com. Um we have over a thousand videos now on there for people to cruise to. I try to categorize them so like you mentioned mock scrapes, I think we have almost sixty mock scrape videos in that playlist. I try to put them in playlists. Advanced hunting strategy is probably the largest and right and be a couple of hundred, and there of course food plots, habitat provement.

I also try to spend quite a bit of time and I go through streaks on this depending on how much time I have. But Instagram, White Till, Habitat solutions there too. And then Dylan and I who Dylan he's goes to clients to who he's worked with me since two thousand sixteen Independent works for a A is a great dude. And you you know Dylan Dylan has worked with U Meat Eater. Um, you know, he's worked with a lot of different hunting industry personalities and people and

entities and companies and so. But um, Dylan and I I worked with them about once a week shooting videos and he sits in a tree with me too. We playing a strategize a lot together and we started a podcast and um, you know we've talked to you about being our first guest. We're hoping that will work out

here in the next couple of weeks. Um, but yeah, we're we're looking forward that we've already talked about the topic with you to talk about so but kind of a blend of Western do it yourself whitetail hunting and hunting industry questions and stuff. So, um, you know, get into a talk about that. But bottom line is, um, we've shot three uh not shot, we actually have recorded them, but we've filmed them and recorded them and those those should be on my website. We have white tab tat

solutions dot Com. There I have over six d white Till articles. I've written strategy articles and we'll be hosting the podcasts supposed to be done by about October thirty one, the first of November, and we'll try to consistently put out about one a week on those. So that's that's another way. You know. Of course you have books, web classes, we go visit people site, visit we even sell seed now,

whs wildlife flens. But again, you know, I have over a thousand videos on YouTube, bring out the podcast, over six articles and um that's all for free and so I don't hold anything back. Um, it's you. You try to. When I've learned something, I keep a running tab of notes I might have shown you, Mark, but it's a couple of thousand long in my in my phone, and it's um. You know, when I think of something i'm on a client property, I get excited and geeked out

about it. I can't wait to tell people, and so I do that through Instagram, YouTube, now, the podcast, books, writings, whatever. Man, it's awesome. We've all we've all benefited from it. So uh on the on behalf of everybody listening here, and all the folks have watched your videos, read your books, read your articles. Let me just for I'm sure you've heard a million of these, but let me just do it all more time. Thank you well, Mark, thank you.

You know, I really appreciate it. It's uh, it's been uh, it's been fun rewarding, you know, this entire process. But most of all, I hope you know. I always say, if the information is not helping anybody, then it's why I put it out until UM. I love hearing that feedback. I appreciate it. I love hearing the feedback and the comments on YouTube, and uh in Instagram to um YouTube tells me I answer about ten tho comments a year on YouTube, So I try, I try. I try to

answer as many as possible. Um. But you know, the whole the whole mission is to try to help. So I hope it comes true. And I really appreciate that feedback. Thank you. Mark. Yeah, well, hey, you're you're doing an awesome job. But now I've got one last thing for it, Jeff, you need to hang up this phone, finished packing and go kill a buck in Saskatchewan. All right, my friend, that's that sounds really good. Mark, We're that's Uh. I

thought that was a dream hunt. I'd go on and when I'm in you know, ten years now or something, but um hunt wise made it happen this year. It was a random call in January. They let me know Jen's going to and um Dante's actually coming to film. We found out that in the last couple of days he worked at Matthews, my stepson, and he uh, they gave him time off unpaid. So we're helping him out with that and getting him he's gonna film us, and

so we're even at six am. It's kind of a dream hunt I've always wanted to hunt those chocolate horn monsters up north. Yeah, and we're gonna be able to do so here pretty soon. So very very fortunate. Alright, Well, I'm gonna be crossing every one of my fingers and toes for you. Thank you, Mark. I'm open to just see a giant that'll be. That'll be nice, it'd be, it'd be awesome. So just to be up there, that sounds awesome. All right. That's it, my friends. I hope

you enjoyed it. Thanks for joining me. Follow along my story over at wired to Hunt on Instagram. Be sure to check out the Wired to Hunt page over on the mediator website. That's the meat eater dot com slash wired. You can follow along on Facebook our YouTube channel. We've got the Dear Country Show over on the meat Eater YouTube channel. Be sure you're subsided or subscribed to the Meat Eater newsletter, which you can do over on that meet of your website. You'll get a weekly email with

an update on all the content we've got. What I'm trying to say is we're putting out a lot of deer hunting stuff for you folks who love deer hunting, just like me. But it's time to hunt, so let's stop talking, let's get in the woods. Best of luck, have fun, and until next time, stay wired to Hunt.