Ep. 615: Hunting Late Season Deer on Public Land with Beau Martonik

They are actually in West Hollywood, but probably not for any of the reasons you're thinking. West Hollywood happens to be where ticket Master's headquarters are located. The boys are out there protesting that company after sitting in a virtual queue for like fifteen hours only to not get tickets to Taylor Swift's new tour. I know it's a shame. I know those guys are big, big fans of hers, and I hope the picketing and they're harshly worded signs will do them some good and they get their tickets.

And speaking of doing you some good, I have Beau Martonic on this episode to talk about public land hunting in the late season. You know bo is Aware to Hunt contributor. He's a podcast host and he's a Pennsylvania native who devotes a stupid amount of time to mountain bucks that anyone can theoretically hunt, but very few kill like he does. But whether you're a public land hunter yourself or have something a little more cushy for your late season endeavors, this show is just full of good advice.

Martonic is one of the best hunters out there, and it's safe to say if you listen to this all the way through, you'll pick up a thing or two at least that you could put to good use on a buzzer beater book no matter where you live or hunt. How are you, buddy, good talk to you again, Dude,

you're looking skinny. Nothing nothing, you weren't skinny before? Yeah, I uh, I just I actually just got back from the gym because this is my first week back in it, and I am one of those people that I try every year to stay in the gym and working out during hunting season, and it's just traveling back and forth

and try to get work done in between. Wasn't working and um, yeah, I lost about I think it was sixteen or seventeen pounds since uh late August when when I kind of started my my trips out west and then white tail hunting. So yeah, I'm I'm definitely looking a little skinny cheeseburger. Man. Uh, this is not what I wanted to talk about on this podcast, but we're gonna talk about it a little bit. When when you yeah, I know you you you've worked out for a long time.

Is it like, is it something for you where you're like, I know, I'm going elk hunting every year, so I gotta stay in shape for it, or was it something even before maybe you started traveling to hunt where you're just like it was sort of a part of your life. It's always been a part of my life. Like that's been something since high school when I was in sports, and then even in college when I had no real reason to do it. I just like I like working out.

I feel good when I do it, and I just when I have like a routine of just doing it every day, Like it's even say something little like my my workouts have changed. I went through different I guess different parts of my life where there's parts where I got in a real high intensity stuff and like just beating yourself down every day, and I realized that wasn't

really sustainable. And my goal is just like I want to be able to hunt as long as I can in my sixties seventies, and I just want to I want to stay you know, competent and be as good as I can in the field. So that's that's kind of the mentality I've had. But definitely elk hunting and stuff gives me a little more motivation when I'm not feeling like it to to make myself do something, you know. That's that's kind of the way that that I look

at it. Yeah, it's uh, I mean people use different reasons, right like when when you talk to you know, the average person, especially right now this time of year where we're coming up on the New Year and you know, everybody makes their New Year's resolutions or whatever, it's like, Oh, I wanna I want to lose weight, so I'm gonna go to the gym. And I was thinking about that.

I was actually talking to my wife about it, and I was like, that's kind of the wrong way to look at it, like really should be looking at like I just want to get in shape and feel better like mentally, physically, the whole thing. And you know, there's some awesome side of effects of that, Like there's some

benefits right, like you will lose weight. But it's like it's it's easy for people to kind of like pick one reason or another one motivation, like well, I'm gonna I'm finally gonna take that ELK trip, so I gotta

do it. And it's like, man, that's great. But if you can find a way to, you know, be like be in it all year round, or like be dedicated to it a little bit more instead of that because that ELK take is gonna go away, or you know, you might roll your ankle or something, and you know, like things change, and it's it's tough to do, but it's such a benefit to enjoying hunting, I think, oh yeah, and and just enjoying life. Like just in general, I feel so much better. I have more energy when I'm

working out consistently. I just feel better in general. And the one thing too, is like I feel like I build uh by being consistent with it and doing it

all the time. Once you get later in the season and you've been hunting for two months, you know, whether it's just weekends or you're hunting all the time, whatever it is, you kind of get war out and this kind of helps you continue with it, in my opinion, to be able to help continue just going day after day because you're used to just the consistency and and just need to, you know, put in the work and and go with it. And I think that the mental side of working out has helped me as much and

hunting as the physical side has. You know, not not all my you know white tail months or spots that I go into or you know, a mile or two deep, and not all like that, like someone aren't really that physically exerting. But at the same time, it just helps me, you know, when I have to get up, you know, five in the morning to go do there at four o'clock in the morning, that I just I can continually do that. And you know, even sitting in a tree, you know, back in November, trying to sit all day it.

I feel like there's all these extra benefits that come from from consistently working out, and uh, to me, I

think that it just it helps out a ton. Yeah, I do too, I mean, and I noticed that especially on some of my traveling trips where it's like you go, you know, maybe sit sit the stand for a couple of hours, and then you could go back to the you know, camp or go back to your tent and take a nap or chill out or whatever, or you could go scout someplace new and then go sit and just like as far as being in the moment and being like really efficient with your time, it sure helps.

Oh yeah, it definitely does. And yeah, just like you said, instead of feeling like you're tired and want to go back and take a nap, yeah, you can be more efficient and drive down the road and check out this other spot and walk around, and you just feel more energized throughout. So that's that's where I see a lot of the benefits. And I think I think I would

do better if I did it throughout the season. You know, we were talking a little bit before we started recording, and you said you were keeping up with it, you know, a couple of days a week at least, And I think that's a I think that's a big deal. And I had no reason not to other than uh, I just I you know, sometimes you can get in your own head that you're busier than you probably are to be able to squeeze up even at twenty or thirty minute workout, and really, isn't that hard. You just got

to be better at time management. I guess maybe you know. The other thing is maybe you just need a case of like crippling depression, so you have to go and otherwise otherwise you'll be absolutely miserable if you don't go work out. Yeah, that could definitely be it. So I think I think, Sorry, I just just gonna say I think that, like I was struggling so bad of trying to find a deer in October that that's just like all my head was focused on was just running around

trying to do that that. Uh yeah, I wasn't thinking about anything else. Did you have an unusual year that way? Yeah? I did. Yeah, I Um, I struggled. I was traveling a little bit at the beginning, well through September and beginning of October. So when I came back to Pennsylvania, I felt like it was my I felt like the

woods were all brand new to me. And normally I'm kind of keeping up with things and you know, run trail cameras and out scouting and seeing what the food sources are, and I just I felt like I was just dropped in the middle of somewhere and trying to figure it out. And I just wasn't finding signed like I normally was, and I had to move around a lot to try to try to find it, and even some of the his I'm big on historical data, and a lot of my historical data wasn't lining up with

how this year worked. So it took some kind of freelancing around a little bit to be able to figure it out. And where I ended up finally killing a deer at the beginning of the member was in a spot that I didn't even have any trail cameras that year anything. It was just like a spot that I, you know, new deer traveling through some hot sign and and um I set up on it for the last evening I had to hunt in Pennsylvania. So that was, uh, yeah, it was. It was a tough year for me, to

be honest. Do you do you find because I know you do a lot of trail camera work. Do you find yourself? Because I have this struggle. I have to struggle struggle on private land and public land, but on on public land a lot where I start hunting off of memories, and it usually doesn't play out very well for me, and I have to go figure out what's

going on? Do you? Is that what you're talking about a little bit here where you're like, I'm coming into this, I've been gone, and you know, instead of like just buckling down and you know, going I don't know what's going on, you kind of like rely on what you knew, and it's always freaking changeing, and so you end up getting forced to go find him anyway. Yeah, I know, and I've I've done well with the historical data at times, but I've also learned. I talked to somebody else about

this recently. It was like I definitely crippled myself from the standpoint of I do better hunting areas that I don't have the historical knowledge, and sometimes then I do the areas that I do because I'm like, yeah, I don't like you know, when when, especially when around a bunch of cameras or you know, you have years of history in there, it's like, Okay, this spot is normally good, and you start start putting that time in there, but it's like, Okay, it's not really happening, you know, where

if I go into a new area, I'm looking for the hottest sign. I'm trying to find it and do it. And it's not saying I won't put three to four sits at some of these spots, like especially you know in the big woods where it's low deer density. But but when you just go off of like they should be coming here, at some point you start chasing. You know you're not not doing as well as uh as you could be. At least that's the way I feel about it. Yeah, I I that really hit home for me.

I had had two times in my life when when we had the girls and I kind of went from having tons and tons of free time to like really planning short three or four or five day trips. It made me realize how kind of behind the curve I was. Even if I had to take five or six days off of or I was going to travel someplace this weekend and next weekend, that time between change things a lot, and then it kind of it made me realize at what disadvantage you really are if you're a weekend warrior,

whether you're at home or traveling. It's like that that space between when you're there is really important, and you know, trail cameras can fill in the gaps a little bit, but there's a lot you're gonna miss. And the other time for me, you know, you talk about the big woods. I hit on a spot in northern Wisconsin I don't know six seven years ago. Now that was pretty damn good for you know, like decent bucks for that area, and it was kind of this creek bottom system that

just it was right. And I hit it a couple of years and killed a few deer and had some good encounters with some really big deer. And then I don't know, probably three years ago, four years ago, it just went dry in there, like just and you know when it's a big woods thing, and you're like why, like, you know, why would this change that much because it's

not like egg rotation or anything like that. And I just started, you know, through winter scouting, started finding okay, well, somebody brought in a letter stand here, and somebody had to stand across the creek here, and it was just pressure, just guys coming in and that that place has never been the same since. And it's one of those spots where I'm like, I want this to be on because it was so fun going in there knowing the deer

we're using it, but it's just it's it's a freaking memory. Now. Yeah, and and and that's that's I mean that that spot on for a kind of how this year went for me, is this spot had been so good the last couple of years. It's one area and I was hunting one deer, and I always like target one deer if I if I'm in an area, I'm running trail cameras, but I'll shoot other deer like I'm not at all there, not

the guy with it. But it was kind of that way in this area this year because all the other bucks that there used to be multiple, like great bucks that shoot, and this year here was there was one and I couldn't find him and he ended up getting shot in gun season, so I don't have to worry about him anymore, thankfully. But well, hold on, but what do you think happened there with that buck concentration? It was people, There was there was pressure and not the

exact spots I was hunting, but people moved in. And also there was there was no food. I mean there was brows, don't get me wrong, but there was no mass from you know, years prior looked at there was some oak trees in there, and those oak trees had produced on year one, which was incredible because it was the only oaks in the area, and you know your two they didn't produce, but there was a good black cherry crop and beech crop. This year, none of those,

none of those things happened. And so I think there was a little bit of the food that was that was causing that. And then also the pressure because there was just there was people everywhere. I was getting trail cameras messed with. I was having just problems that I

hadn't had in the past. So I mean, really at that point I should have just kind of moved on right when that was the case, but I was really stubborn on wanting to hunt this deer, and and uh, and I just I never never really figured it out. He did end up showing up on one of my cameras in daylight when I was down in West Virginia. I had already filled my tag at this point, the last day of the season, and he shows up at

like eight am. He's looking right in my camera and just walked by, and then uh, I ended up he stuck around all through until rifle season and then uh, someone ended up shooting him on the second second day there. But uh yeah, so that that was kind of that

was kind of a learning curve for me. And I ended up just like, once I realized I wasn't finding him and I was kind of wasting time per se on it, I just started moving around and covering ground and then that's when it ended up working out for me.

And and you know, obviously there's always a little bit of a luck involved and uh and with the weather being so hot, it was seventy two degrees when I shot my dear, and I was like, okay, I need to go and some dark timber and some creek bottoms and that was it felt ten fifteen degrees cooler down there. And I don't I don't typically, I don't typically like let the weather determine completely how I'm gonna move unless

it's like sustained weather. You know, if it's like one day of seventies some degrees, that's not typically from from my experience, gonna shift that deer movement to the point that all they're going to the bottoms, so they're doing going to the north slopes, like that's not typically what I've seen, but once you started getting you know, five six days or even three to six days of that kind of weather, then it starts seemingly affecting the daylight

movement down in the bottom. So that's, uh, that's kind of what I had to do when you when you talk about kind of riding out that spot that had had some mass for you and then didn't have mass for and people moved in there. I honestly think that that might be the number one hang up that that most hunters have as far as their own success, because we fall in love with the idea of a hunt happening where we want it to happen, and man, it that is a great way to kick yourself in the

nuts because it's so rarely happened. I mean, if you if you just look at like where most of the hunting content is produced, and you look at I mean, I guess, maybe not today, but ten years ago, where the hunting content was produced. It's places that are so tightly controlled that you know, those year are coming into that food plot every Halloween or whatever, and nobody's touched them, and that hunt can happen this year just like it happened last year and the year before, and you know,

the box changed, but the situation really doesn't. And you know, for most people that's really not an option, even if they're trying to work on private land and that happen, Like it's kind of a different deal for for most people. And that idea of just like, well, I wanted to happen this way, you know, I wanted to be November three on my favorite stand. And it's like, god, you know, that's such a trap. Yeah, oh, it definitely is, And

and I fall into it from time to time. As much as I know that, like I have experienced that and understand it, it's still hard to get your own personal Like if you were to ask me if you were, if you laid out the situation I had, I feel like I could give you decent advice. But when it's myself, that's where I struggle. I mean, it's it's a it's

a hard thing, man. I mean I think I think that's why you know, people such as yourself and you know other guys who travel a lot and hunt in public land a lot get really good at this stuff no matter where they go, because you're just forced to face that reality all the time, like you can't. You know what it's like to feel like you're wasting your time and when you're really on a limited schedule and you know your income like depends on it, it's like

you can't. You can't. You literally can't afford to make a bunch of dumb, lazy decisions. Yeah, that's a good good way of putting it. So are you? Are you working on you? You have any buck tags left now? I do have a buck tag left in West Virginia. I don't know if I'm gonna actually I don't think I'm gonna make it back down there. I'm focusing on late season, uh dough tags in Pennsylvania, though, I'm gonna take my flint lock out. That's a goal to shoot

one with a flint lock muzzleloader. So I'm kind of focusing on that. But I'm also playing I'm hunting as if I'm hunting bucks, and I'm even moving cameras around so that you know when I am in this position, because ultimately I will be in a position where I have a buck tag in my home state here at some point in the late season that uh, I want to be able to kind of figure it out a little bit and or at least have more information with it.

And I do that every year to try to try to learn and understand these deer a little bit better. But so personally, No, I don't really have an more buck tag that I'm gonna be hunting as of right now. How about yourself? UM, I'm I'm kind of out of buck tags. I have one left in South Dakota, but I'm gonna I'm gonna stay home and hunt pheasants. But I was just curious because I I kind of do

the same thing. I don't need a buck tag to keep hunting this time, and I and I still have some dough tags left, and I want to ask you about that. I I just wrapped up a muzzle older season a little bit ago in Minnesota. UM, not the same muzzle older season that you guys have, though. What's what's your range on that flintlock? Hundred yards at most? Um? I mean, people can shoot them further, That's what I

feel like. It's my effective range. UM, but I'd like I'm looking for a fifty to sixty yard shot is what my goal is with it. When you're carrying that though, do you look at it? I mean, because I know where I muzzled or hunting. Now we can use scopes. It's just kind of changed the whole thing. But I grew up, you know, I had years where it was just open site. So it was to me it was like you're you're talking a hundred yard max weapon and I was always looking for that like kind of double

my bow range shot, you know. So if it's like if I want to kill a deer at my bow and like fifty sixties awesome with open sights, So do you do you treat your hunts like that where you're like, this is basically like a bow hunt, but I got a little more reach to work with. That's exactly how I look at it, and I almost set up just like that I would be bow hunting, and like during the late season it's late archery in Pennsylvania and the

traditional uh flint lock. So I'll use both of those as I as I kind of go throughout the season, depending on how what my set up looks like and how I want to hunt um. In the past, I've usually used archery equipment because I felt like it was easier than using the flint lock. I've I've struggled trying to do well with that flint lock muzzleloader. But now I'm really just trying to focus on it. But how

did you struggle with it? What do you mean as far as missing deer because you have that, it's with the flint lock. Once once that hammer drops and hits that powder ignites it, it's not the same time it's going to go off every time. And maybe there's there's probably better ones out there than I have that do fire the same every time, but it's just you know, if it's wet or sometimes it doesn't go off, and you know, it's easy to flinch. And it's always been like, uh,

clean miss or perfect shot. And that's kind of how how that that has been with it, And that's that's how I struggle. So let's let's take the clean miss versus the perfect shot. Was it like, do you remember

the difference being tied to the delay in the fire? Yeah? Yeah, definitely, Like and that's where I've been practicing as far as trying to understand that you just gotta get a hold hold even when you got this flash of flame in your eyes, that which is hard to just continue holding because sometimes you have that flash and then it'll still take a little bit before it goes off and uh yeah, that's it's the people that do the flint lock stuff is I mean, I have a lot of respect for

them that that do it every year, and I think it's pretty cool um to do that. But I'm going to I'm gonna have two different strategies for that late season. One is if we get a lot of to know, do some tracking um, and then other than that kind of stand sitting like like I would if I was, you know, using a bow at that time of year. So those are the kind of like the two different approaches to it. Are you are you hunting those doughs

in the same places you're hunting these bucks in the mountains? Are? And p A, yeah what what? So? This is this is something we struggle with all the time because when you talk about late season advice, it always defaults to the food sources, right, you know, get on the cut

corn and get on the brassicas whatever. But there's so many situations out there with people who are like I don't have you know, I'm out in public land, I don't have a Brassica food plot, right, So what what are your dear you like you you're gonna go out there with that primitive weapon. You're gonna hunt these places. You scout a lot for bucks. What are those doughs gonna be keying on? So it's a lot of woody brows. So, you know, especially if there's if there's leftover acorns, that

will be that's definitely a hot, hot ticket item. But if there's not, it's a lot of woody brows so, and a lot of clear cuts. Um really targeting the younger cuts, even some that are freshly being logged. You know, even if there's skinners still in there. Those deer will come out before dark and start working the edges and then as those people go home for the night, they work their way into the rest of the cut and eating the tops. Um. So, a lot of those brows.

If the weather is really bad and it's hard for them even to even dig up even black cherry seeds, those are things, but as that gets bad, they'll even feed on you know, hemlock and pine branches and and mountain laurel, the twigs and stuff like. It's just it's a lot of that browse, but also an area that doesn't have a lot of cuts or actually even in

combination of cuts is where you can find grasses. Um So there's a lot of natural grasses that don't have to be you know, necessarily food plots that will be able to do that. A lot of our creek bottom systems have openings with grasses in it, and that that tends to be you know, a little bit wetter areas. It doesn't freeze as quick so as you start getting

into January and stuff, those areas can be good. And I've really learned that from shed hunting, where you know that that where the places that I'm finding sheds on some of those bad weather years. I tend to find the bucks in uh in the late season as well. But um so those are kind of the areas of

focusing on. But like the my if I could put an ideal situation out there for you, it would be kind of a um anywhere from a tune of five year old clear cut that's got some briars coming up, you know that that has like a lot of that browse that's readily available. They're probably laying down almost in

the same spots that they're gonna get up. Um But you're just trying to be just off it kind of on those edit edges and being able to get them as they come by feeding or even in the center where you get like a log landing that has a bunch of grasses from where they used to have a log landing, and and then also a bunch of brows around those areas are places that that I've learned from

a lot of it too. In addition to shed hunting, was just tracking deer in the late season eve when I didn't have attack, just kind of following tracks and seeing what they're doing. And uh, I've learned a lot about that. Yeah, I think you get a real crash course on how deer actually feed when you watch them brows, like through clear cuts and when you do the big woods thing, and you see, just especially this time of year, how important those soft edges are, Like you just like

a little bit of change in habitat. It's it's so important to them and it's so easy to overlook if you have destination food sources that are like really reliable, but many they teach you a lot when you watch the mill through those clear cuts. Well I learned, I mean just even this week, so our guns season ended on Saturday, and then that was coincided with some cold weather and some snow that we got the Sunday right

after it ended. Thankfully, I didn't have a buck tag, so I was glad that we had a pretty terrible rifle season weather wise. But anyways, I so I don't have many spots that I can run like cell cameras just because the signal for the most part. But I do have a couple of cell cameras out and I have them on like a hemlock, so like a conifer edge right where it goes into a cut that had been cut two years ago. And the last two days

has been crazy with the amount of deer movement. And this is you know, in a lower deer density area, but it seems like all these deer I've had more movement on my cameras the last few days than I did um because it's actually a good rut spot too, but even more than I did during the rut. Um some younger bucks moving in, a bunch of does hanging out around that area, basically coming up into that cut to feed um. And they've they've a lot of a lot of clear cuts now on this I learned this

from my forestry buddy. But they'll lead of the tops down because the and I was I almost thought, there's just being lazy, But what I learned was it's to help keep the deer out of the center so they can regrow the trees. So they'll keep them kind of you know, laying down and make it kind of nasty in there, but that does provide good bedding on the edges of it, and they'll feed the edges of those instead of going in the center of all these blowdown

or tops. They're gonna feed on those edges. And that was something that I've that I've learned, and it really clicked when he told me the reason for doing that and what the intention of it was, and that's kind of how the deer are are using it. And so those are those are things that I really look at. You mentioned something earlier that I wanted to touch on when you said if there were acorns left. You know that's that's a big draw, do you guys out there,

because we get this big time. It's one of my favorite late season things. If I if I have the opportunity where if you've got to mix a white and red oaks, and you know, they're clean up those white oaks in October whenever they're falling, and then they kind

of if they have enough good food. And I've even seen this up in northern Wisconsin and some or central I should say, where it's kind of big woods ish where they won't target those red okay corns nearly as much until it gets to like December and we get a foot of snow on the ground, and then the turkeys and the deer and everybody's like, well, I guess we better get back to those. Is that what you're

talking about. That's exactly what I'm talking about. And and also like so chest not oaks, so I in October, it'd be hard pressed to find a deer to even pick up a chest not oak acorn. You know, they just don't like it. And and as as my buddy Kenny, my forestry buddy, calls them the sheets hot dog of

the deer woods. So if you're if you're from eastern you know, the Eastern United States, the sheets gas station that are going up, it's like, okay, you'd prefer the flame and yon, which is the white oak, but the sheets hot dog is kind of your last resort, like you got you gotta eat, Okay, I'm gonna stop in here, real quick, I'm gonna hit the touch screen, I'm gonna order it. I'm gonna have my hot dog and in

a short amount of time. And that's kind of the way looking at Chestnut oaks, which there seemed to be a good um crop of those, even in West Virginia where I was at, and and in Pennsylvania versus even the Reds this year, so that was that's interesting. But this this is the time of year when they might start hitting that versus um, you know, earlier, when they have better food available, They're gonna they're gonna pick that.

You know, do you do you feel because I'm trying to I'm trying to look at this stuff, like what what are the positives that we have going on? Because we we always focus on the negatives, right, you know, like it's too hot or it's too windy, or the full moon or whatever bullshit, or there's too many people out. And you know, when you look at late season hunting, I I don't maybe you disagree, but I think it's the hardest hunting of the season. Just generally, Like I've

never had like really like awesome ladies. It's always been a kind of a grind. I've had good hunts, but it's it's work. So you know, like looking at that, I go, Okay, what's the benefit? And I know for me, I don't have a whole lot of competition out there, And it feels like a part of the season where you can sort of just work the deer and and not think about constantly like who's coming in to hunt this spot or how many people are gonna be out

there on the weekends. And I feel like you get a pretty decent advantage that way over the rest of the season if you're a public land hunter, and I think maybe that doesn't get a whole lot of credit. Yeah, yeah, you're you're spot on, And there's there's a couple of things I look at with that and as an advantage, because like you said, there are a bunch of disadvantages that we don't need to to harp on. It's hard. It's hard hunting late season, the weather just dear being pressured.

But as you get later on, they start acting like deer again. It's they start acting like deer supposed to and they're not you know, they might even come out and feed on those acorns um an hour and a half two hours before it gets dark, rather than barely coming out of that cover at the last minute, if

at all, you know, and when there's more pressure. But you know, even in a heavily hunted state like Pennsylvania, I don't see too many people out other than maybe, uh, the occasional guy walking around with a with a muzzleloader. There's not a whole lot of pressure, so you can find you can get away from people a lot easier in my opinion. Uh. And if you're willing to grind it out through the weather and everything else, that's kind

of dealing with it. There's a lot of opportunities not to mention that, you know, there's not any vegetation on the trees now. The bedding cover, even in areas that are all look like bedding cover, are narrowed down, and you know, and and if you if you're getting in some nasty weather, say you're getting you know, temperatures ten fifteen degrees depending on where you're at, like that's now, they're gonna they want to be closer to that food. So you find some cover that's close to that food.

They're probably betting in that area, and you might even be able to set up a little bit more of an open spot um with you know, just some briers around or whatever that's you know, right there available and not not overthink it like you like you have to. And times of the year when there's there's more pressure. Yeah, and that's a good point. And there there's something else too.

I mean, maybe it's a little bit different out where you live, but I know that a lot of the places I hunt, some of the best geothermal cover you're gonna find in an entire county is going to all be public land. Like if you take some of this egg heavy stuff, you know, like some of the stuff that I hunted for one week in November in Minnesota here, you know, it's it's flat prairie egg everywhere type of stuff. And if it can be farmed, it's gonna be farmed,

and it's gonna be private. And if it can't be farmed, it might be public. And so all of the you know, willow creek bottoms and freaking cattails, slews and these little bands of timber that are just like in these places that they can't run a plow through. Those you know might look at them and go, well, yeah, there's people peasant hunting the neurial of time or deer hunting. They're all guns season well now when most people are kind of out of the woods, those places offer those deer

the best cover. So they might have been riding it out in a private fence line or a little homestead or something for much of the season, or a CRP field, and now they need real geo thermal cover and in so many different places the best cover available to them will be public. Yeah, and and and I've also I've all always thought that you needed like the really thick, you know, geothermal cover basically that to hold those deer,

to keep the wind block. But what I've learned is even mature hamlock and pine forest that may cover a side hill or creect bottom or whatever it is, it offers such a blanket over the top. You know, I've noticed it by just dropping milkweed. So like in and earlier in the season, I like those bots because it's very dependent that if I dropped my if I dropped my milkweed, it's gonna run downhill no matter even what time of day it is. Because it blocks out the

sun as much it keeps it cool. But as you get in a late season, it actually does the opposite and you start seeing it coming up, which means it's a little warmer in there. You might not you as a person might not be able to feel it as much, but that's offering that wind break, that's offering a little bit of warmth extra for those deer. So anything with with that, with having like the conifers and having that thermal cover, uh, that's you know, you butt that up

against food. And when I say food as far as like good brows or whatever, man like, those are those are the spots that I'm that that get me excited when it comes to the late season. Yeah, I don't.

I think that we are really disconnected from like an awareness of those spots out there, because I noticed, like we, you know, we do so much late season pheasant hunting and we jump deer all the time, doing it right, like all the freaking time, and it's almost always like, you know, the wind's blowing thirty miles an hour, so you're like, okay, the pheasants are probably gonna stack up here or there or whatever, and you know, you get out it's brutal, brutal cold, and you get into some

of these spots where you jump a good buck right next to you, and it's almost always one of those places where you didn't even notice it, but you got in there and it was way calmer, and you immediately felt way warmer, and there was like all these little advantages to those spots that if you were just standing there looking at this land, or especially if you're scrolling over at looking at aerial photography, like you wouldn't probably get this because it's you know, it's like two situationally

variable right, Like you're not it's not zero degrees when you're looking at it, you're not standing out there in wins. But you get into him and you go, this is this makes so much sense why he was here, And I think that stuff so valuable. Oh yeah, it is so valuable. And it's it's for example, like Ohio is one of those states that runs a very late season that you know goes from you know, all runs all

into February, I believe. And I remember years ago I was working in Ohio and I just used this, I'm like, I'm just gonna hunt lay season. I've hunted Ohio during the a lot, which is super busy on on public land anymore, and that late season, I didn't run into a single person, and I was not using my normal rules of thumb of trying to stay away from city areas, you know, population. It was in a very populated area.

I didn't run into anybody that was out there. And you know places like that that have still have they have big deer every year, but they have a lot of hunting pressure makes it a a little bit difficult during some of the prime times. But you can take advantage of that later on. Or if you say you did go on that rout trip and you didn't fill your tag, you can go back and in late season and you know, with with some leg work and getting around, especially if

you have snow. That's gonna tell you right now kind of where they're spending their time. And uh, I think there's there's a there's a big advantage to that. And I do a lot of um the week after Christmas here we have a snowshoe hair hunting and I like, I love going out doing that. It's just fun to me. And a lot of places they live in or some of those cuts and I'm always just blowing deer out and uh, and that that's that taught me a lot kind of with with where they were living at at

that time. Man, I'll tell you what, if you want to become a good big woods hunter, you go out and sneak around and try to shoot snowshoe hairs. So fun. I mean not not only for just training your eye. I mean sometimes you get those days where they're out sunning, you know, because they don't they don't go underground like a cotton tail will like there. They're a different thing.

And you get those times where they're out like sun and in the afternoon and you see them sitting on the edge of a you know, the edge of the conifers or something, but it's always like an edge, like they're always in those places where it's like the clear cut met the evergreens or whatever. And the deer always there too. Yep. That's yeah, you're and and it's not to get off topic with it, but they're fun to

hunt because they just do big circles. They they're just fun to hunt because hunting any kind of rabbit is is fun. Yeah, And I've never done it so and I'd love to do it with dogs sometimes, so I just I'm basically the dog and the hunter at the same time as I'm going and doing it. But it's

it's fun to watch them. And you're right, they live in those same places a lot of the edges of of the hemlocks and the clear cuts, you know, speaking specifically in Pennsylvania, and they just you know, kind of go around and and and do big loops there. But I've learned so much about deer and I also use it to scout new places for deer uh and and I've found some of my best deer hunting spots by hunting snowshoe hair. So man, I think, you know, maybe this is a topic for a different one, but maybe

it is actually a good late season topic. Is when you go try to run rabbits or hairs, or you do some squirrel hunting, or we used to do a lot of gross hunting in January when or when Wisconsin kept their season open through January. The amount of antlers you find and the amount of stuff you run across, and the rub lines that are laid bare, it is such a valuable time to be out there. And I think that, you know, we we preach a big game about winter scouting, right, but I think a lot of

people don't really buy into it. Like they don't either, you know, like it just gets to be that time of year. They maybe they like the idea, but I don't think a lot of people are out there like really winter scouting. But if you can find an excuse to be out there, that's a hell of a lot of fun, like chase and snowshoe hairs, do it. It'll

help everything. Yeah, at that point that you know, sometimes I get tired of sitting in the tree, you know, and when you can go around and do something that's different than deer hunting and and uh walk around me.

My favorite thing to do is scouting. So like as you're combining a couple of those different things, it's uh, it's a it's a lot of fun and and you can honestly with you know, even if you are hunting deer in that late season and a lot of a lot of times you're going to be at least I spend a lot of time walking versus the actual sitting because I'm trying to find where those deer hanging out at. You know, I'm not putting all day sits in or anything.

It's not they're not moving it all day. Maybe a little bit within their bedroom there, but it's hard to get close without any cover, without any leaves or anything on the trees at that time of year. So I think that's a a's super valuable. You and I talked about it all the time, but that that winter, that winter scouting is is critical, uh to being able to help you out. And you know, and as we just talked about earlier with struggling based off that historical data

that you find. But to put it this way is like that gives you a really good starting point and places to be able to check and see if it's hot. You know. That's that's how I look at it, Yeah, for sure. And I mean having those spots that are sort of historically good, figuring those out from year to year helps you. And you know, if one of them goes cold because a bunch of people move in or something, finding another one gets a little easier if you've already

found one in your life, you know. But I think I want to talk about the the small game thing and the winter scouting thing a little bit more because I think when you know, when we talk about this stuff, a lot of times we paint this picture of like, Okay, you're winter scouting, You're you're going out, you're looking for giant beds in the swamp, you're looking for rubs, you know, if there's no snow, you're looking for scrapes, whatever last

year's sign. But we are like super predictable, Like humans, how we enter the woods and where we walk and how we like to walk through the woods were super predictable. And when you go with a different purpose in mine, if you're like, I'm gonna go find some snowshoe hairs and I'm not out here just to scout, dear, You're gonna go where you think those snowshoe hairs are gonna be, and it probably take you into different little spots than

a pure scouting mission would. And I think I think some of that stuff is maybe like the undermost underrated aspect of becoming better at figuring out a deer. Yeah. No, And and no matter how much you do it or how long you've done it, you do get predictable. I mean I get predictable, especially in spots that I feel like I know from hunting it for so long. You start, you park the same place as you walk the same way in, or you might be like, oh, I have

a destination to get to before you start scouting. But once you once you're you know, doing something different, Like when I'm hunting snowshoes, I'm basically hunting them from the time I'm off the road, especially if there's you know, cuts right there or whatever. And it might be a spot that I'm like, oh, there's gonna be people there for you know, deer season, and I overlook in my

own head. But then you figure out like, oh, this is actually everybody's overlooking it, and you bump some deer, you find some sign in there, and whether you actually throw a hunt at it or you just set up a trail camera and learn like, there's there's so much

value in that. And and that's that's why I mean, even when I'm not small game hunting, when i'm you know, shed hunting or winter scouting or whatever and just walking whatever you learn, you learn ton because you know, when I'm when I'm actively hunting, a lot of the times, you know, you're you're thinking about the wind you don't want to blow, and deer out you don't want you know, there's a lot of things that you do where when you're not hunting, you don't think about those things, and

you can find some pretty cool spots yeah, I mean I think there is. I think maybe the biggest benefit of winter scouting is just simply because you're not that concerned with what happened, you know, like you just you can go scored stirth a little bit and and look at some stuff. But I also think, you know, like I know, not a lot of people are gonna listen to this and go snowshoe hair hunting to get better

at deer hunting. But I'll tell you, we had my buddies, and I had some years where we hit them hard like we we would, you know, And and obviously it was tied to some grouse hunting and some contentails whatever we're but but the snowshoe thing was always kind of a novelty to us because we never grew up with that. And I'll never forget some of the some of the public land spots at bow Hunt, you know, they got

they have snowshoe hairs in them. So we've in there and you know, you you picture like a older growth conifers, like you've got a bunch of pine trees that maybe we're planted or whatever, and then you've got that clear cut next to it, and you think about like a two year old clear cut, and you're like, you're not gonna walk through there. You're gonna walk the edge, and the snow shoes are gonna be somewhere, you know, the

hairs are gonna be somewhere there. But then you get like that five year old clear cut or six seven year old clear cut that's like starting to get some trees in it and some space, and you know, so you put it. You put somebody on the edge of the pines and that clear cut, and then you cut in fifty yards into that clear cut where you might not have gone in there if you were just walking through there, because it's a hell of a lot easier

to stay in those pine trees. And now you're looking at a different forest, like you're looking at something that's security cover everywhere and brows everywhere and bedding cover, and you go, there's a different vibe to this than even that edge, and then definitely than that open pine tree. You know, desert that's like a hundred yards away from me, and that kind of stuff is like it's not even like an intentional way to get out of your comfort zone.

It's just doing something else. And then going where the deer have already figured out they want to be and you can learn so much. Yeah, I mean, think about when you walk the edge of like a cut like you're talking about with the conifers on one side, and you look in you kind of just see a wall of trees. You know, you just even if it's not

even if it's starting to get some space. But once you get in there and you look, you can kind of picture how you know, you might find a bed in there and you're like, holy cow, he can lay here. I can't see him from the outside, but he's watching me walk that edge. Even like just flipping your roles as far as that that point of view can change,

can change things a lot. And you know, like when I feel like, like you know, we talk about you know, bucks like liking edges and bedding on those edges, but

sometimes that doesn't mean right on that edge too. It can be in a little bit but where they can see that that edge out there in front of them, And that's what that what I've found in And And also you know, talk to a bunch people, um, you know, growing up hunting, these types areas like all those big box living those those big those big thickets, you know, they live in those thickets, well, they might not be in that direct center of it. They might just be

in a little bit. And you find that by being able when you're hunting hairs or whatever else by doing it, and I spend time in the winter, I'll walk every not literally every square inch, but you know, every forty fifty yards through those cuts and kind of go back and forth and learn how they're using them, because not not every cut or every or every thicket is treated the same from the deer. And there might be something that you're not picking up on from an aial photograph

that you have to get in there and see it. Yeah, I think I think some of the hardest ground to really scout with aerial is that big wood stuff where you're dealing with clear cuts, because it's it looks like such mono habitat you know so often from satellite imagery, and then you get in there and you realize how much is going on, and then you know, like you're talking about, you know, it's like I always picture those spots like there's an access, you know, if you have

that older growth for us, and then you have the clear cuts like you're already talking about, like two layers from the easy access, and it might be a situation where there are only two yards from where everybody parks, but it doesn't matter because they're they're back in that security cover and they know it. And we always kind of get it in our head that you know, all the public land got hunted so hard by the gun

hunters and it's gonna be all blown out. They're all gonna be on the private place down the road that only hunts trophies or whatever. And then you go out right now and you see all the sign that's out there, and you find those beds and you jump those deer, and you go, no, no, no no. They rowed this out right here where they got hunted hard every single day, and they just figured out how to make it through. And it might be as simple as being the first

layer into that clear cut. Well I learned it this year. Um during gun season. They had some buddies up hunting with me, and and I was putting on some couple man like bump drives going through some of these areas and the you know, not finding deer. It was it was difficult, Like man, they're you know normally here, but what I you know, I was like all right, let me just do like I would see, like a little

group of blowdowns. It might only be sixty yards for me, but I'm gonna do another a little sweep through there and see and all of a sudden you jump a dough up, or you might jump a small buck or whatever it is. And they're so used to that pressure that they'll just lay down and they're not They're just

not moving unless you're almost stepping on them. Literally, And you have to be super close because you know, when it comes to gun season and you go in there and you start hearing the shots and and there's all this stuff going, You're like, how do these deer make it? But every year I'm getting deer, you know, getting a little older. You know these five years, always six years, already seven years old. I'm like, this area is funt a hard is He's not you know, he's not going

to another county during this time. He's finding some good, good places to hide, and it's trying to figure out where those little places to hide. And sometimes it's not not even what you what you think there was. I remember finding a shed uh off a buck I was hunting years ago. I found it Christmas Eve so it

was he dropped early. And but where it was laying in a bed, and this bed was on there was kind of a swampy big woods area, pretty flat, and there was one little tiny group of trees like a triple cherry tree, and it was all kind of open swamping this around there, and there was a blown down log that was there and he was laying right up against it, and he could watch this access trail that went by. And it was a spot that I never

thought of. I didn't even think it was enough cover to hold a deer there, and I wouldn't doubt that he didn't lay there. A lot of times when you walked out to the trail, you couldn't see where he was laying at. But you got to where his bed was and looked out, it's like, okay, he had he had an advantage here. And that that that taught me

a lot. I mean, think about think about I mean, it doesn't happen very often, but think about the time was when you've been on a stand and watched the deer walking that bedded down and you're like, that deer's forty seven yards away from me right there, and if you look away and you look back, you're like, oh, let's go on, and then the ear flicks and you go, oh, it's it never moved. I mean, and that's a deer that you have every advantage over possible because you watched

it walk in there. And then now you think about the average person walking through the woods, and there's a deer that's better than a blowdown like that, with every advantage in the world. Yeah, like they're they're so safe from most people, it's not even funny. Yeah, oh yeah. And and and as you're walking, think about as you're walking, you're looking, you look at something for a short period

of time. It's you know, even if you're pretty good at still hunting and walking through, you're not You're not staring at a spot for three minutes. You know, you're you're kind of glazing over things as you go unless you catch that ear flicker at that time or you catch that antler at that time. There's a lot of times that you know, even the most seasoned people walk

past deer that they don't even see. And and when they're used to that pressure there that they know how to how to handle it, especially if they get to an older age, like they're not they're not dumb about it. Just because there's a ton of pressure doesn't mean that they're all dead like that. They figure it out. Yeah, well, let me let me ask you this because that kind

of reminds me of something I wanted to bring up. Um, you know, you're hunting for years and years and years, Pennsylvania was like sort of the gold standard for pressure, right, I mean, I'm sure it still is, and you know, you hear so much. So many people say, like where I hunt, none of the bucks get past two and a half. They get killed off. And I've heard that place so many places. I've hunted, so many places I've lived,

and I've never found it to be true anywhere. Like I literally I'm like, there's bucks out there in the most heavily hunted place that are big enough for anyone to be pretty happy with. It's just there's not that many of them, and they're awful good at like not letting you know they're there. Yeah. Oh yeah, And it's it's funny, you know, with and Pennsylvania. You know, I I run a lot of cameras, So I got ever run in p a alone thirty five or forty cameras,

maybe even uh more than that. I can't even I don't even know exactly what my inventory looks like. But I run a lot of cameras, and I bet on any given year, I get you know, bucks that are five plus, you know, years old. I bet there's eight or ten of them that I can find, sometimes more, sometimes a little bit less. But on some areas that are really heavily haunted, like not, I would say, like our rifle season, our guns season isn't as pressured as

it used to be when I was a kid. Um, the there used to be a there used to be a lot more deer and uh not any there wasn't really any big deer then. It was just higher populations a deer and not as many and they just they get kind of wiped out. But as you as the deer density dropped down, um, it did reduce pressure a

little bit. But still you'll go into a spot um where there's people everywhere, but they're still you'll still find these deer in this place, like the one area I'm thinking of, um that I mentioned earlier with that buck land there, like this is a very flat, easy access type spot with roads everywhere, and there's always people in there.

And guns season, but I find the biggest oldest deer there every year, and it's just it's even bogged with my mind like that, even though I've seen it before, Like it just it boggles my mind how they do that and they do And I think it's just trying to figure out what your area looks like. You know, I can't give a specific situation that's going to be exactly relatable to somebody in Michigan or somebody in Wisconsin.

But if you use you kind of look at that mindset or you think about it from the standpoint of all right, how how are they living, what are they doing, how are they working through this? And try to figure out what that looks like in your area. I think

it's I think you can be surprised on what you find. Well, I think it's just the more time you spend out there, and you know, if you have the chance to run cameras like you're talking about, or do a lot of shed hunting, you just figure out that there's there's a lot more going on out there than people give it credit for. It's like easy, it's really easy to be dismissive about, you know, like big Bucks in an area

or overall deer population or anything like that. And it's like, man in in so many situations, you have more to work with than you think. It's just not going to be easy. Yeah, yeah, you're yeah, there's there's no easy part about that. And like I can check out, you know, I can, especially you know winter in the spring. The amount of miles I put on it in the woods are crazy, and there's a lot of things that just

aren't good. Like I'm not always just all of a sudden going in every area and finding the best of the best. But you just got to keep doing it. It's like, what when I had um these guys hunting with me the other day, It's like, you know, there's two days of like not seeing any deer and it's like, you know, they kind of see him looking at me, like is there any deer around here? It's like it's

just repetition. It's just like, you know, even though that was different with the way we were gunn hunting, but it's the same way with scouting. It's just continually just moving and checking different places and trying to trying to figure it out. And you know, there's and maybe there's some places that are good that I'm just not recognizing it. But it's the more time you spend out there, obviously

you're gonna find more. And it's it's sounds super simple, and it kind of is, but it takes a lot of work too to be able to figure that out. And that's where I've always struggled on the late season side of not being able whether it was time or whatever, to put that in to be able to find them.

But I think and the way I look at late season now, it's spending more time scouting than that actual hunting, which really that kind of coincides with most times of the year, but like spending more time scouting and finding

where the deer are before you uh, before you set up. Essentially, Yeah, and I think that what you're talking out there a little bit with the late season hunting, I mean, one of the lessons that's really important there is you know these deer that you're hunting here now these doors you're gonna go try to shoot with that flint lock. They maybe weren't there for a couple of weeks during rifle season.

I mean they may be went and hold up a little bit someplace else, or they might be concentrated in a spot now because it's some food source or something. And it's like, that's another thing with the white tailed world that we have trouble with, is we we assume like a constant presence, like, well, the deer have a home range of this, so they they're gonna be here. It's like, well, if you're hunting forty acres or eighty acres or something, it's like there, it's nothing for them

not to be where you're hunting, you know. Or if you have one part of this big chunk of public that you really like, that concentration might only be there a week a year, and it might be because of those red oaks in the late season or something like that. And just the more time you spend out there and the more time you hunt now when it's the hardest, it's probably going to be the more you learn that

you've got to show any time. Like if you can go out there on public land and some of these states that get really pist pounded and you can go find a concentration to deer, and even if it's you're hunting for a scrapper or a doll or whatever, and you can get on those deer right now, you can't tell me that you're not gonna have an easier time next September October, you know what I mean. Like it all feeds into itself. But if you decide that it's like not worth it and don't go, then it's like

it works the other way too. Yeah, and and and you made a really good point there that uh, and I was talking to Andy May about this was like, you know, it's very rare that you find an area that's good all year, like even even just like a general area, Like I have places that have better food that I know there's gonna be oak trees and if

there's acorns, it's a better early season spot. Where I have spots that are have no oak trees at all and no mass crop that are better during the rout because it's more consistent as far as where the deer hanging out and doing that, and then late seasons a whole another game that might be that's more of me

being mobile and seeing what the cuts are doing. You know that that changes every couple of years on finding good late season spots, and it's like it's it's just trying not getting so in tune with uh, you know, this is my spot and this is where I need to be. And if you can kind of open your mind up to it, I think you can can find

success in the late season. Again, doesn't matter if you're hunting an old deer, if you're hunting any buck that comes by or any dough you know, that's I think it's it's just a different mindset and you and you've got to think too, kind of you know, on being mobile, being open to where they're going to be right now, is you might you might have to think about this like where are they going to be? You know, kind of like skate to where the puck is going to

be type of strategy. You know that that goes for all year, and we sort of take it for granted. We're like, oh, if it's late season, they're gonna be really patternable and they're gonna be on this food source

and they're gonna bed here. And it's yes, yes, especially if you're if you're hunting public land and it's you know, if you're on a browse pattern or something that some kind of food source that's gonna get cleaned up, whether it's today or next week, and it's not you know, not to draw anymore that stuff is going to change out there, and I think it's really hard to get tuned into that stuff. Like I had. This happened to me right at the end of the Minnesota muzzleloader season.

I had hunted, I had hunted Wisconsin, I had hunted southern Minnesota. A little bit got my ass kicked. I came home and I have permission to doll hunt this farm by my house here in the Cities, and I go out there and we have a long season here started November five and went till like November for the general gun season. Then we have sixteen days of you know whatever, So it's it's a long season. They get piss pounded, and this farm they hunt them so hard

every day. There are people out there, and so when I talk to the landowner, he's like, yeah, you know, they're they're pushed out pretty good. But you know what, I go ahead. So I go out there and kind of just observe first, see what's what's going on, because there's a pick bean field on there, and I'm like, I'm I'm hunting for eight year like I want to do. To walk by right and I can see a group of like fifteen of them across the road, which they might as well be on Mars there. I can't hunt

over there. It's nobody's hunting over there or whatever. And I'm like, well, there's all my dear. But I ended up having he's sitting this spot to just kind of observe and cover this cattail slew and some other some of the other better cover on there that I know doesn't get hunted. And the only deer I see that night, it's like a hundred and thirty and shade pointer gets up out of his bed out in these cat tails

and walks right by me a d rs. I can't shoot him because the landowner won't let me, and so I have to let a late season and thirty inchrigo and it's yeah. I was like I saw it coming, and I texted him. I was like, hey, hey, bro, I got a really good one, and he's like nope. I'm like, all right, you know, it's his land whatever whatever. So then the only deer I see, and I'm like, man, you know, this is like a place on paper should have everything. It's got food, it's got cover, it's got

suburbs right next to it. So there's some sanctuary. But the pressure on there was enough where those deer are mostly gone. But that buck, who's been haunted pretty freaking hard, just he's got his little thing figured out there in that little security cover. And so I went out the next night and the landowner told me. He's like, he's like, listen, if you want to shoot a little buck, go ahead, not that one. And I'm like, are you sure, because if I have a little book, come on, I'm gonna

freaking lace him. He's whatever. I go back out, get into a different stand, to get back into the cover a little more, and I'm just like, you know, we have fresh snow, there's no tracks. I'm watching turkeys. I'm like, I I as soon as I get into my stand, I can see fifteen deer, including bucks, across the road, all the deer that I'm hunting, And it's just like one of those deals where I'm like, I know they're gonna come back, like they'll work their way back here.

But those deer are effectively just it's like you picked them up and you put him in a place you can't freaking touch him anymore. And it's so wild to see that on private and and then you go into public land and you think Okay, well the rifle season just came through here, Like yeah, it's gonna affect things, but they're gonna like normalize again, you know, like they're

gonna it's it's gonna happen. It's just like you gotta be in tune enough to know, like, is this are they coming back together here now that most people have left them alone. If they have, you're gonna have badass hunting.

If not, you gotta keep looking. Yeah, And I want to go back to something that you said with the pattern the pattern ability of them, So should we air called that the patterns they have, the patterns that you're gonna buy air quotes and like, so I've gotten messages from people that are like newer to hunting big woods and be like, hey, how many days in a row is this buck need to show up on camera before

you think I should hunt them? I'm like, One, I don't know, I don't I don't ever have I don't ever have a buck that shows up multiple days in a row. That just doesn't happen. And it's like a lot of that comes down to your intuition on you know, and find that sign. And that's where people can use trail cameras to a detriment of themselves. And I use a lot of trail cameras, but I don't for the most part, I don't even use it for that season other than knowing that a bus they're like, that doesn't

that's that's past until it don't matter. The Big Woods is a little bit different, and there's a lot of other scenarios that are probably similar to this, but this is kind of what I'm familiar with. And you gotta you gotta use kind of your gut instinct when you see that sign of like hunting it. And just because you don't see anything one day doesn't mean that, you know, if you're good and you didn't blow anything out, you can go back in there that next day and hunt

it again. It might take a few sits before you see anything, and that's just the nature of it. And and uh, I just but I will say that I do. I don't. I don't sit the same spot like I do during the rut for four days in a row or anything a lot of times, especially if it starts getting again. I keep referring to, you know, bad weather, but they will kind of hurt up a little bit. So it's trying to find where the concentration a deer are and then and then putting yourself in the game.

But I just I think trill cameras um can't can be a detriment when you're looking at big woods hunting, like you're just not you're not gonna find that pattern. Well, I think in general there's there's a high potential for misuse there and in a way to hurt yourself. But I think the late season two, you can you can get yourself into trouble thinking that you're gonna get pictures of them over and over and over again, and it's just not gonna break that way. I want to ask

you another thing. So like when I when I told you that that landowner Green let me on shooting a scrapper or a doll. It was so freaking fun because I knew. I'm like, actually I knew there was a little buck living in this one spot. I'm like, if that sucker walks out, I'm gonna shoot him. And he did. He was the only deer that came out and I killed him and I was so freaking happy, a little three point It was awesome. Uh, But what what I

love about that? What I love about the late season, especially on public Land or you know, this flintlock hunt you're doing, is you get to go hunt deer. It's not like I'm waiting for that great big buck to show up on camera on that scrape or whatever, or it's prime time and I want to just tiptoe around the woods and not not make the wrong move. You just get to carry that flint knock out there, and now you're hunting deer like you're just like you see

some doughes coming through the woods. That's that's awesome. And I think I think we were kind of forgetting about that in hunting, like the trophy. The push for trophies is like so heavy now that people are kind of skipping a lot of steps to get good at hunting and forgetting like, yeah, okay, if you have the right scenario and you've worked your way into it, and you and that's what what blows the wind up your skirt,

great one sixties or bust. But there's a lot of situations where you're just setting yourself up for a horrible season or a horrible hunt if your standards are just so out of whack with your situation. And it's so nice you know, when you're down to this fourth quarter, last couple of minutes of the fourth quarter, and you're like, I'm going out on public land now for something. It's fun to just go hunt year. No, You're You're so right, And I think about this all the time, and and

so I had, I had. Uh. I started kind of filming some of my hunts uh recently, and I put out a couple of videos this year for me self filming some hunts. And I went from shooting a pretty well one of my best books in Pennsylvania to the next video of me shooting this little seven pointer in New York that was like, you know, a year and a half, two year old maybe, uh. And it's like,

how how do you have these different standards? Like I don't like, I'll have like really high standards in places if I if that's what I feel like I want to do, but I also want to have fun and like and I do have fun. Like in West Virginia this year, I put very high standards on on myself and I let some really nice bucks go that that um that I would have been happy with anywhere else.

But I was like, I just wanted to shoot something really big there, but that doesn't mean that, you know, and when it comes to Pennsylvania, I've also been targeting older deer, especially in the last five six years. But when it comes to late season, if I want to go out and have fun and shoot a scrap buck, I'll do that. And that's like I'm and I don't fault anybody that has the different mentality of like it's

this or bust throughout the whole thing. That's just not where I'm at, And that doesn't seem fun to me. If I'm like, oh, I'm setting a hundred and sixty standards across the board. And then I I also like shooting deer and I have fun doing that, and and I have just as much fun shooting smaller bucks I do older ones. And it's it's, uh, you're you're right.

You can't get caught up, and especially um when you're especially you when you're newer to it, Like it's one thing too, you know, say someone like yourself that's hunted for a while, and I want to challenge myself and I'm trying to hunt some big deer and that's like that's a new challenge for you. But when you're new to it, like there's nothing like repetition and and and getting yourself in that scenario of going back to full draw or pulling a gun up on something and seeing

how your emotions react to any deer. Like that's I And that's you know, the way I looked at elk hunting for since I've started with it. Um, you know, I've been doing it now for five years, but it's not or maybe even six years, but it's not. I still feel brand new to it. Like that's to me,

I'm just trying to kill, you know, elk. And that's that's the way that it that it comes down to it, and I think it I think you can get caught up in seeing what so and so is doing or this or that and try to make that your goal, and it can be frustrating. Yeah. Well, and you know I mean that that's another good point, Like the elk thing. I mean, whatever, do what people can do, whatever they

want to set their standards wherever. I just see a lot of people set pretty high standards for elk hunting that when they don't know what they're doing and end up not going back, end up taking one trip. And I just look at this and I'm like you know what you said about it's just fun to shoot deer. Dude, I'm to the point now where I'm like, I I look at these situations. My my favorite things about deer

hunting a couple of them are. I like looking into I have two freezers now, how to buy an extra one from my elk this year, And I like looking in those freezers and seeing ship tons of meat, like I'm not gonna freaking run out for the year. I love it. But I realized, I'm like, I just like shooting deer, Like I like when you when you have that situation where it's like whatever, dear it is that you see it and you're like, I'm gonna try to kill that one and it starts getting into your red zone.

That's the best, Like there's there's nothing better like you, and you don't get that very often. And I noticed that, Like it kind of really hit home for me with my daughters taking them this year, because when I took my I took one daughter out skill spike right away and that was done. There was a quick little encounter. But my other daughter we went out. She shot a dough in the morning and she had another dough tag

and I was like, let's go sit. We got a doll in a buck tag and we had these does really cagy like they were like I don't think, I don't think we're going through there, and you could see them, and I remember just like the whole time because I'm like I can't whisper to her or anything. I'm like, we're just she's got to read this situation and we have to stay no noise, no movement, and just hope

they settled down and come in. And it was like a long encounter with them close before this one dough finally broke and came in, and I just remember thinking like that was so freaking fun, Like just just that like like anticipation of like is this shot gonna happen? Is this gonna blow up? And I just can't Like this is just me personally. I don't want to go into a season where if I know I'm targeting really big deer, which can be super fun in some situations,

I'm just not gonna feel that. Like I might go my entire season and maybe only feel that once or twice and it might not break my way. Or I can get into these situations where you're talking like you go hunt late season does on public land, like you're gonna your heart rates gonna spike at some point during that. I'm looking forward to that as much as any hunt this year. And it was. It was funny and I got to see it again where um what I kept reffort thing this this recent gun hunt that I did

with somebody. So Lee ellis from Sequan. He's killed three d seventy in plus dear in other states. This year. He came to Pennsylvania with me and he told me, he's like, I want to have fun, like I want to learn your style hunting. And he's like, what should I be looking at? I said, any legal buck as like yeah, three days like and he end up shooting a nice three year old and but I was and he was like he goes bo. I was excited as excited as shooting any of those big deer and had

just as much fun of doing that. Um, even though this doesn't, you know, compare as far as chips on the on the wall. And I thought that was really cool to see that and be a part of it. And I was even the one pulling the trigger and I was just ecstatic, like and then my buddy shot another buck later a younger deer, and just like we

had him hanging at the pole camp. We cooked tender loins at night because we've done a podcast, and then afterwards cooked up a bunch of tender loins and it was just like this is fun, Like that's that's a really cool experience. And that's why I'm looking forward to this late season and just getting out there and hunting deer and just and to be honest, I mean, trying to shoot a dough. When you're trying to shoot dough

is not easy. Sometimes it's it could be just as hard, if not harder, when you don't want to shoot a dough. They're they're everywhere. But that's the well, I mean, that's that's a really good point there that nobody ever talks about, is like we we take dose so for granted, right, Like, oh, I could kill those anytime I want, because you're condensing an entire season of not trying to kill them into your head and you're going I was all over him,

you know. It's kind of like the dude, it's like, oh, yeah, I could have shot the one thirty but you look kind of young, and it's like yeah, and he was fifty four yards away in the brush and you never had a shot, you know what I mean, Like when you actually get out there and you're like, Okay, I'm I'm gonna kill one. I'm not just gonna sit here and watch him and not pick up my bow or

not pick up my gun. Totally different. You know that farm that I killed that little buck on here with a muzzle, or last year I did a bunch of late season bow hunting on there for a dough and I never killed one. And I mean I would see those doughs coming in and I had a lot of encounters and I would be like, oh my god, I'm gonna get busted drawn again because they're gonna hear it, you know, like dead calm, And every freaking time I

had a chance, something went wrong. And I was like, if you think you're really, really good, like there's some situations where you'll go out and you'll try to kill a late season dough in a place where a lot of people hunting. You go like, this is not this is not easy, This is not what we make it out to seem. It's freaking tough. Yeah, I know, and I'm I'm concerned about that part like I when I don't know if it was it was last year. Yeah, last year I tried and I failed, Like I didn't.

I didn't do any good one. I was targeting a dough specifically, and it was just like and I had like a decent amount of time to put towards it, and I was like, how is this the case? Like it it's not. It's not as easy as you put it out too. And I had a guy messaged me about that too. It's like I'd love to hear like some talks on just shoot hunting does and I'm like thinking about it, I'm like, yeah, I don't really think

about that that much. And and you know, in my own head other than when all of a sudden I have tags filled, then I go out and try to do it and it's a struggle. It's not just because it's a dough doesn't mean it's easy. You know, some of those some especially you can start getting some of those old does whole. They're they're smarter than those Bucks are. Dude.

I actually just wrote about this, like I I honestly think that we give Bucks too much credit and do is not enough credit because you know, people talk about how big books are a different species and all this stuff, and we we've always had a vested interest in making them seem like mythical, right, like it does guys like you and I. It serves us well if people think that bucks have a sixth sense and they're impossible to kill in all this bullshit, right, But when you think

about their life, you know, most of the time, those big bucks, the reason that they're so hard to kill is they're pretty freaking rare, right, compared to a lot of the other deer, Like, they just aren't that many of them. And yeah, like listen, they're good at surviving, don't get me wrong, Like I fully believe that. But when you start dealing with a lot of doughs, they get a lot of pressure, they're just as good at surviving. Like, they're just as good at figuring out where the pressure

is and reacting to it. And I mean, I think that I have more dose pick me off or you know, blow up a set up than bucks do. Like bucks seem like when you get them to move, they're pretty confident and sometimes not as cage as those doughes. And a lot of times those pressure does especially they're a couple of years old man, they will get you every time. Yeah, No, you're you're, you're, you're spot on and and trying not so.

Another thing about late season I think would be a good thing to hit on is when you're hunting in that cold and say it's still, it's a lot tougher to after you've been sitting in a while to draw your bow, if your bow hunting, to even get your bow back, and then everything starts making creaking noises and you know, whether it's your stand or saddle platform, wherever you're using, like, there's a lot of things that can go wrong, and it seems so much more still, and

it's harder and there's not as much cover, so even when your trees stick out a little bit more, it's tougher to to make that happen. And you know, I was up in Alberta recently and when I was hunting up there, it was negative. The cold is really freaking cold. Try drawing your bow back if you have it at seventy pounds, no matter how strong you think you are, when you've been sitting there not moving for hours on end, and then try to do that. It takes a different level.

And I'm actually in the process of setting up a specific bow for hunting cold weather that's an in shorter draw length and set it sixty pounds in to the seven and so it's just easier to be able to do. And when you start having layers on, um, you know, practicing with all that stuff on, because it's different, and it's everything is different. You know, when I and when I shoot, I shoot a thumb release, uh for most

of the season. When it comes to late season, I use a trigger style again because I can't have that close to my face because I have the the potential to hit the trigger and I've done that in practice by hitting my caller or doing you know something, And those are all things that I think it overlooked as when it comes to late season, but are the things that you should you know, practice and make sure you're

you're competent and um. And it's it's it's hard, yeah, when you when you hunt cold late season like calm conditions, you you get reminded of all the holes in your game pretty quick when you've got to go, like when you've got to draw and just like a hood scrape in the tree or your your elbow or something just a little bit or a little tiny creek in your

cams or anything like that. It's a it's a different deal, and it you know, it's one of those situations where if you do get caught drawing, like, they're not going to stick around, like if they pick you up there, you know, you're not gonna get like that stomp and walk around and position themselves a little better. It's like those days that was two months ago. This is a different world. Now, yeah, you're the you're the nineteen guy

that they've saw since that time two months ago. They're not they're not sticking around and looking at they're they're they're bolting at that at that point. So it's yeah, that's a that's a that's a good point. It's just uh, it's it's a different time a year, and you've got to kind of look at it that way. And that's why it's that's why it's fun too. Like I I I look at you know, these different situations and it

took trying to change in my mindset. Like even when like this year with the run, I think mostly across the country people dealt with warm weather at the beginning of November and I I feel like everyone gets really down about it, and you know, including myself, I don't.

I'd rather have cold weather. Everybody would. But it's like, Okay, look at this as a different thing, like what can I do differently to be able to kill something in this this scenario, especially if you're on like public ground and and you know, and and you have limited time to hunt, Like you have a specific time. You can't pick. You can't be like, oh, I'm not gonna hunt these days because they're not perfect. You know, change up your strategy a little bit. You know, your high wind days,

maybe you want to just still hunt. You want to be on the ground and do that. And I think late season offers a little bit of that, that challenge and that those differences, And I think no matter what time of year, it is using those different scenarios that you're kind of dealt with and looking at as a game and trying to to to figure it out. And I learned a lot of that, and even recently I was reminded of it. I guess is what I should say.

Zach Farenball Uh. He he was talking to me about it, and he's just like, man, I just whatever condition they are thrown at me, just figure it out. Try something new, you know, and and I think you can learn so much of that even if it doesn't work out for you. Yeah, well, I mean, and the reality is it mostly won't. But that's okay because it mostly doesn't anyway. I mean, I look at this and I go because I'm like that,

Like I just I just want to hunt. If it's hot, cold, whatever, If I have a chance to go, I'm gonna go. And you know, you see people make excuses to not go in those conditions a lot, and I get it.

But then you look at like the success rate when the conditions are perfect, and still most people are not killing deer, and so it's like, well, why not go try when it should maybe theoretically shouldn't be the best because when you think, you know, especially talking about coming from public land, I love really shitty conditions for deer hunting when I'm hunting public land because people are gonna just not go, you know, like if you're if you're

there in September and it's ninety degrees, people are gonna hunt. You know. If you're there during the rut, some people will be there, but if it's seventy five degrees in the day, you'll have less pressure than you would if it was twenty five degrees. You know, like you have that, you have that to work with, and you go out there and realize that, like this stuff can still happen. It can happen early season, late season, it can happen right now on public plan. It's still worth going. Yeah,

like in guns season, that's actually my favorite. When you get like a lot of rain. Yeah, it doesn't make favorable conditions as far as hunting, and it kind of sucks sometimes, but that's gonna keep people out of the woods. It's it's and even if at first light you have a lot of people out, they're gonna be wet cold. By nine am, they're going back. They have lunch and then they sit back camp or whatever. They Yeah, you know, maybe they'll just go out tomorrow. I'm not. I'm not

gonna go out for the evening or whatever. It's like, man, that's fine, keep doing that. That's that's great. Like you guys stay in and watch the Packers game. Yeah, exactly, maybe not this year, but but we gotta wrap this sucker up. Where can everybody finds you out there? You're doing all kinds of stuff. Yeah, I say that I say, the main thing that kind of links to everything is my upsite, East Meat to West Hunt dot com. If the East Meat to West Hunt podcast anywhere podcasts are found.

My YouTube channel is just under my name Beaumar Tonic. If you search either of those things on social media, you'll find me. They're kind of stay active in all the all those places. So a bunch of scouting videos and stuff on YouTube, video podcasts, and then uh, but the podcast is probably my main main gig. So a lot of big woods, white tail stuff, planning Western hunts, those types of things, a lot of good info there. It's always a blast talk any man. Thanks so much

for coming on. Yeah, thanks for having me on, Tony, I appreciate it. That's it for this week, folks. Be sure to tune in next week for more white tail goodness. This has been the Wire to Hunt podcast. I'm your guest host, Tony Peterson. As always, thank you so much

for listening. And if you're looking for more white tail content, be sure to check out the metator dot com slash Wired to see a pile of new articles each week by Mark myself and a whole slew of white tail addicts, or head on over the wire to Hunt YouTube channel, to view our weekly content that we put up