Ep. 681: What Would Jared Mills Do?

could throw it all right. Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, brought to you by First Light and our Camera for Conservation initiative, which means every purchase of first Light gear in the Spectra pattern, which is the whitetail camera pattern, a percentage of every single one of those sales goes to the National Dear so helping support their mission to make things better for deer and deer hunters,

and they're doing a good job of it. I actually was with a bunch of the guys from the NDA just last weekend way up there in Idaho for one of our Working for Wildlife Tour events. I'm sure you've heard all about it, but we have had some great opportunities so far to volunteer on public land improve habitat for wildlife, and that was certainly a good example of it.

There was I think more than fifty volunteers. We improved some aspen stand habitat which a lot of white tails and elk and other critters are going to benefit from. Man we had a good time doing it too, so kudos to the NDA. And speaking of working for wildlife tour events, we've got another one coming up this weekend. If you are in Missouri, we are going to be getting together this coming Saturday. That's Saturday, August twelfth, down the BK. Leach Memorial Conservation Area. We're going to be

doing some habitat improvement out there. That's just outside of Saint Louis, Missouri, I believe. So I'd love to see at eight a m. Saturday morning at the BK. Leech Memorial Conservation Area. This is in partnership with backcountry Hunters and anglers. We're going to do some good work for wildlife and then later that afternoon get together for social event. Some storytelling should be great. You can sign up over on the BHA website. They've got an events page there.

For it where you can register. Hope to see you there, I guess in other news, since we're talking news. This past weekend, so two weekends ago was the Working for Wildlife Tour event in Idaho. This most recent weekend, I was down in southern Michigan for the Field to Fork program at the Back Forty, which has been such a cool thing to see grow over the last couple of years, and this year we introduced I think thirteen or fourteen new hunters this past Saturday to this whole hunting lifestyle.

So we got to spend the day with them, giving them experience behind a rifle and a crossbow, answering all sorts of questions about hunting, taking them for a tour of the property, talking through different deer behavior and habitat

and strategy questions. And then there will be a whole series of hunts happening this fall in the early season and late season where there will be specific partners or sorry mentors partnered up with each one of these new hunters, and it's very cool to see the Back forty property being used for that. So that's what I was doing this past Saturday. That was a lot of fun and other than that. We do have a podcast episode to get too, which I know you guys are chomping at

the bit for and it's a good one. We're continuing our what would You Do? Series, which is this thing we do every August. Hopefully you heard last week with Bobby Kendall. What we're doing is running our guests through a series of specific hypothetical hunting scenarios to see what they would do and why they would do it. And

today's guest is Jared Mills. He is a great deer hunter who just came off of a really really great hunting season and he's got some insights, some ideas and perspectives that I think we can all learn from and apply to our own hunting situations. Jared's over there in Iowa. He is probably most known for his participation in the Midwest White Tail Series for a really really long time, probably a decade or more. He's now doing his own thing. He's got his own YouTube channel. You can find that

just by searching Jared Mills over on YouTube. And he documented his hunting season last year on that channel and it got a lot of interest in Buzz because he had one heck of a year and showcased it all really well there on the channel, so if he haven't seen those videos, you gotta check it out. He killed three really great dear on video, told some great stories, so definitely worth checking out. And I think that will give you some really good context either before listening to

this or after listening to this. But that's plan. We're talking to Jared. I'm gonna run him through a whole bunch of different situations, see what he would do with him out there in the White Tail woods. And man, we had fun. I learned some stuff, I got some good ideas, and it got me even more excited for this coming season. I'm out there scouting beanfield seeing some nice deer. The hit list is starting to fill up here in southern Michigan, which is exciting. And can't wait

to share some of those stories of you too. So that will be for another day though. For now, let's get to Jared Mills or running them through the what would you do? Gauntlet? And here we go, all right with me now on the line, I've got the one and only Jared Mills. Jared, thanks for making time for.

scenarios too. It's kind of like when you're sitting there with your hunting buddies, or I do this thing where we dig road trips where we're gonna go to hant Ohio or some different state and they'll be me or another friend or two in the car and we'll just sit there for hours on the highway and be like, what would you do if this happened? Or what would you do if a split brow time and a drop time buck came at the same time? Like what's cholm?

Just shoot like all those kinds of things. So basically, I'm taking my road trip game and applying it to work with you, Jared.

So I think it just speaks to you got to know your own hunting situations, your own properties, your own deer, whatever it is, all the factors you have to deal with this specifically before you are able to make those decisions on what to do. And this series, to me, really highlights that.

different things. You know, there's so many successful guys and gals out there, Like you said, they all do it in different ways, but maybe fifty percent of them think they are ways the only way still, you know what I mean, Like, there's some people that are so dead set on like, oh, this is the only way to do it. I'm shocked by that still, Like, how many people are so set in that you know perspective.

been some career shifts. You've got a young child one or two one okay one, So if you were to look back over, say that the last decade or so up to now, what has been the biggest change for you, Like, if we're talking about how there's so many different ways to do this, is there is there some major difference for you as far as how your life has or circumstances or anything has led to a shift in your strategies or style of hunting. Anything like that come to mind.

stuff has really changed what hunting is. When I think about what it used to be growing up and when I was cutting my teeth on learn how to bow and all that type of stuff, that seems like it's such a different experience now than it was, And I think for me, my eyes have been opened up like it doesn't have to be that way. I think that's the biggest thing that's been a revelation for me is hey, you can make it harder on yourself. And I don't

want that to sound wrong. I don't want it to seem like it's gotten too easy, because it certainly hasn't. But there are obviously things you can do to make it easier or harder on yourself if you want to. You need to figure out what's best for your experience. And for me, it's just don't get don't mix hunting too much with work, don't put stress on yourself. You have to kill dear, don't you know? All those types of things. Get back to the enjoyment of hunting and

what it felt like way back when. I think that's that's I've been lucky to have come across that and bring that into focus more. And that's certainly going to be a goal of mine, you know, here in the new near future and hopefully for a long time, and hopefully, you know, hopefully I can help hunters along the way

with different tactics and strategies and stuff. But if nothing else, you know, I want to just bring that awareness to guys that you can make this experience what you want it to by doing things your own way, and you don't have to do what everyone else is doing. Yeah.

of it for me. So last season, like my main goal is like, Okay, I gotta just shove aside any of the stuff that's bringing me down, like any of the things that are taking this thing that I love so much and making it miserable for me. Sometimes like that's you can't have that anymore. And I just tried to, like, stop caring what other thing, what other people think, Stop caring about if I kill a big enough buck or enough deer, whatever it is. Stop trying to impress people.

Just do hunt your own hunt, enjoy it, do it for the right reasons, and you know, let the chips fall where they may, and lo and behold, I had a blast and still had like a great hunting season by you know, all other metrics too. And it's it's funny how that probably works out in many cases once you just got get your head back to normal, things work out.

stressing yourself out. So yeah, that's that's the page of mon I feel lucky to be in a spot where I can see that, because when you get to that perspective, you look back and you realize how silly it was to think otherwise, or to make hunting this thing that we all have this crazy passion about, to make it not fun like it's it's just seems so silly looking back.

a brand new farm. So you just picked up something brand new. Let's just say it's gonna be one hundred acres. To keep it simple, it's gonna be Midwest, you know, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana kind of stuff, mixed timber and agg It's one hundred acre square and there's gonna be a creek that runs snaking through the middle. All right, that's our property. What I'm curious about to start is how you would

go about learning this place, scouting and learning it. And I'm curious what your process would be at different start points. So what I'm gonna ask you to run me through is what your plan would be to learn this place if you got access on August thirtieth with an October first opening day. So that's the first one, and then my second one after that, I'm going to be curious to hear what you would do differently if you didn't

get access until October first itself. So all right, August thirtieth, that's a few you know, a couple of weeks from now, as far as when we're recording this, you get to step foot on it for the first time. August thirtieth, you have about a month before opening day. Walk me through what you would do to learn this place fast with one month of go time.

a timber egg set up. Usually there's destination feeding areas or food sources for deer in that type of habitat,

you know, big egg fields or whatever. And I think by spending time looking at the general neighborhood, whether it's driving around the blocks, you know, looking at aerially whatever, figure out where or at least guess where the deer might be going to end up, because I think having a general direction of movement on a property can give you a really good starting point on how to hunt it. You know which way to come in, which way to

go out, where to focus potential stand set up. So I'll try to establish, you know, what are the deer doing each evening or each morning when they're either leaving their bed or coming back to bed by looking at the neighborhood. And then, of course, with it be in August thirtieth, I'm still not worried about running deer off

and them not coming back. So I'm gonna spend a good amount of time with boots on the ground walking the property figuring out those things, either a confirming what I found on the aerial map, or be picking up those little things that you can't pick up on aerial map, little pinches and things like that, whether it's I mean something as simple as a down tree can create a really good pinch point. You're obviously not going to see that on aerial map, So boots on the ground to

figure that type of stuff out. You know, I'll try to figure out signs. Not the most visible at that time of the year. But I'll try to find what would be some potential betting areas, because if you can figure out, you know, maybe the where the one, two or three, you know, one hundred acres the primary betting areas that you're not going to want to go blowing into early or again, it still gives you even more

information with the general movement direction. So if they're going from this spot, you know, there's a really big agg field on the west side that's probably their destination food source, you can figure out, okay, how are they going to get from point A to point B? Where can I put myself in the middle of that? So I think those are probably the main things. Of course, you know,

getting some cameras out. August thirtieth is a great time to start establishing mock scrapes, so that coincides well with with putting cameras out for the first time. There's a lot of properties that that's about the time I put cameras out anyways, on properties I already have access to, so very very good time to start getting inventory. Scrapes are my number one tool for inventory. You know, I think that you learn a lot about deer just based

on their interactions at scrapes. I think most of the mature bucks in the area will eventually come to that, So try to get as many cameras out on mock scrapes to learn what deer in the area. So I think those are probably the main things. If I come across some really obvious stand locations, I may go ahead and hang on right away, But more often than not than a new property, I don't get too crazy about getting those locations set up, at least not permanent locations.

I do a decent amount of moving around mobile type hunting, even just small adjustments. It may be fifty yards, but I have very few even the properties that I have access to, and for years I don't have a ton of permanent locations. And I think the primary reason for that is because I like targeting individual deer and they

all seem to use a property a little bit different. Yes, you know, pinch points and funnels are still going to be there year after year, but each deer may use it a little bit differently depending on where he's betting and just the end of visuality. The personalities of the bucks lead to different styles of hunting. You know, maybe some spots, but buck is really callable. You're gonna want to be in a location where you can see further

and potentially call them in. You know, little examples like that. I think for the primary reason I don't get too crazy about permanent locations until I really learn a lot more than maybe I'll hang a stand and leave it up for the season and take it down after. So those are kind of the first steps that I guess I would think about off the top of my head.

it good. But during that time period August thirtieth October first, unless there's a deer I want to kill right away and that he's living in there, I'm not too afraid of impacting my fall based on going in and out. And you know, it's it's similar to hunting. Like you mentioned the creek going through the middle of property. I'm still going to try to be smart about access. If I can go in and check an area out with

the wind in my face, I'll do it. If I can use that creek to get in initially and then pop up and check an area out, I'll do it. So, you know, I guess there's maybe a little bit of a difference there between being like super aggressive and you know, just sloppy. I want to learn so much as I can, but maybe with a few precautions taken.

figure it out based on other factors. But I would say, hundred acre property, you know, maybe half a dozen cameras to start out with, and that's just trying to kind of cast a net, you know, maybe six to eight cameras to cast a wider net, just to during that initial time frame. But you know, in theory, if you have them on good scrape locations, good travel locations, you're gonna get most of the dear on that property, you know, for inventory purposes on one of those six cameras.

I can see. But the reality is October first, a lot of my learning is probably going to be be coming from tree stand observations and and you know, just sits and adjusting from there. You can get You can learn a lot whether you see a targetbuck or not from a hunt. You know, againting back to the general movement, A lot of times you'll you'll see whether it's a movement an evening hunt or morning hunt. You're going to

see which direction most of the deer are moving. You know, it changes a little bit once you get to the ret time frame November time frame, and the cruising becomes a little more random direction. But you know that early October timeframe, that stuff is relatively consistent and that can give you a lot of information on that property.

I'm in the bedroom. M what would it take, like describe to me what would take to see for you to think that's like paint for me a picture of what that kind of place would have to be to set off those alarm bells for you. And then number two, what would you do in that situation? Because let's say it's October, sometime in October, and now you've stumbled into a big Buck bedroom. You're seeing something that makes you think,

oh wow, I'm in the thing. What do you do next or how do you use that information if you're not going to do anything immediately with it.

multiple directions but is somewhat protected by thick cover. A lot of times I find those locations really close to where you know, let's say, maybe it's a spot with with a bunch of briars or some type of really thick protective cover, but it's on the edge of where it opens up, so you might have Basically that's what creates the visibility for them, is you know, they're protected, but they can see through, see you know, danger, see other deer. Whatever. Of course, a lot of big rubs

would would help give that spot away. The other thing too, it just seems like a lot of mature bucks are very off on their own. So if I'm seeing a bunch of other you know, a bunch of beds together or something like that, I'm usually gonna guess that's not a spot where a mature buck is. But it's usually a spot that's not overloaded with deer sign. In general, it's going to have you know, sign specific to him, but it's not going to be uh, you know, crazy traffic,

as far as just the deer herd in general. So I think those three things are the first ones I think about. It is important that location is important to me during the October timeframe, for sure. I think, you know, the month of October is usually your better opportunity to kill a local resident mature buck. Of course, they're going to be day very light active through November, but it's it's hard to figure out where they're going to be. They could be miles away. Just there's just so many

random factors are out of your control. Where As if he's living there and consistent and you catch him before a bunch of dose coming to Estris, it's it's good to know exactly where he's betting and coming and going to. So yeah, that information is definitely important. How I would hunt it, I've never been big on trying to dive right into that core area. I think I think they're there for a reason, and I think that reason is

it's hard to get to, you know. I'd rather just know it and hunt intercept him to where he's going. But knowing is a big piece of that puzzle, right, just not I just don't want to hunt right on it. So if I know, hey, the dough betting areas over here, as we get towards late October, he's going to be looking for that. Usually he's going to be the one that gets that first sessious know on that property, that

local dough. He's going to be going and checking this more and more regular as we get to the last couple of weeks of October. That's really good to know that. Even like I was talking earlier, the destination food source is really good to know. But yeah, it's an important piece of information, but I don't typically get in the habit of hunting right on that location.

than we know about. I would rather bump them walking in or doing some type of activity as opposed to spooking them from the tree stand by being sloppy with wind direction or movement or something like that. I can think of an example. It's been a few years now, but I was hunting a target buck. I did not know this was a property that was pretty homogeneous, and so it didn't have like what I would call designated

betting areas. There's a lot of really good betting areas, and they seem to bounce around quite a bit, even the mature buck. He's still better on his own, but it just it just seemed to be a little bit random. So anyway, I was walking in to try a new spot, tree standing on my back, you know, sticks, everything, just a hanging hunt, and I bumped him and of course you had that feeling of kind of devastation, you know, man,

that was a deer I came in for. There's also a little bit of you that's like, I should just go home now, right, like what am I doing here? But instead I sat down. I mean I was definitely upset, don't get me wrong, but I sat down and just thought about where would he go? Where's he going right now? You know, where's he running to? When is he going to stop running? When is he going to settle down? And so I made the move on the entire opposite

side of the property. And actually there was another tree stand already set up, so it wasn't a complete hanging hunt. But I hopped in that tree stand where I had good visibility on a really thick area that I thought he could have ran to, and sure enough he came out. He was one of that came out that evening. Didn't get a shot out. I never worked his way into bowt range. You know, probably sixty yards is probably the closest he got. But I got to watch him do

his thing. He ended up getting with a dough and but that was one of the first eye opening experiences for me, Like he was completely fine. I mean it was. It would have been like if I picked the right spot and he got up out of his bed and came. I mean, he acted no different. And this was only probably an hour hour and a half after jumping out of his jumping him out of his bed. So I think we tend to think we ran run a buck into the next county, and more often than not that's

not the case. I'm not saying every time you're going to have a situation like I just laid out, But the reality is, I think they forget about some of that, some of those types of spooking activities fasher than we think.

a few hundred yards? Hard to say, but you know, nonetheless it was it was a cool learning experience for me.

opening day. And then let's say a week before opening day, a few days before opening day, all of a sudden, like a mega giant starts showing up on trailt camera like a brand new buck you've never seen before, never heard of this deer before, and he's like multiple levels above anything else you have on the farm, Like he is a world class deer. He'd be your biggest ever. He's really really special, a deer that in your mind you all of a sudden say, whoa to I have

to focus on him and him alone. In that scenario, what do you do now it's September twenty sixth or seventh or something like that. How do you try to close in on him or learn something fast or shift cameras or shift plans to now figure out this brand new specific buck but with zero background or history.

most of my information. And my property is not I mean, it's it's not big enough to where you know, it's one hundred acre, so it's not big enough to where I'm going to completely change where I have cameras or I need to add a bunch of new cameras to try to get this information. You know, I already have cameras in the pinches on some of the best scrapes, et cetera. So from that standpoint, I don't think it's going to change a whole lot for for me, and I have a good idea of how the deer used

the property. I think it's just going to be more or less monitoring, you know, if he stays around. I mean, normally you get some deer like that that you don't know. It could be a really small window that he's usual utilizing your property, and he could be gone back to where he came from. Uh So, I guess, having said that, maybe I'll be a little bit more aggressive early to

take advantage of him being on the property. You know, sometimes you're able to take information you learn about a deer from previous years, you knowing when he shows up, knowing what he does on during certain strutches of the season, and apply it. Obviously, that's not the case here, so I think that probably would As I'm kind of thinking through it, I probably would be a lot more aggressive than I had planned to be initially on that property with some of the other target deer.

You're going there for a reason. And then you know like you're about to start walking down that trail, and then you get the ping on your phone and we're going to say it's uploads on your cell camera from the night previous. And so now all of a sudden, you're looking at all the pictures and you see the night before, this buck was somewhere totally different the night before.

Do you chase that cell cam picture from the night before or do you stick with your original plan and reasons you had for that.

I never really like to make a lot of adjustments off cell cam photos anyways, for a variety of reasons, but especially in that scenario, I'm going with my gut. There's you know, that could have been a one off deal that he was over there. It could have and maybe I'll be wrong, I won't see him and I should have made that move. But I'll take those odds every time that my plan was solid enough to outweigh one single trail camp photo.

going to be the same. So let's say it's gonna go from I don't know, from like a north wind on the night when you saw him to a west wind the next day. Do you push in there and hunting him with the different wind because you don't care about what the wind was as long as you can safely hunt. Or is that shifting wind direction going to make you predict him showing up somewhere different based on that.

be there, you know. Maybe maybe they'll wait till closer and darker after dark, or maybe they'll just access it a little bit differently so they can have a quartering wind or win their face or whatever it may be. But I still think that's where If that's where he was, that's where he wants to be for a certain reason, and in that time frame, that October timeframe usually is in a random reason. You know, it's something. It's usually food,

social related, or whatever. So I think I'm gonna I'm gonna take my chances if and this is a big if, if I can get in clean with whatever wind direction that is, I'm not I'm gonna consider that way higher than I am. Is he going to use it just because it's a different wind direction.

would not risk messing something up there. But the kicker to it is this, in this scenario, it's this deer that literally you have no information on and could be gone. And that may make me be a little more aggressive there. But I think I had to pick one thing, I probably wouldn't push it on a fifty to fifty on October first or second, whatever day we're talking about, I think I'll take my chances he'll be around a little bit longer for a.

people who say it's horrible. Right, So let's say it's October fourteenth, and there's a cold front pushing through overnight. So the next morning, the lows are going to be like twenty or thirty degrees cooler than they were yesterday, the fourteenth, and then your evening lows again are gonna be cold. Say it went from like a seventy degree day in the fourteenth and now it's going to be like in the forties, maybe forties, fifties, something like that.

So we're talking like the first big big cold front of October. But it's happening, you know, October fifteenth, that morning. Let's say you don't have any daylight pictures of your shooter box yet. Let's say you have. You know, you had some target deer a year after, but they have not been daylighting yet, or at least haven't been dayletting maybe since like early October. Maybe you had a couple of things that are going early it didn't work out.

Now we're in mid October with this situation, first big cold front. Are you hunting October fifteenth, that morning or that evening because of the big cold front. Are you taking a stab at one of your target bucks given that weather front, or are you still playing conservative because there's no daylight activity and you're waiting till later in the month or anything else. What would you do in that scenario, I'd.

one where I have the most likely chance. You talk about not having any bucks daylighting, I'm probably gonna go to where I at least have one close, you know, maybe showing up half hour after dark, an hour after dark. If it's too much mill of the night, I'm going to assume that I'm nowhere close to where he's living. I'm assuming he's you know, on neighboring property or something like that. But if he's close, my assumption is that he's going to be up on his feet a lot

earlier on those conditions. So yeah, the short answer is absolutely, I'm hunting some of my best spots where I have a good target buck living on that day. I'm not going to miss that one or haunt somewhere else.

like ruddy kind of stuff happening. But it's October sixteenth or seventeenth or something like that. If you were to see that on that evening hunt, how would that change your scenario or how would that change your hunting strategy if at all, for the next day or two? Or does that factor in zero because you're not worried about that behavior at this point, it would.

that though, and run another little bucks off. I know there's something to it, and I know that he's probably gonna follow her for however long, So it's going to change my strategy from the standpoint of yeah, I know where he's at, he's probably not going to go too far. What is she going to do? Is she going to

be coming to this green food source? So she you know, that's more or less how I'm gonna hunt him is based on what she's going to do, because my guess is that he's not going to go too far from where she's at for a few days.

in that situation? I know some people get super aggressive in that case, and then some people actually get kind of conservative and wait for him to break off almost and start moving around more. What do you do in that scenario?

that's very very tough. I think during that timeframe, I just want to be in a tree in the area because you know, you obviously want to be there when he if and when he breaks off. But if I it's so situational. I think if if I could safely hunt a nearby food source that she could potentially drag him out to, I think that's probably what I'm gonna focus on. It just becomes more about hunting her, like I said, than it is about hunting him. Uh So maybe it's I think in the evenings that's what I'm

gonna do on an afternoon hunt. I don't morning hunt. Maybe I'm gonna put myself in those spots to try to catch him breaking away to go find another dough. You know, maybe it's those good pinches or funnels or down inside of bedding areas or whatever. But an evening hunt, I've just seen it too often where she will get antsy and need to go out and get some food and he'll be right in toe. You know, we've probably

all seen it. So that's probably the situation I'm gonna put myself in, just based on odds thing and just based on my personal experience. That's probably how I would break it down. Is, you know, what's the food source she's probably gonna go to. How can I hunt that and hope that she just she just brings him by with her.

do in this situation. Let's say that the wind direction and speed and cover along the edge of the field is such that you hypothetically could climb out of the tree and try to stalk on him and round the edge of that thing. You could also hypothetically call try to pull him away. You could hypothetically do nothing at all and just wait. But let's say all those things are on the table, plus anything else you can think of.

What would you do in that scenario? Do you get aggressive because he's right there and he's going to be there, or are you gonna play conservative?

maybe I would think differently. But that's not my situation. So my situation. I think first and foremost, I'm gonna think about calling to him, even though it's a lot lower odds, because he is with that dough, you can sometimes get them to come just a little bit. Maybe you only need him to come twenty five yards and then he's in bow range. So again situational, I don't

know how far he is in this scenario. But the other thing I'm considering on the calling is can he get down wind of me to where if he does make the big circle, am I gonna? Am I screwed?

Because there are certain situations where I just don't call, because you know, every mature buck is likely gonna if he's committing, he's gonna come in downwind of you, And if you don't have a shot on the down wind side or before he gets to the down wind side or whatever, you have really really really limited your chances of that scenario playing out successfully successfully. Again, you know he's not gonna he's now been educated to that stand

location and you being in that tree. But if it's stick enough cover below you, he may commit just a little bit, not to completely leave that though, but just to get a better look. He may not be coming in for a full on commitment fight type of situation where he's gonna circle down wind, but if you can draw him just a little bit with curiosity, and probably what I'm gonna either try is a grunt, caller, snort wheeze,

one of one of those two. You know, maybe I'd start with a really non aggressive grunt just to see if I can peak his curiosity, and I'd probably build it into a snort wheeze if that wasn't successful, and just see if I can just pull him up. Because you know that situation where you were talking about earlier, when it when it's the mid October or mid to late October, and he is kind of with that though,

but you know, she's not quite in heat yet. I think he's more likely to pull off of her temporarily as as compared to you know, we're talking November eleventh or whatever, and you know he is not letting her get a few more than a few feet away, your chances are probably a lot lower than so, you know, obviously everything we talked about situational, but I think that's

what what I would try in that situation. Low odds, but I'm not I'm not letting him just walk out of there at those those chances are too few and far between for me to just watch it happen.

of year? How does your approach? How does your mental game change when you're stuck with hot temperatures for your big rut trip in November.

find a dough, you know. I think there's certain things you can do to up your odds, though, like be around water. I think they obviously will, you know, tend to visit water, either water holes or creeks or whatever to drink out of more frequently during those hot conditions. But you know, if that's my vacation, I'm definitely not sitting it out. And I've seen way too many big deer and I've killed big deer on hot days to think that I'm out of the game.

many stories about how amazing the rut is. That every year we go into it thinking it's going to be slammed dunk, It's going to be chaos the whole time. It's gonna be just like you know, we saw on Midwest White Deal, just like we saw on juries whatever.

It is, right, And I think there probably are some places where it actually is like that all the time, maybe, but for most of us, for most of us, at least in my case and everything I've seen in my friends, you know, it's usually a whole lot of slower days punctuated by a few moments of that magic, you know. So let's say, though it's November seventh, which is one of those days that a lot of people point to is like maybe the best day of the entire rut in a lot of the Midwest and a lot of

the country. So let's say it's right in there, and they are very high hopes for it, very high expectations. It should be amazing. Conditions are good. Let's say it's cold, it's like in the forties, the winds just like the

way you want it. Maybe there's been a little bit of snow over the last couple of days early in the morning when it's a little bit cold, So it just should be on but for the last three days, you've been sitting in a primo location, like a pinch point downwind of a doe betting area kind of situation that's like you couldn't paint any better and it's dead. You've sat three days in great rot conditions and you don't understand it, but you're just not seeing the activity

that you should. What do you do in that kind of situation where like you're for some reason the rut seemingly is dead it should be on. How do you address that mentally? How do you change your strategy if at all? Or do you just stick it out because you know, like eventually it'll happen.

keep going to that spot over and over again. And so if I had other access to other spots on that property where potentially, you know, if I'm hunting a target buck, he could be at that one or all the bucks in general, there could be a hot do over there that I have access to us just as good as a spot. I may pop over and try that if I'm able to, maybe maybe even just for a change of scenery and a confidence boost, just to

get me back in the game. But I guess my short answer is that it's just I've seen it so many times where you just you can feel like you're so far out of the game, and then one morning it's just on fire and you see every buck within the neighborhood in that same spot that you just watched. You know, you saw three der in five days. It's just it's just the nature of the rut. That's why it can be so challenging. But it's also such a fun time when when it does happen, it's it kind

of makes up for all the slow times. But it can be it can be slower than you know, that October low timeframe, you know that you were describing. If you're just not in the right just and a lot of it's luck. It's just the the nature of of you know, where the hot though come into play, and you know where the bucks kind of run them off to, and you know a lot of different factors like that

that can be out of your control. But I guess my short answer for the question is, don't just get discouraged by the spot just because of the lack of activity.

the bad stuff and only remember the good stuff. And I think that's kind of how it is with the rut probably for us, right, we forget all those miserable long days and all we remember is like the twenty seven minutes that were incredible, And so when the next year rolls around, like, oh man, it's gonna be incredible, and we just forgot about those other fifteen days.

two days. I mean, there's there's definitely some residual from you coming in and out of that spot. Maybe you laid your gear on the ground before you climbed up, or whatever it is. You're having an impact on that spot. So your access up to the tree, getting in from where you're parking, all the way up to the tree and back out again. You know, I think sometimes people think about getting or or forget to think about the

getting out part. They can get in clean, but they forget about the access out and where the deer going to be, you know, six hours later after you came in. So in and out has to be the number one factor for hunting a spot over and over again. Otherwise each time you hunt it, you're going to see fewer and fewer deer, and especially in mature bugs. The second

thing is the confidence in that spot. So that's the example that you brought up, is I knew at some point that deer had to come by that tree based on the terrain, based on where the primary betting areas were. If he's checking these areas, eventually he's going to come by this spot, just because of the way the creek funnels and how it was pretty much in between two of the best betting areas I know about. So my confidence in that I was able to tell myself just

be in the tree, just be there. Eventually it's going to play out. Keep keep going there as long as the wind directions right. And I was fortunate that had three straight days of some type of westerly wind. It did vary from southwest to northwest, but as long as the wind is right, you need to be in that tree because my confidence in that spot. So I think those are probably the two things that I would quickly point to to where I'm not going to bounce around.

I have enough faith that that's that's where I need to be.

to walk by. Maybe he'd be slightly out of boat range, but so much confidence I was eventually going to see him from that tree. So I'd like to think I would have just stuck with it and just you know, just assume that maybe he was with the dough that's why I wasn't seeing him or you know something, I just knew if he was searching, he was going to come by that tree.

to hit. We want to hunt those standing food sources or whatever. But let's say you just don't have that, what would you try to do in that scenario to get a deer killed.

It's the two and a half weeks of shotgun season where everyone's out pushing them around, just NonStop pressure, and they're moving to the best cover that they had that time of year, and there's not much of it obviously being late season, but they're finding those areas where they're not disturbed and they're pretty much going to stay in those spots through the end of the season here in Iowa the end of the season of January tenth. So

a deer, especially mature buck, is cover. I think I think it is probably higher priority than easy access to food. I think a deer will travel a long ways, even if it's after dark to get to that food, and they'll be back in the safety of cover before daylight. But if that cover that's a mile away or half mile away is the best cover and a lot better cover than the stuff that's acent to the feeding area, they still think they're going to be in that cover.

So I'm gonna look for areas like that. You know, I don't have the food, but maybe I might have the cover. Maybe I'm gonna have some of those little pockets that that didn't get disturbed or those pockets that the deer potentially moved into during those pressure days or weeks of the of the gun season. So long distance scouting and trail cameras are probably gonna be my two best friends with regards to finding those spots and finding

the deer in those spots. And then it's just, uh, it's just the challenge of figuring out how to get to them and how to catch the deer coming out of them. You know, you usually can guess where the nearest food source is even if you don't have access to it. You know, maybe you can drive right before before dark and see all the does that are out there. That's probably where he's going to be going at some point.

But if you can get close enough to that thick cover, you'll have a good chance of catching him in the daylight, especially if he has a decent ways to go, He's probably gonna get up and at least start moving around somewhat early. Even if he doesn't hit the opening until after dark. So that's that's probably how I play that situation. I can't think of any specific examples to go off of,

but I've certainly had that. I mean, I haven't always had access to properties where I could plant food or do anything like that, So it's it's a common scenario.

Now you're picking up the pieces and have to like start from square one. And let's say now you have to find a new deer to target. It's late season.

Is it just kind of what you just described, but now you're glass and fields and putting cameras on fields to try to find something new or what does that specifically look like when you are now hunting you know, like you just said, very pressured deer, and you're trying to kind of refigure them out because you've been ignoring everything else as you were focused on this one deer elsewhere. What does that look like now?

in the season. Earlier in the season, I'd prefer almost to not be you know, I spent a lot of time playing food plots for myself and for other guys. I haven't killed that many deer on the food plots in my career. You know, a lot of times I think the biggest benefit, well, a couple of things I love food plotting just because it's you know, I love seeing things grow, I love the experimentation of it, all

that type stuff. But the primary hunting benefit for me is just keeping the deer around and on or near the property for a longer period of time in the season as opposed to not having the food and they have to go somewhere else to find it. But I'd still always rather hunt them going to or from it if I can. But late season I tend to be on the food just because it's hard to get into

those other spots. But yeah, finding the deer in that case, if I'm starting over to find the deer, I'm obviously gonna have cameras on the food source and and just watch them, you know, try to find a spot where you can see long ways. Maybe it's multiple food sources. Maybe you have a cornfield you can watch them, a bean field you can watch you know, whether it's the picked standing doesn't matter, they're all they're all good food

sources at that time frame. But yeah, because of the way I hunt, I'm still gonna want to find a deer to go after and not just not just sit a random food source hoping something comes out that I want to shoot.

Let's push it later into the late season. We're down to maybe you've got like seven to ten days left of the season. You find one, you know there's a chance other guys are gonna be in and around here. I know a lot of us, at least I'm assuming you maybe not, but I'm assuming you would love there to be a big cold front or some snow or something coming in that'd like make it very likely he's gonna come out. But let's say that's not in the forecast at all and we're just not seeing that yet.

Are you going to keep waiting and waiting and waiting and hope that happens before the last day of the season, or are you going to start taking a swing because you have to because the season is running out, and there's also other guys that might be poking in this weekend when that comes up too.

and throwing a towel. But I think specifically what I would do is probably try to get closer some way, somehow, whether it's even if it's having to hunt on the ground, get closer to where he is entering the food source, get closer to where he's leaving the bedding area, whatever it is. You have to get aggressive there. At least in my eyes, you have to, just because your your

chances of that happening in the last few days. By sitting and not being aggressive, it just seems it would have already happened likely if if you're if it's going to you know, sitting in the same spot or watching from a distance, hoping he's eventually gonna come into Bowt range. So yeah, I'm gonna I'm gonna get aggressive there, whether it's moving stand locations or hunting from the ground, even

even potentially trying a morning hunt. You know that that'd be something that maybe guys don't think about during the late season, is it's it's evening. It's evening. But maybe you can get in super early through the back door and just be in there waiting for him, and maybe you don't beat him in, but maybe he gets up, you know, mid morning to stretch his legs and mosey around a little bit, or maybe you switch his betting

locations based on a wind switch or something. So I'm gonna try to get creative on what I could do to make it happen those last few.

found work in that? You know? Harder about as hard as it gets, as far as the exit on food will be the late season exits unless you have you know, the car or someone driving up that kind of thing. What kind of things have you found to work?

always a case. I have shot doze before, you know, to clear the field, just shoot a dough that's close by. A lot of times the rest of the deer don't really know what happened. I'd rather have all the deer run off because of a noise and all the other deer running then them sit there and watch me climb down from a tree or climb out of the blind. So as long as I have an easy way of getting their in and out, you know, maybe I have you know, I like using an electric four wheel UTV

or equad to be pretty quiet. If I have that part clearby, I can shoot her and make a good shot. Maybe it's a close shot. I know she's not going to go far. I can get in hook onto her and get out of there quick before. A lot of times the deer will be back in that plot in half an hour, you know, they're not bothered by it. Other times I'm just forced to wait until well after dark and then just go really slow from there and

just kind of take your chances. There's you know, sometimes if you just don't have good exit, you're you're you're just doing the least amount of damage kind of taking the lesser of two evils. And for me, the deer seem to relax a lot after dark. It seems like you get away, you know, either after dark or before daylight, you can get away with a lot more. And that

tends to be the case. Sometimes I'll wait hour hour and a half after dark where I can't even you know, see my hand in front of my face, and then I'll just go really slow and try to try not to make noise. And you know, a lot of times I think the deer aren't bothered at all. They they may or may not be able to see you, I don't know, but they don't seem to act the same as they do in the daylight in terms of spooking. So those are probably the main things if I get stuck in a situation like that.

a deer of that caliber this year. If you don't kill that deer this year, you lose your privileges forever. If you do kill that deer, you get to keep on hunting forever. Here's the thing, though, I'm only going to give you one day to kill that buck. You get one day, and you get to pick one stand location. So tell me what date on the calendar you would

pick for this day, and then describe for me. This can either be an actual tree stand location or place you've actually hunted, or this can be like a hypothetical, make believe perfect situation that you'd want for that date. So tell me the date you're going to pick, and paint me a picture of what that best possible stand site could be to get this buck killed in this very very high pressure situation.

we talk about. I think your odds are so high that every deer's going to be in that food source in daylight. Every deer that's living near that food source is going to be there. It's not what I would pick if I was, you know, just wanting the most fun, most exciting hunt, if I'm going that direction, and I want to, but it's still any buck, Like I still just need to kill any five and a half year old deer. I'm gonna pick let's say November I go

a little bit later. I'll go like November sixteenth, you know, kind of on the back side of that where the deer really starting to search for those last few days, or maybe even November eighteenth, a little bit later. But I'm gonna, you know, pick a really good pinch that's obviously gonna give me a good chance at a bow range shot that's close to dough betting areas and areas

that those deer are going to keep seeking. I think that's a lot more fun hunt, but still high odds, just not quite high odds, high enough odds compared to the late season need to feed type of hunt. As far as the individual buck versus any mature buck yeah, any immature I'm not going to take. If I'm trying to kill an individual book, I'm not going to pick

that November day. I'm for sure going to go late season, or potentially my next option might be late October, perfect conditions, cold front, of high pressure, all that type of stuff for that individual, that one specific target book.

from three hundred and sixty degrees around that. So in that case, you know, a lot of times I'll try to maybe set up the plot to where it's narrow and then expands out, because you can't just have one super long, narrow plot that's going to provide enough food to last to January fifth, but you need something that's

gonna keep on by that so that you know. Different things that I've done or tried or have helped other people set up would be that situation where it's narrow at first and you're almost letting the deer work by you, and then you know out into the bigger part and that allows you to normally sneak out back that other

way too. That's one. Or you could have either an L shape where you're on the corner of the L. A lot of times deer will you know to see what other deer in the plot or whatever they're eventually going to come by that middle point, or you can you know, hour glasst to where it pinches them down in the middle. Different things like that. Other scenarios if you're not lucky enough to design the shape of it, would be you know, scrape posts out within bow range.

Even late in the season like that, there's still good chances deer at least gonna just come check it out out of curiosity. Just says more of a scent check or whatever. Other thing you could do is maybe overseed. Let's say it it is a grain field. You could potentially overseed some some greens, whether it be cereal grains or brascas or something into a spot that is in

bow range. So you have this big field, but you know, deer are naturally browsers, so a lot of times they'll they'll feed the grain, they'll come get a bite of green. You know, they'll kind of go back and forth, but put something there. Another one would be you have a big, let's say, swebean field, and you go in in August and you till up you know, strips, Maybe there's spokes of a wheel that all come back and meet to where you're hunting. Location is whether it's a blind or

a tree stand. Eventually they're going to hit those and kind of use those as travel paths. So a lot a lot of different things you can do it's just it's pretty situational, and I'd probably look at a spot each time and you know, try to decide what's best for that particular spot. But a lot of things you can do to try to get a deer to eventually be within bow range at some point in that evening to work past your stand or blind.

threes something like that. Then another big old late season Buck. Do you feel like you can match it this year? Do you feel like, uh no, you can't match it? Do you have do you feel like across your new farm, I mean that it's not new anymore, but across your home farm or your other permissions and things like that, you feel optimistic about what's coming up or where do things stand.

good prospects around. But regardless, I'm I'm just super excited to be back in a tree and hunting and chasing some of these deer. And yeah, things are looking good. It seems like it's this Most of my properties aren't great summer properties, so I don't have a ton of really good ones on camera yet, but they're slowly but surely starting to show up. These next thirty days for me are always really good as far as deer popping

back in for the first time. They start to make a few excursions here and there before moving back in full time, you know, later in September early October. But this is the time frame where I get to see him for the first time. They may pop in and you know, maybe it's just for a night, but at least get to see what they look like this year.

I love interacting with guys. I love helping. I love hearing about different scenarios, hearing about good stories, all that type of stuff. So you know, anybody's more than welcome to reach out at any time. I'm not the greatest timely responses, but eventually we'll get back and I enjoy talking with everybody.