Ep. 690: Understanding Big Old Buck Behavior with Todd Graf

oldest bucks he's ever hunted. All right, welcome back to the Wired to Hunt podcast, brought to you by First Light and their Camo for Conservation initiative, in which every purchase of their white tail Camo products, if you pick up their Solitude jacket or the Origin hoodie or anything like that in the specter cameo pattern, which is the whitetail pattern, a portion of that purchase goes back to and is donated to the National Deer Association to help

them towards their mission of working towards deer and deer hunters. Good stuff, right there. So today on the show, we are kicking off a brand new series this month of September, as deer hunting seasons are kicking off all over the country. We're going to talk to a handful of some of the best deer hunters across the country about the biggest oldest bucks they've ever hunted. We're diving into the minds, the personalities, the tendencies, the vulnerabilities of really old bucks.

Now here's the thing about old bucks. They are really cool. But I want to point out the fact that you don't need to chase big old bucks. So don't think when you're here in this episode, in the next couple that by any means you should feel obligated to chase the deer like this. If you are into shooting the first dear, you see more power to you. You are a newer hunter and you are just figuring this stuff out. Please do not think that you need to chase a five or six year old buck. It is hard just

to kill a dough. It is hard just to kill a year and a half old deer. Figure it out easier, way into it. Enjoy every step of the process. Don't feel any pressure to chase after one of these deer or to do something like you're hearing about here today. That said, if you are in a place where you are interested in mature deer. These shows are definitely for you, and you can learn a lot even if you're not chasing deer like this. There's a lot to be learned here.

But if you appreciate a big, old stinky buck the way that I do, there's nothing wrong with that either. There is something special about a buck, a white tail buck, when they get to that age of you know, five or six or seven or older than that, in some places, they just become a different creature. They move different, they think different, They act in a way that causes all the other deer around them to act differently. And when you're gonna hunt them, you have to realize that. You

have to realize that this is a different ballgame. When you're trying to chase those oldest of the deer that top five percent of the age bracket in your neck of the woods, those deer operate on a different plane. And so this month we're gonna try to dig into I'm trying to get behind the scenes, try to lift up the covers on what those old bucks lives are like.

And to do that today, we're kicking it off with mister Todd grafft Todd's one of the founders of bowhunting dot Com, one of the co hosts of Bowhunt or Die, a terrific YouTube series, and a diehard, longtime, super serious whitetail bowhunter from Illinois. Spent a lot of time there in his home state, done a lot of hunting in Wisconsin and around that neck of the woods. He's killed

a lot of big, old deer. He's chased a whole bunch of these old, gnarly grizzled mature bucks, the ones that I know a lot of us lose a lot of sleepover. So Todd's got a lot of experience to bring to the table. He's got some strong perspectives, some interesting ideas, and some great stories. So that is what we get into here today, and then over the next four weeks we'll have a whole bunch more of that

from some other folks too. So before we get into that conversation with Todd, though, I do want to give you a couple quick updates. Number one, One Week in November Season two is now live on the meat Eater YouTube channel. Hopefully you all caught one Week in November season one. That was the show that I co hosted over there. It came out in two thousand and twenty one. I think it was. Maybe it was twenty one or twenty I can't keep track. It's all kind of blur.

I'm pretty sure it's twenty one. But the idea of the show is that it follows myself and four other folks from the med Eater Whitetail team as we all hunt across the country in different places on the same seven days during one week in November, and each episode follows one day. So episode one follows our experiences on November first, Episode two shows our day on November two, and so on, and so you get to foul along with the white Tail Rut across wildly different places with

different people hunting in different ways. So it's very interesting kind of getting that thirty thousand foot perspective of what the rut looks like across the country during that week. And it's a lot of fun too, you know, including myself. There's also Tony Peterson, Spencer Newharth, Clay Newcomb, and Giannis Ptellus joined us this year too, so we have a

lot of fun. We talks and smack and we shoot some deer and episodes one and two are out now and there is a very exciting hunt from yours truly on there. That starts in episode one. It ends in episode two, so highly recommend you check that out. If you heard my story last year during the fall about the Nebraska hunt, that's what you can watch now, So head on over to the Meat Eater YouTube channel to

check that out. Hope you enjoy that. Update number two rut Fresh Radio is kicking off this week, so hopefully you already heard the first episode, which came out I believe yesterday. But every Wednesday during the hunting season, we have a mini series that comes out called rut Fresh Radio. If you're not familiar, hopefully you are. It's been going

on for seven or eight years. But if you're new, what this show is is, it's a short, maybe thirty ish minute episode every Wednesday in which we hear from four or five different hunters across the country in different places every week, and we're asking them, what's the activity been like from a deer hunting perspective, What have you been seeing, What are the deer doing, what are they keying in on, How are they, you know, relating to

certain things, how are they adjusting to weather conditions or the moon phase? Or temperature or whatever might be going on that week in the woods. We are asking them to report back to us and then also predict, you know, what should we expect over the next seven days. So each week you're gonna get updates from different really good deer hunters across the country to hearing about you know, exactly what they're doing now and what you should be

thinking about in the coming days. It's it's a super helpful resource I've found, at least for myself and hopefully you do too. So that kicks off this week and then every week for the rest of the hunting season on Wednesday, so be sure to keep an eye out for that as well. Last update here for you, I've got another one of my Working for Wildlife tour events coming up here at the end of September. If you are down in the South, this is the event for you,

September twenty third. We're going to be in Mississippi in the DeSoto National Forest. This is kind of I was looking as kind of equidistant between Lake New Orleans and I think Mobile, Alabama, Mobile Mobile Mobile. I don't know how you guys say it down there, but it's that city down in Alabama. That's where we're going to be at.

I want to see you, I want to shake your hand, I want to take some pictures, we want to tell some stories, and I want to do some good work on the landscape for deer and turkeys and other c We're going to be improving some wildlife habitat, a whole bunch of different things we're gonna be doing down on that National Forest to make it better for critters, to make it better for hunters, and then we're gonna have a good time afterwards, catching up, having a little social event,

and just enjoying ourselves here at the beginning of hunting season. So please, if you've got a little extra time in the middle of your day on September twenty third, would love to meet you and spend some time. And I really do believe that it's a little bit of donation of your time there to volunteer to do some stuff there on the land, but it's going to payback dividends.

I've done four of these now this year, and every single one of them, I've had a blast, felt really good coming out of it, made new friends, and I just left me energize moving on from there. So I think that will be a good thing for all of us as we kick off the hunting season here. So September twenty third in Mississippi, heading over to oh Google Google the Working for Wildlife Tour to find the website

that will give you all the details for that. That's probably your best bet and you can register at that website, so please do that September twenty third. Hope to see you there. And now with all that out of the way, let's get to our main event today, my conversation with Todd Graf and digging into the nitty gritty of the biggest oldest bucks he has ever hunted. I hope you guys enjoyed it all right here with me Now on the line, we've got Todd Graf. Welcome to the show. Todd, Hey, Mark,

as always, thanks for having me. For sure, man, I'm glad we're doing this. We've been in touch over the years for a long time, and I'm pretty sure you contributed on one of our Rough Fresh radio episodes at some point along the way, but I don't think we've done a main show, so this has been a long time coming and I appreciate you making time to do this.

prepped and you haven't done all the workload on. Sometimes some of the best hunts are those ones where you are either a traveling between those normal stands that you hunt and something catches your eye and it draws you in and then before you know it, you're hanging a

stand or jumping in the saddle. And sometimes some of those hunts are some of the best ones, right, and not always those ones that you have completely prepped and have gotten ready to answer your question, I got a couple of good ones, and I'm I'm feeling good, feeling good good. Now.

that I made on the property. So anytime you can make improvements to a property your own and then you know, be rewarded for the you rewarded for the efforts that you put in is always always makes you feel good for sure. You know, that was a woodland pond that I put in kind of a nice high up on top of a ridge that really worked out well. As far as this year spot. It is a great spot.

And I actually went there about two days ago and set a set a camera and we were driving in there and our new guy Paul that's working for us, we were driving and he's you know, he reminds me of me when I was, you know, twenty two or twenty three years old. And he's super excitable, right, you know, and he's like, whoa, dude, there's a buck over there. You know. I'm like, I'm like, Paul, dude, don't be yelling. Just take take it down a notch man. We just

we want to act cool. We want to act like we're just we want to act like we're that farmer that's just just driving along. Man. He's almost jumping out of the ranger. I'm like, whoa, take it easy, but we want to get in it out of here stealth mode wise. But honestly, this particular year, you know, anything can show up. We don't to spend a bunch of time in this, but I just I don't have a target buck on that property. This year that I've seen

that I'm excited about, I really have done. I've been working a little mini series, you know, and we've been doing a lot of work on the property. Might've just done some big, big projects that are honestly bigger than

what I'm used to doing. So some of these things, you know, this big you know equip program I did, It was like one hundred and ten loads or something of rock they brought in to fix erosion, and so many of the projects that I'm doing, Honestly, they're not everybody always wants to do things necessarily for dear, dear, dear, dear dear. This is more about everything, habits, rabbits, habitat, rabbits, just everything. I just want everything, honestly, you know. So

it's more of a whole. Once I do what I'm doing with this property, all the critters will ultimately want to be on it at some point.

and make who's so fascinated? Why is this something that you you know, pursue to this degree and obsess over to the degree that you do. You know, all deer cool, but there's something about that really old buck. What's that for you?

You want to go get I don't know, I don't golf, but whatever, you go out and buy a new golf clubs. You're all excited or maybe it's yeah, you know, who knows what. Right, there's all these different things that's kind of come in and come out. But man, when it comes the white tail hunting deer, I mean, man, I'm as ate up with it at fifty one years old as I was when I was saying, I mean, I just love it, right, I mean, and I think truthfully what it is. It's it's I'm actually getting like the

goosebumps right now. You know, it's different every year, right, Like what's so fun about it is no deer is the same. It's always different. The racks are different, the land, the spots moving around, the stories, how it happens. It's always new. It's not the same kind of just same thing. It's always something different. And I don't know, it keeps me coming back every year, you know. I mean, and

I'm just fueled about it now. You did bring up that one hundred and ninety two inch dear, And we want to stay focused to help people think about big Bucks. And I wish I could honestly look in the eyeballs mark and tell you I've killed you know, I have this pedigree of killing you know, the most maturest monster bucks in the world. I'm really good at finding them, and it seems like everyone else always gets them. But I have killed. I have killed some really good ones

in my life, for sure. And when you ask me the question if I had a big one that I was chasing, you asked it in a way that it was in regards to my current farm, right And I don't have one there, but I absolutely have a big one that I really, really really will be putting a

significant amount of effort into this year. And it's a little disheartening because it's not on my farm where I want to be, and I have all my stuff and I've done all this work, and it's like I kind of want to be there mentally, But if I truly want to get a big one like that one ninety two, I'm going to have to hunt somewhere else. And I think that's something that people have to keep in mind,

of course, when it comes to kill in big bucks. Right, Listen, we all have trail cameras, we all have cellular cameras, we're all running these things. At some point, you just can't lie to yourself. They don't the cameras don't lie, and we ought listen, every one of us want to sneak into a stand and we never ever ever want to lose the dream of that big monster, you know,

drop tyme gnarly Buck just coming through the woods. You know, you know, we never want to lose that, right because that's what keeps us getting up in the morning and getting out there and going for it. Right. Well, let's be honest, sometimes cellular or not cellular, but sometimes trail cameras in general could take that away a little bit because even like me at my current farm, like eh,

I'm just not seeing it. That doesn't mean that it's not living somewhere else, which is a big topic that we're going to talk about in this podcast because you know, and I think I listened to one of your podcasts recently, or maybe it was one of your other hosts that was, you know, talking about Doze and you know, understanding the Doze and Bucks want to be in a different place.

We'll get there, but I do have the point that I was trying to make so it doesn't get lost is specifically, at some point you can't lie to yourself if you're hunting a spot and you truly, truly want to kill a monster bucket. You say, Hey, listen, I've killed the one twenties, I've killed the one thirties. I

on one hundred and fifty inch buck. Like, listen, at the end of the day, if the data that you have, either through scouting, your eyes, trail cameras, friends that hunt the farm with you, whatever, if the deer's not there, the deer's not there, you got to move on. You got to go somewhere else, You got to find a

different spot. So to your point, absolutely, I do have a sweet buck that I want to shoot this year, and I'm going to be putting most of my effort into that deer, even though it's completely far away from my current spot, and I'll just have to deal with not being able to be where I really want to be with because of the moneies that I spent in the efforts I put in. But this deer here is living in a spot that is very, very very similar to that one hundred and ninety two inch buck that

you brought up. And I recently did a little video on overlooked hunting spots, and I think in the point that we're trying to make is mature bucks do things differently than what everybody else is doing, period, and your brain has to get wired that way. Like we want to go to the food plots. Why because it's fun, it's exciting. You know you're going to have activity. You

know you're going to see deer. Generally, you've set these spots up and because of the day that we live in now, everyone's smart enough to realize, hey, if I do a food plot, I'll set up two different stands for two different wind directions. So it's easy, it's convenient, you're going to have activity. You don't go home after a weekend feeling like that was the least Yeah, yeah, oh I didn't see anything. But when you start truly trying to get the big guys, you're not going to

be going to those type of spots. You're looking for

those overlook spots. And per that conversation you brought up with that one n it was a nasty cattail, smaller trees, CRP, just low kind of a low area where I think those areas are a little bit cooler, where it's not as hot during those summer days where they could be a little bit down and it's just kind of a. I don't want to say it's like some big nasty cattail swamp like my Wisconsin piece of property was, but it's just this low lying area where they're just not

getting pressured. And I think when it comes to these mature deer, it's about pressure. And I'm sure you've seen.

a crazy teenager to like an adult sort of. But then the five year olds, at least the five year olds I've ever been been able to hunt become like ghosts. So I almost think that from four to five it's been bigger in my experience. At least, where have you seen that? Or is there is there a totally different category of maturreyer that I've never seen? Like do they do something totally different at six or seven or eight, because I've never got to hunt a deer like that.

Where do you see that big transition occurring from a behavior standpoint?

finally had a chance sent him at late season. It was a sixty yard shot and I don't feel comfortable taking, you know, far shot, so I didn't shoot, and then we ended up getting him the following year. And when I think of sweetness, I think of that other big buck coke Can that Kirk shot, you know on our team, that was a big deer that I that I passed that ended up getting a couple of years down the road and really turned out to be a monster old buck. Again,

not necessarily a huge rack, but just old deer. So I think I think what you said is pretty much

spot on. It seems like that that and the way you and the way you posed it is pretty spot on too, right, Like they're they're these wild teenagers and they're full of and maybe they're just that way too because they're trying to find their spot and they're trying to find their place in the hierarchy, because there's always somebody older than you, and there's always that, you know, a deer that is probably already holding onto those quote

unquote better spots. Like if you're bass fishing, it seems like there's certain spots you can always go to if that tree limb comes out, it's like you can almost always get a fish off it. But that's not necessary where the big one is, right, So I think you're right. I mean, it's at least from what I've seen from trail camera data and the bucks that I've chased, it seems like when they hit that four and a half boy,

they get elusive. Last year, we were chasing a pretty big buck and on a different farm we were chasing, and man we had we were getting shots of him early season, cool deer, big deer, and just like you said, light bulb went off, that deer was gone. And truly, it's a special deer. This is a great buck. And he disappeared off the radar and gone nothing on this deer. And would you believe it, he's still alive. We just got a picture of him, you know, a few weeks ago.

So just crazy enough. Like I mean, they got those underground caves dug out somewhere, and they they don't get big. They don't listen, they don't get that big being stupid. They just don't. And and I don't know sleep listen. I don't think they wake up in the morning and have grafts and power points and charts and are tracking every movement. You know that we do. I don't think their brains work that way, you know, at all. I think when it comes down to it, they know where

they're being bumped and where they're not being bumped. And you know, the best, we always whenever I talk to my friends, I always think about the same thing I'm telling you, Like, PTSD is a real thing, right, And if you're laying in your bed at night and you're all cozy and you're sleeping there with your wife, I promise you, if a fricking burglar comes busting through that door and you fly out of that bed. I promise you you're not going to sleep very good and that

bed for a long time to come. And we've all been mister sneaky, tiptoeing into these spots that we know, like we're a foot away from taking a step where we know we know we're gonna bust one at any second, right because you could just tell by the way the spot looks, and I promise you you can. Man, you can only get away with doing that a couple of times,

and they're not coming back. So personally, I just think those big deer as they age, if they want to live, they don't want to be bothered, They don't want to be around all that dough pressure. They find those spots where they're just not being pressure all the time. It's like looking for a used car. Everyone always wants what, Man, I found this car that was in this seventy five

year old ladies garage. She's never driven it. It's unbelievable, it's never been touched, right, Like, we're all looking for these hunting spots that they do exist, But what's the first thing we do when we usually find these spots? Walk all over go and then what do we do the trail cameras follow and then maybe a food plot follows, and then maybe oh gosh, I can't figure the spot out. Hey, Mark,

you got to You got a couple hours this weekend. Listen, I need you to come over and take a look at this spot, and and and and hey, that's fine. If you want to bring Rover, you know, bring go ahead and bring Rover to he can take a walk along with us. You know, the bottom line, those best spots that we find that are untouched whatever. Call it the sanctuary, you call it the back forty, call it, whatever you want to call it. Those spots do exist.

And if you can find them, know where they are, stay out of them and figure out how to I mean, you talk about that one hundred and ninety two inch buck man, everything about killing that one ninety two, because I that that was in the early days of filming and I and I I wasn't filming everything that I was doing, you know, some of the other encounters I had with them and so forth. But everything about shooting

that deer was entry point and exit critical. I mean it was I had the most pinpoint way of being able to get in and get out, and it was putting down the most minimal amount of scent and not disturbing that key, betting your ear where he was, where

he was hung up. That was number one. Number two, it was making sure that I just didn't go in there on the wrong wind, because just because they're getting in and out, if all of a sudden you're sitting there, we've all been there before, We're sitting there, and all of a sudden you're like that, you know, you feel it against the back of your ears, and you're like, oh, you know, and and what's the worst man? The worst

for me is I'm a filmer. So I'm sitting there, going do I want to tear down all this equipment now? And the answer should be yes, right, your brain, your everything in your body's telling you no, I should move right now. But then you're like, well, maybe it's going to change an hour from now or maybe this, but you probably have already blown it, you know. So I think to answer your question specifically, I think you're right.

At four and a half, they start really just becoming a lot harder to find, and their movements just become a lot more at night, a lot more you know, nocturnal, and that they're a little bit harder to pick up and locating.

I mean, you start hunting different train. Anytime you start hunting topology, topology, you know, you know, anytime you start hunting, you know where it's hilly valleys, bottom areas, lowlands, and you can't keep the wind consistent. Dude, it's a it's a whole nother ball of axe. I mean, truthfully, I was kind of fortunate when I first started hunting my

Wisconsin swamp. Dude, it was like flat, and then my and then and then hunting here and ill More in the northwest suburbs of Chicago where we live, it's flat. So that particular entry point when it's a west wind, it's a west wind, when it's even south west or whatever, like,

it is exactly what it is versus other stands. You go to, Oh, it's going to be a west wind, and you get up there and you're throwing the wind check and you're like what you know, you know, and it's going completely the wrong way because of the you know, because of the land. So that particular hunt, I was able to park the car in a spot to where nobody was around. It was super easy. I was able to keep my nose right into the wind. And honestly, it wasn't like over the woods, you know, through a

cornfield up over there. I mean, it was just a nice easy straight line. Now that was by design with where I was parking, and I had to get some access at that point in my life to be able to allow me to pull that off. And luckily the woman was nice enough to let me actually park the and do what I was doing, so that worked out like sweet as well.

And I said, hey, dude, that's how it works. You just got to keep you got to keep going and eventually you know you're going to find something. But so having good entry points when you know where a good betting here is, and of course that you know, you you you you're always playing a game because it's how

close do I want to get? You know? Like sure, Mark, I'm sure you've been in a lot of hunting situations where yeah, you can sit way back and you can watch them get up and you can see him and then you're like, Okay, they need to come this way, and then they go that way, right, Like I mean, so it's always kind of determining how close can I

get without it being too close? And in that particular case, I was able to legitimately get within about sixty yards of this little favorite little spot where he was betting. So that was key. And if there's anything to be taken from this podcast right now that we're having, we're not going to tell you till the end. I'm just kidding, wait till you're gonna have to wait. Is if you can find good solid buck betting areas of the buck that you want to kill the buck that you want.

It's all about locating those areas and getting as close to them as you can that I mean, that is key. And you know what, and don't buck the spots up. I do not put the trail cameras in those spots. When you find that big buck bed. I think a Matt Miller on our team. You know, he moved here and was hunting a lease, and you know he found a really decent bed of a buck up on a ridgetop, and you know what, same thing goes. I think about his hunt. I remember talking to him. This is years

ago too. I remember just talking to him and he just he knew in your brain, it's almost like you can close your eyes and you literally can execute the plan. You know all the way from getting out of the car, the path that you're gonna take, how you're gonna climb that tree, how stealthy and quiet you're gonna be, and and how quickly you know the timeliness it takes you to get there. Like, you got to have all that stuff in your brain. Big buck killers they got that

wired in their brain. It's not I'm gonna stop and get this coffee and then I'm gonna do this, and then you know I'm gonna I might wear those boots man, big buck killers and people, and forget about the big buck hillers. People that shoot bucks on a year to year regular basis. Man, they've got a plan. It's in their brains. You know. They know their gear, they know what's in their pack, they know what's in the left

hand top pocket. They they you're dialed in, whether you're a saddle guy, you just know what's in each pocket, how you're gonna maneuver. Like that's the way you need to train your brain. So when you can start getting into those situations where you're gonna get tight on mature bucks, you know where all your stuff is you're just dialed in. All the guys that I meet that are crazy, I shouldn't say crazy, but because one of them you're just

you're just you're you know, you're just you're dialed in. Mark, you know, you know what I'm talking about. I mean, you know those guys who are just walking around and just kind of being lazy, and they wonder why they're spooking deer and not seeing stuff. And then you got your guys who are just man, they're on their a game, and that's what you gotta be. Period of this. We got off, we all get lucky, right, we all can fall into one once in a while, and hey, that happens.

I'm not going to pass up those. But if you really want to get those mature bucks, you got to have a plan. You got to learn where they're living, and you've got to find those overlooked spots, which you know we talked about how you said, Hey, you know you got to walk around. Yeah, you do have to scout, like I mean, you know, there's a time to scout. There's a time to do it effectively, and then there's

the times when you shouldn't. One of the things that I've kind of gotten in the habit of doing is we're all creatures of habit, right, So often we have a stand You mentioned it in the beginning of this podcast. You know you've trimmed your stuff out, you're kind of ready, you kind of have your plan. What I try to do when I go hunt one of those spots is I try to always be scouting, right, you always got

to be scouting. So sometimes what I'll do is, even though it's easier for me to maybe go out the way that I came, and my brain is telling me that, hey, I don't want to leave in the extra sin, I don't want to do that. Sometimes you just got to go some different routes and some different paths to be able to see if things have changed, because in the White Tails world, things are always always changing. I'll tell

you a little thing too. I got this really big one that I told you earlier in this podcast that I that I'm chasing. I went back there to this spot, and man, I was like, I just I'm not getting both of them anymore. I thought he died, honestly. I mean, we have a drought here in Illinois, EHD. I'm sure something you've heard people talking about here in the Midwest.

I mean, the drought is bad. It sucks. And I could just smell I could smell, you know, something dead, you know, you know, and if ben in the woods enough to know when you smell that, you're kind of you know, you're like you almost have to like it's almost like a game, right, But it's like you gotta go find it, Like there's something about us that this is like I need to go find what this got to well, you gotta know, right, And I haven't been

getting pictures of him for a month. He disappeared, This big guy disappeared on me, and so so I am. So I start, you know, looking around, Thank goodness, was the dead raccoon. Okay, let's get that out of the way. Round the bat good But I'm like, man, why is this deer not coming through here? So he was always coming through. This was like bulletproof.

just so much that my big guy was missing. I wasn't getting even my there's been one dough with one fund coming through there, and even I was getting kind of coyotes in a red like man, this just this this, this is not something's not right. Well, sure enough, this monster cottonwood came down and it hit completely like they could not get through and they were going around and completely avoiding this spot, like entirely. So I had to go in there and get rid of that. And would

you believe it? You know, would you believe it when you actually when you texted me, I was out in Montana or Colorado. Forgot where I was at the time, and I was finally starting to get pictures again because before I, before I went on the trip, I went into that particular spot. I cleaned it out, got it trimmed out. Of course, you know, it took a lot of work, chainsaws, blah blah blah. I had to do

way more disruption than I wanted to do. But after about a week and a half, would you believe it, there comes my going fawn again and here comes that regular traffic, and sure enough, bam, you know, he showed up a couple more times just because that path of easy, path of least resistance wasn't there anymore and they just weren't cutting through there. So just a little tidbit of information there, right, You know, if something changes, you gotta

kind of got to figure out what happened. Like if you're this awesome funnel on top of a ridge somewhere and you're like, what is going on this thing? Just die? Well? Geez, if you had a big, huge oak tree block it sixty eighty one hundred yards up and you can't see it and now they're screting the side, something can change. You gotta always be scouting for sure.

the area likes to hole up. I mean, we know the general things like, oh, they're like thick stuff or so on and so forth. But when you think about some of these specific old deer that you've gotten to know over the years, I'd be really curious about, like if you can even recall, like what some of those specific little bedrooms looked like that that top dog picked.

It's interesting to think about where like the number one spots are because these bucks, you know, have a hierarchy, right, and so the different betting years kind of get claimed based on where you stand in a hierarchy sometimes, So where's that top tier deer prefer to be.

different areas you hunt. I think of this one buck longhorn that I was chasing, and this was in more western Illinois, and there's these rock croppings, right, And it's funny because you think betting, you think betting years, you're almost like you're almost your brains like thinking, oh, it should be cushy, right, it should be like a temper pedic mattress, and it should be super nice and comfortable, and they're going to get in there and kind of

snuggle in. And this one buck uh longhorn that that that I was chasing, Oh, just an awesome accounter with never know whatever happened to that deer. He was awesome.

He had this spot that was on a I know this isn't a video, but if you can almost imagine a top of a ridge that comes to a point and there is these big rock outcroppings and there is just the biggest bed that I found in the longest time on this point by these rocks, and it's like, shit, I wouldn't I wouldn't have lasted there more than five minutes sitting on there. But you know, that's not how animals think, right, That's just how soft whimbs like me think.

But when you think of a big buck who wants to have a great vantage point that you know, in this particular spot in this country, it was up high, the wind was good, they had, you know, they could keep their back, you know, where they could smell stuff

coming from behind them. They could sit where they could see you know, a whole area with multiple exits, you know exits, you know, I mean if they if someone would have jumped that deer, it literally could have gone three different directions and within seconds you'd never see it again. And that was one spot that I remember, and the more that I've hunted in those areas where you have

hills with those rock croppings out on those points. Man, they just really seem to like those spots because I just think they literally can dart downhill and you'll never see them ever again. And and the wind is just so good for them up there that they can just always feel safe, and you know, at the end of the day, like they're just worried about predators, right, they're not really thinking, oh shit, Mark kenyans after me. You know, they're not you know, they're they're not thinking like that.

They're just thinking, like, you know, where can I get the best rest, you know, for the longest amount of time without being busted all the time. So I think an area where a buck, you know, big mature buck can sit have And it's funny because we think about you know, sometimes we're always thinking about that thick, nasty stuff. You know. I don't know if that's always the case, right, Like I've seen plenty of big bucks be in areas

where there's not tons and tons of cover. They could just see good, the wind's good, and they've got enough exit points where they got cover that they know if they need to get out get out of the area that they can. But so I, you know, my favorite spots where I generally find those big, bigger bucks. You know, it seems to be those cat tail slews, those areas that are just kind of thick and nasty that nobody wants to go to and no one's really kind of

popping into it. And every time in my life that I found those cattail slews, you walk around those things enough. And the only reason why I even like those things is because I was fortunate enough again to have that property in Wisconsin that I was able to get purchased from my dad years ago, and that's all I had to hunt. And being a duck hunter when I was younger,

you walked around those cat tails enough. You were looking for what when you were duck hunting, those spots that just had the little open, little water spots right where you'd see those buck, duck bucks, Jesu Louise bucks, ducks, all of them. You'd see those ducks, you know, cupping up and locking in and coming on in right. You were looking for those spots for the ducks. But on your way to getting to those spots, you'd be walking along and all of a sudden, you'd come along the

spot where it's like, holy cow, look at this. You could literally come right up and it's all just you know, up and high and man, you're like, man, look at the beds in here, like they could just you know, you would never think that you could literally go out into the middle of a cat tail nasty slew and have completely dry ground where they can stand up, shake it off, you know, eat a little bit, you know, chew their cuds, turn around a little bit, lay back

down again. So I think the key of what we're talking about here is you're looking. You're not always looking, like you said, for those spots where the most thickest, nastiest cover is. Those are good and those can be really successful, but also be looking for those spots where the deer just they've got the winning advantage, Like you know, they've got those spots, and sometimes those spots you just got to beat the deer back to them. You know, you know you're there. You just got to be in

super early. You got to get there way before they're going to get there, and hope that you're not going to get detected while you're sitting there.

there because he's monitoring access, so he's able. He's out on like a point leading out into a grassy field or something that kind of goes by the access road, so every time you go in there, he knows it. That kind of thing. I've heard stories about that kind of thing. I've had a couple situations where I thought that might be what's going on, Like, man, how come I can never get in here without this deer knowing I'm here because he shows up in daylight on trail camera.

But whenever I'm in here, even though I think my win's right, even though I think I'm doing everything right, he never shows up. And then all of a sudden, I find this little buck bed like right along where I was coming along in a spot that doesn't make any sense in most most ways of thinking about have you ever seen that kind of thing?

start smashing it on this. You know, I really just don't no matter what you say, it doesn't matter what I say, right, I just I really don't think a mature buck wakes up in the morning and it's like, you know what, I'm gonna slip down and I'm gonna park myself near that particular spot to see if anyone's going to come into the hunt this public today. You know, I just don't think they think that way. I think the spots that they choose are chosen because they have

those vantage points. They feel safe, they've got the wind at their advantage. They feel like if they do get busted, they can get out of dodge, you know quickly. I just I really don't think. I think for their brains, it's where can I go and where can I sit the longest before I ever get bumped by anything. If you're out west, maybe it's cougar's you know, maybe it's you know, maybe it's you know, a pack of coyotes. Whatever, it's where can I go and be for the longest

period of time when no one's bugging me? I mean, my opinion, I think that's what is truly going on in a big buck's brain. Where can I be for the longest period of time, get the most amount of sleep, relax without being bumped constantly. That, in my opinion, I

just think that's the spots that they're looking for. I mean, come on every podcast you always listen to when people talk about public land, public land, public land, right, and they want to go so much of everything you've thought about as a kid when you were younger, was like how much further can I go over the next guy? Right?

Like how much further back can I go? Because someone to get away from that traffic, and generally speaking, you're rewarded for doing that because the animals just aren't being bothered. Some of the best, easiest punts are going into spots where there is the least amount of pressure period. So I think find those unpressured areas, and you're going to put yourself most likely in an opportunity to find where a big mature deer is hung up and is living.

And we'll also put you in a position. But they have a chance to harvest them if you can get in and get out. There are those spots, Mark, and you and I both know it, where you're gonna find a big mature bucks sign down in the bottoms, right, I mean we've all been there, anybody who has spent any time hunting. When you start hunting hilly country, you get down in those bottoms and you're like, man, look at this. We found a horizontal rub and I mean look at the sign down here, and it's just tore

up and here's a bed. But whoo, trying to get down in those spots and actually hunting them, it's not not not good. It's not gonna happen. Maybe in the rut, maybe get lucky, maybe the winds is right perfect, but not often.

They tend to have a shrinking core area. Maybe at least that's something I've seen a little bit and heard of quite a bit, especially from folks that just have a lot more mature bucks around. Have you seen that?

seen this. We've all seen this bow hunting before, or whatever type of hunting you do, we've all seen Let's say you are hunting a food plot, right, and it's almost like the tone let me let me switch this up because my brain sometimes got eighty D and I'm jumping around. It's almost like you're in the conference room, right, four or five guys, You're all sitting around there talking and man, now the boss steps into the now all of a sudden, you know, bam, the boss comes walking

in the conference room. Donnarn is the tone of the room just change? Am I right? Or am I wrong? Right? It's different on hunt go hunt a food plot. You're sitting there right. Let's say it's late season, right, it's cold, you're in, You're in, You're in your box blind whatever, right, doze are out? The young bucks are out, dude. It's almost like the tone changes when that mature buck comes out with the other bucks in the field. You know, or even you know that first cold front that comes

in in October. We're all waiting for that first cold front, right, because they can be super duper successful. And if there's something about it when you get those young deer bucks out there and you're sitting there hunting, and all of a sudden, you almost can you almost can if you're watching the tone of the deer and you're reading the deer,

you can almost see their behaviors starting to changing. Maybe they're starting to kind of getting away from the spot, their ears are getting in back, maybe they're getting little edgy, and all of a sudden, those bigger bucks come out Like the big guys definitely carry some weight to them, which I think the older they get allows them the ability to not have to travel as far because, you know what, they kind of know who their girls are.

They kind of know who they're gonna breed man when they're out checking those scrapes at night and they're they know they are. I completely believed Listen. I'm not a biologist, but I completely believe one that they know what dough is going to come in first. They do know who she is. They do generally know where she is living, and they generally are able to because of the old guys, and you know that they generally get to be able to hold that dominance in an area, and I think

they can get away with traveling less. They don't have to be running. It's almost like the big buck that the coyle standing on top of the hill looking down at all the coles and the young buck wants to run down there, or the young con wants to run down there and say, you know, let's get one, and then the old bull says no, let's just walk down and get them. All right, Like at the end of the day, those big guys they've got their spot. They know specifically which ones are going to come in. I

do think they travel less. And I'll tell you a really cool story. This is. This is a cool story if anyone ever watched the Sweetness story that we put on bow hunting dot com years ago. I mean, I chased that deer and we mentioned it earlier in this That was an eight and a half year old deer two hundred and twenty inch buck. The deer was shot and wounded when he was four and a half years old by my friend. He's gonna kill me right now for doing this, but he shot him. It was a

high shot. It happens, guys. If we're bowhunters, come on man, anybody who bow hunts, you know, things happen. There's a difference. We always say the same thing. There's the difference between doing the right thing ethically and having stuff go wrong versus doing the wrong thing. And and and then you got to live with that, do the right thing, and you never have that. You can always sleep, you know, good at night. But you know, it was a high shot.

Sweetness was fine. The deer lived on. I can't tell you the strategies that we put in place to try to kill that deer, right, and and it kind of had its pad. It just seemed to like leave our property, hit another property. Some other guys had the deer named a different name than well, we had it named, you know, and I'm sure three other properties they all everyone had their own name for this deer. Right. And would you

believe it? Four years later, my friend who originally shot Sweetness ends up harvesting Sweetness in the same stand four years later. So, I mean, isn't it cool? I mean it is wild, right, Like all this work, all this effort, all these different locations, and to think four years later he'd be harvested this unbelievable two hundred and twenty inch deer would be harvested from the same stand that it

was wounded in. Right like, so maybe if you spook a big buck out of his bed, after four years, it will forget about it will come back to that bed, right like you knows what the ultimate who knows what the right. It may take a little bit of time until you sleep back in that bed again. But the point being, you know, per this, you know call what we're talking about right now. Mature bucks one hundred percent have those good key spots that they love, and you

gotta pay attention. You gotta look for them. You know, it's not just aimlessly walking through the woods. You gotta look at your maps. You gotta look at for the sign. You know. No, you're not gonna get down and smell the bed or do stupid stuff like you're gonna look at the bed. You're gonna look at the size of the bed and then and then maybe you're gonna come

back and check it, you know, a year later. Some of the best times, honestly to find these big beds, you know, and where we think these big guys are are are living is really that early season. When I say early season, I really like kind of that March April time frame when you can really get out there and really look around and really see what you have there. But to answer your question, yes, I do believe as deer get older, they gravitate to their favorite spots. They

don't travel as far for a couple of different reasons. One, I think they've learned over the years where the good food is, where the good water sources are, where the girls are that they're gonna need at the time when the rut comes along. And I think they just, through time learn where those best spots are. And I really

do believe they don't travel as far. Now, again, guys, you can analyze this all day long, and if you live in an area where food sources are low and they have to travel farther, or you're in a big drought, I mean, there's a ten thousand variables that we could go through right now. But generally speaking, I think is deer age. I really do believe that that area that they're they're monitoring just get smaller.

unique things depending on the deer. But I am curious whether or not you've seen any consistencies of any kind. Let's say, well, let's start first with like with how a really mature buck uses the wind. Have you found any consistency with those oldest bucks you've hunted, Man, they they always like to bet with the wind in a certain way, like at their back or is that not the case? Have you always seen that? Man?

good mature bucks, they are slow movers. They take the time, did they did? They're methodical. You just you can just see that ever so slight, little you know, little lift of that little lift of that head man just taking in that little extra you know, scent coming across their nose. Man. You really see big bucks. They you know, they're not just oh, there's the playground, let's go, you know, like that. They just take their time. Now again, I'm excluding the rut.

On a hot trail with a hot dough, obviously that's completely different. But even when a big buck finally is going to tend to a dough and he's decided that she's gonna come in the heat. That's the dough. That's the one I'm breeding. They, through vocalization, you know, are able to like get that dough to kind of stay put. I mean, every once in a while they take off a generally speaking man when they just want things to be calm. They have a way of doing that right.

And I have seen so many big Bucks they just take their time. My point with me being kind of a hyper shaky guy and trying to use this as a tactic to be smart. You know, for me, the tree stand is my yoga session. The tree stand is the one time when I can, you know, you can kind of like just get in there, snuggle in, be smart and and and and try not to move right like, because I'm telling you those big Bucks they're not just

using their nose. They're using their eyes too, and and and when they start walking and they decide that they're going to move from point A to point B and they're gonna actually go do something, they're using everything they got right their nose, their ears, their eyes, they're using

it at all. They're looking out for predators. And I'm telling you, part of their strategic way of living longer and getting bigger too, is they just move methodically and they move a little slower, and man, you just see them. You just see them stop right like you can see them like they just if they get out of their bed. Sometimes they just stand there for like forever, and you know, and then they just they're so methodical about Okay, which way am I gonna kind of pull out of here today?

And then they come down the tray a little bit, and then they'll just stop and they'll just they'll literally stand there for minutes. Some of the biggest bucks I've seen, they'll just they'll just stand there and they'll just kind of just smell and they'll just So the problem is you might have you might be hunting to killer ridgeline, right,

you might be hunting something really good. And if you're standing up and you know, talking to your buddies, or you know, if they're filming you, or you're just you know, moving a little too much in those stands, sometimes those deer are just seeing you and you're never seeing you're never even seeing them, right, They've already they WHOA what was that? And and they just total away. How many

times have you spooked a big buck. Right you're in the stand, you see them coming, and do they Mark, do They usually go bolting out of there and running away, the big.

It's like it's like, how will you just go? You know, It's it's like that Bart Simpson's one of my favorite little icons where he's like just kind of like kind of just sneaks exactly.

the neighbor. They're just this is what they do, right, Like they they don't want to get eaten for lunch. They don't want coyotes chasing them, they don't want you know, they just they're just methodical. They're just they those bigger guys, they're just they take their time. They've been in the woods a lot longer than the other deer. They just know what they need to do to survive and and to not be chased as much and and and not

be killed. Right, so, man, you watch them. They're slow, So don't be moving around a lot in your stands.

all the way. You gotta be close to their bedroom. Is that it or what is it? In your mind?

buck on their feet during day time. I think a Kurt, you know Kurt, you know a guy on our team. You know Kurt. You know he's killed a lot of deer. You know, he does a lot of management on farms and stuff like that. And I mean even he's out in the daily you know, and he doesn't even see that many big bucks during the day and moving around, so you want to get as close as you can number one without blowing out the areas. Number two, you always have to be, you know, playing the win that

we've talked about. But at the end of the day, you know, they just don't move a lot, so you want to make sure you're putting yourself in the best position for when they do make those moves before they come out to those bigger fields and at night and eat and so forth, that you have the best chance at getting them. You're not going to have that happen if you're just going to go to some big bean

plot on an evening hunt. Right. Like, again, there's always luck, but when it comes to those big mature guys, you better you'd better be close to where they're betting, and you have to be able to get in there without you know, busting them out and having them know that you're there.

bit further. So there's all sorts of you know, popular apps these days of predicted deer movement, and there's all sorts of theories about the moon and the wind and the barometer and the temperature and humidity and YadA, YadA, YadA. Is there anything from all those different factors that you think does have the greatest influence on a mature, mature buck, Like, is it, man, that barometer really does pressure really does

get a big old buck on his fear. Is there anything like that in your mind that stands out that is unique to getting those special deer out and moving a little bit more?

season is not going on. You know those days where you're just like, dang, I really have seen a lot of deer today, take the time to, you know, remember to go look at so many people forget about looking at that once the hunting season's over, right, So pressure

is a big one for sure. I mean there is no doubt after running you know, our web series Bowhunter Die for as many years as we have, I can almost guarantee if me and Justin are talking about when we think the first couple of deer kills are going to come in. Generally that first high pressure system that comes in in the beginning when you can hunt deer. Obviously, you know when your season starts, that first one. If you can get catch that first high pressure system, that's

almost always always always a good one. But I do watch the pressure quite a bit. I do have some of my best hunting daring high pressure. But Mark, that doesn't mean that I'm not going to go hunt, you know a day where maybe the pressure is not as good. I mean, everyone's lives are different, everyone's work schedules are different. Everyone has different times that they can hunt and how

much they can hunt. But for the average guy who has some control over their schedule, that can save some vacations, that can bank some vacation days. I think if you can be lucky enough to time a high pressure hunt with when you're going versus just aimlessly going into spots when you shouldn't be going into some of your better spots,

is going to make a difference. And generally speaking, on those high pressure situations, it does seem like those bigger mature bucks do get out of their beds a little bit earlier and people can say, well, geez, I hunted high pressure, but I just didn't see the mature deer. Well, at the end of the day, let's be realistic, how many big mature deer are in your area? Number one right, and he just doesn't have one spot that he goes to.

So just because I'm having bag luck this day, I could be literally texting you, who could be completely on the other side of the fire, and you're like, dude, you were right. Today was the day. You know, you know, there's let's be honest, there's only so many these four and a half five and have six year old deer and they just don't do the same thing. Every single day. I hit Starbucks, I go to the Walmart, I go to the office, Like Okay, like you know, that's just

not how it works. You know. They just they have other spots, their appetite might be desiring something different. They

just might go to a different area. So just because you're like, oh, I'm hunting this high pressure day and I'm not seeing any activity, doesn't you may have just chose the dang wrong spot too, you know, And that can completely happen, right Like, sometimes you just got to have all those all those things line up, and there's just not enough really legitimately big bucks for everything that line up perfectly for all of us all the time.

So I do like the pressure my absolute man. I we all only get so many opportunities at shooting a quality deer each year, right, Like, I mean you can pretty much guarantee like every season, you know, what is it, maybe three, you know, maybe four, I mean, like not many, and you know, and you're just hoping.

kind of gets going. And the next the point that I'm trying to make here is if it's if it's not barometer or barometric pressure, right, that the next thing that I really, really, really, man, I love those those those pre rut those pre rut days are just I would take the pre rut over the rut any day of any day of the week. You know, I would much rat even though you can't see as far because there's more foliage. You know, corn still love blah blah blah.

That pre rut you can pretty much count on. They just they know it, man, They just got it in their body. They know they know what's coming. It's built into their everything that a deer does, like they have to breathe. It's just it's the way it works. And that pre rut, they start getting up, they get up a little bit earlier, they start checking those scrapes, they start checking those line and man, I loved I love that pre rut time that that for hair in Illinois.

Sometimes that twenty second. I'd killed some of my best deer between the twenty second and the twenty eighth of October compared to November first through the seventh. Hands down. If I went back, I wish I would have done a better job, you know, keeping track of the stuff, you know, as I was younger. But there is no doubt I would take the twenty second to the thirty first over the first through the seventh, any day of the week or eighth anytime. I just pluster calmer too.

the boat. No, of course, not no, sure, no, I mean it's been plenty years. I haven't even had a tag notched by then, you know. But but there's no doubt when it comes to filming mature bucks, getting close in on them. Man, that is the time to do it. I just, I just I love that window. That's a great window of time. I mean, especially if you haven't

been fortunate enough to locate that big buck. Right, Like, let's just forget about everything that we've been talking about, you know, in terms of okay, Todd, you know what, I hun a small piece of property or mark. I don't have an opportunity to hunt a lot of land.

Let me, let's face it, just because you even got two hundred acres doesn't mean doesn't mean that the big guy is living on you, right, So you still got to then figure out, Okay, you know, if when time comes and he's gonna and I want to kill that mature buck, where is the highest likelihood spot that he's gonna be on my place, whether that's ten acres, five acres,

forty acres, or a thousand acres. Right, You're always trying to find those spots where those mature bucks generally like to travel, you know, so you got to keep that in mind too. But I I I do love that end of that end of October mark for sure.

different things. And uh, and it's fun. It's always fun to meet new people, hear different edies, do different things, listen to podcasts like this, Like that's what makes it fun, right, like, Hey, there's gonna be plenty of people take little nuggets of this podcast and they're going to hopefully gonna be able to implement it to their style and what they're doing, and hopefully it helps them bag their first big buck, right, Like, that's that's what it's all about. It's all about experiences,

and it's like everything in life. You know, if you get a couple of good nuggets from everything you do in life, I mean that's and you and you keep and you hold those that usually end up panning, you know, paying out for sure.

learned that stands out more than any other. If if you were to think back over all of the years, over all those biggest oldest ghosts that haunted you, maybe you got him, maybe you didn't get them, does one of them stand out as having taught you the most important lesson or taught to you the most that has impacted your hunting still to this day. What would that lesson? What would that buck be, and what would that lesson be.

valley was another spot where he came out. I'm telling you, like, I know this is a podcast, and I know you're watching me, and I'm literally like messing with my hand. I'm like squeezing my head right now, like that stupid buck. I mean that that was such a cool buck. I'm gonna get your photo of him. Yeah, Longhorn was this amazing buck and son of a gun dude. I'm telling you, I had pictures of him like crazy and videos. I'm like crazy, I finally finally had an opportunity at him,

and I mean, stay put. Your question specifically was what did you learn from the biggest bucks. Longhorn kept coming out on these two spots, and and and I was an idiot, and I would try to like squeak in and move a stand. And if I would have just stayed put in those two spots, dude, I would go to the one spot and I'd be sitting there shoot, and he'd be at the other spot, you know, And then and then I'd go to that spot, and then

he'd be And it was a joke, man. I mean a couple of my buddies, you know, literally who also super good, good friends of mindy, really good people where where you know are are are not able to hunt as much as I am. And so they're always watching the cameras right and literally they would be like, you screwed up. He's over there, you know. I'm like, oh my dude, I had to like I had to turn the phone off. I couldn't even watch that crap anymore because I'd be sitting there and it's like, oh, well,

there is there he is, you know. And he would any any any and never never would he go from this spot during the during the hunt and come all the way over to the spot. It was just too far. It was to it was it was. I mean, as far as the crow flies, it was that big of a deal. But in terms of like the terrain going all the way down, crossing the ag field, coming all the way up to the other spot, it just wasn't

gonna happen. And and I honestly, I should have just stopped going from A to B to A to B and then trying to stick in the C and the D. I should have just been like, now you know what, I'm hunting B. I'm just staying at B. I know he's gonna come here. I know this is one of the scrapes that he frequently checks. I'm just going to stay here. And if I would have done that, I

probably would have had a second chance. And I did finally end up getting a chance at Longhorn, and I literally had him at I don't know, five yards and I just did not have an ethical shot and there's just no way. And heck, I was going to take that,

take that chance. So you know, I so so. And then and then the last final thing, let's just talk about and let's just talk about sweetness for two seconds, right four years later, what did we talk about earlier in this show, he ends up being shot right right out of the same darn spot. Sorry, Mark, I'm trying to put my laptop in here, same spot four years later. So dude, good spots are good spots, right, and we

keep trying to add more spots. But man, when you get a good one sometimes, I've learned from Big Bucks, Dude, hold the line, and it's so easy to get carried. It's so easy to want to do what go to and do spot? I mean, Mark, we hang all these stands. How many stands you got hung right now?

just it's it's just it's something different. And but not that I'm dissing saddle hunting or tree stand hunting, right, Like, the saddle almost is like adds a whole nother mind, like a whole nother mind boggling dimension to it now, because now I'm walking around going like, Okay, I got a tree stand hung there, I could saddle hunt there, and I can saddle hunt there. Now. It's like my inventory of spots has gone up, you know, but I.

But generally speaking, this whole podcast has been about mature deer where they like to live, and when you find and when you believe you have one of those spots and you get your stand or you get your saddle position, hold the line and hang in there. That that would be my personal you know, recommendation period. Yeah, sweetness, I had strong, strong advice. Ton I had ten probably stands

for sweetness. I probably should have just kept going back to the ladder stand that my friend shot for years ago, and I would add a chance at a you know, and longhorn. I should have just kept sticking with the spot. But hue in nature is you know, you want to shake and move, you want to do different things. You start letting your brain get in the way in terms of like, oh gosh, does the deer think that he's

onto me here? So again, the best lesson I could say when it comes to that last question you asked, specifically, what have we learned from hunting big mature bucks. When you find a good spot that they like the frequent, make that saddle or tree stand bulletproof. From how you get in, how you get out. Make sure you understand

the wind on multiple different conditions. There when it's not right, don't hunt it, leave it alone, pay attention to the bear the pressure, and I can pretty much guarantee that you will be tipping the odds in your favor of shooting that big buck this fall.

content on there. Mark, I actually am going to pose a question to you right now that puts you in a position where you just can't say no. That's why I'm saving this too as well. We do a really cool thing with age, the age this buck, and I would love it if you, guys, if I sent you about twelve different bucks that we're going to be yeah aging, if you could give us your opinion on the age of these bucks, and of course you know it will be from Mark Kenyon what he thinks the age of

those deer ours. We love to have to be a part of that. So if you want to have fun, guys, go to bowhunting dot com. We've got some sweep steaks, We've got a lot of good content and we can answer a lot of your questions with our bow Hunt one or one section. As far as YouTube goes, guys, you can pull up our channel, which is you know, bow hunting dot com. We've got a series that has been called Bowhunter Die. You've never heard of it. Check it out for those of the people that haven't been

following along with Bowhunter Die. It's really cool because a lot of our teammates are just like probably a lot of the audience, right they're not doing this full time like we're doing. They are guys who have full time jobs. They're working, they're eight up with this stuff. They're and they're trying to do the most with their time and getting out there, and they have found a little knack for filming their hunts and they've been on board for years.

So definitely take a peek at our YouTube series Bowhunter Die. Justin my right hand Man has also started a podcast along with the stuff that we do called pinch points. So we've got a lot of different content, a lot of different things that we're doing to help, you know, the average bowhunter get out there and get started and have a great time in the woods. Of course, social

channels and all that stuff. But last, but not least, you know, one of the questions I always get asked a lot is how the heck did you get that domain name bowhunting dot com? And it was probably one of my most favorite purchases ever. I literally I think I still owned this date over two thousand hunting related domain names, but you name it, I own it. Food

plots dot com or dear ticks dot com. Yeah, I own a lot of them, but this one, specifically, I really wanted bow hunting dot com right, it's my favorite thing to do.

due and I said, great. You know, so I got a certified check man, I sent it to her, and finally, once the transaction was done, I said to her, I said, man, if you don't mind me asking, you know, why did you buy that domain name? Oh, me and my daughters love collecting bows for our hair, you know, so we're out, you know, bow hunting for bows for our hair.

I mentioned, I think per week prior. My season's kicking off here in about a week, so I will have some deer hunting stories very soon, and I hope you'll follow along there. Over on the Wired Hunt Instagram account, We've also got a newsletter. If you go to the meat Eater dot com, it will prompt you to sign up for the Wired to Hunt weekly newsletter. Make sure you're signed up there to get our latest content delivered

right to your inbox as well. So with all that out of the way, I appreciate you listening today, Thanks for being a part of this community. Best of luck out there. If you guys are hunting already, I know a lot of you are. I hope that some of the things you've learned this year from the podcast are coming in handy, and I hope if stay Wired to Hunt