Ep. 699: Mark Drury’s Masterclass on Mature Buck Behavior

National Deer Association. Pretty cool stuff right there. Proud to have them support in this podcast, and I am proud to be bringing you a dang good episode today, folks, We've got a banger for you. Every year, I like to get my good buddy, mister Mark Drury on this show because I think he's, without a doubt, one of the very, very very best out there. He's a great communicator, a great hunter of course, and just someone who has a mind unlike many others when it comes to understanding

big old bucks. And as you hopefully know by now, our theme this month of September has been getting into the minds of those biggest, oldest deer. What do these super mature deer do think? Why do they do things? What can we learn about these mature bucks that can help us as hunters if we so choose to chase that kind of buck. So today that's what we're doing. Mark has got all sorts of experience over decades and decades and decades of watching these kinds of deer, studying

these kinds of deer, and successfully hunting them. So today

I'm breaking it all down with Mark. We're asking him everything from, you know, the different personality traits he's seen in super mature bucks, to the consistencies he's seen with those types of deer as well as the weird quirks and the weird personality traits that he's seen that have kind of bucked the trend, and how he've studied those, how he's learned those, and how he's been able to apply the unique insights that you can get when trying to figure out a specific old buck and then try

to catch up with him. So we get into a lot of good stuff. This is a terrific episode. I want to just give you a couple quick reminders and updates before we get into the meat and potatoes here. So number one, I've mentioned this over the last three weeks, and I'm gonna mention it again. Yes, today's episode is

about big old deer, mature bucks. I want to make sure if you're listening to this though, and you've never killed a big old buck, or if that's something you're not sure you want to do, or you're not sure if you're gonna do, don't worry about it. That's fine, that's cool. Shoot the first dear you see if that makes you happy, Shoot a dough if that makes you happy, Shoot a spike if that makes you happy, Shoot a two year old, a three year old, whatever it is.

Have fun out there. That's what deer hunting is all about. Do not worry at all about what you see in the magazine covers or what you hear Marjory talking about when it comes to the kinds of deer he's personally choosing to hunt. Don't let what I choose to hunt impact you at all. Hunt your own hunt whatever it

is that you want to chase. That is awesome. If I could, I'd give you a big old high five, no matter what kind of deer you're shooting, because this is about hunting your own personal hunt for your own personal reasons. As long as you're doing it ethically and legally, we support you and we want you to have fun out there, so make sure you're doing that. Do not let anyone's personal goals influence or pressure you into doing

something you're not sure you want to. All that said, we are excited to talk about old deer because they are cool, they are fascinating, they are challenging, and if you are at that point in your hunting journey where that's what you're doing, Mark's got a lot to share. So that's point number one. Point number two. Last week actually last weekend, I was down in Mississippi for one of my Working for Wildlife Tour events and it was awesome, and I just want to say thank you to everybody

who came out. We had more than eighty volunteers who came out to work on this National forest to do some good work on public land. It's gonna help deer, it's gonna help quail, it's gonna help turkeys, it's gonna help birds and butterflies and endangered go for tortoises and all sorts of critters are gonna benefit from the work that these hunters and anglers did. We planned thirty five acres of food plots and two hundred crab apple trees.

Let me say that again, thirty five acres of food plots and two hundred crab apple trees on public land. How awesome is that. It was just a terrific event. We had a lot of fun, got to share stories. I just I loved it. It was charging it, it was energizing, and I'm feeling great about that. And I want to give you guys all the heads up that our last event is coming up in Kentucky on October fourteenth. So if you are in southern Illinois, southern Indiana, southern Ohio, Kentucky,

anywhere around there, this is your chance. This is your last chance for the year to come and hang out with me. And this week, my good buddy Yannis Putellis is gonna be joining me for that event. So come on down hang with me and Yanni. We're gonna be working on the Daniel Boone National Forest near the town of London, Kentucky, and we're gonna be doing a white oak acorn collection project so they can use these acorns to reforce other parts of the national force. So it's

gonna be a great event. We're gonna have fun together, We're gonna tell some stories. We're gonna share some hunting tips and tricks, probably along the way since we'll be leading into the pre rut. But hey, it's October fourteenth, that's not a bad day to take the midday off and go do some good work for a while. If take that middle of the part of the day off,

if you want, you can hunt that night. Still. You can get out on Sunday and still hunt, but give me just a little bit of your time if you're in that zone, to give back to these critters, give back to public land, have some fun with your fellow hunters and anglers, and then we can all dive in with both feet into the pre rut, leading into the rut and all the crazy stuff that's about to come in. But I'm telling you, it's gonna be some good karma if you get out there and pick up some acorns

with me. So now, my friends, my family, my people, my fellow whitetail nerds, it is time to chat with the one and only the mad scientist himself, one of the best to ever do it, mister Mark Drury. Here we go all right back with me on the show. We've got the one and only mister Mark Drury. Mark, thanks for being here.

this is great. We're off to a great start, and then slowly but surely, over the next three or four nights it got worse and worse and worse, less age class walking to no age class to very few deer walking. As the temperatures heated up, the pressure dropped, and acorns have started to fall, very typical this time of the year Phase one from a thirteen perspective, they just all kind of kind of vanished. So we'd made a collective

decision to stay out until conditions got better. Rather than burn our spots, we just let our self cams kind of dictate what we're doing. And we really haven't hunted the last four or five days here, so we're going to go again tonight and tomorrow night, and then probably relax a day or two. And then there's a little

front coming through. It's not a major, it's a minor, but the pressure is rising after this front, which I think will help because we're getting not only rising pressure but into a rising moon, and I think both of those conditions will help as we we go into next week and next week our catcher dream family arrives. So I always try to plan that hunt in and around favorable conditions. This year, I put it exactly on the three nights that the rising moon was perfect in terms

of daylight activity for an afternoon movement. So they're going to be hunting the twenty seven, twenty eighth, and twenty ninth of September with us, So that'll be here in Iowa. Of course, we've been hunting in Missouri because the youth the youth season is going on here in Iowa. So that's that's what we're preparing for. We've done a lot of work getting ready to make sure we've we've got

Cooper in the right spot. So that's always a fun, fun hunt and one that we want to make sure we're prepared for.

really react, I think, to change with weather. You know, if you watch deer cast and you see those changes come and go, and you have a bad period and then it dips down and all of a sudden, boom, there's a high pressure system with cold weather and rain, they get up and they get moving. But when everything is just the same, the temperature, the pressure, especially if the pressures down below you know, twenty nine point nine or something, and nothing's changing, it's very difficult to get

a target deer on his feet during daylight. You can still do it, but you've got to be you know, you know, it'd be risky to get as close as you need to be to get him during daylight. It can still happen, but it's not going to be with the frequency or the likelihood as if you had those changes coming through with weatherfronts. It's just not. So that's what I see in the future here. Hopefully it gets better. But you know, we are coming out of the darker moon,

getting into first quarter. It's starting to rise, and hopefully it's real good next week when it turns full. I mean, we historically we've killed so many deer in and around our full moon. If you get the right weather conditions that it's generally more daylight activities. So I'm hoping it's better. And I'm certainly hoping it's better for Terry. He's really on a big deer this year and it's big, big, so I'm hoping he gets the right conditions to get that deer killed.

is the difference between the two states. I mean, you're only as good as your spot, and you're certainly only as good as your state, you know. So I think that's that's a big tell because when we go to Missouri, our results are very similar to Terry. But here and I where they they they are generally just bigger deer.

do their thing? And you are someone Mark who has you know, literally made a living on understanding those questions and have have become someone that a lot of us have looked to as far as figuring out the answers to those questions. So so my first question for remark on that topic then, is just why that kind of deer gets you the way it does the way I know it does. I mean, I think we've got some

assumptions about why it probably does. But what is it about those oldest deer Mark that just keeps you up at night and keeps you looking at the phone or the hard drive with all your cell cam pictures or whatever it is and the maps? What is it about that kind of deer that that really gets you excited.

and a half three and a half. As you're looking through your pictures, the more likely deer that's going to be in front of that camera during the daylight event is something that's that's immature two and a half three and a half, and I personally think the species is built for about three and a half. If you look at how many get to four, five or six, it's not a high likelihood that they're going to even live

to that age. Natural mortality is much greater on mature bucks, and by the time they get there, they've seen it all, done it all, and not only that, their metabolism is starting to slow down and they're not moving as much to food and back and forth. I always correlate them to an older pet. If you watch a dog when the dog's one and a half to say five and a half, when they're still in their youth or their prime,

they're quite active. And then by the time they say they get to that twelve, thirteen, fourteen year old status, they've slowed down. They're sitting on the porch and not getting up much during daylight hours, or not getting much at all. They sleep a lot, and I think you can relate that to an old buck at age five, six or seven. At age five, they're still in pretty good shape. Age six, I call that the ghost here man. They are really really tough to run into a six

and a half year old buck. You have to be extremely lucky or have really optimal conditions and be hunting close to his bedroom without him knowing you're there in order to kill a six and a half year old deer. By the time they get to seven and eight, all of a sudden, things turn around a little bit and food becomes more important all of a sudden, so you can really break down mature deer into some categories. Five they'll still daylight a little bit much like they did

at four six. I think it's the ghost year in my opinion, they're very tough to run into seven, still pretty tough by the time they're eight and nine if

things haven't hampered their antler development. They get a lot of health issues the older they get, and a lot of reasons why all of a sudden they don't look so good, you know, because they've gone through multiple ruts, they've gone through you know, potential EHD or other diseases and little bitty things affect them, and all of a sudden that antler development doesn't look as good when they're eight or nine. So the likelihood of killing a trophy

nine year old number one, is it great? Because you know, chances are they're dead by the time they get that age Number two, if they are, did did they have enough health throughout their life that they are of trophy status? So that's really taking a deep dive into different ages. But in reality, I think, probably realistically, this question is about five and six year old deer because it's not likely you're going to be hunting one much older than that.

If you are a blessing and a rare occurrence, and you may not get to hunt another one the rest of your life. That's seven or eight. So I really hone in on what that deer's home core area has been, and then where I think he's going to be, because that's the other thing I've seen through time, as the age that home core starts to shriek just a little bit. And what food sources did he daylight on in years past? What food sources am I hunting this year? And sometimes

that slot machine. I always say, it takes so many events to be in your favor for the slot machine to be all all jokers and you're going to kill that deer. You know, is the food pattern and the weather matching something that he daylighted on in your hunting area in years past. The likelihood is less that he's going to do it because he's more mature. So long,

long answer to your question. That's what keeps me up at night trying to figure those things out, to get that slot machine to line up to where I actually have a chance of seeing that deer during daylight and having him close enough for a bow shot. They're very tough creatures to run into, and you've got to have your A game on in order to succeed with them. That much. I know, man, they're tough critters. Your access

has to be right. You got to pick the right days, and then when you get your shot, you can't fall apart. You got to make that shot because you're probably don't going to get one chance to get two not very high. So there's a lot of pressure and just just a lot of things that go into you know, put yourself in that situation.

I want to clarify a little bit. You made a really interesting point, and I talked to we talked to Don Higgins last week and he said something similar when it comes to the trajectory of uh almost of difficulty of killing these deer, and that they have that window like five six maybe where it's really really hard, and then because I become so mature, it starts to maybe

slope down a little bit. If you were to imagine like a line graph that were to show, you know, the the rising difficulty of killing a deer and then the peak of difficulty and then that slope down. Am I right? And that you're saying it is a slow rise from one, two, three, four, and then it peaks at five and six, and then it drops down a little bit from seven to eight and then kind of

plateau's there? Is that right? Or is there a big jump somewhere, And if so, where is that biggest jump in difficulty.

on you know, trail monitoring history. And then it seems like about eight they start to perhaps become more more dependent on diet and slaves to their stomach again, you know, young deer when they're growing before they physiologically mature at age four and a half, back and forth to that food frequently, and they'll get out there early and they

got to eat a lot because they're still growing. But then they mature and that slows down, and I think on the back end of that curve, somewhere around eight years old, they start going back to food, particularly in the winter. It's not as it's not as prevalent in the early season, but during the winter they know what's coming, and they're a little bit again. They've had a lot of health issues leading up to this. You know, it's it's it's a tough living for a white tailed deer

out in the wild. And by the time of deer's eight years old or even seven, depending on how many health issues they've had, particularly that season you're in, they're going to be out there on that food source in December January with that rough weather and that much, I can promise you, and the same is true. I think one of the best windows of opportunity for any mature deer is December. And you know, we nicknamed it December

years ago. When they go through that rut, it's really tough on them because they're exhorting so much energy and then they've got a refuel for the tough winter coming. And if you get the right weather in December, that is the most likely month that a mature buck's going to daylight. I've got plans this season for some deer that come back during December and are very very visible during December, whereas in October and November you just can't run into him. You might November if you get lucky,

but October is tough. I'm hunting a deer in Missouri right now that at age two, three four, he'd daylight on this interior plot every night or well, you know, three times a week. And he hasn't daylighted one time yet this year. Yeah, and he's five and a half, and I think he will. But that's a very very

good example. And I was just before we got on this podcast, I was looking at my historical pictures through him, and I'm putting a file together on him because I've been hunting him, and in my mind, I thought we're gonna be able to kill this year because I've seen him so many times on his plot and he's daylighted a lot all of a sudden, the earliest pictures I have of him this year nine twenty nine thirty something like that. I'm like, I better go back and look

and see what he's been like historically. And there's a there's a little window here when he was four and a half, from about the twenty second of September through about October the eleventh or twelfth. That was pretty good, which is one of my favorite phases. It's greener pastors because they've gotten out of those bean fields. Suddenly they're focused in on a different food source. And we've got a really good looking greenfield on this interior plot. And

I do believe he beds closed. We'll find out whether he's going to daylight this coming year. My suspicion is, I need a really good weather system with a favorable moon phase in order to go in there and have luck on him this year. I think those are the things I talk about that slot machine lining up. All the factors have to be right, you know, including your access, including the weather, including his his bed pass as compared to food, because they just don't move very fast. They

don't move very far. If he's betted too far, he's not going to make it there till last light. So everything's got to line up to get that job.

figure out. But you also have the changing crop rotation. So in this case, I've got a five year old, and this year it's a corn year in the area that he lives in, So it's a corn here this year as a five year old. As a four year old though, beans, So the last time I had a corn here was him as a three year old, And so as we just talked about, like three year olds are almost a different species than a five year old.

And so I'm sitting here debating, like, do I even put any value into these pictures and sightings that I had when he was a crazy three year old, even though that was also the last time I had the same food and and habitat. How do you how do you weigh that?

same year and see how they acted. That's something else I do a lot is not just a particular deer, but mature deer in general. Like when did they daylight? When it was in corn? When was the corn cuts? Also a big, big different differentiator. Sometimes wet weather can delay cornfields coming out, which increases his bedroom, which makes him very very tricky to run into. Hopefully they'll get

it out of there. And another thing I've noticed, you know, the farming equipment is so much more effective and there's not a lot of residue left anymore, so that that makes it very challenging when those fields are cleaned up. I don't know, you know, your your best farmer in your area is the guy that's got the older cob boys that leaves a lot of a lot of corn fields.

So you got you kind of have to know your farmer in their equipment, you know, in terms of what you could expect in terms of residue on a field.

environment and conservation and everything of the soil. But it does change the game for us deer hunters, you know, so you have to be mindful of that too. Is your guy one of those guys that puts a cover crop on as soon as he as soon as he you know, if he's a no tail guy, he may very well cover crop it. And then that's really tricky when you've got a giant green field. That makes it tough. Yeah, really tough.

that you've seen. Is there any trend that you've noticed with that age class deer as far as a generality when it comes to behavior shifts or anything outside of the corrier a shrinking.

on of all thirteen to kill a mature deer. That twenty fifth, twenty six, twenty seven, twenty eight, twenty nine, thirty at thirty first, with the right weather, the right food source they'll need to be going to. What's that?

gonna be alive? Or are you gonna have the weather like October is the time to kill those dear Get him before they get with that first dough, because once they lock down, they will almost always lock down before any other buck in the herd because nobody's messing with them. You know, you get a five six seven year old deer, he's pushing everybody around, and if you just watch him, most of them just look at him and walk the

other way. They know better than to deal with him, because he is he's a handful, he's big bodied, he's uh, he's ready to rumble, and he's going to get the first girlfriend at the dance. To me, that window is twenty fifth through thirty first of October. We call it pre lock because they're not necessarily locking down with a

dough that's in estress. But I think they have a way of identifying the first dough that's going to come in Estres, and they'll follow her out to the food plot and just stand there and stare at her like a high schooler in the hall looking at a pretty girl, you know. I mean, they just's that's a weakness for them that last week of October, particularly the thirtieth and

thirty first of October. But anytime in there on a food source where there's apollo dose they could be there, that's a really good window for him.

in the northeast corner. And if you're paying attention noticing that that happens, have you ever seen anything like that? And have you ever taken advantage of that? Given what we just learned there about those old bucks getting on that first one.

be the first one to come into heat. To me, it's more about that than anything.

their rut. Have you ever have you seen anything like that or anything else?

you will. That's quite good here in the Midwest, and then it just depends what your population dynamic is. And all of this depends a little bit on population dynamic. If your buck to dough is severely out of whack, you can't expect to see a lot of daylight activity by bucks in general, because they're going to lock down during nighttime. Right most of their movement occurs at night. Just watch your pictures, so to expect to see a

lot of daylight activity. If you've got a call it five doors to one buck or seven dos to one buck, it's probably not gonna happen. However, if you're a little closer to their natural ratio, which is one to one, we like to keep everything at you know, realistically we hope to have it at a two or three to one, two or three dos to one buck. If you're in that range, you can expect to see them free up

occasionally through their rut. But it's so much more challenging because the activity could have been at noon, it could have been at two o'clock. You know, if October you could pretty mu bank on the fact that it's that first hour, last hour and a half two hours, So it's more of an expectation. And I've talked about this before, when you get into the rut, that the odds of seeing one could happen at any time of the day. So you're kind of hoping, right, You're hoping he frees up,

your hoping he comes by. So it's it's hope versus expectation, and that's challenging mentally. It's challenging physically because you've got to sit there much longer. But if you've got one week off and you want the greatest odds of a deer to be on their feet, you know it's probably during the rut because more deer covering more ground. But if you're honed in on a particular buck on a spot, that's why I like that late October. But it's only because I've got a sure enough history with him and

a plan and a prediction. But you know, if you don't have that's that's difficult to expect success.

way to the old ones. But when it comes to those like five six seven year old bucks, is that is that as good of a window for them as it is for you know, just general buck movement? Is there anything unique for that age when it comes to midday?

He's gonna go check every dough trail. He's going to check what just occurred that morning trying to find that deer. He's wise, he's smart, like a blood tracking dog, a dog that's a blood trailer. That's seven eight nine years old. Man, they know how to find those those deer that are wounding because they've been there and they almost can think like the deer. That buck can think like that dough

or like the rest of those bucks. He waits till the midday to go do his movement that nine o'clock through eleven o'clock and then again from about one thirty to three thirty or four. Those are the two windows that I really key in on once you get into November. I mean, that's that's when you're going to catch you more often than not.

time during the day. You could see in the first hour two coming off of bed and he's gonna bed down for a while. And then I see that nine to eleven thirty very consistently each year, and then one thirty through about three point thirty four o'clock. I specifically love three pm Central Time during during the during that period, and I specifically love about nine ten o'clock during that period, they just get on their feet and they go walk.

That's provided you got the right weather you're hoping for, you know, highs in the fifties, lows in the thirties, and optimal conditions and pressure over thirty point one. Better sit in your stand, don't don't get down.

of them are. So uh, it's it's a fun time of the year, but it's just it's it's more challenging trying to kill a specific buck than October or December in my opinion.

My water's here, my covers here, my escape routes here, Like I think they learn those things through life, and they hone down in this is the house I want, right, you know, It's like checking out a multitude of neighborhoods and going and this is the neighborhood I want to live in. I think that's what happens. I think that's why it shrinks. They're learning it, imprinting it as they're younger, and then when they're older they know where to go.

That's just my theory. I don't know if there's any truth to that or not, but I think that's why that home core gets a little bit smaller and there's less less activity within the homecore because I think they're still trying to learn it when they're younger.

hundred acres, or is it? If you had to give me some kind of average, what do you think that would be a few acres? Okay, and that's if and that's drinking.

only assume it's because of other home ranges interfering. And therefore this guy's saying, I'm staying here and I'm staying there, And they kind of stay away from each other and they camp out in their little area as well as there's you know, ample food, cover water. They're pretty adaptable. They can live just about anywhere, but they got to have doze there as well. I've also seen different personality

with bucks through the years. I've seen bucks that I swear didn't leave eighty acres or one hundred acres and didn't really participate in the rut very much like I've seen bucks that I felt like only got with one

or two does. And I don't think that's uncommon at all, to where when they're younger, they're covering more ground because they're younger, and they'll get with more does because they're odds of finding a hot doe increase when they get old and get back to that old dog in the porch doesn't get up, don't walk around, doesn't eat as much when he's older. I think that's that older buck, and I just don't think he's quite as active during

the rut as he was when he's younger. Somewhere in that curve they go from breeding being the primary reason for their existence to just trying to live and stay alive. And I think somewhere in that curve is that six and a half year old buck. That again, he's the ghost here, and by the time they're seven or eight,

they're very much worried about just living. They're gonna still participate in the rut, but you know, he may not move during that severe cold weather, whereas that four hie old run around going crazy, and that guy's laying in his bed till it gets a little bit nicer for him to walk around. But personality is different, and you'll learn that as you hunt it. Not every deer is the same, and you can never take you can never

say always or never with white tail deer. All of these things I'm talking about are general terms, but it does vary quite a bit based on the deer's personality and the terrain you're hunting him in. But in answer to your original question. There there's no there's no box for that, that description of where they're going to live.

that to your hunting advantage. Is there an example like that story you could tell about how you figure out what this old buck's unique personality thing was, how you discovered it, and then how that led to your hunts, whether you ended up killing the buck or not.

I would tag with me, And there was this one buck on my farm that I swear lived on this eighty acre portion of the farm because I had cameras everywhere like usual, and I never got him anywhere else other than this eighty acre parcel. And this eighty acre parcel was the thickest, nastiest, most secure place on the farm. The access into it was tough for us as hunters. And the only time I'd get him during the daylight pictures was of a morning in the month of December.

So very unique deer like he was dark, dark, dark October November. But in December I'd caught this one weakness. I kept catching him going back to bed into this eighty acres off this one particular ridge field of food

that I had planted. And Todd came in and I told him about a variety of different places we could hunt and this buck and that buck, and I told him my story about this deer, about how unique he was, and I was planning on, just hunting afternoons like we normally do in December, and he goes, why don't we go after that buck? And probably part of the reason I didn't see much is because I don't hunt a

lot of mornings, especially in December. And I said, sure we can, you know, I think here's what we need to do. Swin blah blah blah. And we went in there two or three mornings because we had the right conditions, and sure enough Todd killed this giant eight point. He was probably just shy of one seventy and I think he was a six and a half year old buck, maybe seven and a half year old buck. But he was a He was an absolute toad. And the thing

I noticed about him, he was absolutely perfect. There wasn't a scar on that deer's body. His ears were perfect, his eyes were perfect. And I really believe he was just one of those deer that lived his life as a bachelor. I think when he bred doze, they came to him, he wasn't going to them, and he was safe there and he lived a long, happy life until til Todd put an end to it that morning. That was one of the most unique deer we ever hunted and succeeded on and he taught me a lot. You know.

He taught me that these deer different, they have different personalities. And when I speak of that, I always think back to that deer because he definitely taught me deer are not created equal. They're all their own own person or their own animal.

And we finally killed him December the twentieth on a green field with a bow down on a bottom field where I had never gotten this picture. And I mean just literally I had gotten it there a few times, not many, but I literally just got luck he'd kill that deer, and I kind of started hunting him like I always hunted him the way I always hunt which was I think he's gonna be here. I think he's gonna be here. I think he's going to be here. I finally started going where I didn't think he'd be,

and that's when I killed the deer. Like I literally had to reverse my thinking and everything I knew. It just like broke all the codes. And that was he was a tough tar to kill. I mean, he was just literally walking. I believe I killed him when he was eight and a half and again on food in December. There's a weakness. But I killed him where I didn't think he'd be that night, and sure enough, he was

one of those walkers all night, all day. I'd catch a picture of him at you know, six pm on a green field, and then by ten pm he'd be two miles north on a different camera. It was just bizarre. He was really a tough tear to run into. Every year, we hunted him so many times and never saw him. I think Dustin and Wade sawing one or twice. I think I saw him twice before I killed him. And he was eight and a half years old. If if

that explains how difficult he was. But he also taught me, you know, compare that story to Todd's deer, both six and a half or older. One never moved and was literally clean and perfect and beautiful, and the fork buck every single thing, and he was ripped and scarred and ears, and you know, the more they walk, the more they're going to encounter other deer and get into tussles. And we always joked because his body was so large, we said, what if he didn't walk as much as he did.

I swear he'd had three hundred just some antler on his you know, because I think he wore himself to a frazzle every year. But he was. He was a cool dear, and I felt blessed to have the opportunity to hunt him and then eventually kill him.

You would think that would work, right if you just stuck to the same place, be the camera, he's eventually going to walk by. He never did, and I started bouncing around and going to places where I didn't think he'd be, and that's where I killed him.

get to that point, they've got to figured out. So I've always wondered, when you've got a deer like that in that set way of life, does he react more to pressure or less to pressure?

And that goes to a point, and everybody's gonna be able to relate to this one thing that I no longer pay attention to, or other deer that catch my scent and blow you know, because your intuition is I just ruined my whole hunt. I'm not going to see this deer. I don't think that deer get out of their bed for those blowing doughs, no more than you or I would. You know, if your kid was crying, you know, crying wolf. You know, you figure it out. And those dos with those fawns will blow so easily

and so frequently at everything. It's gunk bobcat at three hundred yards of kyote. He gets used to hearing that stuff. And when they're blowing at you, I don't think it means that much. And there was a time where I'd climb down and be like, I got to go get to another spot. Yeah, I don't do that anymore. And in fact, I've seen them get up and investigate what the source of the problem was, especially during the run.

A blowing doze sometimes is your ally, so that that's a I don't call it a tip or something that I no longer pay attention to. When I get blown up and I just go back to hunting, and I just assume he's still betted right here. If I think he's betted there and I'm trying to kill him, I just assume he didn't leave his bed. I think they'd run over him and he probably wouldn't follow him out.

He's very likely to still be in his bed. So then now it made delay when he gets up, or he may get up out of curiosity to go see. It may affect his movement, but I don't think it's going to get him up and make him run two miles. He's much more secure stand where he's at than he is on his feet running around going what else am I going to run into?

what he'll do. But there's gonna be so many dang dos and funds that do crazy things that eventually what i'm is gonna win me. And so because of that, I don't even go in there. Should I, you know, should I consider being more aggressive and just letting the doughs blow at me because I can get away with a little more that I'm assuming.

react to you. In a rain event or a heavy windstorm, both of those things will help cover you going into a particular spot. And by heavy wind, I'm talking you know, fifteen to twenty five mile an hour. You can get by with a lot on a windy day in terms of access. You can get by with a lot on a rainy day, in terms of access. You can get by with a lot on a on a you know, November rut day in terms of access. So it really

comes down to that for me. Now, if it's a calm, pretty morning and I know I'm going to be running through deer, I'm probably not going to go, So I wait for the right conditions.

almost never bother those deer. We've noticed that through the years, Like if you can get there, you know, if you've got to go check a camera or go move a blind or move a stand, those types of things, night time is a great time to do it. They're just not nearly as likely to react to you.

even once. So, just to clarify what you're saying, are you saying that maybe I'm worrying a little too much on that even.

deer come and investigate it, go what was that? Depending on the time of the year, I've had other nights where I never see another deer enter the field, So it probably did affect it, But more often than not, I don't think it's moving him out of his bed. It may affect when he moves or how he moves, but I don't think he ran out of the area, that's my gut. I think he's stayed right wherever he was when that fuss started.

daylight or not. But what about just any trends you've seen with like how they actually move across the landscape when you get to that like six seven year old buck, is it always going to be taking the area with the thickest, safest route to get to where he wants to go? Or do at some point do they get

even lazier than usual? Like I know they're creatures of they prefer the path of least resistance, But does a six year old get even more that way because he's old and doesn't want to have to squeeze through the thick cover any anything you've noticed there?

he's on a hot dough or not. And I think it really comes down to, all right, if this is his bedroom, on these weather conditions, this wind speed, this wind direction, this crop rotation, how far is that from where he's feeding. Because he's older and he's almost in slow motion as compared to a year and a half or two and a half, they just don't walk very far. They don't walk very fast. They're very cautious, they're very careful.

It's the old dog on the porch. They just don't they don't do the things that they did when they were younger. So it really comes down to that, and that gets back to that slot machine lining up, you know, where is his secure bed. Last night, I went scouting for our catcher dream hunt. I was watching one field on this side of this old dirt road and up

on top of this pasture ridge. I turned around and looked and I saw my number one target in Iowa walking through this cattle pasture, coming out of these woods and crossing over this ridge. He's four hundred yards from where our food plot is. And I went back because I remember to myself, I get him daylight of the morning a lot. I almost never get him daylight of an evening, and it hit me right then. I'm like, he's bedding in that little patch of woods right there.

It's the same way I killed danger, Like I lost that deer, and then I refound him with my trail cameras, and then I just went into that bedroom and I killed him right there where he was coming because I found out where that security cover was for that time of the year, and I think, if you can do that, But in both of those cases, it took cameras, or in this case, it took me luckily looking over my shoulder. He's, you know, five hundred yards away from me, and I

saw him walking the ridge. I threw my glasses on him and I knew who it was. It's a buck I called the tumor buck. And I was like, Aha, he's betted in what I call the pretty woods. And I'm talking the least secure cover you've ever seen. I'm talking you can see three hundred yards of these woods,

so maybe for him it's the most secure. And he went across the ridge, he went down into the bottom, and sure enough I got a trail picture of him at like nine o'clock last night down in that food plot, and I'm like, I got to change my strategy on this guy. Either, got it. I either have to start hunting the plot in the morning or chances are I'm going to go into those pretty woods and hang a stand set to catch him.

I've got a great morning set along his path, but I don't think I've ever gotten a picture of him at that morning set. And I'm like, I'm off for Ridgerd two on this deer. And when I saw where he entered and where I saw where he came out of. You can bet I'm got scout him a little bit more. I'm gonna put some cameras up there, and if I can catch him on that pattern, he'll be in trouble.

or not. I sat there last night thinking, you know what, when they turned cattle in there, it's going to force him into this other block of timber because it's fenced out, whereas the one he came out of last night is open to the cattle. That's why it's so pretty. But he may switch over to the other block, so that

comes into play. But as long as the cattle aren't in there, I can put I can get to that pasture easy on the right winds and put cameras up there and see if I can figure out where he's crossing and where he's coming out of those pretty woods. And if I can do that, I'll catch him coming back in there. But if I go hang the stand, I'll wait till the middle of the night to go do it. I do a lot of that in the middle of the night. I just think you're safer if

you're trying to go into their bedroom. Why do it when they're in there. Do it when they're not in there. It's got to take the right safety precautions. But take a rainy night, get in there. You know you're not going to affect anything. Yeah, Well, I've got one one of our editors, Carson Brandt, is on an absolute mega, giant, big as they get deer that he has the sheds to the last two seasons and he did not have permission to hunt this spot. Now he gained permission this year.

And this dear looks two ten to two thirty to me. I mean, big frame deer. I could be off, but the gagger, I mean, he's just unbelievable. And he asked me to come look at the spot. So we went around the whole and it's eighty acres that he has permission on. But the deer's in there quite a bit. And he goes, man, I just don't want to go in there, and Bubby Mount I said, wait till night.

You know he wanted a northwest wind. I said. He waited probably six oh, no, probably about five weeks for a heavy rainstorm, northwest wind, middle of the night, hung four sets ten cel cams and now he's set up to hunt that deer. So I think you could get by with a little bit more at night than you can during the day. Use the heavy rain. You gotta be safe, gotta be careful, but it washes away your sins.

That's what I say. Rainstorms wash away your sins. It's a little bit tougher for them to catch your scent and just just makes a lot more sense. So you just got to you got to use what they do in your favor. Right, they're probably going to be out of their bedroom at night, wind, rain, those types of weather events. Use them to your advantage. A lot of

people go, oh, it's winning, I'm not going or it's raining. Well, maybe you don't want to go hunting, but can you go get something done, and you know, don't be afraid to try and do something at night. Just take the safety precautions to before you go do it, take a friend, do the right things, make sure you're tied off at all times. If you're hanging a stand, be very careful.

figure out like a four year old's behavior based off of what he did at two and a three year old, Is that have any truth to it?

a half. He made daylight twenty days throughout the hunting season when he's three and a half. That might be cut to two or three when he's six and a half. That's the thing, that's why I call him a goest. Those six year olds just don't move around very much during daylight, So I think you have to keep that in mind, Like, if you're hunting these old deer, your odds of seeing him are much more diminished than when he was three or four. It's just not nearly as

likely unless other things occur. You know, you might have a hunter on a neighboring property bump him. He might have an injury, and he's going to food every night, and that makes him a little more susceptible. I've seen that happen. I killed a deer last year that had a really bad leg injury, and I had pictures of him all summer, and then all of a sudden he just vanished. And then I started getting him again in

late November out of nowhere. And he was a homeboy the year before on this farm, and he's got this swollen leg and a shoulder that's kind of caved in, like something neurologically happen to him, Like the meat wasn't even on the bone. Like I don't know what happened to that deer, but I swear he sat out October and most of November and didn't really participate. And then all of a sudden, late NOVEMBERY starts daylighting on this food plot. He was hobbling he could run, but when

he walked he had a really bad limp. And we went in there and we killed that deer, and I know that injury just sidelined him throughout the rut. So you do get those unique occurrences where health can either increase your chances or decrease your chances. I've seen deer that sustain an injury from another buck that boom. They're off the shelf. They're going to sideline, They're going to sit in their bed and not move. They're going to heal up or say, you make an errant, shot your shoulder,

shoot one. If it's in the wrong place. He starts to feel really bad. He could be out of rotation for three or four weeks ago, Oh did I kill that deer, and then all of a sudden he pops back up in December. So there are unique occurrences that, like I said, can increase how much he moves or decrease how much he moves. So you keep that in mind. But all things being equal, they're not going to move

a lot when they're five and six years old. You have to have the right window of opportunity that late October sometime during the road on a hot dough sometimes during December during really rough weather, if you can find where he's feeding, you know, they're just unique opportunities, and they're not very frequent.

to video anyway. So that's another opportunity. It's a little easier to go through those as opposed to the video clip if it's fifteen seconds long and all your catches is but you know, and then you're watching fifteen seconds. You know. I don't like video myself, just because it's such a time suck. I means, it takes a lot of time to review all those videos. I mean that's painstaking. So I like to fly through that car and watch

it and go. But picture picture no delay is going to get you really close to that video effect anyway.

from walking in front of one. I will say that if it's already a place that they're uncomfortable walking through, like a gate gap. I have a tendency not to monitor gate gaps with my cameras are certainly not on the gap itself, because I think that could way about because they don't like to be pinched right. They don't like really close quarters or pinch points, whether it be a lake that's got them up against a fence or a gate gap or a bunch of bales and there's

only one way out. They don't like those scenarios in my experience, so I don't give them another reason to dislike that spot, especially if I'm trying to kill a deer walking through that gate gap or walking through that pitch. So I have a tendency to put my cameras a little bit more in an inventory type of situation on the outskirts as opposed to internal, if that makes sense, or on a pinch point.

box blinds. For us, we hunt a lot out of blinds, and if we have a five and a half or six and a half year old deer, well, he's walked by those box blinds his whole life, like it's a tree. So if we move one a little bit, we're not too We're not too afraid to move in on a buck if we have to. And because it's COUNTERINTOOI because you think, oh, this is going to booger them, but in reality, we haven't. We haven't seen that happen.

heck of a tool. So there's all these different variables that increase deer movement, stuff like weather factor's temperature, moon wind, pre sip, barometric pressure, et cetera. Do any of those stand out as the most important for an old deer, Like I realized, like all these factors might impact the whole deer herd, right, But is there anything that might be something like, of all of those, this one's the most important when it comes to like the old old

buck or the opposite. Is there anything that tends to get does move in a lot, But like when it comes to that big old guy, Eh, not as much.

just either not moving very far anyway. So if you heat it up and they're not moving very far, the chances of him getting there during daylight isn't good, you know, at all? So I think temp they're very temperature sensitive. If I had to pick one thing more so than any other factor, it's it's that warm weather. It pushes them. It just subdues that daylight activity. It drives me insane.

I look at the forecast, you know, and it seems like I've been looking at the same poorcast for three years above normal, and I think it just hurts overall daylight activity. Now, when you get a front look out, because they're fixing to go, you know, when they're when they're used to that warm weather and you finally put a cold front across them, they're all getting ready to get up and go. So it does make the coal fronts even better. But man, I just I just love

norm or ten fifteen degrees below norms. That's that sweet spot. Give me ten twelve fifteen degrees below normal temperature for the day. You're gonna have a you're gonna have a good, good sit, You're gonna have a good hunt.

We've done all of those things, and we see the buck. We see a six year old buck out there. Is there anything different I should be thinking about with a six year old out one hundred yards away from me versus a three year old out there when it comes to calling at him, rattling at him, using a decoy, any of those aggressive things. Do these really old bucks have a tendency to react differently than those, you know, adolescents.

because I choose my times to throw that dart. And if things aren't perfect in his demeanor, in his body posture, whether his bellies full or not, that's another thing. With a deer, depending on the time of the year. If he's eating, I generally let him finish eating. If I feel like I've got enough time before I start calling to him, make sure he's already got his full and he starts to look around the rest of the field.

Make sure his interest level is up. I think a mistake hunters can make is trying to pull him in with a call the moment he steps onto the field if he's eating that particular day. Decoys can be very good, depends how many does you're going to affect trying to get to that guy. That's the thing with decoys I always have when I have bad luck, it's because does screw it up right? You know, the bucks on the field, does come investigate it? First they blow up, and then

they stand there. They come back in, sniff, run away, snort, do all this different stuff, and he's just standing there and there watching it. So when I decoy, I like mornings, when deer going point A to point B. I don't like evenings where everything's conglomerated at the same place and you got to pass many inspections before you get, you know, to the to the eyes you're after because he's going to be chances are one or the later deer on

the fields. So uh, you just gotta gotta choose. You got to think it through and go what is the most likelihood that I'm going to get him over here? And I don't call him ature bucks very often unless he's in the exact right mood. He looks at you know, he's got a little more movement to him, he's a little more energetic. Like I said, He's not going to reach that type of mood very often, and if you catch him in the right mood, he will come though.

That is the one thing I have noticed. I have seen bucks of that age when they're with a mature dough, they're a little more likely to be reactive to a call than any other time because they will not tolerate another buck getting close to him if they are the dominant deer in that herd. But that depends how close you are to it or how many other bucks around.

I've seen situations where there's a mature buck tending a doe and a bunch of other bucks in the magic circle, and you can rattle and have some fun in situations like that, But if it's just a buck and a dough snort wheeze is a really good call to try. But if they're three four hundred yards away, he's not going to leave. Your chances are you need to be relatively close for that to happen. So if I'm in that situation, I'm probably not gonna call to him. I'll

wait till a better time, a better chance. The other thing that I've noticed about a mature buck, once he's doed up, they generally don't move very far from that spot. Like you could literally dance around that spot on different wind directions for several days and you'll still see that

that pair, they don't go very far. If you find that magic circle more often than not, you know, you know that that home core might went from two or three hundred yards all of a sudden, I'm doughed up, and he stays in the same hall for three days. You know, it's unique to find that situation, but when you do, you can stick with it and eventually get him killed just by their meandering within that small spot.

Is there one of those deer that stands out is having taught you the most important lesson that has now led you to be more successful trying to kill that oldest of buck. Is there a story that you can think of you could tell us and share with us what you learn from him.

I put cameras all over it. I did it. And this was a big CRP field with these long finger draws, and I put cameras and three finger draws in a row, and I only got him during daylight in one of them, and I was like, I got you as soon as I looked at and I let him run the whole year. I make sure they were batteried up. I put him on a slow enough speed. I wanted to make sure the batteries lasted the full year. I put him out in September. I collected him in February and I got

a full picture of the year. And as soon as I saw it, I was like, you're dead. I mean I just knew it because it was a south wind spot, it was right below me. I knew where to hunt him, and I killed him that following year. So that pre scouting with cameras to learn a buck and find his home core area. When you can do it, I think

that's the best thing you can give yourself. But keep all the information, keep all the pictures, interpret that information, lay your game planing out in the off season so that you're ready come the following season or two seasons from now, or whatever it is. That taught me a lot about a particular deer and their personality. And when you find that bucks bedroom and truly find it where he's in there a lot during daylight, you're going to kill that deer if you're smart about how you approach it.

That was probably the number one thing that I learned from that particular deer. That was two thousand and I had those cameras out in two thousand and that'd been fourteen, and then I killed him in fifteen.

just in there, great great point. Last question for you, Mark, if you were to be given a stone tablet and a chisel, and you were going to chisel in your three rules for hunting this supermature buck, Mark Jury's three commandments of hunting old old bucks. What would those three commandments be that you would want to chisel into those tablets and give to anyone who says, hey, man, I'm done with three year olds, I'm done with four year olds. I want to try to kill that old grandpa buck.

What are those three things you put down there?

Those three things, and you're going to be in a better better position to kill that deer.

things Drury are found within Deer Cast, no doubt. So that's that's the best way to keep up with us. Awesome and of course Facebook, Instagram all the good stuff. So yeah, well.