Ep. 673: How to Develop Solid Home, and Away, Scouting Styles with Clint Campbell

check it out. Super breathable, super durable. It is just the right stuff for early seas and hunting and for summer scouting and getting your work done. So check it out. You've got it, You've guessed it. Mark's still off, but he's not really doing anything cool this time. He just sent me a text and he said, listen, Tony, I have to level with you. I just need to go fly fishing. I've only been on the water ninety seven days this summer, and I'm just itching to get out

and catch a few fish. Man, you kind of gotta feel sorry for the guy, don't you. I mean, that's barely any playtime. So I hope he catches some fish and he finds a good place to show off his catch on social media if he's so inclined. And so, while he's off tossing dryflies to brownies and cuts, I'm back here keeping the lights on. But it's not all bad because I get to talk to killer whitetail hunters like Clint Campbell, who happens to be my guest today.

Clint hosts The Truth from the Stand podcast. He plays a mean guitar, he's an expert at wrapping people into tiny little bows through his jiu jitsu skills, and he scouts deer harder than almost anyone you've ever met. That's what we get into today, and he breaks down his strategy for mastering public land white tails out east and how he approaches traveling hunts when he draws a tag

somewhere far from his native Pennsylvania. Clint is honestly a wealth of whitetail knowledge, and I think you're gonna love hearing what he has to say. So Clint, as usual, we started talking as soon as we saw each other here, and we've gone through We solved most of the world's problems before we even started this podcast. But we should probably get into this and talk a little bit about scouting.

I'm the same way. You know, like, I feel real cheated this year because we had a nasty winner and you guys had a pretty bad winter, and you had some other stuff going on, So you didn't get to take advantage of that window the way that you you usually do to feel good about your season. And so you're kind of scrambling now and you have to summer scout, you know at home there in Pennsylvania, like you usually don't have to.

obviously just isn't there. And the nice thing about winter scouting is when you have all the foliage off the trees, it's like I don't have to walk that extra seventy five yards or whatever the case is to go check out this thing over here. If something catches my eye, like a rub on a tree, it's like I can see the discoloration through the open timber at that point right.

A lot of times I can throw some glass on it and I can tell, okay, is that something I'm walking over there for or my head to you know, continue in the direction that I was I was going anyway right now, it's a little different where it's you know, it's a lot of map reading and kind of finding those spots and then getting to them, and like you know, if it's thick covered, you maybe only see ten, fifteen, twenty yards and so now you're really having to dissect things.

It slows it down. You don't cover nearly as much ground. But you know, with that, you know, you just kind of deal with the cards, the cards that you have.

And we were talking a little bit yesterday. We were texting a little bit before we uh, you know, we knew we were going to be chatting today, and I think I mentioned to you adaptability is sometimes our best ability, right with your honey, And I kind of feel like that's where I'm at now, you know, I talked to I did a who did I do that podcast with? It might have been it's actually been a couple of different guys like hes Cisco is one guy, and a

Mike Perry from Pennsylvania was another guy. And we talked a little bit about the reliance on winters scouting and like we might rely on it a little bit too much, right, because it tells you the story of last year, and without being there whenever whatever sign was laid down, you

don't really know particularly what week that happened. Right. It's like you might be able to tell just based on how close it is to like a food source or like a betting area, or like a specific terrain feature or something like that, that that might be like rut signed, or that might be like early season sign or whatever the case is. But you really don't one hundred percent know.

And so this year it might be a blessing in disguise where it's like I'm going to get out hanging my cameras here in the next couple of weeks, kind of finish hanging those and doing a little bit of scouting, a little bit more exploring on the new piece I've been I've been looking at the buy and large this year is probably going to be a lot of you know, boots on the ground come September October and starting to

figure things out. And so you know, I'll start to lay the groundwork for that here during the summer, but it will be a lot of doubling back in the uh in the fall to kind of check my premonitions from the from the summer, if you will.

That was about it. But yeah, for you know, buy and large, it's all all the public either that's around me, a couple hours north of me or out of state.

dudes saying like maybe Ohio or somewhere like that. And I think that there's an important lesson there because it's so easy for us to hear like, oh well, I just run trail cameras a scout, or I just do this, or Zach Fharrenbau does this, or whoever does this, But it's so tied to your personal situation. Yeah, And so for for you, you know, that winter scouting in that

big Wood scenario, it's like such an advantage. And then if you lose that, you're like, Okay, now I'm scrambling and I got to get a ton of cameras out and you and you run a ton of cameras.

And so in that piece alone, we'll probably have between the three of us like thirty plus cameras on there. And we've met some other friends. We get some other friends up there, and we all share intel. I mean, the place is so big. That's the one thing you know when you're hunting smaller pieces. So like for me locally in PA, I don't share really intel with anybody locally because it's just like there's not a lot like the public pieces just aren't real big, and there's a

lot of pressure. And I certainly don't put any pictures online of deer that I'm getting on camera or anything like that. If anyone ever sees me share a picture, you can almost guarantee it wasn't from PA, and certainly wasn't from you know, my local area. You know, me and a couple different guys, like we'll all share intel with each other because the place is so big, we're not going to step on each other, you know. And so I have pictures of deer, and you know Tom

has pictures of deer. I'll send them my pictures and be like, hey, I saw this deer. He was on camera over here, and then we can start to get an idea of like how they're moving, because otherwise it just takes I say, it always takes about three years to figure a spot out roughly, and then you can start to reasonably consider that you should start to have the type of encounters that you want to have. May not kill that third year, but you should at least

be in the game before that. Though. If you don't have any help, you're you're really throwing a dart at a dartboard, you know, in a lot of ways. And so we try to do the best we can just kind of help help each other out and allows us kind of like lay a game plan. You start to

understand how deer is starting to use that terrain. You know, this place has just wildly open timber, and then all of a sudden you get like really kind of almost like microhabitats where all the sign kind of explodes, where where it gets really thick and they've got some food and they've got some cover, but there might be two miles between that and the last place you saw signed And so to figure all that out on your own, you know, is a task.

you rely so heavily on those trail cameras to do some heavy lifting for you in the summer. So let's say you go out and you're like, you don't you don't have this current winter scouting situation where you're like, Okay, I know I'm going to go drop a camera here, here, and here because of what I saw you're going in. Now, let's say you're bringing in a half a dozen cameras or whatever. What are you hanging them on? Are you looking at like train traps? What are you doing here?

am I finding homebodies? And what I've kind of found, at least on this big piece, is that I get a lot more homebodies than I do on smaller parcels

for whatever, for whatever reason. And so if I have five good bucks, you know, on a camera, say in this big woods piece, chances are three of them will probably be around it in the general area whenever fall rolls around where for locally, for me, if I have five good bucks on camera in the summer in an area, I'll be lucky if one sticks around, you know what I mean, For whatever reason. It's just something that I've noticed.

So most of the place that I've kind of focused on the past two years is really challenging spot to hunt. There's another area that I kind of I hung a couple of cameras let them run for like the past two years, hadn't hunted at once because it seemed like

it was the easiest access. I always had great deer on camera, but in the back of my mind is always like, man, this place is gonna getound because it's the easiest access, seems like the most logical place for someone to jump in if they wanted to do a quick hunt. But in the course of two years, I think I might have had three people on camera, and all of them were during gun season, and so I'm like, all right, so archery season, we're kind of in place, so I need to kind of expand on that piece.

And so what I'm really kind of looking for, especially in this in this particular area, is there's not a lot of undulation and terrain in this particular area because you're already kind of on top of of on top of the mountain, so to speak. And so really what I'm looking for is just very slight variations and change in elevations. So it might only be like a ten foot rise or something like that that's just gonna kind

of funnel deer around an area. Because I found one spot like that, and that's where I found a lot of deer traffic. The other part is is find you know, this is again using a little bit of intel from the one or two cameras I did have in that area the past two years, is that most of the bucks that I was seeing they actually had like black up to like mid shin, if you will. And there's a handful of like swamp areas that are around there.

And so whenever I was watching these pictures of these bucks come through, you know, last fall, it's funny because I was I wasn't even looking at their head at first. I was looking at their feet to see if they had mud on their feet, you know. And so one I started seeing like the younger deer that would come through, I didn't see that as consistently. All the bigger deer that I had come through, almost all of them had

dirty legs. And so it's like I started then looking around, going, Okay, where like the swampy kind of areas and not it's so thick that you can't get through, but like, where are the spots where I look kind of open just from you know, looking looking on a map, you know, ea, scouting, And then from there. What I started looking for were just kind of like little land bridges between swampy areas

to kind of go investigate, you know. And then I started thinking, you know, so that was the first thing. What are the land bridges, and so I'll investigate those.

And then the other part was was just looking at my prevailing wind and knowing that I get a south you know, south southwest west kind of predominant prevailing wind during that time of year, then looking at the opposite side of those swamps and those areas, going like, all right, are there any terrain features there are going to kind of funnel them down toward the edge of that swamp or is it flat? They can kind of meander out and I just need to kind of go investigate that stuff.

But I'll start on that side of the swamp knowing that that's going to be my predominant wind, and I'll be my most likely tree locations that I would want to find to play to be able to play the wind.

find a homebody there. Don't you think that's just tied to the amount of a deer's like home range that you have to work with.

would you completely change home ranges. There's likely multiple dough families within that area already that they are that they're using for food and cover, just kind of in general, right, And then I think the the second part of it is is that food is so sparse there that I think that they just kind of move around like with as the food changes and as opposed to like going like three properties over or whatever, they're just staying in that general area because there's a patch of oaks here

and then in the summer there's a bunch of wild blueberries and raspberries, because I see that a lot, especially in around those swampy areas where it's like those beds, just like there're those deer just bed in there and live in that area until the bears run through, run them mouth and then they'll come back essentially, and then I think the other part is too, is that they make such even when they are doing a little bit of traveling, they make such long cycles that if you're

if you're impatient, you'll think they have left. But if you really think about it and you see them kind of come back, it's like instead of it being like a three day window where you catch them, it might

be a five, seven eight day window, you know. And so that's the other thing, like when you're on big pieces, I just had to kind of learn painfully over time, is that just because they had n't been around for eight days, maybe even ten days, depending, you know, I just might be in the wrong little you know, five hundred acre chunk. They might be playing this one hundred acre piece over here just to my east or whatever. They've not left the area, They're just not in this

little not in this particular chunk, yep, you know. And so and that's what I've seen. And when I say homebody, it's not that I've caught that deer on camera the same camera consistently. I might have during the summer and then maybe a couple times during the fall, but I had a camera that was a quarter of a mile away, you know, kind of like a cast the net. And it's like I caught him on two other ones over here, all fall along, plus the one I had him on

originally in the summer, like three times. Right, So I'm going he's maybe not bedded in the same exact spot because you know, foliage has come down, betting situations change, but he's still in, he's still at home. He hasn't completely left, you know. And so that's kind of what I've seen, at least on that on that big woods piece.

time he was here at night. It's like, yeah, because you might be hunting five percent of his home range or three You know, if you get into a big wood scenario where you talk about with limited food and lots of cover, you might have a home range it's nine hundred acres and now you're hunting twenty acres of it or forty acres of it. And I think it's hard for us to wrap our heads around that. Sometimes you go, well, he's just totally nocturnal or he's not moving.

It's like, man, you're just playing with a little tiny piece. They'd be like if you were looking for somebody in the house and you could only stay in like one closet and you're like they're not home, and you're like spin around in the closet and you're like, well, you can't look in the living room, you can't go downstairs. And I think the big lesson there is to be really careful about trail camera usage as far as like

what you deduce out of that. You know, like you said, if you're working some big cover, you know, you've got a thousand acres or five thousand acres of big woods to work and you get a picture of him here, and then a month later a picture of him here, and you can draw a line between him and you go, okay, we're within a third of a mile, quarter of a mile whatever, Like now you're starting to pin down what could be considered like some level of core area. Like

now you have something to work with. It's vastly different than being on thirty acres and going I got two pictures of him, I guess I'm going to sit here, like you got to, like you said, you got to work with what you're like the hand you're dealt, And it's different.

all fall. He might transition, you know, around winter, take

an excursion during rutt. Even though it's just interesting because I was re listening back to like some stuff I did with doctor Bronson Strickland from a MSU Dear lab and the idea, and this changed, This kind of changed how I looked at my trail camera data too, and just knowing that, you know, we think that the deer more predictable and patternable, you know, in October early earlier in the year, for example, right like they're still on

like maybe a pseudo bed to food ish pattern. They've not completely got all ramped up and started thinking about chasing, chasing does and stuff like that. And then we think when RUTT happens that all of a sudden, like they go berserk and they like they're running all over the place, and they're betting in like various places, you know, every different day, every day there's a different bed, right, But

the data actually suggests the opposite. They're way more sporadic and unpredictable in October in their betting patterns, and they're way more predictable when the rut happens. Right. Well, he doesn't. They don't have data on this, but we actually he and I talked about it, and I was like, Doe families, right, He's like, don't have data, but I would put any amount of money that mattered to me that, Yeah, they're consistent.

Betting is tied to like dough families that they're hanging around, right, And I would go and I would say, maybe that doesn't go for younger bucks, but I think older bucks, you know, get smart and get hip to the game. Right. And So because I've talked to G's this is something like I saw this play out this year too, and this this thing, this taught me two different lessons that I kind of knew academically but really kind of you know,

made them concrete for me. You know, Johnny Eberheart a lot would talk about hunting over scrapes, you know, and especially when you're scouting trying to find a script. It's hard to during the summer sometimes, but if you can find a good community scrape, you know, a dominant deer in the area, buck in the area will likely at some point probably come bed not far from that scrap and wait for doze to come through and hit that scrape, and he's gonna scent check them as they're coming through,

as opposed to chasing them. Right. So it's the old adage of like, you know, in my twenties or thirties, we were out running like crazy men, right, crazy people. And now I'm forty five and I'm like, nah, man, I said, I'm just happy to sit home and hang out, you know what I mean. It's a similar type of thing. It's like why work harder when you can work work smarter?

And so last year I was hunting one of my favorite kind of community scrape areas and the target deer I wanted to kill locally walks in beds down about forty yards from the scrape, about thirty five is yards from me, and was down windo that scrape and just was sitting there sent checking that scrape for two hours bed and sleeping, nodding off, waking up, readjusting, et cetera,

et cetera. So that was the one kind of lesson academic lesson I learned in real time was that one, yes, those older deer will kind of bed down wind to that, and they won't even come to the scrape, right, which gives credence to hunting the places in between those kind of destination spots.

two pictures. I just need the two pictures to be at the right time to know that that deer's home range is in that area, and that may not be true for everybody. That's just kind of how I look at it, And it's not the gospel, but it's how I kind of approach it.

It's like I've written about this a whole bunch, but I see bass like I bass fish a lot, and

I see them adopt two strategies to hunt. One of them is they ambush and they sit in a stump like next to a stomp or a you know, a dock, and they use the shadows to their advantage and they wait for something to crawl into their world and they eat it or you know, you see this with a lot of younger ones that form a little wolf pack and they go looking and they go find that school of minnos to chase or find a place where the

crayfish are. And it's like two different strategies. But the old ones, like the big ones, you don't see them out like schooling up burning a bunch of energy to do what they could do without burning a bunch of energy. And I mean, I I I'm dumb. I'm a slow learner. So every year I got and I hunt the rut and five thousand times in the in a couple of weeks. During the run, I'm like, why aren't there deer running

all over the place? And you know, this happened to me last year when I was hunting southwestern Wisconsin where I'm like, I know, I'm around a ton of deer. This area has a ton of deer, and I'm like blanking or you know, seeing very little. And it's like, you know, if you if you look at this on paper, there's no reason for a buck to have to work that hard there, So you'd think, like, you know, some kind of chase is going to end up in your

lap or some kind of cruiser. But it's just not necessarily the case, especially if they're not ways spread out and there's not a lot of competition. Why why would they And you know, and then you say, like, well, some of the scrappers are going to come through, and like that's what happens. Like you sit all day and you see like a four ky or you know, like you're in like a primo spot and that little basket

rack six comes through. But it's not the chase best that we always assume it's going to be, because that's just not how nature works most of the time.

something that they're using it as a scrape. They're hitting a licking branch, and especially if there's a couple of rubs that are around that that to me kind of like okay, this is worth a camera, and I'll just see what happens, you know, and I'll qualify scrapes that

way where I'm just gonna hang it. I'm gonna let it run for the whole year, and then if I see deer hitting it during the summer, then I know, like okay, yatzie, this is like a communication hub and then we just have to figure out how good it is or if it turns on at a certain time.

The other thing I started doing, and I learned this from actually hunting with my buddy Chad in this big woods piece in Ohio because there was this area that he got this one deer I think it was this deer he called we called Chriser because there was a

guy used to hunt there. His name, last name was Chrysler, I believe, And and it was just like this really small spine back and like so the dose would always run like this spine back right, and like you would never see deer during daylight in there really ever, right, it was always kind of like night nighttime. But there was this giant bed that was just like off that spine back maybe four or five foot in the brush that was just huge and like warmed to the dirt.

But we would never get a picture of a buck in there like any other time of year other than like the rut right, and so it was kind of a rutbed er. It was like, so, huh, interesting, rutbed does traveling us a lot? Makes a lot of sense. He can sit here and just pick does off? Okay? Cool. Another area there was this big primary scrape that we would just get like these hammer bucks on, like one

of them was like a world class animal. And two years we've watched this scrape and like hunting in and around it and stuff like that, and nothing ever really happened.

And we were scouting the following year and I just happened to be on the I guess the leeward side of that ridge behind that scrape, about sixty yards down the side of the ridge as we were coming up, because we went all the way around the ridge and then we were coming back up and our rendezvous point was kind of like to come up and meet right around that scrape because it was in this old ballyard And as we're coming up, there's like a giant bed

that's perfectly downwind of where that scrape was at about sixty yards from it, like on this little bench. So I pull up my map real quick and I'm looking. I'm like, you gotta be kidneing, man. I'm like, this thing is like literally rate below that scrape, and so not a big surprise all of a sudden, you know, that rut rolls around or pre rud or whatever timeframe, and a buck starts bedding there waiting to catch doze and just scent checking. It never has to move right.

So now what I started doing is when I find these community scrapes, I don't take a ton of time, but I take like a quick like thirty minutes and just kind of like do like a pinwheel out from that from that community scrape and just start pinning me whee on my way out to where I get maybe thirty forty fifty yards in all directions out from it, to see if there's a bed that's around there somewhere that a deer might use during the rut right to see like, because I don't think I don't think every

scrape is every scrape is not created equal, but certain ones when you get spidy sense if you pin wheel out, all of a sudden you'll find that bed that they'll use as like that rutbed. And so that's what I found last year. I could have never found it because it's so thick and swampy in this area. But whenever I walked in there to hang a camera two three weeks or to check the camera that had in there two or three weeks ago, I went back to see where that deer was at, and sure enough, there's a

bed there, and there's a down log. There's an easy way for him to get in, an easy way for him to get out. It's like a perfect setup, right. And so that's the other thing I started doing, Like even in the summer, when I find those areas, I just kind of pin wheel out and see if I can't locate a bed that's somewhere close by.

doesn't have to go to it. He could probably wait for the little scrappers to chase by and gauge that situation or whatever. But all of that is tied to some kind of travel hub, Like, all of it is tied to a place where the deer just like to go and be. So what you're saying is like that scrape is like it tips you off, Like it's like that's the one thing where you're like, Okay, now I

need to investigate this spot. But most people think, well, there's a big community scrape here with a good looking branch, I'm gonna hunt this. But what does that scrape like signify, Like what's going on in that area that matters more?

And what it is is it's a hub. It's those are going to be located in a place where deer move morning and eve and for multiple reasons, they come through there, usually from different directions, and there's just like a high odds chance of being around traveling deer where those show up.

they're not all huntable. What I do, going back to what we were talking about with summer, what I'll use You know, if you're like me and you're a working guy, I have to time my hunts and be very strategic about the days I'm going to get out, right, And so that's why I focus a lot on scrapes because I can usually predict not what's going to happen directly at that location, although sometimes I can, but I can predict what's going to happen in the general area much

better if I have a really good scrape in that spot to kind of start to be my barometer for the area, if you will, right. And so, what I'll do during the summer, and what I'll use summer for is I hang my cameras on those scrapes, you know, And people are like, when you're hanging cameras on scrapes in the summer, it's like, well, yeah, but what I want to see is that if there aren't any deer hitting it during the summer, then I'm like, Okay, that's

just like a rut pre rut scrape. It might be decent, it might not be. If it's not connected to something else that's nearby that really kind of trips my trigger, then it's probably not worth a hunt unless there's like a terrain feature that's close by that like is really

good that I want that I want to hunt. But if I get deer hitting that thing almost daily during the summer, I'm like this is like a main kind of artery for deer activity, regardless of whether it's that scrape, the things in this area this is a play or is are things that are drawing deer to it on a daily basis, regardless if it's does you know, bucks and velvet, whatever the case is. Deer just want to be here. So whenever I see that, that's whenever I start to pay a lot of attention to it. And

it's not like they hit it once or twice. It's like I'm looking for multiple days a week during out of season, right that they're hitting these scrapes, and those are the ones I'll prioritize and I try to find those on every piece I have. And then what I do is I use that summer intel. I watch the fawn drops. I try to find if there's an early fawn drop, which the one I do know that I

have as an early fonnd drop. So that's why the eighteenth of every October I'm in that spot because the past two years I've had an encounter with my shoot with my target deer on the eighteenth in that spot right, because that does is getting ready to come in and she's bread somewhere between the fifteenth and the twentieth, and so I use the fawn drop data during the summer for the upcoming hunting season to kind of know when

these spots are going to come in. And then I watch them during the rut as well to understand, you know, when are these dough groups actually cycling in, you know, because they'll cycle in the same every year. And so I just watch these scrapes and I start dating these scrapes going right this week for this scrape, this week, for this scrape, this week, for this scrape, And then I don't waste my time hunting in an area where I don't have those that are warming up that are

going to attract deer for me. You can't bait in PA. I wouldn't anyway. But that's the closest thing you can get to get in an attractant to bring a buck in is to know when those dose extra states are. And I do that by kind of, you know, just dating the scrapes.

this is something. You know, I grew up hunting the bluffs in southeastern Minnesota, and I'm I'm I love bluff country stuff, Like, I like the terrain traps, and I like I like that style. But where I live, and I've lived the last seventeen years, it's pretty freaking flat, but not like pool table flat. And I started to just appreciate, you know, if there's a little bit of a rise in the woods or there's like I'll give you an example. This. This kind of hit me right

over the head this turkey season. So this farm that I've been turkey hunt in the last few years pretty flat, right, There's there's not much to it, but there's one field on there. There's one field left that we can hunt because it's being developed, and it's got this little rise in it that comes out of the woods. You know, there's a it's kind of on the edge of a cattail swamp. It's actually kind of between two cattail swamps, and it's maybe an elevation change of like six feet.

But if you walk out on it, you can see everything on that side of the field. You can look from one end to the other. And so scouting turkeys, I would see turkeys strut on there all the time. And so this, you know, I put a blind on there for the kids. Took my daughter in there. She killed the bird in there. Took my nephew in there. He killed a bird in there, took his dad in there. He killed a bird in there. And it's it's just a spot where they expect to see turkeys and they're

just so visible. So it's like it's got that going for it. And then I was thinking, you know, I'm like, man, the buck I shot last year with my muzzleoder was standing right here. Out of all the places he could have come out of the woods, he picked that and

he was a little scrapper. But he's like, there's that just difference because he knows if he walks out there, he can look down there all the way to the end of the field, and he can look the other way to the end of the field, and I think we don't appreciate how like tuned into those tiny little elevation differences. All those deer are out there.

change here. It's like, you know, you're dealing with primarily you know, using transition lines and you know, in hard edges that are set by swamps or whatever whatever the case is. But I think sometimes, you know, I was talking to there was a fella I talked to from Virginia and he hunts a very similar kind of terrain

where it's a lot of flat. It's just like with the little knobs and knolls, and he was like, anything that had like five to ten foot elevation, man, He's like, you could almost they might not be bedded there, but they're going to spend time there, and something kind of I don't remember if he's the one who said it or if someone else mentioned it to me. It's like we often forget that deer a lot of times want

want the same things we want, you know. It's like we want to be fed, we want to be safe, we want cover a house or you know, a shelter of some sort. Right, they're looking for the same things. They just go about getting it a little bit differently. We want to be able to see, right, we want to be able to observe. Well, they want the same They want the same thing, you know what I mean, And so they'll go to the place where they can.

It's not it's not a when you think about it that way, it's not a surprise if you're thinking about, you know, the the hunting beast style of things, right, the dan enfold approach of like you know, uh, setting up on like the leeward edge of a of a ridge, knowing that deer want to spend time there. It's like, well, yeah, they're going to bed with the wind that's coming over their back and they're going to look down directly where

they came from. Because now they're covered in all directions, right. It's like the one reason is because they got the visual right. It's like, I think we oftentimes discount the visual element of their protection because we focus so much on their smell, the smell aspect. We spend so much time trying to beat their nose. I think we oftentimes get beat by their eyes, you know. And that's been true for me, you know, in in Kansas for sure, you know, because I you know, I've been to Kansas

the past two years. I drew the tag again this year to go back. And that's the hardest part for me out there. It's like I I've been within bow range and we'll say fifteen feet a sorry, fifteen yards in under all three years. But I've gotten beat by their eyes and never once have I've been beaten by

their nose yet, you know what I mean. And so that to me was a thing that kind of just pointed out to me, like there's little rises, there's little changes in elevation, especially when you're out there, make all the difference, you know, between you being skylight or them skylighting themselves, or them getting into like a little you know, a little ditch and they're two hundred yards away in your glass them and then they seemingly disappear and something

that looks flat, you know what I mean. It's like it's just those little undulations and we overlook them. But you know, we'd be fools to think that the deer don't know exactly where those things are at and know exactly when and how to use those Oh Man, when.

they use the land? Like are are they tucked into a little drainage to feed so you can't see them? Or like how did they come out of the woods, or how do they travel from one point of the woods to the other. And you start watching deer actually move through the landscape. It's not just a betting thing. Man, like they're using little, tiny, almost insignificant folds in the train to their advantage. And they they probably don't even think about it. It's probably just like a gene deep thing.

But when you watch them do that stuff, it's the same thing like I talked about the turkeys, like, oh, they strut in a field, No, they strut right.

stuff matters so much. And so yeah, like you said earlier, the advantage of bedding, you know, I mean, if there's a six foot rise and it's otherwise flat, that's a better spot for them to bed than almost anywhere else, just for that because if they can use the prevailing wind and they can use their eyes and they're just a little bit above everything else, that's a win. Like, and if they can travel in certain ways and use

that stuff. The more that you figure that kind of stuff out, like, the more you figure out how they use the terrain that way, like, it just opens up a different world to you and you can take that. Like you said, you know, you go from Pennsylvania to Kansas, your scouting opportunities are so vastly different. But those little usages of the terrain, and you know, those deer that live in open country will teach you a lesson about how they use like a little fold in the terrain.

I mean it. It is mind blowing when you hunt them in that open terrain, how easily they can dis or how many deer can hide from you where you're like, there's no way, like I would see every coyote out there, and then you figure it out and you go, man, there was there was a whole little herd of them in the same section as me that I had no idea to I walked over this little lip of a ridge.

with with Eddie. And but to go back to before I get to that, the one thing about terrain, Like, so when I'm talking thinking about that north piece, those small little kind of undulations or high spots, they become really really important, especially the spot that I'm gonna be spending a lot of time in this summer and then hunting this fall in and around those swamp ears, because that little three foot five foot rise that is the primo betting opportunity in those wet in those wet areas.

And that's also in those areas where I'll find those land bridges that are kind of connecting two swamps sort of like the passageway between two swamps and stuff like that, and that's really the only high ground until you get out of the swamp, right, And so it's those things that kind of dictate the movement of the deer, dictate the betting opportunities and stuff like that. And so it's

I start to try to focus on those things. The second part in that big woods piece that I started kind of focusing in on are almost like these big like what I'll call like just big drainages or big draws that are kind of cut into the side of the mountain where it probably has a stream runoff in it whenever there's a bunch of melt in the in

the winter or whatever. What I've found is that I found a lot of trails and sign that are following following those drainages, almost up to the top of those drainages, and so I started kind of focusing in on those, and lo and behold, found a hammer scrape. Whenever I was there, like the Midish May hung a cell camera on it, and sure enough, a deer that had like popcan sized bases already and it was already split in a brow on like May eleventh, showed up on that scrape.

So there were two things there. It was like that draw is kind of dictating the movement, right, and also a scrape there. Knowing that, okay, there's a there's a

terrain feature there. It's also near a logging road like a bench that they're using, so there's two you know, avenues of travel and then deer using it during the summer consistently, and so I'm like, yachtzi, I'm like, that is a spot that I'll be spending time and it's a bitch to get into because you have to climb the side of a mountain, so the thermals are really kind of odd where you can really only get in the morning when your thermals are falling, and it's an

all day hunt, Like, you can't really get into the afternoon to hunt it. It's got to be a morning sit in, an all day or a morning hunting you're out type of thing. But pivoting to the Kansas thing. The thing I started like, so I lived too far away from Kansas to drive there to scout during the summer. The first year we were fortunate my buddy Chat went out and actually turkey hunted the first year before we went there, and so we got a little bit of

the lay of the land a little bit. But you know, what I really kind of have to rely on is just looking at maps over the course of the summer, and it's all walk in access. So it's not like, you know, I have like a big piece of private or a big chunk of public that I'm going to have fifty thousand acres to hunt. I'm going to be hopping pieces. So it's a lot of like looking at small parcels and stuff like that, and what I started doing was really kind of focusing on areas that have

a drainage system that kind of runs through it. And what I kind of figured out was talking with Eddie the one time is we were kind of talking about it, and you know, Eddie's a little bit of a different animal where he goes out in like the middle of like a blue stem patch like field and it will sit up and like the only tree that's out there, and the deer wall just magnetically walk toward that tree, right.

But I was asking him about Betted Bucks and he was like, well, he's like Betted Bucks, you know, you know, oftentimes during the rut, because he knew I was going out during the rut. He's like, you know, they'll cut these dose out and they'll take him to the heads of these drainages, you know what I mean. I was like, Okay,

He's like, but it's not the main drainage. He's like, when you look at you get in there and you look at a drainage, He's like, there's drainages just have like these little offshoots like tributaries that are running off of them and stuff like that. He's like, it's you usually in one of those like secondary offshoots off the main drainage because they're usually the most brushy. He's like, and that's usually where they want to cut deer out too.

I just kind of paused for a second, and I was like, shoot, I was like, that drainage is just an inverted ridge. I was like, and so those offshoots of those secondary kind of tributaries of that drainage is like our secondary ridges. He's like, well, by god, you're right,

you know, it's like one of those things. I never thought of it that way, And so then all of a sudden it made sense to me on how to scout it and how to look at it, because it was just an upside down ridge and those you know, if you have a west wind that east side, you know, tributary off of that main drainage, that's your spot, you know what I mean, Because that's the that's the place

where they're going to have everything under under control. They're going to smell everything and able to see what they need to see. You got to backdoor it, but that's

the area they're going to want to play. And so I've seen that kind of play out the path last year because I relied on that approach was just like scouting, you know, uh east scouting and kind of finding these drains and then heading to those drainages to the heads of those and kind of looking for those kind of like offshoots and then kind of setting up in those areas.

And that's where I was having my encounters and where I was seeing, you know, and if I wasn't having the encounter, I was glassing the deer in those areas before I went in to actually make a move.

structured deer. I've had like the one day I was in a tree the first year I was there, and I had like a decent buck kind of like walk right underneath me. But like anything that I was willing to draw my bow back on have all been on the ground.

to find because you think it's all flat. But there's a lot more role to it than you think, you know, and so you really kind of have to examine, especially when you're doing all your es scouting, and kind of like be very mindful of like that little rise, that little role is a big deal when you get out there, Like I look at it, and if I have my pennsylvani your brain on, I overlook it.

the creek bottom here. And then you get out there and you see the scope of that terrain and it's it's big country where you know, those drainages are way bigger than you think, and yet you still have the opportunity to blow everything out so fast. So it's like a weird like you're right, you have to kind of reconfigure how you look at this stuff. It's not like you're walking into a section of timber and you're like, I'm going to find a concentration to sign and start hunting.

It's a totally different animal. And I think it's so important to try to hunt different styles like that or different different terrain because it just teaches you, like what you think you know, you know, like you said when you when you look at that stuff on your EA scouting, you're like, ah, maybe maybe not. And then you go look at it in real life and you're like, man, I just dismissed the better part of half a section cause est scouting, it doesn't look like this stuff I

typically eat scout. Then you get out there in the real world and you're like, you could tuck five thousand booners in there and not be able to see them from the road. You know, like it's a different thing. I love that kind of stuff because it just challenges you to, like your worldview changes a lot when you start getting into that kind of stuff.

your way through whatever the case. Keeping the wind in your face is the easy part out there. The hard part is trying to get to a visual vantage point because everyone thinks it's flat, but it's not, you know. So it's trying to figure out how I'll get into a spot without blowing everything out so I can actually glass and get a visual on where I want to get to without alerting the deer that I'm trying to kill,

that I'm that I'm there, you know. And so that to me is kind of the game within the game out there, so to speak, and really where a lot of my time is spent, you know, scouting well, and what.

hunt those spots is what scouting does for you. It's not just like, oh, I'm going to identify a target buck and give him a name good enough, Like no, And when you talk about this Kansas thing, finding where the deer should be is pretty easy, like you can you can e scout and look at it and go, you know, like there probably should be a concentration in

this drainage and a concentration in that one. But figuring out out how to work against that disadvantage of you being so much more visible than they are, even though it's open country and theoretically you kind of should be on the same level, you're not, Like that's what the scouting like, that's what that's what you need to figure out, Like you need to figure out how to how to get in there without them seeing you, because their advantage

there is so much greater. You know, it's different than when you're home at Pennsylvania and you're like I can walk through the woods and a lot of stuff's not going to be able to see me because I'm in the woods. Now, I got to figure out where are they going to go to find those or where are they going to go to get away from the rest

of the pressure. Like that's a different game than scouting that Kansas ground, you know, like finding a buck there, and I think I think we've kind of done a disservice to the like hunting community by there's been a lot of hunting content that comes out of like spot in Stock Kansas Bucks and you're looking at guys finding a buck, getting in there and shooting in it's action packed and it looks amazing, but you're not looking at the days and days of glassing where they're just not

on them, or they're seeing deer where they're like, there's a great buck, I have no chance of getting anywhere near him, and I got to go find something else. It is not It looks easy when it's distilled down to a YouTube video and that shit is tough.

do your due diligence. Maybe sit, hang some cameras, do some observation sits, you know, scout during the season, whatever the case is. But definding the deer part is the easy part. Figuring out how to like get in there with close enough to get them killed without them knowing that you're there, That's where the scouting actually takes place, right, because then it becomes that's really when you're battling your

wits against the deer's wits. You know what I mean, Because I'm I think I know how you're using this area. I need to I need to kind of pull a fast one on you, make you think I'm not there while I'm there, you know, and try to use your senses against you to a degree, is what you're kind of doing. Right, and then so that's very much like a Pennsylvania or just like a timbered kind of approach. Right, you see the sign, do you know the deer's in the area. You figure out how you get your you

know your access, et cetera, et cetera. When you're in Kansas, you know those flat areas, finding the deer's really easy. It might take some driving around, right, but you're just glassing, sitting behind your Bino's watching and you're finding where they're at, and then then becomes the chess match, right, especially if you're out there during the rut, might be a little bit. I might take your advice this year, I might go

out in October. So we'll see, because you know, during the rut, it's like, so I found you didn't just find a buck. Most likely you likely found a buck in two or three dos that he's pushing around. If it's you know, a dominant buck, you'll might find some pecker heads running around by themselves or nudging a do around,

you know, or run around like they're lost. But if it's a mature deer, at least what I've seen out there, they usually they're pushing two or three around because there's a small dog group that has a hot dough in and he's pushing them around, and eventually he's going to cut around, but he's just pushing the whole group around until it comes time. And now you're trying to beat him, which he's not as hard to beat because he's kind of an idiot. At that point, you know, it's still

not easy. But then you've got his lady friend and whatever other lady friends that she might be hanging out with that you're having to beat at the same time, And that's where the game really kind of gets interesting. That's where you start to kind of how far can I push the envelope. You know, is rattling going to work to try to entice him, is decoy going to tick him off to get him to come in. That's when you have to start kind of reading the deer. So this is like the next level of scouting. It's

not just find the deer. Okay, now I got in. The next step is I can't close the distance. How do how do I get him in range? Right? And so it's just I've fallen in love with it because there's so many layers to that game that you don't sometimes get to play in timbered areas.

At some point in the summer or at some point in the fall, you can probably get a picture of a buck. Goot to make you real happy. You know. That might be a one to ten somewhere and it might be a one to seventy somewhere else, but you can do it. And we've kind of convinced ourselves that that's good enough, Like that's you know, we've got it figured out then, And it doesn't mean anything until you

scout enough to figure out how to hunt them. Like it doesn't you know, it's the same thing like you said about you know, if you're out in Kansas and you glass up one hundred and sixty incher out there in the pasture, great, like what's next? Like that's awesome, it's fun, But what's next? I mean what it reminds

me of God? You know, like for a long time in the in the Turkey hunting world, you'd hear people say like, oh, roosted, like roosted is roasted, and then it kind of changes like roosted isn't necessarily roasted anymore.

It's like because it doesn't take that long for you go out there and you have that bird gobbling his ass off one hundred yards away and you don't kill him, and then it happens again and he doesn't fly down on your decoach, and you go, okay, this is this is not enough, Like there wasn't enough to my setup, or you know, like your your example with a buck with a couple of dos, like you're competing with a bird that has a couple of hens with him. Now

it's a different story. Like so much of this stuff, we go good enough. I figured I found the scrape, I found fence crossing. They like I got a picture of three big ones on this trail in August. It's over.

It's like no, like that's the start. And I'm continually reminded of that when I talk to guys like you and Andy May and some of these people who are real obsessed with scouting, because it's not you know, like it's it's always starts with I found this then, like I found him then, or I found this spot then, and then it goes into this long process, like maybe a multi year process of like now I gotta figure out how to hunt it, or somebody will be like,

you know, you drew your Kansas tag and you're like, oh my god, this world of hunting, these planes, you're so vastly different, Like it started there, like now all of a sudden, this journey to scout started with just getting that tag or like walking into the big woods when you're used to hunting you know, egg country and going holy shit, like I have a new world. But it's not, it's not. It doesn't hinge on just finding

the deer and done. Like there's that. That's just like the you're opening the door, like you were standing on the porch, you knock, they let you in, and now you got to go like it's totally different.

know that's not my that's not my game. You know, if a good one hundred and thirty plus inch deer walks by me, you know out in Kansas, you know, I get a crack at him. You know, awesome, I'm gonna you know, I'm going to take a shot. But you know what you were kind of saying around the game just kind of beginning, like I've kind of started my game almost completely over whe where I kind of tacked a big woods piece and I started going to

Kansas at the same time. So it was two brand new kind of areas, you know, where I was like, I went into those seasons knowing that like it's going to be a while, you know what I mean, Like if I really want to consistently be able to hunt this big woods piece, I I got to be committed to it, and I just got to spend my time here and know that it's probably going to be a

couple of season endeavor before it happens. And then the Kansas piece was a big slice of humble pie because you know, I'd been to the Iowa and Ohio and I've killed deer in those areas. I have, you know, more target rich environment more so than PA and stuff like that, and so I was like, Kansas, you know,

we should get it, should get it done. And this would be my third year back and I've had three deer that I've been either at full draw on or within you know, fifteen yards under that the smallest one

was like mid one forties. And being fifteen yards or closer to a caliber or that deer on the ground and just not being able to get an arrow in him has just been extremely humbling, you know, because it's just it's one of those things where, you know, the first year out there, like I was playing it all wrong, you know what I mean, Like I was just I was just like one of those It was like I turned twenty one and someone took me the Strip club for the first time, got a water ones and I'm like,

what's up? You know, that was how I was doing it, you know, And I blew a bunch of hunts, and you know, the last day of that hunt, actually had a really good deer, you know, probably borderline hundred and fifty inch deer, and he got within fifteen yards and he caught my thermal, you know, and I was hung out the dry in the middle of nothing. And then last year, you know, I had one it was you

know one forties, you know, clean eight awesome deer. It was a hunt on a whim at the head of a draw, like right, working the wind correctly, and I clipped a small branch. When I went to draw back, my arrow hit a small twig and that was in front of me, and it bounced. The arrow bounced off off my off my rest, and he heard it and snapped his head around and he was gone. You know,

I was at full drawing that deer. I've never wanted to throw a bow so bad in my life like that one almost went for a ride, like I was so mad. And then so this is where like the game comes in. So so I started learning. I started being more patient. That's why I had that really good encounter there. And then the first day that was there, I just glassed the whole first day I was there, and I kind of started figuring out how they were using the head of this one draw. And I saw

the second day when I was taught. You know, I walked in during a little bit of daylight and I ended up glassing from about two hundred yards away from me up the CRP toward the head of that draw. Like the reason why you go to Kansas, like I ended up seeing him, you know, I ended up being close enough to him. He was one hundred and sixty plus audiench like mainframe ten, you know, junk Oliver's bases

like awesome deer. And so I saw him, and from the previous year and watching him with those doughs, I knew that he was going to cut that dough out and he was going to go a breeder and I probably wasn't going to see him for like three to five days roughly, right, depending on like how close she was to being bred. He was gonna lock down with her for three and that was you know, and then he'll be back. And so I ended up hunting a bunch of other areas because I didn't get a shot

at him. I got about as close as seventy five yards and couldn't rattle him in and he walked off with her and I didn't see him again. I kept an eye on that draw every day. I would kind of check it. We didn't see him, and I was like the last day of the hunt, I was like, this will be the day he should come off that dough and so I just played it patient. I didn't bust up that draw. I didn't mess with it. I glassed it, just kept tabs on those deer hunted some

other spots. The last day, I went up to the head of that draw. Stayed inside the draw because it was the last day I was going to be there, so I didn't care if my scent was on that draw anymore. Walked up the head of that draw, went to a tree that I'd picked out, this locust tree that he was kind of when I'd seen him previously. He walked in from it. When I glassed other deer, they were always walking in front of this one tree.

So I'm using other deer to tell me what deer want to do in that spot, not necessarily just him. This is again where the scouting part comes in, right. It's like you're just trying to take the pieces that you can find. And I walked to that tree, walked up out of the draw, and there was a deer grunting to my right, and there was deer grunt on my left, and there was enough like moonlight just starting to get a little bit daylight where I could start to see a little bit, and I saw deer out

in front of me, and net net was. There was a buck to my right that was grunting. There was a dough in front of me, and then there was the deer that I was after that was with her, and he was standing right behind the tree I was trying to get to. He's at thirty yards and I can see his frame, and I'm just like, you gotta be kidding me. What are the chances we both show up the same spot at the same time, right, I don't have enough shooting light. I tried to wait him out.

He was kind of prancing around, getting nervous because that other buck was grunting, and I have no I never saw that buck. I just heard him grunting. And so I think he thought I was a deer cause I had the back. I had the back like the darkness of the draw behind me, and he had like the skylight behind him, so I could see him. He couldn't see me, and my wind was in my favorite So

I think he thought I was a deer. So I started grunting, grabbed my grunt call and shuffle on my feet and got behind a tree, Harlily brown Christmas tree, and I made it to the hat and I got k nelt down and got an arrow knocked, and I was like, if I can just get like another five minutes a day light, and if I can get him to step in front of where I knew these saplings were, I was like, then I have a shot, and so I got the five minutes that I needed. He snort,

We used at me. He still thought I was a buck. I snort, We used back at him. He postured up, started walking toward me, and he walked right to the edge of where those sappings where I just stood. There he was at like twenty yards and I just I just did not have enough light to get a clear pin, to be able to to one have a clear pin, and two be able to see exactly where those sapplings were at. So I didn't like clip one and have a deflected arrow hit him and have a bad situation.

So I ended up just watching him walk out of my life. But that's you know, that's you know, that's the humbling kind of nature of hunting somewhere like that and talking about like the game just starts when you find them, it's the scouting you have to do in between to figure out how you're going to put yourself with like in their world, right, it's not just being it's not like it's not being in there on their planet, you know what I mean, Like I want to be

in his house, you know. And so that's that's where the game really kind of comes into play. And then when I left that night, was the last night in Kansas and driving out, and I saw him in my headlights and he's running beside my truck full Kansas gallop through a cut corn field, chasing a dough right beside me. I just see like all these antlers. And that was when I got the best look at him, because I was like right on top of him. I was like, you kind of freaking kidding me.

Pennsylvania and go hunt Kansas. Like a lot of people are staying home, right, And the goal that we've been shown in white tail hunting for so long is get a spot you can manage and make it so you don't have to scout anymore. They're gonna come to the food plot, they're gonna go through certain you know, terrain traps or whatever. Run some cameras keep tabs on them. But you don't have to scout anymore. But you don't necessarily get a lot better without getting your ass kick.

Like when you're talking about your first time in Kansas and you're doing everything wrong. That's like a powerful motivator to figure new stuff out that you can bring home with you and you don't need to travel seventeen states away to do it. Like I I think one of the biggest problems people have with white tails is we limit ourselves to our spot. Like I hunt this place, this farm or whatever, and it's like great, you know, like that's that's great.

You know, you hear a lot of like negativity out there on people in the hunting industry and being like, oh, they're ruining everything, and I'm like, what you know, that's a different topic. But I also look at it and I go, these are some of the best hunters you're ever gonna meet in your life because they're going to places all the time where they have no history, where they have to scout on the fly, or they have to really bring up their scouting game and figure it out.

And we can all do that on some level. Yeah, you might not be able to go hunt seven states a year like most people can't, but you might be able to find a place an hour down the road. Or maybe you live in you know, southern Michigan and you could hunt northern Michigan. You know, like maybe you could do something that's still on your resident tag but forces you to go I'm not just gonna go sit on the same cornfields. I'm not gonna go sit on the same ponds, Like I'm gonna go scout and figure

this stuff out. Because when you start challenging yourself that way. Man, things change, and like you get your ass kicked a lot, but you're getting better while you're doing it.

don't hunt the same spots over and over again. Like I can only think of one two spots all of last season locally that I've hunted in the past, Like every other spot that I hunted last year was was was a fresh sit, was new, like I'd never I'd scouted it, I'd hung a camera, check cameras in the summer, scouted in the summer a little bit, and then just went in and hunted, right. And that's just kind of

what I like to do. I want to fill this freaking Kansas tag this year because I want to go to a different state and I'm determined to fill the tag before I there, fill a Kansas tag before I venture off to another state because I've never been to Nebraska. I wanted to go to I want to go to Nebraska. I've never been to Oklahoma. I want to go to Oklahoma. I've never been to Minnesota. I want to go to Minnesota. I've never been to Wisconsin. Want to go there, you

know what I mean. So it's I just like to I just like to experience brand new stuff. And for me, you know, going back to what we said earlier, you know, adaptability being your best ability. I just always want to kind of keep that at the forefront and force myself to continue to adapt because whenever I'm incomfortable is it makes that willingness to be uncomfortable and have to adapt makes the game a little easier in some of those

spots that I have familiarity with, you know. And that's why I think, you know, there's a time and place for everything, you know, whether it's food, plot building, you know, smarter mouse trap, and I think that for people who have access to that, I think that's great. I think that's a great way to kind of start to understand what deer like to do because you maybe see deer more often, right, because I know you and I've talked

about like you've got to be around deer to learn deer. Right, So if you have a hard time finding deer and you have a situation like that where you can just be around deer and observe and walk, like that's a great way to kind of cut your teeth and then take it into like you know, a piece of big woods or like the piece of public land it's close to your home or whatever, and then start to see how some of what you knew starts to fall apart, maybe just a little bit, and then what parts you

have to kind of like sharpen because there were skills that you had, but they weren't quite where they needed to be, honestly, to kill a deer that everyone else has access to or that's not set up for you to to put them in a certain spot where they're doing exactly what they want to do and you're on their terms, you know. And so I think there's a time and place for stuff, But I one hundred percent

agree with you. Man. It's like when you force yourself to go do unfamiliar stuff, you have no choice, but to get better. Like that's when you're uncomfortable, you're growing. If you're not, if you're if you're not, if you're comfortable, then you're then you're then you're not progressing. It's kind of like the old saying.

sucked into this this western Minnesota thing. So I hunted there last year for a few days during the rut, got my ass handed to me, saw a few doughs, couldn't even get a four ky near me, Like really really got rouffed up by it. But I'm like I'm around them. And then I went back and pheasant hunted a whole bunch again, which is the reason I wanted

to hunt there. And I'm pheasant hunting properties that I deer hunted, and I'm jumping bucks, and it's pissing me off because I'm seeing good deer right where I was hunting, and I go, people have told me my whole life it's not worth deer hunting here, And then I go pheasant hunt there, and I'm seeing good deer consistently. Then I go deer hunt there, and I get my ass kicked, and so I go. The disconnect here is not that there aren't good deer to hunt, or enough deer to hunt,

or whatever, enough public land to hunt. It's it's all there. All of that is available. The disconnect was it's just really hard, and so it's easier to say it's not worth it than to actually go try to figure it out. But once you kind of get your like your claws stuck into something like that, it's hard to not want to get better. And you know, because I think, and this is not everybody, Like I have buddies who they're

like wired so vastly different from me. For deer, like, they want a very consistent, pretty easy place to hunt, and that's like good for them. It's like they're working hard in their life and they want to go sit in a tree stand where they know if they put

in their time, he's coming by. But for a lot of people, I think, you know, especially if you know, if you're listening to this podcast or reading our articles or whatever, you're you're looking to level up, like you're looking to get this stuff figured out, and man, hunting a new place is one way to get you to re frame your entire thought process on white tails and kind of kind of get rid of that stuff that you believe that just isn't true and start figuring out

what is true. And like that process doesn't end, like you start getting hooked on it and you're like, I want this more, and it just not only does it help you become a better dear killer, it just makes deer hunting more enjoyable, like you're just problem solving.

I'm able to stay present more, if that makes sense, And like that's been like kind of a mantra for me this year is like you know, trying to be you know, more more present just in just in general, like in my day to day life and hunting being aware, you know, of my body's capabilities, you know my capabilities you know, as a as a human, as a hunter. And I was just I kind of kind of I don't want to say long. It seems like a weird dramatic word, but like I do long for that like

like primal connection. And to me, like whenever I go out and I get lost in these places and I have to kind of figure it out, like that's when I feel connected, as weird as that might sound, like knowing jack shit, is when I feel most connected, you know, and so much so that like I've toyed around with the idea of like switching to a trad bow just for the sole purpose of it being more primitive and being more connected, and it becomes part of me and

it's not there's not really anything mechanical, and there's nothing wrong with I shoot a normal, you know, vertical bow. You know it's and I'm not poo pooing that because you know, it's hard enough to try to do it with that. But like I'm yearning this, like this like primal connectivity that I seem to get whenever I'm in places like Kansas and I feel like I'm out of my element a little bit and I'm on the ground,

you know. And that's the other part that I love about when you go to these different places, they call for different tactics. You know. Kansas was a big switch me because like I really never hunted off on the ground much at all, you know, except whenever i'd hunt like elk or mule deer or whatever. And so it made me get proficient at being able to be on the ground and hunt, you know. And so now it's like I don't shy away from those ground setups when

I'm in Pennsylvania. You know. It's like if there's a good spot and nobody can get to it and there's no trees, I'm like, hmm, this seems like a pretty good spot, right, Like, shouldn't be a lot of pressure in here. And so it makes you kind of you know, basketball players would say, like, you know, makes you, you know, get a bigger bag. You know. It's like you got a lot more handle, you know what I mean, so

to speak right, you know. And so that's the other thing that I think it does not just from like an academic kind of like mental how you process this stuff, because it's new standpoint, but you start adding things to your arsenal because if not, that hunt is going to be really long and hard, you know, until you start to try some of that stuff, and then you know the other part for me is just it is just the connection to the to the challenge, you know, and

the personal connection to it. And it seems like the longer I go, the harder I want to make it, because that's whenever I feel most connected and I feel most present. Is whatever. Do you ever notice how when you're doing something really hard, like you become a laser focused like where you almost don't hear other stuff outside of you, you know what I mean. And when something's really easy or comes naturally right, you start to get

distracted by by things right. And I think that's the one thing that I've really kind of come to understand and try to implement through like you knowing jiu jitsu, is that idea of like, when something is really really tough and I have to really try, man, my focus is laser sharp, and whenever it's not and something's easy, I don't perform as well, you know. So I meet the challenge and then I will perform down to my

to my opponent. If you will right. My best roles in the gym are always against guys who are way better than me. Not a surprise because I'm trying to keep up right. Same thing with deer hunting. It's like if I'm at some place it's lazy, you know, just say at home, I'm a worse deer hunter at home than I am on the road. One hundred oh, man, that is.

of your comfort zone. You're doing things different. I I hunted for a few years with a trad bow back when I was in my twenties. And I'll tell you what, man, when you hear people talk about it and they go, well, you know, I'm not shooting a bowl with training wheels

on it, like you always think. It's just tied to like the distance that you can be accurate, right, That's part of it, you know, Like when you when you've got to recurver a long bow up there, You're like, I want him at fifteen yards quartered away, and I want I want that dream me shot, you know, like you're not sitting on the edge of a bean field, range in it and go, Well, if he comes through that row, he's thirty five yards, I'll dial into that

and shoot him. It's a different thing that way. But what really messed me up, or at least forced me to rethink my setups was if you've got a re curve and it's you know, fifty five inches tip to tip or sixty inches whatever it is, that shot that you would take behind the tree with a compound, you don't have it. You can't get around there, or you know, it depends how you hold. I can't. I can't my bow,

so I take up a lot of space. I'm not shooting straight up and down or just like when you're on the ground, like oh, you're gonna go get in a ground blind and do this now? Good luck? Right, can't do it? You just have to think, like, now, how do I structure my setup so not only is he going to be there at that range, I'm gonna actually be able to draw on him and shoot him. It's a different thing, and it I mean, I still

I haven't done it in a long time. I'm gonna go back eventually, probably when my job isn't tied to killing stuff. But it forced me to look at everything differently, and I didn't think it would. I've kind of seen the same thing taking my daughters when they cross bow hunt. I'm like, it's such an advantage that now it sort of takes away like three layers of difficulty. Would you don't have to worry about drawing? Okay, Like you know

what I mean. So that goes a different way, but all of it forces you to think, like, man, you know what, I was comfortable with one little variation and weapon or one little variation in like hunting styles. Now you've got a problem. You've got a problem solve in a totally different way, and it, like you said, it brings you into the moment. And I man, I think that stuff's important.

it like that. You know, you shouldn't be dedicated and passionate about it because I love I love bow hunting, right, but there's also a part of like you sometimes need things that pull you away slightly that way whenever you get in it, that the passion and everything is there, right because you and I've talked about this, like there's parts of this that suck, you know what I mean, there's parts of this that are a grind, right, And to pretend that it's all rainbows and unicorns and stuff

like that, it just is a is a false narrative. And I was finding myself there where I was like, I love this stuff, but like it's starting to wear on me a little bit because I do like hard hunts, you know what I mean. I do like the challenging stuff, and that's the part that I love. But you know, there's a part of me that's like I'm like, okay,

this is this is getting brutal, you know what I mean. Like, and so I had to kind of you know, you know, I've talked like I started training a lot of jiu jitsu and that's the thing that kind of took me away from it, not away from it, but allowed me to kind of divert my attention to where it's like I wasn't so obsessed, and that distance actually gave me more clarity, you know. And like you'll hear a lot about this type of stuff and like leadership stuff, and

it applies whenever you're talking about deer hunting. It's like whenever things are kind of getting rough or whatever, it's like you need to detach and assess, right, you need to be able to step back from yourself and almost look at yourself as though you're like a ghost, you know, and go like what's going on here? Like what part of this is the part that you don't get joy out of any longer right, and then define what that is.

Not saying that there was loss of joy in in deer hunting or whatever, but like what aspects were starting to grind on me, you know what I mean to make me, you know, not love it as much as I maybe did three years ago. And it was that assessment where I was like, Okay, cool, let's just cut that shit out and awesome, and now it's gone, you know.

And the part that I cut out was it was actually a personal thing where I felt compelled that I needed to be always doing something for it, otherwise I was slacking, right, And it was that idea that and then I what I realized was was that I was doing that because I felt like these external pressures of like, you know, whether it was because I have a hunting podcast or whatever the case, I don't know exactly where they came from. But I was like, that's just no

one's expecting me to do that. I'm doing that to myself. And so once I removed that, you know, and was like, I'll do this whenever I on my time, when I feel like it, and whenever I want to do it, as opposed to whenever I feel obligated to do it, you know, And that was really what And so it wasn't like I spent any less time doing it or thinking about it. It's just like I allowed myself to be free to do it whenever the mood struck, and it brought the joy back to it again, you know.

I mean. And so for me, that was like the idea of like the trad bow and stuff like that, because I was like, you know, I don't care if someone thinks that, you know, I'm killing something smaller than I should because I'm using a trad bow, or I blew an opportunity because I'm using a trad bow. It's like I want the experience, don't care what the other person thinks, you know what I mean. It's like and and so and that was kind of like, you know, it was good for me, like to kind of detach

train jiu jitsu. That's also mental shift too, that really helps. And now it's like I'm like I was sending you dear pictures man, It's like I'm geeked.

you to walk over. Man, it's coming. And for me, you know, a change of scenery does me really well, like a new kind of challenge, but also just just learning to trust the process because we always think like if only I do this, or if only I do that, or if like it's going to happen, and the truth is it's probably not. Like you're probably going to keep

failing no matter what. But if you learn, just like anything like working out or anything like, if you learn the long game process and you go there's a lot of suck built into this, but the reward is coming, then it's like it's easier to just go, Okay, I know, I gotta do this. I gotta run these cameras, or I gotta go look at this, or I got a glass for the night, or I like, I gotta do

the process. I gotta give myself that shot because if I do that, like, eventually, the reward's gonna come, and it might not be seven bucks this year, it might be one or two good encounters or whatever. It might lead you two seasons down the road where you kill three of them in three states and you have an amazing season and then you start over like but but you learn that it's like this is what it takes.

It's the same thing like if you if you struggle with like depression and you're like, I gotta figure out a way to manage this better. One of the things a lot of people learn is I need to move my body and wear myself out. Like it's not the only answer a lot of times. But it's like I

don't want to run. I don't want to run five days a week, but I know that sucky part is going to make me feel better overall and be a better person, Like I don't have a choice, Like I gotta trust that process to get myself into a better place. Deer hunting is exactly the same. Like if you're not hunting a banging property where you can just count on them showing up, you got to figure out that process of scouting and you know, scout to learn how to

hunt specific spots, not just find the deer. The process will deliver for you eventually, and once it starts to it's like, okay, at least I have a template. When I start veering off and I start feeling really shitty or like I need that break or whatever, that's fine, you can return to the process.

built into it. And sometimes you said, you know, you mentioned something there about scouting, and I was just thinking. I was like, sometimes you have to scout to learn how to scout to where you're not going to do it right the first time, you know what I mean, or the second time or the third time. You know, it's going to take doing it over and over again to where you start to see like where the shortcomings

are right. And sometimes you're fortunate you have someone who's close to you or that you know who can point your shortcomings out to kind of help you expedite that part of it. If not, you'll still get there. It might just take you a little longer, and that doesn't matter.

I think people get you know, hung up also like in the idea that like it has to happen within a certain amount of time, you know, And that was probably like the biggest learning lesson with the training stuff that I've been doing is that people don't advance the same rate. There's a lot of reasons why people even if you commit two people commit, you know, jiu jitsu at the same time, same body size, same strength, same everything, and they train the same amount of days, doesn't mean

they're going to advance the same rate. And so you can't get hung up on like this person that you started with or that's around your skill level or whatever is advancing more quickly than you. Right, It's all about your your personal journey, and it's interesting once you start focusing on that journey, all of a sudden the advancing happens like I won't say overnight, but all of a sudden you start to see it like it comes in spades. And I feel like hunting's kind of the same way.

Whereas when you start, if you're comparing your journey to somebody else, you're always going to lose because you don't have the same Even if everything you think, everything you can kind of put your finger on, is the same, it's not the same. You know your your inputs if you will right, and so you're always going to feel like you're not enough when you're measuring yourself against someone else because they're advancing more quickly than you, or they're

achieving more than you are. But if you frame it in am I atter deer hunter this year than I was last year? Then you're moving in the right direction. And then that's all you need to be worried about is just what is your journey? How are you being fulfilled? How are you enjoying the process. What parts of the process don't you like? Then don't do them? You know what I mean. You don't have to do you know

what I mean. It's just you find what works for you and you focus on the path that you're kind of creating and not the other paths people are, you know, creating for themselves. That's a losing battle, you know. And once you start doing that, you know, it's all of a sudden the amount of joy you would expect is there. And then something funny happens as that all of a sudden the results show up too.

black belt. Right. It's like there's a saying, you know in jiu jitsu that anyone whoever wanted to become a black belt did because all itever is is takes his time and commitment, right, Anyone who ever wanted to kill a booner really everyone to kill a booner did right, because it just took time and and focus on that thing, and eventually it'll happen, you know, And so I so that's kind of like what my new approach has been has been.

the things you enjoy there. It's it's not like you're going to find styles of scouting or find some kind of terrain that you just love to hunt and that's the end, because they'll drift away or over time something will be like I'm not that into this anymore. I need something else. So like you have to understand that this is it's like all happiness, right. It's a moving target, man, Like you hit it today and you won't hit it tomorrow. But you got to keep looking. And I found that,

you know. For I hunted a lot of public land for like a decade, like a bunch of states had a good run. But I was burned Man. Like I was like, I'm I'm sick of drive, and I'm sick of camping. I'm sick of like the pressure. And you know, for the last couple of years with Meat Eater, I've had to save tags and it's been different seasons than I'm used to, and so I was like, this is kind of a relief. I don't feel the pressure to

go kill a bunch of stuff on public land. And what I found was that's actually kind of what I need to be happy. Like I went to South Dakota and we filmed a hunt with the Element Boys the buck Truck deal and didn't go that well. I had a pretty decent hunt, you know, I had one really good encounter at the end, but I told my wife when I got home, I'm like, I'm going back without a camera guy, and I'm going to go figure this

out because I just needed it. And I went back and I had another you know, one hundred and thirty eenter come in super close. Screwed that up, but I

left it going. Even though I didn't film my tag, I left it going like that was what I needed, Like it just it made me feel good, like I'm like, Okay, I got to have that kind of thing mixed in there, other wise the whole thing doesn't work for me, right, figuring the more the more of that stuff you figure out, the better it is to just go okay, Like, man, I'm veering off a little bit. I'm in the ditch, like I'm in the room bar, but like I need to correct here and get back up onto the road.

And if you know where that is, it's awesome to like try that stuff and figure out new things because you always kind of go okay, like I know where my true north is, Like I know what baseline. I need to just enjoy this and always find what I'm looking for out there. I think that's so like that matters.

every day. We'll use that as an example, right, And so when you think about like how you kind of find like happiness or joy and something like that, to expect to find it consistently in the same spot and deer hunting, you know, seems crazy if you think about it, right, you didn't you don't find that if someone said, like even like even when I was a musician, was doing that right, and that was kind of like my gig there got and that was all I ever wanted to

do when I was a kid growing up, Like that was it, like that was my passion and I finally got to do it, you know, eight nine, ten years of doing it, you know, all of a sudden it became a job, you know, and yeah, I still enjoyed

it. It was about as lacks of daisical you know, loose call loose job as you could possibly have, you know, being a delinquent, but there was an element of work to it that started sucking the joy out of it, you know what I mean, because it became the thing that you had to do, and it was a certain type of music and I was expected to write a certain way because that was what we were, you know,

had a record deal for or whatever. That was what you know, the producer was expecting or the management was expecting, or whatever the case was. And so it's crazy to think that hunting is not the same. And that's something that I've kind of you know realized and kind of been spending more time paying attention to because you know, you asked me when we first started, like you know about private land or any private land or whatever any

family owns some back back home. And I've been thinking a lot recently, like why am I not going back and spending time with my dad, like hunting his property with him, you know what I mean? Like is it because I feel so compelled that I've got to do this public land thing because that's what I really like to do, Or should I be hunting with the old man because that will actually that will bring me a different type of joy that I probably haven't had since

I was a kid, you know. And he wants to go do an elk hunt, and I don't like using outfitters, and he only wants to go use an outfitter because he's an older fellow. He wants the comforts, you know what I mean. And we've kind of put it off because I'm like, ah, Dad, it's just it's to a public land piece. I got a buddy who's got like

a cab and we can stay at you know. And then I'm thinking, like, dude, you're an asshole, Like your dad wants to go do an elk hunt with you at some like you know, outfitter like get off your wallet and spend a couple of bucks to go make a memory, you know what I mean, And don't be a douche, you know what I mean. And so it's like, and you know, I'm being honest with people that are listening here, It's like I've been very selfish in that regard,

you know. And to me, I think when I think about things, part of what was driving me a little crazy whenever I did that step back and kind of reevaluate was like, I recognize the selfishness that I had in this and that was the other part that was starting to suck the joy out of it for me. And so it was that commitment to like, man, spend time with the buddies, you know, go hunt with your dad, even if it's a good weather day and you know there's a deer somewhere that you could try to go kill.

Like still go hunt with the old mand even though you're probably not gonna see jack shit, you know what I mean. Like, So it's just stuff like that, you know.

And I don't know if it's like being an adult, you know, or you know, being a parent with a teenage daughter or or what you know, because I'm thinking in the back of my mind, you know, even if it's not hunting related, like when she's my age, and I hope she would make the choice to spend time with me, you know, and and so I need to kind of I need to give her the roadmap for that.

She needs to see me do it. She needs to see me be committed to spending time with my dad, you know, as we're both getting older and stuff like that. And I know that Mark's been doing like this series on parenting and stuff like that, so I don't feel completely out of place mentioning that.

the support, so thank you for that. If you want more whitetail content, head on over to the mediat dot com. You can see articles that I've written. You can see articles by Mark, Alex Gilstrom, Dylan trmp, Bomartonic, whole bunch

of white tail Killers. Tony Hansen's in there in the mix too, or you can you know, if you have a short attention span or you're just like watching stuff, you can check out The Buck Truck, a new series that we dropped pretty recently that was produced by the Element Boys who are absolute public land whitetail killers as well. If you like hunting, if you like phishing, there's some content there for you that you're gonna love somehow somewhere. Go find it at the mediater dot com