Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your guide to the whitetail woods, presented by first Light, creating proven versatile hunting apparel for the stand, saddle or blind. First Light Go Farther, Stay Longer, and now your host, Mark Kenyon.
Welcome to the Wired to Hunt Podcast. This week on the show, I'm joined by public Land mountain buck expert Nathan Killen to dive deep into what he's learned about the behavior's trends and tendencies of the biggest oldest bucks around. All right, welcome to the wired ton Podcast, brought to you by First Light and our Camo for Conservation initiative.
If you're not familiar with this, every purchase of First Light's Whitetail camo, which is the Spectra pattern, if you buy a jacket, if you buy a hat, if you buy a base layer, whatever it is, Inspector, a portion of the proceeds from that sale get donated to the National Deer Association to help them do good things for deer and deer hunters. So that is pretty darn cool. And this week we've got some pretty darn cool for
you on the show as well. We're continuing our I guess I don't have a really good name for this series, but we're diving in this month to the personalities and the tendencies and the behaviors and the quirks of mature bucks. And not just like kind of mature bucks. I'm talking like old bucks. What do these bucks do? These deer are different than everything else out there on the landscape.
They are the trickiest, they are the wiliest, they are the toughest, They are the survivors, and because of that, I think they fascinate a whole pile of us. We are I think many, many, many of us cannot stop thinking about these kinds of bucks. We can't stop trying to put together the puzzle pieces, put together that next move in the game of chess, to try to catch
up with that buck. They are the ultimate corey. And so this month we're trying to peel back a couple layers of the onion to understand why these bucks do what they do, How do they do what they do, what are they thinking, where are they going? What are they doing? And the people that are going to help us figure that out are those deer hunters who have had the very most experience with that kind of buck. And today we have a guest who absolutely checks that box.
His name is Nathan Killing. He is a die hard deer hunter from the state of Virginia and he hunts big woods, big mountain public land there in va in Ohio and elsewhere, and he has done it to a level of success level. I'm not sure what I'm trying to say here. He's been more successful than most anyone else I know in that kind of habitat. And he first came up on my radar when our good pale Andy May said to me, man, Nathan gets it done like.
He is a top tier deer hunter, doing it in really tough circumstances and a very different place than most people we talked to. We got to get on the podcast at some point, and this was years ago, and it just didn't work out for whatever reason. But finally we were able to put the pieces together and Nathan is here today. He has terrific level of experience with these kinds of deer. He's got great insight. He's haunted old old bucks like way older bucks and I've ever
got to chase as you'll hear here soon. He's got experience a lot of experience with not just five year old bucks, but six year old bucks, seven year old bucks, eight, nine, ten. He's finding deer like this, and he's not doing on like a thousand acre private, supermanaged farm. He's doing this on public land. He's hunting eight year old bucks on public land. There's some things we can learn from a
guy like that. So that is our plan today. Now, I just want to, with all that being said, remind us of one thing, though, which is and I said this last week. I'm gonna say this every week because I think it's really important. In this, dear you're hunting world we live in these days, big deer get a whole lot of attention and praise and excitement, and right for good reason. They're all those things I just mentioned.
They're fascinating, but they're not everything. And if you were to ever let a big buck or old buck, or any of this kind of stuff, an obsession over antler size, if any of that ever gets in the way of your respect for these animals, of your fun that you have while hunting these animals, if it gets in the way of you know, your relationships, your friendships, your family, if any of those things happen, that is a problem.
And it's it's super important to me as I've gone through this myself to remind ourselves the big bucks aren't everything. And if you are not at a point in your hunting journey where you are chasing deer like this, that is fine. Do not feel any pressure to do so. If you want to listen today, awesome, You're gonna learn some things, but don't feel like you got to go out there and chase the deer like this. If you're still learning, man, be where you are, Enjoy where you are,
get good at where you are. If you have no desire to hunt a deer like this, if you just want to get out there and kill some doughs or the first dear you see because you want to feel that freezer, man, that is awesome. I'm really glad you're out there doing it. Keep doing it, keep having fun, feeds your family. Who cares about these big old deer. If that's not your cup of tea, do not feel bad about it. Do not anybody else's choices make you
feel bad about that hunt. Your own hunt. And I think with all that said, in the pursuit of big old bucks, especially these biggest old this year, these super mature deer. It's easy to let like that, those obsession type tendencies in US deer hunters to kind of take over.
Right.
If anyone's listened over the last couple of years, you've heard my own experience where I've gone maybe too far down this road to the point where I was losing some of the fun. I was so obsessed with the end result trying to kill one of these deer that I was letting it, you know, a make me feel bad whenever I didn't have that success, make me get you know, not necessarily depressed, but it overstressed for sure. It made me, know, discount the time that it should
have been spending with my family or my friends. It took me away from a lot of the things that
make deer hunting especially as it is. So I've had to have like a perspective shift in recent years where I think I've found now a healthy balance between appreciating and chasing these big old deer, which are fascinating and fun and a heck of a challenge, but at the same time not letting it take over the whole thing, and making sure that I'm giving proper priority to my family, to my friends and the relationships that I have all around hunting, giving back to the landscapes, making sure that
this is like a whole picture thing. It's not just trying to kill the biggest olds deer. It's trying to have a fun, challenging hunting experience. It's trying to put food on the table. It's trying to nurture important relationships and share the outdoors the people you care about. It's about giving back to the deer and the wild places to make sure that these things continue into the future.
That is where at least I personally am today, and I hope that if you're somewhere in the midst of this journey yourself, that you'll think about some of those things and just be careful, maybe not make some of the same mistakes that I've made when I went too far down this path. Remember it's about the process, right, It's the hunt. It's not necessarily just the end result. So keep that process fun. Don't obsess over do I fill the tag or not? As much as did I
do everything I could? Did I do the right things? Did I have fun along the way? At least for me, those are the things that in the end really truly matter. And if you can do that, it's funny how the end result tends to follow. So that is all a long winded way of saying we are talking about big old bucks today, which are super cool, and we're all gonna learn a lot today. I'm gonna leave you with two quick plugs before we get to my chat with Nathan number one. We do have another episode of One
Week in November out on the mediat YouTube channel. Speaking of big old Bucks, You're gonna get to see me recover a deer I talked about last fall, which is at Nebraska Buck. He was a big old bach buck, not bach a buck. Huge neck on him, huge body, really cool deer, very exciting ending to this story there.
So check out That is episode two of One Week in November, and by the time you're listening to this now, there's probably gonna be three episodes, So please, if you haven't yet, head on over to the Meat Eater YouTube channel. Check out One Week in November. It follows myself, Tony Peterson, Spencer Newharth Klay, nukeomb and Giannis Pitelis as we're hunting deer during the first week of November all over the country.
It's a good time, So check that out. And finally, we're coming up on our fifth Working for Wildlife Tour event, which is down there in Mississippi, and we are going to be planting trees, we are going to be planting food plots, and we're going to be removing invasive plants all on public land down there in Mississippi and the DeSoto National Forest, doing some good stuff for deer, turkeys, all sorts of critters, and I just want to say
thank you. I've already heard numbers of how many people have signed up, and it is a big old pile of folks coming down to volunteer their time during hunting season. I'm pretty sure the season's opened down there in Mississippium guessing at least. And I just want to tell you how much I appreciate that that you're willing to give a little bit of your time on a weekend to give back to these resources, these critters, these places that make
all this good stuff possible. So just letting you know that, I'm giving you a big virtual high five handshake. Can't wait to meet you. I can't wait to see you tell some stories. We're gonna have a whole lot of fun and we're gonna do some good work for wildlife. And I can tell you from experience that you know, having that kind of putting in, that kind of work, it makes the hunts that follow that much sweeter because you know that you were kind of part of everything
that led up to it. You gave back, and now you can take and feel pretty darn good about that deer you bring off the landscape, or the fishy pull out of the lake, whatever it is. So now, without any further ado, it's time to get to our next guest in this Big Old Buck series. We've got Nathan Killing, and we're gonna hear some stories about some eight year old, nine year old, ten freaking year old bucks, which is kind of crazy. Hope you enjoy it. Thanks for listening
all right here with me. Now on the line, we've got the one and only Nathan Killing. Nathan, Thanks for being here.
My pleasure, buddy. Sorry it's taken so long. I know Andy here had reached out to me. I spent two or three years ago, and during that time I was actually doing a lot of podcasts and stuff, and I was kind of gotten. I had gotten burnt out on him, so and I declined then, but here I am now, so hey, no worries.
I'm glad that we're finally making it happen. And you know, better late than never, And sometimes when you got to wait for something, it's that much sweeter when it actually happens. So yeah, I'm looking forward to this. The reason why Nathan, I especially wanted to have you on now at this point is because we're starting a series this month of September.
There's a lot of folks that are kicking off their hunting season, maybe right now or quite soon here over the coming weeks, and I wanted to do a deep dive into the critters that fascinate us the very most. I think for most serious deer hunters, it's those biggest, oldest, gnarliest,
most mature deer that keep us up at night. Right And from everything I've seen from you, videos and podcasts I've listened to, and things I've heard from friends of ours mutual friends of ours, you've got a almost a sixth sense when it comes to what these old public
land mountain bucks want to do. You understand them better than a whole lot of people out there, And so that is why I wanted to bring you on here today to talk about that, to share with us what you've seen, to share with us the behaviors you've witnessed, the quirks and personality traits and tendencies that you've picked up over the years as you've you know, scouted for these kinds of deers, you've watched these kinds of deer, and of course you've you've killed a whole bunch of
them too. So that's my hope for the game plan today. Does that sound like something that that you're into talking about.
Yeah, absolutely, that's that's what I ate, uh and uh dream and sleep about, you know. So just lucky a lot of you guys exactly. Matter of fact, most of my life obsessed and over the darn things.
So yeah, we uh, we're on the same page there. So what is it. There's a whole bunch of reasons why I obsess over a deer like that. But what is it for you about those oldest mountain bucks out there that make them just like stick in your craw and make you think about them late at night and every day every week of the year. Why why is it that these oldest deer, these biggest oldest deer stand out for you in your in your world.
I think it's just their nature. Uh, I mean, they're they're quirky animals. Uh, They're they're not like the rest of the deer. They do things totally different. So, and each and every one of them are different between them. You know, they're not only different from deer, but they're different from each other and just have such different personalities and and do things differently. So it's just always a riddle or a puzzle that you're trying to figure out.
And and that's one of the biggest attractions that they are for me.
You know.
You know, there's plenty of just deer out there that we can go out and hunt and stuff, but you know it, they're not nearly as difficult to well to figure out outer get within bow range like the you know, these big older age class bucks are. So I think that's what the attraction is for me. And plus once you kiel one of them and you walk up on his lifeless body laying there and realize what you've got. I mean that they look different, you know, they they're
just a different animal. So but once you do that, you know it's your runt after that. Yeah, men, they are they're impressive on so many fronts.
You know. It's like you said, there's there's the mental side of the back and forth, the mental chess game
you've got to play. And then to your point, like physically you can't help but just be kind of taken aback when you actually see a truly all buck in the flesh, I mean, they're just I mean, I've always I've wanted to make a point, you know, in these conversations and when I talk to folks, especially when you've got newer hunters around, to not make someone feel like they should feel pressured to try to, you know, target a deer like that, right, like any deer is an
incredible accomplishment. Yes, it's a heck of a challenge for a lot of people, but there's certainly nothing wrong with getting excited about those deer when they do get to that point. And and like you said, like once you do go down that road, it's really hard to turn back. Yes, Yeah, from your experience, when do you think on average a
buck kind of switches into mature buck gear? You know, like when I've heard a lot of people talk about this, and I think I've seen it too, where you know, when a buck becomes a truly mature they almost become a different species. It's like a different animal from all the rest of the deer out there. At what age in your neck of the woods, would you say that usually happens when there's like a big shift in behavior and how they act. Is that you know, what age jump do you think that happens at.
I think that would be as far behavioral four and a half on average, and body wise it would be five or six. You know. I think our books in our mountains show their age a little bit later in their life than say a Midwestern deer does. And I think that it has a lot to do with just the food. You know, they just don't have as good a food here in the mountains as they do in the Midwest, where you know, got corn and beans and everything else. So just be like a person, you know.
I think a person that has a lot more food available to them, you know, they put on weight more and they'd show their age a little bit more. And I mountain deer tend to stay leaner, you know. But you know, but as far as mentality, I would think four and a half you know, to five somewhere through there.
So that's mostly what I saw see anyway, what's the.
And I know it's gotta be a lot harder and maybe impossible in the areas that you're hunting in Virginia and Ohio and stuff like that compared to someone in the Midwest. But have you ever you know, put an estimate on a deer as far as age that got up past that five years old? Six years old? Like were you've seen it year after year or had pictures of any of this deer? What's the oldest buck you think you've been able to get some time with hunting and chasing.
I'm probably hunting one of them this year. To be honest with you, I've hunted a lot of bucks in the seven to nine year old range, and I killed one. It's been twenty nineteen. I think he was eight and a half. He was just an ancient buck and man, you should well you could look back through my Instagram pictures and see pictures of him. But he was just an absolute horse of a deer. But yeah, you know, every year I've always got you know, five six seven
year old deer to hunt. Matter of fact, this year, the biggest buck that I'm hunting, he is actually only four and a half to five and a half, but he's the most impressive deer. And then I got a six and a half year old that I'm hunting, and then I got a buck that he's any where between eight to ten that I'm hunting.
So so you said that the biggest jump, like the biggest change is like somewhere around that like four and a half year old period.
Yeah, but is there.
Any you know, between that four and a half and that nine range that you mentioned there or whatever is or ten? Is there any other major change, Like is there another shift from seven to eight or is there is there another tier up there at the tippy top for those very very oldest deer when it comes to like they start to act differently. Do those eight and nine year olds do something different than your four and five year olds on average?
Yeah, I would definitely say on average they do. They just become extremely reclusive. It's it's almost like they they they don't even associate with the rest of the deer. Heard they just have their They it's like they live a completely different or separate life from the other deer. And uh, they can those type of deer are very very hard to locate. Uh, They just kind of lurk
around in the shadows and uh. And they're even hard to pick up on trail camera a lot of times because that they just move differently and use the areas differently, and I think it's on purpose to avoid other deer. So if you've got your trail cameras focused on the majority of the deer sign like most people do, then
those bucks will live undetected, you know. And and it takes special I wouldn't say special tactics, but it takes special thinking outside of the box, you might say, to be able to put yourself in position to get one you know on your trail camera, or even more yet, see one you know.
So, yeah, do you have any example that comes to mind of a deer like that? I'm just curious if there's a buck that you could use to paint a picture of, like what one of those alternative lifestyles of these oldest bucks might look like. Is anything going on?
Yeah?
Yeah, I can think of one right off the bat. And nobody ever killed this deer as far as I know, he lived to probably and who knows, the darn deer might be still alive now because he hasn't there's he hasn't been seen, no trail camera photos of him in two years now.
And but two.
Years ago the deer was probably eight to nine years old. And I've got two sheds off of him. I've got a couple buddies that have some sheds off of him. And he lived in a fairly hard hunted area. And and nobody ever seen that deer, you know, and other than just a few sheds and every now and then
somebody gettinghim getting a trail camera picture of him. You know, you would never knew that he even existed there, you know, but the topography and just the habitat there kind of lends itself for a big buck to you know, be able to do that too.
So what was that you know, what was that topography? Like what kind of place did that buck hole up in?
Huh?
Well, I really, I really don't want to speak too much about this particular deer because there is another one in there right now. But you know, the he just lived in the higher elevation, and he lived on the north side of a mountain and it was just, you know, very remote from everywhere else.
So so one of the things you mentioned that these bucks when they get a lot older that become more reclusive. But one thing I've heard a lot in the Midwest is that these really old bucks really not only become reclusive, but they tighten up their core area more and more you hear about these bucks like living in smaller and smaller and smaller areas in this big woods, mountainous habitat where I'm imagining some of these bucks travel quite a lot.
Does that happen with these big old deer by you two?
Yeah?
But now that I think that really comes back to personality of bucks too. Some of them are roamers and others are homebodies, and I see that a lot too. You know, I've seen older age class bucks that have a lot larger home range than others, and than some their home ranges really small. Matter of fact, one of the bucks that I'm hunting this year, he has, matter of fact, will actually two bucks out of the three that I'm hunting this year have really small core areas,
and they hardly ever leave out of them. As a matter of fact, one of them, his core area is so small that if I had to put a size on it, probably less than two hundred acres, and from probably early spring up until first of November. He hardly ever leaves that wow. But now once he does leave it, he doesn't come back to a springtime, but he doesn't go very far. One thing that changes where that spot
is is the foliage. Basically, once the leaves are on the tree, he's there, and once they're gone then he's not. And he just shifts probably about a half a mile and that's where he spends pretty much November, December, January, February, March timeframe.
What would be and again I'm asking for a rough estimate here, but on these mature bucks in the places that you haunt, if a small core range like you mentioned there was like two hundred acres, what would be like an average core range for like the mature bucks you typically you know, are chasing around. Is it substantially bigger than that or kind of in that neck of the woods.
Yeah, yeah, I would say, I would say, you know what you've read about all your life, you know, a good square mile would probably be pretty average for most mountain bucks. You know, some of them are going to be larger than that. I've matter of fact, I think some that I've known have probably had home ranges, you know, up to four or five square miles and those deer are extremely hard to catch up with.
So you would you would prefer the homebody buck that's got the tight core range.
Yeah, yeah, just actually, yeah, you know where it's going to be, that's right, And I prefer to hunt those type of deer. I don't really spend much time on a roamer buck. I mean, because I mean I'm a working man. I don't have that much time to invest in him to hunt him, you know. So I've got to put my effort into wherever or whatever buck I feel I've got the best chance of killing so and obviously one that has a small core area is going to be the one i'd pick.
Yeah, So let's talk about one of those or not one of those. Let's talk about a home for a super old buck. If you could. If you had like a a paint brush set and a canvas in front of you, and you were going to paint the perfect core area home range for a seven year old mountain buck in your area, what would be this setup, the habitat the topography that you would envision being like that ideal place. You could absolutely imagine a big, old stinky buck wanting to live in I'd love to hear what
that picture perfect thing would be. I imagine that might help folks understand what to look for when they're looking for that kind of deer. So what in your mind would that be.
Uh, just a lot of change in topography obviously as far as elevation and structure to it. You know, you can have too busy of topography because if the topography is too busy, in other words, you've got too many compounding train features and too many ridges, too many saddles, too many benches, then you have too many places for
him to live. So, you know, just a good elevation change, maybe a thousand feet, you know, that way, and once you get on up into the upper part of that, topography is going to be, you know, really rough and rugged, and then you have some nice secondary ridges that flow
down out of that. And if I could draw up of the perfect scenario, it would have some kind of farmland at the end of or at the lower elevations of that, you know, because one thing that I like to see in the mountains is see what we depend really on our acorn crop. And if there's no acron crop, then the deer can be really hard to find. So if you can find areas that back up against some kind of farmland or something that we really don't have agriculture here. We have a lot of cattle, you know,
a lot of open fields stuff like that. But you know, if there's no acrons, then the deer's wanna make their way onto you know, grassy type areas. So if you can, if you can have a blend of both of those, that would be perfect. You know, a nice farm down low and you got a nice big high mountain ridge backing behind you, you know, with some finger ridges that
lead down into those type of places. And and you know around here the thick areas is mostly mountain laurel and rhododendron, So a good mix of that with some hemwalk and stuff, you know, and a couple of really big drainages you know that he would use.
Okay, and do you need to have I know you mentioned that some New Years you don't have the acorns. Are they ever gonna post up in places where there's not oaks or are there oaks kind of everywhere in your area and they're they're depending on them, or are there gonna be some areas that just don't have them at all, and then they're deer deserts.
No, there's oaks.
Act actually everywhere, there's not a hillside around here that does not have oaks, and predominantly red oaks, chestnut and black oaks. We do have several white oaks obviously, but they're they're mostly in the lower elevations and that's generally the ones if they're gonna embarrass some acrons there, you know, that's the ones that it's going to be like the big feeder oaks that you see out in uh the
age of pastures and fields and stuff like that. So but uh, yeah, there's uh, you know, we've we've been pretty fortunate. That's probably five years we've had a pretty good acron crop. You know, it may have not been an abundance, but there have been acrons around. So it's not been too hard on the deer and it hasn't
been too you know, hard to locate them. But now back to you know, previous years before that, I can remember several years in a row that there was no acrons and when and that's that's not.
A good situation for the deer.
And I don't you know, some people like that because then it forces all the deer to the grassy areas, and if you've got private land, then that can work out pretty good for you. But you know, most of us we've were hunting public it's like everybody else. So yeah, uh so, you know that's what I'm saying about the finding public land that backs up against some kind of farmland. So you if a deer have no acrons, you can at least know where they're going to and hunt accordingly.
Yeah, so let's go back to this imaginary big old buck home. You painted a good picture there of what that home mum look like, but let's talk a little bit about like where his bedroom is in that home. You know, I am at least imagine there's a lot of scenarios where there's a deer herd spread out over an area like this right. There's some does and fawns,
there's a dough family groups, there's some younger bucks. Let's say there's a I don't know what the actual age structure looks like in the area you're hunting, but let's say there's a satellite buck or two that's in that three or four year range. But then you got that one, you know, old salty guy who's who's eight. What what does that eight year old's bed hypothetically or you know, typical spots he would bed. How would that look different than where that three or four year old buck might
end up getting in this scenario you painted earlier. Could you give me some hype. You know, obviously this is all hypothetical, but if you could paint what that top top tier bed would look like for the biggest oldest versus the next tier down.
He's going to be up in the upper one third, you know, on average. Now that's not always the case because there again some areas and I personally like to choose areas that have more than one older age class buck and obviously that gives you more of a chance to encounter one. And whenever that's the case, then those bucks are forced to choose different areas. So you know, I would think the buck that's the most aggressive or the most dominant in the area is probably going to
choose the more premium type area. You know that he likes the best and kind of force everybody else to choose other areas. But you know, it's just like one of the areas that I'm hunting right now, it actually has some upper elevation. But surprisingly both the big deer that I'm hunting there are using the lower elevation. And that's a little bit different than what you see, you know, but you got to hunt them where they're at. And just goes back to personality. You know, some bucks, you know,
they're just all different. But on average, I would say that most mature bucks is going to be betting in the upper one third, you know, and you and you hear that a lot, and it's it is.
True, you know.
And and I also found that generally, whenever I find a big deer, he is on the northeast or any combination of the two slopes. And I think that it's because most of you family dough groups are on the south faces and they like their their seclusion and they choose you know, those type of areas that has less deer in and plus it's cooler, you know, most of the year, and and you know it's that's just where I find them, so I think they're more comfortable there.
Yeah, that makes sense. Now, what about you know, the wind direction, how is that impacting that bad decision for a buck like that, he prefers the north side because of what you just described. Yeah, can wind influence that at all or is he gonna stick to that?
Because well, yeah, but most of our ridges here or main mountains run east to west, so you have secondary ridges that run off the south side, and you have secondary ridges that run off the north side, So there's always betting opportunity. You know, most of our winds is coming out of the west. So if if I've got a secondary ridge running off the north face and it goes down there and a lot of them will have a saddle in it, and then it'll kind of gnob up,
you know, create a knoll and then it drops straight off. Well, if you've got westerly winds blown across that, if you'll if you'll notice and you get in there scouting during the wintertime, you'll see their beds off on that eastern side of those secondary ridges.
And you know a lot of times.
They'll move over on the western side of it too. You know, maybe if it's really cold and late in the evening, you know, you've got the western sun shining on that western edge or what have you, they'll move because of it. But generally you'll find them on the east side of those secondary ridges coming off the north side so.
Okay, yep, that makes sense. Now, we talk a lot about how mature bucks bed and unique things that they want. Something you don't hear as much about, though, is if and how mature bucks feed in unique ways compared to younger deer. Have you noticed anything like that? You noticed some trends on that front at all?
Yes, Shed hunting will really open your eyes up to stuff like that. And the reason that I say that is because you know years that we have a lot of acrons. I'll use that as an example. You know, you'll during winter time, which which is my favorite time to get out and scout, You'll be scouting shed hunting, and you're most people are gonna come across these areas
that are really tilled up. I mean it looks like they've been a I don't know, eight or ten deer and they've just tiled up an area, you know, sometimes a few acres in size because they're feeding on the red oaks, you know. But you never find big sheds
in those type of areas. And so what I've started doing is that I will still look at those type of areas, but I will focus more on areas like little hidden hollows and stuff where you can tell that just one or two deer have been feeding very little feeding sign and generally that's where you're going to find the bigger sheds and stuff. So that tells me that those those big bucks again are separating their selves from
the other deer, you know, especially outside the rut. Now deer in the rut, obviously, you know, these big bucks they're going to be uh frequenting you know, areas with higher dough populations. But aside from that, that's not the case. You know, they they feed separate, they bed separate, and and you know, if you can imagine, you know, a buck betty Daddy's bachelor pad, it's just him. You know, he gets up right at dark, he feeds a little bit,
and there again he's still by hisself. And you know, of course once it starts getting closer to the rut, then he's going to start making those big loops and stuff, checking out the girls and stuff like that, and they're gonna be laying down sign and that's where people is going to start seeing their sign at. So that's where
they're going to start hunting at. That's where they're gonna start putting up the trail cameras at and they're going to be getting nighttime pictures of them, but in reality, those bucks are not there, you know, they're they're often a totally different direction, you know, so you know they're bedding separate and they're feeding separate outside the rut. Yeah, and that's what makes them so hard to locate.
So, so continuing that line of thought, that and what about how they are traveling between those two places uniquely? So again I've heard, you know, everything from you know, the faint trail versus the large trail, to just above the bench to just below the bench, to the way they might use the just beneath the ridge versus the
tops of ridges. Like, what are some of the trends you've seen with how these deer are actually traveling across the landscape, Because it's pretty easy these days to read topography and get a sense of how most deer want to travel across the landscape right using some of those terrain features in predictable ways. But is there anything unique about those six, seven, eight year old bucks where they go against the grain or against what we would expect.
Yeah, Yeah, that's another thing that makes them so hard to set up on and most hunters don't kill them. It is because most of these older age class bucks, when they do move through topography top spots that we choose to set up in, they generally don't travel through them like ninety percent of other day.
They will skirt around it.
And and a lot of times, you know that it'll be on the down wind side, or maybe it'll be on the side that has the most cover, you know, but they'll they'll be clues left in those type of places to let you know that they're doing that. You just got to You've got to have the mindset to look for it. You know, they're still going to leave those big scrapes and you'll still see big rubs and stuff like that in the traditional spots that deer a
moving through. And the reason they're doing that is they're leaving their calling card, you know, letting letting everybody know, hey, I'm here. But most of that sign is done under the cover of darkness. But outside of darkness, those bucks are kind of skulking around or skirting around all that stuff, you know. And uh, and I've seen it so many times,
especially hunting benches. You know, everybody loves good benches and stuff, and I used to be really bad for setting up on the bench because that had the heaviest sign on, It had the biggest rubs, had the big scrapes, it had the heavy deer trails.
I mean that.
You know, we've always been taught that's what to look for, you know, But you set up in those places and you never see the truly mature bucks move through those places unless he's in the company of a dough. But I started you know, when you're out there scouting and stuff and you're looking, you know, you're not only looking at the bench, you're looking below the bench, and you'll find yourself above the bench and generally you'll find those lightly used trails with a few decent rubs along those.
So what I started doing is kind of splitting the difference, which is another mistake, but sometimes it works out. It depends on how close the sign is. But you know, you set up to where you can shoot the bench,
and you can shoot below the bench. Well, like I said, sometimes that works out for you, but most of the time the buck will be too far below the bench and you and the best thing for you have done is just went ahead and committed to hunting below the bench or above the bench, whichever one is the right spot. But yeah, you should always commit to.
It.
No words, to commit to one travel corridor instead of trying to cover both unless they're with him bow range, you know. So I hope that makes sense to everybody out there.
Yeah, it does. I think to me at least, do you look at every big, you know, terrain feature in that kind of way? So if we're thinking of a bench or a saddle, do you always assume, okay, they're going to be off in a little ways and then play off of that or are there some situations where you're like, Nope, in this one, I'm gonna hunt to shoot right at the saddle, but on this one, I want to be sixty yards off.
Yeah, So I'm sorry, go ahead.
I was just gonna be I was just gonna ask, you know, can you give me a little bit more insight into how you make that decision, like what the specifics would be to get you on it versus off it? Because I know we got to choose one or the other, but how do we make that decision the best?
You know, A lot of it's just going to be experienced, and a lot of it also how everything ties into that. You know what, once you see these bucks move through these type of areas, you know you're going to be able to start picking that stuff out. But you're going to have to be able to put yourself in that position and actually see it with your own eyes. And once you do that, then you're going to gain the confidence to one put yourself down there, and two you're
going to be able to see it. And because once you see something happen, it kind of helps predict it the next time. You know, we're hunting their tendencies. It's what we're doing. So the more times you tend to see him do something other there, the more it's going to help you to make that decision to hunt off
of that uh saddle or a bench or whatever. But then there are times whenever you want to hunt the heavy sign and I feel like that that is right around that pea corrupt time whenever bucks are really you know, giving up their guard and and and putting themselves you know, out in the open more you know, and that. And but now I warn you a lot of older age mature bucks never do that anyway. Uh. They they they
don't put themselves in those situations. So, uh, but you know, the best way that I can answer that is just experience, you know, hunting a lot. And whenever you do come up on a nice saddle or something other that has the uh all the good sign that you like to see, don't set up on it, set up off to the side.
Make yours self do that, you know, just go down there and look, you know, and uh, nine times out of ten you're going to see some kind of sign that he's leaving behind, that he has moved through there, you know. And those type of spots require more patience too. I'll be really honest with you, because you're not going to see as many deer as you're going to see up on that bench or coming through that saddle, you know, so you're a lot of times you'll question, you know,
are you doing the right thing? But if the sign is showing that he's coming through there, you need to put your time in there and just trust you get and uh and eventually it will happen. And once you see it happen, then you'll you'll gain the confidence to start doing it more often.
Yeah.
So with that in mind, one of the things that I that I wonder a lot about hunting in a situation like you're in. You know, that putting time into a specific location and the balancing act there. You know, here in the Midwest, super high deer densities. You know, if I hunt a spot once or twice, there's twenty thirty forty deer that you know might pass through there and smell me if I'm not careful about what I
did in your neck of the woods. I'm assuming that you know, it might be days before the buck you're after passes through an area. Maybe maybe not, maybe wrong about that, But how do you think about that kind of volume of hunt decision for a specific location like that when you're chasing one of these really old deer. I'm assuming those really old deer, you know, don't put up with a whole lot of human pressure. So I
would imagine that's something that you're worried about. But at the same time, to your point, you need to be willing to put in some time in a place for them to finally come through. How do you think about that or what does that look like for you when when weighing those two sides of the decision.
You know, to be honest with you, I try to avoid pressured areas. I think that is one advantage that I have here in the mountains of Virginia. You know, we don't have the hunting pressure like some of the Midwestern states, you know, but obviously I'm not gonna hunt where everybody else is going to hunt. And that's one reason that those a lot of those older age class bucks avoid those type of areas that most you know, everybody's seeing the sign end they're setting up there, so
they encountering uh, human scent. Uh, they may even see people in those type of places, So that's another reason that they're going to avoid those type of spots. So but uh, one thing that that probably goes against the grain of a lot of conventional thinking or things that you've heard, is that hunting pressure makes bucks go nocturnal, and that that's actually not the case.
They're either nocturnal or they're not.
And uh, and the reason I say that is because a lot of the older age class bucks that I hunt, they are nocturnal and they've they've hardly been hunted, they hardly ever see a person and uh, and they're still nocturnal, so that that's not what's making them nocturnal. It's just their personality. But hunting pressure of what it does is it moves the deer around and uh makes some avoid areas.
So you know, that's that's the type of spous that you want to start seeking out the top of places that they're traveling through to avoid other people.
You know. So that that brings a question or brings to mind the question of what does happen for you when you find one of those nocturnal bucks he's nocturnal not because of pressure, but because he's just that way. Do you just move on to a different deer? Or okay, so how do you hunt a buck like that, an old deer who just is naturally nocturnal? In my world, I would think, well, I'm just not close enough to his core area then just getting nighttime pickture are not
close enough? Is that the case where you are too or something?
Oh? Yes, yes, no, that that's exactly what it is. These older age class bucks that you know, if I could paint a picture of how their daily movement would be, they do move throughout the day, but it is very very short distances and really and truly if if you're not within especially you know, coming up through October September, October first, November, if you're not within two hundred yards of where that deer is bedded, and in most cases, I'm going to say less than that, you have almost
no chance of seeing that deer. So you have to and that's the important part of winter scouting. You can learn so much about individual bucks. And that's something else too. Once you start hunting individual bucks, you you will accelerate your learning of old age class deer exponentially once you start doing that, because you start you're forced to think
differently and scouting during the wintertime. You know, once you find a specific buck that you want to hunt and you go in there during the wintertime shed hunt and trying to find his sheds, really picking apart his core area or trying to find his core area. You know, that's that's the most important part, and you just start
piecing everything together. You know, you're trying to find every bit of evidence that you can that that particular deer is leaving behind, and you're able to paint a picture of where you know, most likely he's you know, spending his day, daytime hours. And then once you figure that out, then you start picking out the places that you think that you can have encounters with him, you know, so it's really not that difficult.
I know that it sounds.
Difficult and and the having the encounter is is difficult, But figuring out where you need to be is not that difficult. Yeah, and uh, and it just takes a lot of scouting and uh and the best time to do that is during the winter time.
How do you do you have any system for keeping track of all of these data points or is it all in your head? Like when I say data points, I mean like all the things you're scouting and noticing, all of the things that you're picking up when you're out there hunting and observe something, all of the trail camera photos that you get of these specific bucks. Do you track it in any way? Do you journal? Do
you have spreadsheets? Do you have any kind of way to organize this or do you just keep it keep it top of mind?
No, I just keep it top of mind. I mean I think about the darn things year round.
Now. I do use my mapping apps.
I use Spartan Forge myself, and uh, you know, I wheel mark key features or key points. You know that I think that I need to remember and something that I feel like is important. And you know that those type of things, you know, way heavily on where I feel like that I need to set up on him or where I think that he's you know, at so, but as far as journaling, know, I don't journal, you know, I'm sure a lot of guys do that and have you know, find good use out of it.
It's just something that I've never done.
Sure tendencies. We've talked about a number of different ways we can try to pick up on a bucks tendencies. And one of the things you mentioned for a lot of these old deer is that they just do not move a whole lot away from their bed in daylight. But there are a lot of outside factors that deer hunters like to debate about how they might impact a deer's decision to get up and move on his feet,
stuff like temperature, wind, moon, precipitation, barometric pressure. Have you seen anything like that uniquely influenced all bucks getting up and moving during daylight? What's it look like in your neck of the woods when it comes to is there something that really does make a difference or is it all kind of you know, a bunch of hope.
You know, I personally like cold bluebirds guys, and you know, that's whenever I see most of my movement. I've never been a very big fan of rainy days, you know, I have just not seen that many deer on those type of days. Now, I do like hunting after you know, a good front moves through. And you know, of course, now one of the bucks that I'm hunting this year, and this is one of the only deer that I've actually seen this with, but seemed like he likes to
move on days with some precipitation. I do get him moving a lot, but he's one of the only deer that I've ever noticed doing that. You know, I just I don't think that our deer here in the mountains, you know, I see you know, YouTube videos and stuff of guys in the Midwest hunting beans and corn and the snow. You know, they're hunting times with a lot of snow. You know, it's just pouring the snow and the deer just piling into those type of places. You
don't see that here in the mountains. And I think one reason is is just because we don't have the right type of food to make him move on those type of days. You know, I think that our deer are just better off to hold up and wait it out and not expend any energy. And once everything clears up, then you know, move after the front has done a move through and things kind of start warming up.
So okay, that makes sense. I get there. So what about time of year? You know, a lot of fo folks don't like the rut for hunting the really old deer, especially when they're trying to hunt one specific buck, because it's hard to make predictions about what they're going to do. But in your you know, in the scenario've been talking through, that also might be one of the only things that gets one of these deer moving a little bit earlier.
When do you think the very best time to kill a deer of this age is in the mountains that you're talking about hunting?
What's that?
If you could pick like a week, what's that very best week? A week I'm going to say first week of December. I love October, and I think that's a great time to kill a specific deer. But you know, I'm like a lot of others, you know, if I'm hunting a very specific deer, November is not my favorite time to do that. If I'm just trying to kill a good deer. Then, of course November is my favorite time. But yeah, I see a lot of the older age class bucks on their feet the first week of December.
Trail cameras prove it.
Just hearing people talk about, you know, that they've seen some giant you know, somewhere that they had never seen before. And it's always during that time period, you know, but that that first week of December is excellent, and even up through up to Christmas, you know, you'll catch them out moving around quite a bit during that time.
What do you think that is? Is that just you know, just trying to get the feet on and pack on some energy before the end of or before the real hard winder picks up, or is it that like post rut trying to catch that very last you know, dough that cycled in or something like that.
Yes, yeah, I don't think our winners are tough enough to form to be on any kind of a feeding frenzy during that time period. I feel sure that it's rut related because you catch them on scrapes during that time. It's like scrapes reopen up, you know. As matter of fact, that one of the bucks that i'm hunting this year. He I caught him on a very specific scrape numerous times through December and even up into January, almost of February.
So the rut brings up a I mentioned, or I thought about asking this earlier, but what about how these really old deer partaken the rut? You know, like, have you seen on average that these oldest deer get going sooner or later? Have you found some one phase of the rut or another is when they are more active than the other deer? What's that look like for you?
Does understand that?
Yeah, yeah, seems like the middle of November, you know, seem like younger age class bucks, you know, two three four year olds, they definitely get started earlier in the rut. And it's just like teenage boys, you know, they just they're excited, they're not they're not educated, you know. There and these older age class bucks they've done, have been through all that, so they you know that, they really don't start showing up and making their presence known until,
you know, generally middle of November. You know, whenever, thing's whenever, basically when the dose are ready, you know. And I really believe that a lot of these older age class bucks. Are you know that they they kind of have their what's the word, I'm looking for reputation you might say, in an area and you know, the dose know that he's there.
And I believe a lot of the doves seek them out.
And that's another thing that makes them older age class bucks so hard to kill, and even see it's because they're not having to do anything to get with those. A lot of times the dose I feel like, go looking for them.
Mm hmm. Yeah.
So all of that said, then I feel like what I've been trying to do here is kind of paint a picture of like what these old bucks world looks like, how they operate, what their tendencies are, what some of their behavioral quirks are. And you have so much experience with these types of deer, this age of deer, that you've got a great You've been able to provide a
lot of interesting insight into that. But the next question that this kind of leads to then is, Okay, so they do this and this and this, and they don't do that, that and that. How the hell do you kill one of them? Given all of that? Yeah, and so so my next question is just like patterning one of these deer like trying to figure out how to actually set up on a specific old buck like you're describing. And you mentioned that you're after like one or two
really old deer like this this year. And I don't know if if you could use one of these deer as an example, or if you just want to use an old deer from the past as an example, but I would love to hear specifically, you know, what the steps are for you to put together, you know, an actionable plan for a buck like this. You mentioned, you know, doing the winter scouting. I know you use trail cameras.
I know you're studying these maps and you're thinking through some of these different you know, personality traits of these dear, But I'd love to kind of hear some specifics about what that looks like and what is enough information for you to then say, Okay, this is the time, this is the place I'm going to make my move. Could you walk me through either a specific example or hypothetical like that.
Yeah, I'll talk about a few different things here. This is going to be kind of a smorgas board of things. One thing that I do that helps me is I run my trail cameras on video mode all the time. You wouldn't believe what you will learn about a book just by running your trail cameras on video mode. And I'll give you an example. One of the books that I'm hunting this year, the one that I was hanging that I had on the scrape, you know, through December
and January. Well, in one of the videos, I actually seen him use the bathroom, you know, leave turns right there in the scrape. Well, I went immediately and looked at those droppings, and I learned to identify his droppings versus every other deer. And yeah, and so whenever I'm in there shed hunting and scouting, I'm able to identify exactly what trails this deer has been on, what trails he has not been on, areas that he has been in, and areas that he has not been in. So it's
just stuff like that. And even you know, on the inside of his right main beam, he had a sticker that was about probably two inches long. I didn't find his right side, but I was able to locate his left side. But I just started analyzing the rubs and stuff in the area, and I was able to pick out what was mostly his rubs. Now you can't, you know, I identify everyone, but you know some are going to
have that marking on it, you know. So it's just really looking at everything through a microscope, if you want to call it, and just analyzing all the sign that you're coming up on, you know, and eventually you start to put together a picture of where this deer is using, you know. And and something else about these older age class bucks is a lot of times that you know, they may be feeding in the same general type areas, but a lot of times they bed in a totally
different direction. So you know, keeping that in mind, you know you're scouting, you're seeing the most heavy deer sign, and you know the direction that it's going back up into, well you need to check that out, but you also need to check out in other directions and you'll you'll soon realize that a lot of these these older bucks, they're coming from completely different directions. And so that that
brings up another thing too. A lot of times, especially whenever you have agriculture low and bedding up high, and these deer coming off these secondary ridges down into these agriculture or form type areas. You know, throughout most of the season older age class bucks, their movement is going to be in parallel with the other deer. In other words, they're going to be moving top to bottom uh and and vice versa, just like the other deer are.
But they might be just off the trails.
You know, they're not going to necessarily be used in the same trails, but they're going to be moving back and forth in the same direction. But the closer it gets to rut, the more from UH, that's going to change from parallel to perpendicular in a lot of instances. In other words, those bucks instead of traveling up and down once they start looking for those, they're going to be cutting across those second ridges. And it's just a lot more efficient for him to locate those that are
coming into estras that way. So, you know, just given the time of season is going to have a bearing on where I want to hunt that deer, and and my winter scouting, you know, of course, is going to put me in the right locations because you know, I already know if I kill this deer, I know what trees I'm going to kill him out of. You know, So except for early season. Now, early season was a
little bit different because of food. But once the leaves come off and we get into November and then even into December, you know, I know where he's going to be.
So you mentioned cameras on the top there and mentioned that the run them on video. I've heard you say in the past that you run maybe seventy five percent of your cameras on scrapes, and that you run your cameras year round or close to it. Yes, okay, so I want to confirm that's true, and part two of that would be, can you elaborate a little bit more
on where you're positioning these cameras. You know, I think a lot about when I'm setting cameras, not only trying to locate the bucks them after, but also not spooking them also now you know, putting them in a place where I'm not going to spook them coming in and out. If I have to do that, I might be thinking about other hunters. But you mentioned that you're hunting where there's not pressure, and so these deer very rarely encounter people,
and maybe they rarely encounter cameras. So I'm curious does any of that cause you to do something different with your trail camera strategy or placement or anything like that.
Yeah, I place my cameras in areas that I for the most part, do not intend to hunt because all I want to know is, well, you know, I just want to verify that he's there, and I want to know what he looks like. My scouting is going to tell me where I need to hunt him. You know, I don't need to run trail cameras back in close to his core area or anything like that. And the type of and and like I said, I run most
of my cameras on scrapes. I'm looking for those annual scrapes there that have multiple liking branches, multiple multiple bucks are going to be heating and uh, but that those are type of scrapes that I put my cameras on.
Any anything as far as the height of your cameras or do you are you okay just put them smackedab in front of the deer uh FEI the.
Way, No, I try not to do that.
I don't want my cameras to be obnoxious, you know, I want them to because now some some bucks do shy away from them, you know. Uh. There again it goes back to personality some of them. It doesn't bother them at all, but some it does, and uh, I
just don't take that chance. I make sure that my cameras, you know, I probably put my cameras probably a round eight feet high and uh there again, I put them in locations that I can you know, sneak in check them, uh and uh and be able to get back out without messing up in my chances of killing that deer, you know, because you know, checking your trail cameras and stuff, and you know you're leaving human sit around and you know that that that's that's not gonna cause him go nocturnal,
but that will make him not want to be there during daylight hours in that particular spot. You know, there's a difference between a nocturnal buck and uh where he moves during the daylight versus during the dark. You know, truly, there's no such thing as a nocturnal buck because they they all will move, but it's just they they won't visit certain areas during the daylight they you know, and I find that scrapes are areas that they don't like to visit during the daylight. Not not in not where
I hunt anyway. Now Ohio is completely different there, but now here in Virginia in the mountains.
Uh.
From my experience, I get very very few uh camera pictures of bucks in the daylight.
Do you have any guess as to why that is different in Ohio versus where you are?
Huh? Not really? I mean, I don't know why.
I've got a guess on why my bucks here in Virginia don't like to visit scrapes during the daylight. I feel like that if it's a very specific thing that those bucks don't want to be standing there for some reason in the daylight, they'll be around, you know, because
I've actually seen this. I've seen I've been hunting a scrape before, and I have seen a buck feeding under a white oak or read whatever, you know, just an oak out from me seventy five to hundred yards and be therefore, you know, an hour before it gets dark. But he would never venture over to that scrape. But as soon as it gets dark, you can hear him walk straight over to it and he'll work it and
everything else sthing he walks off, you know. But it's most like they don't want to go to a very specific thing like a scrape during the daylight.
Now, why they want to be that way, I.
Don't know, strange And is that unique to those mature bucks or do you see that with like all the bucks and you.
Honestly that you know it's you know, bucks even as young as three, but especially once they start getting four years old and older, then yeah, for sure those deer.
Interesting you mentioned scent, leaving your scent on the ground and when you're walking in check cameras. You know, these days, it's kind of trendy within the world of like DIY deer hunters, especially public land deer hunters, to say, send controls for the birds. You just got to play the wind, right. There's a lot of people that kind of like brag about how they don't practice any kind of send control
because they can just they can understand the wind really well. Right, But I noticed that that's not the case for you.
You seem to take it serious, can you? I want to answer that really good.
Listen.
You spend all this time, money, and effort to scout and find these places. Why in the world would you be so lazy to skip one of the simplest things, sink control.
Uh, you know it. To me, it's just laziness.
But at the same time, it's one of the most simple things that you can do to protect where you're hunting. You know, you need to be able to get in and out of that spot undetected. If you can't do that, then you're going to burn that spot out. And here
in the mountains, it takes two things. That is one of the most important things to be a successful big buck killer here in the mountains, if you want to say, is persistence and dedication and a lot of times that means putting a lot of time in very specific spots. And if you can't get in and out those spots without leaving a bunch of scent uh and trashing up the area, then uh, why would you know you're going to be sitting there for hours and days on end and uh and just you know for for not so
why would you skip that step? Because trust me, I have been doing this for years. And you can play out play the wind all you want. I play the wind, but you cannot always predict where the deer is going to come from. That is impossible. They don't always come in with the nose their or their nose to the wind.
Uh.
And they don't always come in with their the wind blowing from their tail forward. You know, you just don't know. So the best practice is to practice sin control to the best you humanly can. You know, I just don't understand these guys that don't take it any more serious than what they do. You know, I've heard that a lot, So yeah, I'm right there with you.
If there's there's so many variables outside of your control when you're trying to chase these deer, why wouldn't you want to have one of those things you can control that you do have one hundred percent control for. Why wouldn't you take advantage of that part to put a little bit more in your favor, to have that little insurance policy? Like you said, it seems like an elaborate excuse just not to do the work.
Yeah, that's right.
So, speaking of impact we make in the woods, there's there's scent, there's your cameras, there's how many times you hunt. We've talked about all those so far. But what about the impact that something like calling or rattling might make when it comes to these extra mature mountain bucks. You know, would you ever call a rattle to a seven year old eight year old buck in the mountains of Virginia
or Ohio. How do you see them reacting to that kind of thing when we're talking about like a super mature deer compared to a two year old.
Uh in Ohio. I would I would definitely call to those deer. I've had positive that. Now I don't do any rattling. But now I've had, you know, some positive experiences with bucks in Ohio, you know, But now here in Virginia in the mountains, I don't call to him.
The only time that I ever called to a buck here in the mountains is if he if he is going to you know, going away from me, or you know, in other words, if I know that I'm not going to get an opportunity at him, I'll blow agrunk call at him a few times in hopes that to turn him and get his curiosity up and bring him down there. But other than that, I don't do any blind calling. I don't do any rattling. I just prefer to sit silently, you know.
Yeh, all right, Nathan, I've got two last questions for you before you wrap this up. Kind of want to tie a bow on this if you had to, and I'll give you a second to think this through. But if you had to like write the three Commandments of Nathan killing when it comes to understanding and hunting old
old bucks like your top tiered salty dog deer. What would that, like those three commandments be if you had to drill down to the very three most important things you understand about these deer or that you must do to get a crack at these deer. What do you think those three things would be? The things that if they remember nothing else today, they have to remember these three things. What would those be?
Number one would be hunt them differently. They're different.
You can the chances of you killing more than one mature book in your lifetime be Hunting deer is very very slim. You have to hunt them as individuals. Number two would be do your winter scouting. I don't you know. I see guys scouting right now. They're scouting their hearts out, and I'm not. You know, My scouting was done before
the leaves came on the trees. The only thing that I do this time of year is round Montreal cameras, and they're in low impact areas and I'm only looking to see what he looks like now and to verify that yes, he's still alive. So I stay out of the woods, you know. And I want to say number three, persistence and dedication. The older age class bucks are not pushovers. It takes time and a lot of effort. You just got to keep going and keep going and keep going,
and hunt smart. Don't get lazy, don't get sloppy. You've got to be cistant, and you've got to be very precise at how you hunt these deer.
So yeah, all right, Well, I'm gonna get those carved in stone, and I'm gonna send out copies of the tablets across the country for folks to make sure they don't forget this. But tell me this, Nathan, I gotta believe in your many years of chasing these deer and getting to know these old bucks, I'm sure they've taught you a whole lot. I'm sure that you've probably learned
a whole lot from the deer themselves. So I'm curious if you could think back, is there any one specific big old buck that stands out in your memory as having taught you either the most important lesson or the most lessons. Can you think back to any specific example of a deer that taught you something really, really important and if you can think of a buck like that, could you share with us, you know, the story of what that buck, what that buck taught you, and how you learned that lesson.
It would probably be a buck that I didn't kill. I've got some sheds off of him, and I would get pictures of him up until about October, well September, and then it's like he just disappeared. And then but yet once season was over, I was always able to locate his sheds and they would be there.
And uh, but.
I guess that lesson would be is is, most of the time, whenever you think that they're going, they're not. It's just they're doing something different than what you think that they're doing. And that just goes right back to if you're not, you know, to doing things differently to get on these older age class bucks because they're again they're different.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's it's such a hard thing to put into action though for a lot of us, right, yeah, because you want to see deer, right and the sign often tells you, like where deer are, and your observations often tell well, there's deer here, and it's really hard to avoid, you know what. Ninety five percent of all your observations and everything else tells you should work, but you're not looking for a ninety five percent deer. You're looking for that top five or top two or top one percent buck.
That's like you said different.
Let me tell you one thing that probably changed the course of my thinking as far as hunting older age bucks. And it wasn't any particular thing that happened. It's more of an idea. But I was a lot younger, and you know, you would see people kill these big bucks and I wanted to kill one two. But one thing that I noticed is the real giants that were killed. And whenever I say real giants, I'm talking about the
best bucks from my area. A lot of times we're killed by people that you nothing about deer hunting, and uh, they were hunting places that you would never hunt those deer. And so that is one thing that got me to thinking about hunting areas with uh with the least deer sign and and and I believe that's that's one thing that changed my hunting is just realizing that, you know, hey, I'm hunting places that are just too deary, if that makes sense. I need to hunt the places that are buckey, not deary.
Yeah.
Yeah, and that is a big distinct, big distinguishing thing right there. Yes, but but yeah, like you said, those big old guys, they don't want to be surrounded by a bunch of kids and moms. Right, that's the old grumpy man. This is Clint Eastwood on the front porch saying get out of here, don't want to be by myself.
That's a perfect analogy, Clint Eastwood. I like that.
Yep, that's that's what we're looking for. Soh so with that image in our minds, and I guess that's a good way to wrap this up. Nathan. For folks that want to follow along with your season or see anything else from me, is there anywhere you would direct people to go or to connect with you any kind of way?
Yeah, you know, I'm just on Instagram. I'm a mountain hunter on there. You can search my name Nathan Kiellen or the Stick Boys. You know, I'm really good friends with those guys. I've got a few scouting videos on
their YouTube channel and a couple of deer hunts. I'm no videographer or anything like that, but you know, you can They've got some really good stuff on there too that they've done, you know, so, but yeah, that's the that's the two places I'm I'm not real social, but I do that a little bit.
So that's great.
I've checked out some of those videos and and I enjoyed them. There's a nice little bit of combination of getting to see what you're doing in the field, but then also you explaining what happened or why you did things, or even a couple of them, there's some map breakdowns which are really helpful to see. So it's good stuff. Nathan, Man, I really appreciate you taking this time to talk through all this and kind of let me take you down the wormhole and into the minds.
Of these big old deer. Yeah. Yeah, I enjoyed it.
I enjoy anytime anybody wants to sit and listen to me rattle on about them.
So me too.
Well, let's plan doing again someday down the road, Nathan, and hopefully we'll hear a new story or two about that deer. You get a crack out hopefully here in a couple of months or weeks. Yep, yep, all right, good luck this year, Nathan.
All right, youtubo buddy, thank you all.
Right, and that is a wrap. Thank you all for tuning in. Hope you enjoy this one as much as I did. We are getting into the season. It is real, my friends. I'm kicking off my first hunt this week, so I will hopefully have a story for you very soon about some exciting hunts and, if nothing else, some lessons learned, which is always an important takeaway from each hunt that we can bring home with us no matter what happens at the end of the day. So best
of luck out there as you get after it. I hope you have a lot of fun, enjoy the process. The results will follow Until next week. Stay wired to Hunt.