Ep. 831: The Scientific Method for Killing Big Bucks with Thomas Mlsna

got a great episode of very interesting episode. If you are the kind of guy or girl who likes to get into the nitty gritty, if you are a detail oriented hunter, if you care about the little things, about getting a little bit better every single day, this is a conversation you will not want to miss. My guest today is Thomas Milsna. He was on the show earlier this spring during our Habitat series. Just like our guests last week. He came on for a Habitat podcast in

the past. Well, Thomas came on for a Habitat podcast this past spring, but I knew we had to get him back on the show to dive into the hunting side of things, because he's got a very interesting approach to doing things. As Bobby was last week. He is very analytical, very thoughtful about how he does things, why he does things. The approach he takes to hunting is

not something that happens by accident. It is something that happens because of careful decisions, data analysis, you know, thinking through the stuff that we learn as deer hunters, observations, camera photos, weather factors, historical patterns, time of the year, all of these different moving pieces. Thomas does a really good job of tracking them, studying them, and learning from them.

And he likes to think about this the kind of with the language and the kind of structure I guess of the scientific method, the way that scientists go about researching and studying and then developing theories around different things in the world, whether it's physics, the natural world, whatever, you know. He is taking that same approach and applying it to deer hunting. It's very interesting. It's right up my alley. If you've been listening to this podcast, you

are probably into the same kinds of things. Thomas is a you know, a dedicated, very successful deer hunter up there in Wisconsin. He worked for a decade for a trail camera company doing research and prototyping and helping develop products on that side. He has a wildlife biology background, and now he is a white tail hunting coach and a habitat consultant and works with folks all over the country to build better wildlife habitat and specifically to build

better deer hunters. So that's exactly the kind of person we want to talk to you today. As we are here as I speak in October, with the best part of the hunting season right ahead of us. It's very exciting. So today Thomas is going to break down how he uses the scientific method, how he tracks deer observations and photos and behavior, How he tracks things like his food plots, his food sources, how deer are using them. He tracks pressure.

He does something called a pressure audit. We discuss that, We discuss his thoughts on timing, so all the many different variables that maybe influence deer movement. Which of those does he care about? Which of those does maybe he not care about as much. We discuss a lot about

tuition versus analysis. We get into some specific ideas that should help you here in October or in November, discussing stand site, you know, strategy, how to pick where a hunt, how to choose when to hunt, how to understand a deer's pattern, and a lot around making better decisions as a deer hunter. So that's what's in store today. It's a good one. You are going to learn something today that will help I can guarantee that. So let's just quit. Uh, let's let I'm gonna stop all at my head. I

guess I'm want to say. Let's get to this conversation with Thomas. I hope you enjoy this, and here we go. Let's get into the episode. All right here with me back on the show is Thomas Mills. And Thomas, welcome back to the show.

just figure, why not do it sooner than later. So here we are hunting seasons on and the plan for today, Thomas is just to get deep into the weeds of how you approach deer hunting because something about you, I guess it's consistent with a lot of the best deer hunters that I really appreciate and that I learned from the most, at least, are those who are very analytical,

those who are very detail oriented. You know, There's some deer hunters who kind of go by feel and it just just have like an intuition and their experience points them in the right direction, and they're very successful despite that or with that. But I have a harder time learning from that person because so much of what they do they can't quite describe. They just know to do it.

But then there's other people who do things very thoughtfully who have very clear analytical reasons behind their actions, and you're one of those people. Mark Drury is one of those people. The guy we just talk to not too long ago. Bobby Kendall's like that. I really enjoyed diving into those people's approaches because I think they're you can translate that to action for other people. So it's a very long winded way of fluffing you up and getting you ready for this one time. But uh, you killed

the buck recently, so maybe that's a good place to start. Huh. Can you tell us a little bit about how that happened?

all have that intuition somewhere in there. But I also think that it's also easy to get distracted by, you know, things that you hear you know, you listen to there's a lot of great podcasts out there, obviously yours being one of them, and you might listen to that and think that you need to apply that to your specific situation where maybe it's not applicable, right, and you can get distracted by that, or you know, the latest gear

trends on the market. Oh, I need that that's going to help me solve this problem or that problem, And it very well might, but at the same time it might just distract you, you know, be this other shiny object. So when I started consulting, I really really took the time to dig into every situation I was in, every experience that I had, and kind of reverse engineer it and figure out how I put myself in that position.

And that's what helped me formulate this approach that I take now working with other clients and on my own too. So the buck that I recently killed, I applied to all the same tactics, right, and I don't have like a very specific strategy so to speak. You know, some guys are real geared towards food plots or you know, creating specified movements on their property, which we do that on client properties. When they're in a situation where they can manipulate habitat, or they have the budget or just

the property itself where they can make these changes. My hunting situation, my personal hunting situation, I share a rather large farm. It's about a fifteen hundred acre dairy farm, about four hundred acres of its huntable land. I share that with seventeen other hunters, mostly family members, and because it's a functional farm, that's the priority, right So I can't go to my dad who owns and operates that farm, and say, hey, I want to get rid of this field.

Back here this roll crop and put it in switchgrass for better betting, because it's more convenient. You know, I'd like to place deer here, so they move deer, or they move into this area and I can access it better. That's an ideal situation, which you know, again, if you have that control, that's awesome. It's going to create more opportunities. But I've never had that control on that particular property.

So my approach has kind of evolved over time, and again it's mostly just how I can explain it better these days, because I have to relate that to other client properties and get them to be able to associate the things that I do, so it's again applicable to their situation.

of that intuitive stuff happening in your mind. So when you go to make a plan for the day or for the season, how much of that is actually you sitting down and looking at your planner and looking at your notes and looking at like a very much a formulaic approach. I know you have the ability to do that because you've now broke it all down. So how much of it do you actually do yourself versus go by feel? And how do you know when to go by feel versus when to follow the formula?

So the scientific method, you're observing, analyzing. Then you're researching or in the hunting world referred to that as scouting, right, So we're collecting information. Then you're putting together a theory. Then you're trying to test that theory, prove or disprove the theory. And then once you've if you've proved the theory, you know, you might prove it by a trail camera okay, yes, I'm getting a picture here, now I know that's happening.

Or you might prove it by actually going out and hunting or observing from a distance, you know, firsthand experience. But once you've proved that theory, if you're not actually executing, then the next step is to plan and prepare and then finally actually execute. If you just keep repeating that cycle over and over again. You can either one fine

tune your property. You know, here's my theory. Oh it worked up to this point, but oh, actually that's not that good of a betting area, or my access isn't that good. So these are things I need to work on in the off season, or you have to just adjust that and you know, recalibrate essentially. But ultimately, what it comes down to is the more information that you have,

the more precise that theory can be. And you know, observation is such an important factor there, which in this day and age with technology, you know, trail cameras and everything, you can collect a lot of information. But again, I think it's easy to get us distracted by a lot of the information too, and I think that's.

attention to the feedback they're getting and then adjusting. And that that's such an important part is you test to your hypothesis, but then you have to listen to the feedback, either confirm or deny your hypothesis, and then launch a new experiment try again. And that is that is a huge key to ever successfully figuring out how to kill mature bucks. You just lay it out there very clearly for if somebody wants a basic formula for how to go out and just do this and get better and

better and better, it's that. If you want to oversimplify, it's right there.

You're trying to take advantage of a situation versus what's there currently and what do I want to be there? So I call it the scientific approach. Technically, it's like a pseudo scientific approach, right, because there's a couple of things there. One, it's not really a repeatable process down to a t because every situation is going to be a little bit different. Right, once you've killed that deer

and it's it's new variables the next time around. There's a lot of things that come into play time and time again, right, So you learn a lot every time you start to see deer with similar personalities over the years, or following certain trends or patterns on your property, But ultimately it's a little bit different every time. The other thing too is, you know, we were not completely objective with our analysis of the situation because we do have

a very specific goal. But again that works in our favor. But then when it correct correct a lot of incomplete information, yep. But then the other thing, you know is when it comes to the hypothesis or creating that theory, there's two ways to look at that too. One is what's actually happening right now? You know, again, is it a situation where you have no control or is it game time? You know, are we in season like we are now, so what are we trying to analyze that we can

make happen right now? But then the other side of it, and I strongly suggest people thinking that this way too, is what do we want to happen? Because if we're looking at the current situation and we're at the same time thinking about like how we actually want this to play out, then when it comes to the postseason stuff and the habitat work or or just these little what I refer to as micro adjustments, you know, you know, are these deer all moving through this area like we hypothesize,

but we can't get a shot at all of them? Okay, let's pinch this down a little bit more, create a little bit better pinch point or again, you know, access all those things that come into play. So there's two ways to approach that with you know, what's actually happening, what we want to happen. But ultimately, yes, we just work through that process and we're just trying to learn every time, every time we try to build on that

a little bit more, a little bit more. So to go all the way back and answer your question on the you know, the analytical approach versus intuition. The data for me generally is what points me in that direction.

And you know, for example, this buck that I just killed tagged out my second hunt, should have tagged out my first hunt of the season, but ultimately my second time out there that deer, in particular, I had the data in the past experiences from trail cameras and you know, first hand observation and hunting to know where that deer was going to be around a certain time of the year.

And then what it came down to actually was the most recent trail camera information that I had, and kind of going through that data, that's where I use that planner, and I just kind of fill out when you know, time, date, location, where that buck showed up. Really try to focus on pictures obviously during daylight or close to daylight during those hunting hours. You know, pictures in the middle of the

night don't often tell you a lot. They tell you the deers in the area, but not always applicable to the hunting them, right. But I go through that information and I start to drill into these four key elements, which you probably saw some of that in those the habits before Habitat video, but those four key elements really are critical in simplifying but still quantifying all these variables and and that's, you know, ultimately what we use to apply to the research side of things and then also

use those to create that theory. I think it just simplifies things and it goes back to being able to explain it to people in an easier way.

real nice ten pointer. Saw him a lot while I was hunting another deer on the property. You know, obviously I passed him up at that time to let him express his potential. But that's information. Knowing where that deer was during certain times of the year, certain times of the season, all comes into play. You go up one

more year, now he's a four year old. What are his patterns, where his movements taking place, and where is he at certain times of the year, And then you know, from there we start to really drill into the specifics of the situation. So on the research side of things, that's where again these four key elements come in play. And those four key elements are wind. And by wind, I mean you know air movement in general, the wind direction.

Weather is a factor there, thermal air movement. But how is that air flowing and how does that affect those deer. So wind is the first one, and I would say wind is king because that dictates so much and you have no control over it, right, you have to obey what the wind's doing and work with it. The second element is pressure, and by pressure, I mean anything that causes discomfort or puts, you know, stress on deer to a level that alters their behavior, either long term or

short term. I have to clarify that because I'm not talking about like barometric pressure. That's more weather related. So pressure is the second key element. The third key element is food. The food is what's going to define the movement and obviously hold animals in an area, and that alters you know, changes throughout the season as well. And then the fourth key element, which is really the glue

that ties everything together, is the timing element. You know, so as hunters were try to figure out where and we're trying to figure out when, those are the biggest things. So the where is often dictated by the combination of wind, pressure, and food. And then the timing element is obviously the

when factor involved there. So with this deer in particular, knowing what I knew from previous seasons and then looking at the timing element of an early season hunt, I actually didn't even expect that deer to be as consistent as he was on the property early in the season. In the years past, he'd kind of hit the food plots a little bit. But I'm competing with four hundred and fifty acres of alfalfa on this farm, and generally

early in the season, alfalfa wins. You know, Alfalfa is a hugely, very very attractive, very palatable food source for deer. So it's both an advantage and a disadvantage at the same time, which is where I've really evolved to pay attention to the wind more often than anything else, and that was what I looked at, so, you know, kind

of bring the story element into this scientific method. Essentially, what happened was I was out in Wyoming for ten days, came back, and then before well, you know, season already started here in Wisconsin, it starts mid September. But before I really got full on into white tail hunting mode, I still had to wrap up some client property projects excuse me, and also my own property. And one of those things was spreading cereal rye on all my food plots.

So I was top of them with cereal rye. It's a good cool season cover crop, extra food source, so I'm out doing that in client properties. I ZiT by our home farm. I spread ryan all those food plots there, and while I'm there, I just pulled a couple of cards from trail cameras. I don't run a ton of cell cameras. I can't even run cell cameras in most of the spots I want to anyways, because there's no

cell service. So I checked those cameras, and then I checked one camera in particular that's actually just off the access road. So this valley where I harvested this year, there's two food plots, two main food plots in this valley, and then the access road goes through the valley up to this back ridge to you know, the back ridge full of fields, egg fields, and there's one spot in particular where the deer kind of drop off one ridge and then go up on the other ridge. So I've

got a camera there. It's an awesome setup for a camera because it tells me the human activity going up and down that road, but it also monitors those deer. And it's really easy to get to. There's a lot of times where I'll show up on the property and I'll just drive my truck right down there. You know, I take one step out the door, swap the card and I'm out of there, doesn't really disturbed the deer.

So that camera, in combination with these two food plot cameras, painted this picture for me that this deer was in the area. And one photo in particular is what really drew me in to actually take the steps to go after this deer as early as I did, because I actually only had a few pictures of him on that

food plot. And it's important to note, you know, I talk about these trail camera rules and everything, but one of my rules of trail cameras is that they only tell you what's going on twenty feet in front of them, right. My research background, we refer to that as a sampling rate. So you know, I hunted that food plot two nights before I killed that deer, and both nights I saw you know, ten fifteen deer flowing through that area. They all kind of flowed through this transition food plot and

then worked their way off. And that buck included one night he was on that plot for over an hour. I never had a picture on that camera any of those nights, so it just kind of, you know, solidifies that concept of you know, not banking too much or relying too much on those trail cameras, but using them

to collect information to prove or disprove theories. But the one picture in particular that really kind of triggered me to go that route was on that road, that crossing on the road between Betting areas, on these ridges, and the picture was at like twelve forty pm, I believe. So I went back and I look at the weather history data. You know, I log all these pictures. I just simply time and date.

temperature check, is great. But I think there's this big disconnect with the information you're getting from cell cameras, the way you receive that information versus going out You're putting yourself in this information collection mode and swapping a card. You know, when you're out there you're observing. Okay, is there any fresh sign around this camera? What's the brows look like on this food plot?

of what's happening in the area. You do that with two or three cameras in the area, and now you kind of get a feel like, Okay, you are kind of moving around the property doing this or doing that, versus a cell camera where more often than not, you know, I don't want to speak to generally, but more often than not, you get that cell cam pick oh big buck, screenshot it and that's it. Like a lot of people

don't even look at the time and date. They're not even storing that information, but it just doesn't really help your brain process that information real Well.

described it right. Instead of looking things at a big picture, you just kind of get this steady, light trickle of information that requires a little bit different kind of work to then create the effect that you described, which happens naturally when you get a dump, you know, every couple weeks or something, and you look at all of it all right now, And it's easier to log for some reason for me too, when you have to go through

that card. I've had a harder time keeping track with cell cameras the way I used to when I had all my pictures actual hard copy pictures, not hard copy, but you know, I would organize them and folders on my computer, and now everything that lives in the cloud and you have to do it with tags and folders in your app, and it's different. I think you're I think you're right. I kind of want to go back to that somehow.

I don't I don't go crazy on details. I'm just scrolling through. Okay, there's that book time date, location, time date, location time date, location, and certain pictures will really catch my eye. But a lot of times what I do is I'll just go back and then I go I use weather Underground, So I just go to Weather Underground or just just google weather history by location, and I'm specifically looking at the AM wind direction and the PM wind direction. That AM wind direction is what's going to

place those deer in those betting areas. Right, So if we just think about what we know about how mature bucks like to bed, you know, it's simply put as possible, back to cover wind at their back, right, and then you know they like to have a site advantage, so a little bit elevations usually a good spot, but back to cover wind at their back. So in an area with topography or you know ungulation and topography, those topographical changes.

You can a lot of times just look at the hills and the ridges and stuff and go by process of elimination. On this wind, He's probably not going to bed here, He's probably not going to bed there. He's probably not going to bed there. Because topography is the greatest form of cover there is, so as long as it provides those other survival advantages, you can really drill

in on where those deer are. And then so with this particular card poll, going through those pictures and that one picture at twelve forty PM, I was like, oh, some you know, something had that deer on his feet,

either pressure, something bumped him, or a wind shift. So I go back and look at the weather history, and sure enough, the wind was out of one direction in the morning and it changed at like eleven forty five, and at twelve forty he moved, so he was probably relatively close, you know, And they don't get up and move instantly because that wind it bounces around a lot. So but that drove him to change his betting location.

So then when it came to the actual hunt, I just started drilling in, going, okay, we have a cold front moving in, And that was really what drove it more than anything. Right, I posted that on social media, this is going to be a good hunt, and I was thinking to myself, I like, damn, I should probably get out there at hunt. Right, But in my brain, you know, back to painting this picture of how I

thought my season was going to pan out. I wasn't actually anticipating pursuing this buck very much until the end of October early November. That's when he was more visible on the property. But the older of deer gets, the more predictable they are. You know, they really narrow their range and if you can pick up on where they are, they're more predictable. But then also early season, you know

that timing element. Early season, if they're not messed with, which the pressure is pretty low, then they don't really change their pattern a whole lot. So looking at the wind, Okay, we've got north wind. I just started looking at the map and going, where do I think the best food sources are in this area. Well, I've got this one food plot down on this bottom that's very attractive. It's a really really good food plot, but it's really hard

to hunt. In fact, I just moved I had a box blind over that food plot for like five years and I just moved it to a different location because it was an access issue. You know, there's deer on that plot almost every night according to the camera, but every time you hunt it, you don't see a deer. So that tells me the deer know you're entering that valley, they know how you're accessing that plot. This situation. This year, there's a on the other side of this access roads.

This plot's literally right off this access road in the valley, on the other side of the access roads in Aggfield. And this year it's alfalfa, or excuse me, it's corn. Last year was alfalfa, so it's corn. So look at the map based on the wind direction forecasted going okay, I think on that wind, if that buck is in this valley, which it seems like he is hanging out in this valley, he's going to bed here or here, And both of them kind of fed into this food

plot as a setup. So the next thing is access with that, and I'm like, well, I know I can't come down that road and I don't have a box blind there anymore to even hunt over this food plot. But with that cornfield being up, I think I can come in from the bottom of the valley and just stay in the corn the whole time. Get into location where I can see this food plot, and then I'll just make myself a little blind and sit on the ground in the cornfield. And ultimately that's what happened. And

then you know the other factors involved there. When we talk about the four key elements, the second key element being pressure, and pressure is what's going to limit potential in every situation, right, is that stirring up deer. You know, if there's too much pressure, they've become less predictable at some level. Sometimes pressure can be a tool to really

move dear to certain areas. But the pressure concept there or element where that deer was betted potentially betted, you know, again backing up to this just being a theory in my head, right where that deer was betting moving to food. He's either going to drop down in this valley and go to this food plot or he's going to go

up on top of the hill and hit an alfalfa field. Well, with pressure in mind, they had just chopped the corn off the top of that ridge, so there's contour strips, but there's been a lot of activity up there on top of that, we're actually we're planning to start logging this chunk of woods right next to this betting area and part of that betting area. In fact, I called the logger on Tuesday morning. I killed that deer on September twenty fourth, Tuesday. I called him that morning. I

was like, hey, I need one more day. It give me one more day before you go in there. I just need one And it worked out, obviously, But they were in there kind of scouting out what they were gonna do with logging, so I knew someone was in there bumping around on the top of that ridge. And when this buck was betted was kind of like second level down there's like a little a little bowl area with a elevated position, and then it drops down even further from there into kind of a swamp. Then you

come back up the other side. That's where the food plot is. So all those factors at play, you know again, wind pressure and the food being the most attractive thing early in the season, and that timing element was kind of glues out all together. That's what prompted me to go in after that deer and make that move.

because again the camera doesn't show you everything. But that's gonna increase the chances of success on that sit So you know, ultimately that comes back to the pressure element too, right, It's like, I don't want to hunt that if I think I'm going to add pressure without the opportunity of harvesting that deer, knowing that you can only get it in out of those spots so many times adding pressure to it.

popped out in the sunlight for a minute. And then when I started glassing across there, I could see in the shadows more deer and I could see antlers, So there were bucks in that. And what they basically did was they worked down that timber into this creek bottom and they got the wind at their face, and then they came up on the south end of this food plot. It was a north wind, right, so they came into

the south end of this food plot that night. And actually this goes into the trail camera thing too, which is kind of a little pro tip. The first year that showed up on that food plot was this smaller buck, like a three year old nine pointer, and right away I recognized him as kind of a running mate of this this five year old buck that I was after. So right when I saw him, I was like, okay,

maybe this buck's with him. And the tip there is you know, again, this camera's only tell you so much, but you might get pictures of that running made of that buck, especially early in the season, right, and it's you don't want to assume, but there's a good chance that if he's in the area, the other bucks in the area with him as well. So both those bucks entered the plot, and almost simultaneously, another small buck entered the plot from the north side, and pretty soon there's

some doze in the plot. And it was kind of chaotic. Actually, you know, I'm sitting on the ground trying not to move, but at the same time, I really enjoyed taking video

and taking pictures of these deer. And actually it kind of it kind of burned me because that eight pointer or nine point, excuse me, he picked out some movement in the corn and he was locked on to me as I'm trying to videotape this bigger buck, and he spooped right away, like he kind of got on alert, and he took one step towards me, and then he freaked out and took off running. But there's just enough of a knoll in this food plot, and the bigger buck was still in the south end and he was

feeding heavy. And then on the north end, the smaller buck, this little basket eight, was just raking a tree along the side of the plot, and that buck when he looked up. I think he took a couple of steps forward. He looked up to kind of acknowledge what just happened, and he saw that buck making noise, and deer don't think they react right, So he's not thinking like, oh, what what spooked that deer? I should probably be on alert. He's like, oh, what was that noise or what was

that chaos there? Oh, it's just him. So I ended up watching my target buck for almost an hour a little actually a little over an hour, And there were many times where I almost took a shot, but there were long range shots, and I, you know, I just came from out west. I shot two animals at pretty long ranges. I shoot a lot, so I'm confident in that. But the difference between a mule deer or even an antelope and a white tail with how they react to that arrow is completely different.

got to make this happen. And right when I was trying to figure out how I could kind of maneuver that shot, he turned and fed away. So I'm like, okay, not going to force it. You know, missing a deer is one thing, but the absolute worst feeling in the world as a hunter, especially when you're pursuing a specific animal, is to injure that animal and then you know you don't find them or you just wonder how that conclusion or how that results, right, So I didn't want to

force anything. Ultimately, he worked his way down back into that swamp and was sparring with this younger buck, and as the light faded, I slipped out of the corn while it was still light enough that I could see, so I didn't have to use the light or anything.

I just got out of there. And then I actually had the following night, I was going to go back, but the wind was more like northeast and forecasted to switch out of the east a little bit, and I wasn't sure how that would happen down in that valley, you know, if it would push my scent on that plot. But I was actually like ten miles from my house, all packed up, sent free shower and everything, and I'm just like, no, I can't do it. So I turned

around and came back home, and then I waited. The next night, the wind was back out of the north. I slipped back in there and I relocated. I moved down about twenty yards twenty five yards closer to the south end of that plot, thinking, these deer are going to come in the south of the plot. Now I know what's happening. Now I'm going to have a nice twenty five yard shot on this deer. Well, lo and behold. He was the first gear to enter the plot, and

he entered straight on the north end. So he cut straight across the swamp and actually he went straight to this apple tree on the north end, barely touched the plot, and they disappeared for a while. For like an hour, I couldn't see him. So I'm waiting and waiting and waiting, and when the other deer started to show up, they all came in the south end of the plot, and

they all did what they did the night before. For the most part, they just kind of feed slowly across the plot, never really stopping for too long, just feed, feed, feed back into the swamp up into the woods, and what I assume they're doing is kind of transitioning from there. Maybe they're hitting some a corns and then they're ending up on those bigger destination food sources on top of

the hill that those alfalfa fields. But I'm watching these dos and I was actually videotaping this group of dose that were walking by me like twelve yards away, you know. So it's an intense moment already, but it's it's fun and exciting because your eye level with these deer in the open air, and I'm kind of panning sideways, and all of a sudden, I look over. There he is, and he's feeding towards me into one of my shooting lanes.

I couldn't see him unless I leaned forward a little bit, but there he was, and you know, I videotaped him for a little bit and then he started to turn broadside into that shooting lane. I'll say, okay, I gotta I gotta make this happen now. Ultimately, I shot him at forty five yards. If I would have been in the original blind location, I would have had a twenty five yard shot. But that's just the way it works out.

hunting this year. But using that kind of approach, can you just kind of walk me through some hypotheticals of how that might have looked as we moved into and throughout the month of October. Yeah.

Had I not seen that buck that night or not been able to connect with him within the next couple of weeks, that cornfield's coming off, so I'm going to lose the ability to even hunt that food plot from there on out. Addition to that, like I said, we're starting to log We already started logging that betting area.

So my game plan from that point was to work with them on the logging project, do some TSI right away, and ultimately hope that it doesn't disturb that deer too much to where after the logging's done, you know, they're going to be in and out of there in ten days or so, and it's going to produce a lot

of good cover. You know, they're logging these trees with all the leaves around, so it puts really good cover and pretty good woody brows on the ground instantly for those deer, And from my experience, it doesn't really affect the overall movement of those deer too much. They don't generally go too far, you know, assuming that they have some other safe places in the general location where they can, you know, just go hang out there and come back. So the game plan was ultimately to kill him on

top of that hill. There's a little bit of a saddle there between a betting area or a couple of different betting areas, and then it feeds into those egg fields on top. And I've had a lot of good success up there in the past, good and count I should say, I've killed a couple deer there, but one deer there, I should say, because I've only I've never killed two deer in the same spot on our farm. Ever.

I've had a lot of good encounters, but it's always you know, sometimes it's moving fifty yards, but never from the same location. And a lot of that again is I just don't have a ton of these tailored setups. All that's changed in the last couple of years. I finally have my dad on board for a management plan. I finally have these seventeen other hunters on board to help out and work with me on these things. So

things are improving in that front. But my second plan, or Plan B, was working off of this theory based on historical information, based on past experiences with this specific deer, that he was going to be betting in that general area and working through that pinch point on top of that hill. There's a couple dough betting areas closer to the food source, and as the rut progresses, you know, we get into October here and those deers shift into

their fall pattern. He became a lot more consistent in that area, and then once rut hit, he was up there quite a bit. So then just comes down to again the timing, because the access up there is hard. You have to cross this destination food source, so getting in, you know, is kind of iffy, but getting out it's even worse. Because if you're trying to cross that destination food source in the dark, you're blowing deer off there, so you only get one or two good sits up there,

and then your chances of success go down. So that was kind of the secondary plan with that theory. Now last year I had the same exact approach, and you can kind of summarize that and how that panned out again utilizing the four key elements this scientific method or scientific approach to come up with a game plan. My initial plan for my target buck last year was early season again, same thing. Okay, I know knew where he was early season. He was actually hanging out and fairly

visible from the farm itself. I've got some younger nephews. My older sister works on the farm, so my nephews are on the farm quite a bit in the summer. They're glass in these fields at night. For me, they're all starting to hunt out too, so they're on board, and it's really fun to get more people involved in it. Right. But they had this deer I don't want to say pattern, but they were seeing this deer and then they'd let me know, and then you know, you had trail cameras

on top of that. So I had a really good plan early season, but the timing of the cold front early season last year didn't work out. My wife usually has one or two work trips this time of year, and she just happened to be gone, so I couldn't be gone. That property is like an hour or twenty minute drive from my house to hunt, so you know, it's not like I can zip there, hunt and pick up the kids from school, so I had to kind

of nix my early season plan. My secondary plan was a dough betting area that I knew that this buck spent some time in in the early stages of the rut, like late October timeframe, So I had put a cell camera on a community scrape just off the edge of

this dough betting area. I put that cell camera there in like August, and all the way through August, all the way through September, all that was on that scrape were doze as anticipated, and then all of a sudden, it was like October twenty third or twenty fourth, there was twelve bucks on that camera. In one day, one twenty four hour period, there was twelve different bucks on that camera, and one of them was my target buck. So the next day it actually there's rain in the forecast.

But you know, I got to take advantage of that information when you can, So I slipped into that edge of that betting area. I didn't have a stand placed already, because I like to be flexible, you know, so I can hunt that betting location, or not specifically in the betting area, but downwind to the betting area, right, I could hunt that a few different locations. And that's why I like to just go in mobile so that I

can set up according to the wind. So I went in there in the rain, hung the set, sat all day and at the very first light I had a couple does come into there, and I swore that I heard this like nasally grunt, But you know, in your mind, you're like, oh, was it a grunt? Was it two trees rubbing on one another? And as it turned out, it was a good sit. All day, I saw a handful of bucks, had a couple come in bed down

near me, watch these doughs. But the last hour of daylight I looked over, in fact, the trail that I came in on, there was a really fresh scrape. I looked over and that buck that I was after was bedded in that scrape like fifty yards away from me. So I think he came in at first light and he betted down, and then he repositioned himself at one point and betted down again, and I wasn't able to get a shot. You know. I threw some grunts at him. He eventually got up, and basically all he did is

he tried to work around and catch my wind. And there's a cornfield on the ridge above me. And as soon as he cut into that cornfield, I got down from the stand and I got out of there. Because the way the wind was blowing that day, he would have had to go about one hundred more yards and he would have caught my wind, and that could have screwed up the whole situation. It was already getting too dark to where you know, probably wasn't gonna happen. So

I just got out of there right away. Fast forward a little bit again, coming up with a new theory. Okay, So now plan A and Plan B didn't work. I'm like, Okay, I know this deer is in the area, but I also know that there's three fall turkey hunters and four bow hunters that are going to be showing up to hunt this property in the next couple of weeks. And the real kicker is the hunting cabin on our property is right at the bottom of the hill from this

bedding area. It's like the best deer hunting valley on the farm, worst spot you could put a hunting cabin, but it's you know, it's very scenic, I guess, right. But I knew that the pressure was going to increase exponentially within the coming weeks, so I had had to keep that in the back of my mind. So I hunted kind of the fringes of that area a couple more times, and and one day I went back to the edge of that bedding area and on my way in,

I bumped that deer. You know, at the time, I wasn't a hundred percent sure it was him, but I cut through that cornfield and was not anticipating deer being that close to betting an hour before daylight. And when I stepped out of that cornfield, the woods just came alive. Deer were running everywhere, and you know, I bumped them fast enough and hard enough that they didn't really know

what was going on. They just freaked out. Who out of there, and when they took off running, there was like that stereotypical like grunting chasing sound and that nasally grunt again. So I'm like, oh, it's got to be him. So I hunted that spot in the morning, and then the wind picked up as the day went on, and then I dropped down in the afternoon. I just got that stand. I dropped down in the bottom of the valley. I had a food plot there with the box plant.

I slipped in that blind, and sure enough that buck popped out on that food plot at like three o'clock in the afternoon, but he kept on looking back in the woods like he had a dough with him. I had a decoy out and everything he wouldn't commit. It's got some really cool footage of him. It was a great encounter. But that was that. And then after that the pressure increased in that valley and things got more

and more chaotic. So I was getting pictures of him, but I couldn't figure out where he was hanging out, and he wasn't showing up on food sources consistently, at

least not on the camera. So again I was hunting the fringes, trying to play it safe, pressure wise, just trying to collect more intel to lead me to a theory that I could be more aggressive with, and ultimately what it came to down I was talking to my cousin the night before this all played out, and you know, this kind of goes back to being able to explain

this approach. So over the past decade or so, there's been some tension in our family, you know, in the hunting side of things, like me being more successful than most of them but putting in a lot more time, and ultimately just trying to get them to understand, like if we work together on this, we're all going to be more successful. And you know, I was always like

the young kid following them around in the woods. I'm like one of the youngest cousins in the group, So I was a kid following around with a stick when they were all hunting. So then when I've evolved to like, you know, more serious hunter, like trying to tell them like how we should approach things that you know, at first there's like no, no, no, you listened here, right, Yeah, But last year I think was a huge turning point in that relationship or all of those relationships in general.

First and foremost they started to understand, like, you know this work. I'm doing this for everyone, and I finally just like, you guys, go hunt these spots, go hunt these blinds. As long as you're hunting them on the correct wind, you're gonna have opportunities. And they did, and they start having some really good sits. But the bigger thing was explaining the decisions that I was making in real time to these cousins. In years past, I would

try to avoid them. They'd be down hunting mostly weekends. I'd hunt during the week just to try to avoid the situation. But last year I tried to make a conscious effort to at least overlap a couple days. I'm trying to time it on the days I think our best for the win that I need the cold fronts and everything, but I try to overlap those days and kind of bring them into the whole situation. So the night before I ultimately harvested this year, I was talking

to my cousin. I was just like, you know, it's the weekend before rifle season, so for us, for me personally, that's like go time, Like that's when I get as aggressive as I'll ever get because once rifle season hits. There's seventeen gun hunters on this property, everybody in the area. I mean, it's very much like Michigan, right, you know the infamous pressure in Michigan. All of our neighbors are Amish, all of them. So the woods, you know, the Orange Army, right,

it's a thing. Right. So talking to my cousin, No, this is mid November. November eleventh would have been the evening that we had this conversation. November twelfth. That's what I harvested this deer. So I was talking to my cousin, you know, I basically said, this deer is showing up on cameras in the same area I was hunting him in. But he's showing up like an hour after dark or

half hour after dark. And I had sat nine all day sits on the fringes of these betting areas, these dough betting areas, anticipating him showing up there, bumping does or being with these dos and moving in and out of these betting areas at dawn of dusk, and purely sitting there all day because I was afraid to get down mid morning and put pressure on these betting areas and screw things up. Right. I told my cousin, I said, my theory is that this buck is betting in this

other bedding area. There's a on the other side of the ridge. There's a real tight draw. This valley tightens up, and actually half of the valley is open MFL so it's public land and there's a ton of people hunting it, and then the other half of the valley's in the pasture, so it's not There's not a lot of great cover there, but topography itself creates this nice little bowl in there that's impossible to hunt. And I knew this because I've tried to pursue bucks in there the last few years.

I find these mature bucks spending time in this area, and I try and set up in there on all different wind directions, and I'd always get busted the dose. The first doze that came through their bust me. I'd just pulled the set and get out of there to

try not to disturb the area. So I told my cousin, you know, my theory is this buck, because of the pressure across the farm, he's betting in this tight little bowl, and then right at dark he's just popping out of that chunk of woods, and he's crossing the wide open field and he's making the rounds and doing his thing at night. And the forecasted wind was supposed to be out of the south pushing right up that valley the

next morning. But it was supposed to be like fifteen to twenty mile an hour winds and gusts of like thirty miles an hour, and it was supposed to be warm. It was going to warm up. So I told him, you go hunt your stand. He's got his favorite stand at the bottom end of this valley, and I'm going to still hunt through this betting area in the morning

and just try and figure out what's going on. My first game, or my first goal or objective was to see if that deer was in there, if there's fresh sign in that area, and then you know, again try to come up with a plan on how to set up on him and hunt him, you know, one or two more days this week before gun season hit the following weekend. My secondary goal, or you know, like the optimistic side of things, I was like, maybe I'll just come across this deer. I'll just get it done right.

So I told him, like, you go hunt that sand end of the valley because if I bump this deer, he's going to run into the wind, and you're gonna be in a perfect situation to get a shot at this deer. And long story short, I slipped it in that betting area and just kind of still hunted my

way in. From first light, I saw a deer bedded behind a log about eighty yards out, and I relocated, got a better advantage point glass for a little bit, and lo and behold it was the buck that I was after, and took me four hours, four hours and fifteen minutes actual to get into position. But I shot him in his bed at thirty seven yards after four hours. So but again, you know, the stock side of things

seems crazy. You know, I never never would have anticipated stalking a mature white tail in our area, especially or shooting him in his bed. But that part, you know, hunting out west, I've kind of fine tuned that I'm not, by any means like an expert stalker compared to a lot of those guys. Right, But I've screwed up a lot of stalks, a lot of stocks, And every single time he screw up a stock, it's because he either didn't pay attention to the wind, or he moved too fast.

It's usually because he moved too fast. And in my mind, I was just like, it's you and me. I've got all day. You know, best case scenario, you stay there and I get into position, I have control. Second best case scenario is you stand up and relocate and give

me the opportunity. But as I'm playing through these scenarios, I'm like, man, every one of these shot opportunities is going to be like a fifty yard shot from this location, trying to range him through the brush, pick a spot, set a pin, and you know it would have been a rodeo. So it all worked out that way. But ultimately, again using that scientific approach to come up with a theory based on those four key elements is what took

me to that spot. And the one in a million shot was me getting to advantage point to see that deer without him knowing I was there. And I think, actually, you know, when I dial that back, when I relocated to that secondary location, that buck had his head looking straight away from me. His attention was drawn down the

valley and I basically saw him. I sat down, like hunkered down behind this tree, pulled out my camera and this other buck came up from the bottom of the valley, so he was drawn to that other buck coming towards him. And then after that he really settled in and went back to like you know, high alert. It's it's hard. You can get really close to deer when they're moving if you're you know, quiet and sneaky, but when they're stationary and they're like so in tune with their environment,

it's it's tricky. So I think that was really the one of a million chants there, but you'll ultimately just finding them where they are.

to a different level than a lot of people. And I've heard you talk about how you can't hunt them where they were. You have to hunt them where they will be. So it's all about anticipating where he's going to be, which you did in that case, like you thought he was going to be in that area because of you know that data you collected and these theories you've tested in other places that proved to be false. You can you just tell me a little bit more

about the kind of data that you're collecting. We've talked about cameras a little bit, but I know you do something like food source tracking, you do pressure audits on stands, You track a lot of different things which are a

little bit different than other people. And you've got this planner that you develop and that you use yourself that you're tracking a lot of these things we've talked about and more that is pretty extensive, and I think that's an important thing as we as we're into the season now, I imagine all of us could probably do a better job of tracking everything that's going on, because it's one thing to have these ideas, these theories to go do this stuff, but most of us throw something at the wall,

We throw a hunt at the wall, and then we say, oh, it didn't go well, or hey, it went well, great, and then we're onto the next one. We could probably benefit more if we were actually tracking it so we can look back on this stuff a year after year or in more detail throughout a year. Can you just expand on how you do that, why you do that in some of these specifics.

It all revolves an almost four key elements, so it lays out, you know, the initial concept of these four key elements, and then each one of those elements has an associated chart or table tool in there, and and what it does is it allows you to collect information directly related to those elements and then it helps you

put together that theory. So, for example, with the wind, I have a tool and that I refer to as pattern tractor, and that's I was talking about earlier, where I'm logging time and date location of these animals and ultimately looking back at the wind direction so that it can tell me, you know, where I think those deer are going to be and that helps me anticipate, you know, when I'm looking ahead, if I'm gonna you know, whether I'm a weekend warrior just working off of the opportunities

I have, or trying to predict where to be at the best time. I'm using that wind as such a valuable tool. The other tool and there is the pressure tracker. So I do a couple of those things, like you

said the pressure audit. Like if I'm if I'm setting up a property for a client or we're on a coaching call, one of the things that we do is a stand location pressure audit, where we look at stand locations, either current or potential stand locations, and rank them based on the amount of pressure that they put on the property. And simply put, we just want to get a temperature check for how hunting that stand is going to affect

us down to downstream. Right. So one of the things, a good example would be like the set up where I killed that buck early season, if I would have had a box blind there and a field of switch grass or some pine trees or low and behold and mascant this or you know, sorgum, whatever I had for a screen to get to and from that blind that would have been pretty good access. That would have been a low numbered stand, that would have been a one

or a two, depending on the situation. That's a stand location I can hunt a lot of different winds, especially being a box blind that contains your scent so well. You don't have that open air pushing your scent all

over the valley, so I can hunt that a lot. Inversely, we'd have a higher numbered stand, like on the fringe of one of those betting areas, where if you're gonna hunt that stand, you should really only hunt it if you have the intel that supports the decision to move in there, knowing that it's it's potentially high reward but also very high risk. You can only hunt that spot one or two times, and then you're probably gonna screw

up that spot. And if you're hunting a small property, you might burn out your whole entire property by hunting that location. So I was keep that in mind. But the tool that's in the planner, you can list all your stand locations and rank them, But the tool that's in there for tracking pressure. Ultimately, I'm either taking note from again observations in the field or what I see on trail cameras. But I'm trying to log activity that

I see that might put pressure on deer. Most of it's human activity because there's so much other pressure.

doing stuff on the fences and stuff. If I know that neighbors in the area, I simply log that time and date in the general location, and then a lot of times I can go back and I can can cross reference that pattern page again. When I see those anomalies or those one off pictures in the middle of the day, why was that deer moving through that area

at this time? What promoted that movement? Okay, it was pressure, Well, then I drill that or I dial back a little bit further and I go, okay, well, if he was in this area, you know, and looking at the wind history that day, yeah, okay, the wind was out of this direction, that would have potentially placed him in this betting area. But then this guy came through here and bumped him out. Now I can kind of prove that theory.

So it all goes back to helping prove or disprove these theories I have on where they're betting, where they're feeding, how they're moving. The food source tracker, that one's a little bit trickier it. You know, you can get as detailed as you want with something like that. I don't go out some properties. I will, but I don't go out and go so far as to like log every single acorn producing tree, you know, every oak out there,

every white oak versus red oak, all those things. But I will log years where there's a very noticeable acorn crop versus years that there's not, and then I can look back on like that, I'd be like, Okay, this year there wasn't very good acorn crop, and it's pretty obviously deer were hammering these food plots this year. You know, lfalfa is a big one. I talked about A big thing with alfalfa that I've noticed over the last decade is the first year that alfalfa's planted, it's the most attractive.

You know, they're gonna eat that alfalfa all the time. But a new seting field is night and day different from a stand of alfalfa that's two or three years old. And the second year it's still pretty attractive, but less attractive than the first year. And every year that goes by, it's less and less attractive. And I've seen, you know, a new seating in alfalfa. You can't outcompete that with most food plots, But second year alfalfa, I can out compete that with a lot of my food plots, especially

when I'm using that bioegg fertilizer. That mineralized fertilizer really seems to increase the palatability and nutrient content of those plots, and those deer are really drawn to it. So that's a big one. But as far as food source tracker goes, you know, it's a lot of it's just keeping record. So that again, and like every year that comes around, you're trying to predict that movement ultimately driven by food. You can look at what those food sources are and

what they were and if they've changed. Because the more consistent these elements become year to year to year, and if I'm tracking a specific year year to year to year and those elements are the same, then I can

anticipate him following a similar pattern historically, you know. And that's where that timing element comes in, where short term timing and again pattern tracker comes into play there and just tracking these deer over the years, but short term timing we're looking at wind and weather long term or you know, the annual scale, we're looking at that historical data. And I think it was I don't know if it

was at MSU or University of Tennessee. They had a really good I think they did a podcast on it, but they had a really good research article talking about the specific gene that's linked to the time period that does come into estrus. So they been able to track

that to genetics. And it makes perfect sense because you know, it's influenced on a big, you know, big big timeline environmentally, but it's it's passed on genetically to the offspring of those dough so you know, deer in northern climates they the ruts later because if that dough gets bred too early, then that fawn is born too early. A late snowfall

reduces the survivability of that dough. So just in time evolution, these deer have this genetic code that they pass on that says we're going to come into heat around this time. And it can fluctuate, you know, a couple of weeks on a property and I see that, you know, one corner of our farm every year around Halloween it's the hot spot to be. Go over the ridge it's November fourth, you know, go down the valley it's November tenth, or

whatever it might be. So when I look back at the historical information, whether it's a specific buck showing up in a certain area, you know, that's something this podcast comes out. Everyone should be anticipating the October shift, and if you don't have a game plan right now. Usually I see that shift happen between like the seventh the

fourteenth here in southwestern Wisconsin. But if you don't have a game plan right now, and I've had years like that where I had no deer on my radar and I just went back I go through my historical data the last couple of years certain areas, and when we're the mature bucks starting to show up on camera in these areas, and that's when I start, you know, that's what kind of directs me towards narrowing down my focus and trying to zone in or hone in on that

information specific to that area of the farm. But it's very predictable, and I'm sure you've probably talked about before people will understand. You know, you see these bucks show up on your property the same three to five day window every year. Sometimes they're there, you know, all fall, they shift at a certain time, and sometimes they're literally

only there for a week and then they're gone. So you know, that's a good way to anticipate and plan out your rut caation if you have, you know, a finite amount of opportunities to attack.

got to be using in the right way. I'd love to hear your thoughts on that.

researchers on the technology side. So I've put together, you know, five rules or considerations for trail camera success based on my experience working myself, you know, the research background, but also working with hundreds of thousands of customers over the years. So it is you hit the nail on the head.

It's it's absolutely critical to understand these things to use these trail cameras the right way, you know, and not saying there's not other ways to utilize them, but if you follow these rules, you'll have significantly higher levels of success with the information that you collect for these cameras.

So those five rules are five considerations. The first one is a trail camera only tells you where he should have been, not where he should be, and a cell camera just tells you where he should have been a lot sooner. Now, there's situations where if you're planning ahead, you know, that's ultimately what you want to do with these cameras again, is use them to prove or disprove theories.

But if you're planning ahead, and you know, like the dough betting area thing from last year, once I got intel on that camera that bucks were in the area, I was going to make a move. And that's that's the closest I've ever come to killing a deer directly based on cell camera data. But usually what I'm doing with just these trail cameras is using them to collect historical data. And a lot of times, you know, I have cameras across the farm that I don't even check

most of the year. And we'll get to that here in a second with these other rules, But the cameras tell you where he should have been, not where he should be, So use them to anticipate that movement and prove these theories, and then when the when the elements, those four key elements kind of come into play again or you know, those variables are coming into play or anticipated, like the forecast, the wind, the food sources are the same, you know, the pressure is the same. That's when you

can move on those. So it's it's really important to understand that, or else you're just always going to be a step behind. The second one, which we talked about already, is that trail cameras only tell you what's going on directly in front of them, right, so it's only giving you a sampling rate. And you know, again, look at the running mates of these bucks early in the season. Just use them to get a feel for deer activity

in general. But don't one hundred percent rely on that camera to tell you if that deer is in the area. If you get one picture of that deer, there's really good chance that he's probably been in that area quite a bit and or at least a fair amount, right, you know, And depending on the timing of that picture, it might might dictate how often he's there. But you know, a big thing people need to consider, especially with mature books, is they're very tactful with their movements, right, they don't

use the same trail every day. They might say they might use the same travel corridor, but most of the time, when they get up from their bed and they're moving to a food source, they're browsing along the way, right, they're trying to take advantage of that route. So if they follow the same trail every day, there's not going

to be browse on that trail every day. And also, you know, maybe they stay in a little bit thicker cover than what the younger deer do, So that's an important thing to note too, But they only tell you what's going on directly in front of them. The third thing, and arguably one of the most important things here, is

to be intentional with your trail camera setups. You know, again, use them when you go out and put that camera out, or you're checking that camera or you know, looking at it on your cell phone, think about the location of that camera and how that plays into this whole system.

You know, you're using it to prove a theory. So is that deer showing up on this food source, is that deer using this adjacent bedding area, or you know, maybe it is just purely inventory, But inventory is only going to tell you that that deer is in the area. It's not going to tell you, oh, I need to hunt this mineral lick or this corn pile that this deer showed up on in August, right, It's not going to tell you where to hunt in October or November.

So be intentional with those setups. The fourth one is to understand the pressure trail cameras put on mature books and try to avoid it. And that's where it kind of comes back to the second rule of I'm only telling you what's going on directly in front of them. These bucks they know that these cameras are there a lot of times, you know, so I always try to put the camera as high as I can reach angle

it down. There's limitations to that because when you place it high and angle it down, you trigger range or your target range is shortened quite a bit. You know, if it's low looking out across an open area, you're

going to trigger way out. But most of the time you have a very specific target area, whether it's a scrape, a mock scrape, a water hole, you know, a specific trail or something, so you can get away with raising that camera up and pointing it a really well defined air, and that kind of goes hand in hand with the setup itself and try to keep pressure off. What I've seen over the years is you could put cameras low

on food plots, you know. I think that's where you can get away with like a pick and stick type setup. You can put them lower on food plots where those deer can see that foreign object from a distance and then they get to choose if they want to approach it or not. Versus in the woods where you know they're kind of going down that trail milling along, maybe they work that scrape and also they picked their head up and boom, there's this thing there that they haven't seen. Yeah,

and it freaks them out. And that analogy that I always used when I worked for the trail camera company when people will be like, oh, I thought this was supposed to be a covert camera. These deer are clearly looking at it like if I went in your house and I put a can of beer on your nightstand and you came home, You're going to notice it and it's going to make you feel really uneasy that someone was in your house.

he's clearly gone. Well he might be he maybe he shifted, but I've seen it time and time again where I'm in the woods hunting, I can see the trail camera and the adjacent pinch point, and that buck comes up and he goes around behind that camera, skirts it by twenty yards back on the trail, just completely avoids it. So that's a big one. And then the last one is simply just sorry.

heard anything about that? Have you seen anything to that? Is? Is that crazy hogwasher something?

customer service department. And one of my actually one of my favorite customers over the years was this absolutely brilliant human being, brilliant, like on the spectrum, a brilliant human being, incredibly smart. But he was part of the Bigfoot research organization, Okay, And I wanted to preface that because you know, it's easy to be like bigfoot hunter. You know, actually we want to refer to them as researchers. They always appreciate that.

But the reason I appreciated this guy so much was one again, he was just brilliant and He actually dropped out of the organization when it started to get more popular with all the shows and stuff on Discovery Channel because he didn't want that hype. He was convinced that he was going to find these cryptic animals, and he was using trail cameras heavily for that. That's how I

got connected with him. But he built his own high frequency noise test chamber because he was convinced that they weren't getting high quality pictures of Bigfoot because the sasquatch could hear these high frequency noises emitted from electronics. And he sent me all the test files and it was pretty crazy. Some of these cameras, and you know, we don't need to go in the details on them. And this was years before cell cameras were really a thing.

But some of these cameras made zero noise until they were triggered, and then there'd just be this insane high frequency squeal. And some cameras had like a constant little squal and then when they took pictures, it was insane like the noise.

the time. But that concept there of those radios communicating all the time, it's very very possible that they're emitting high frequency noise that animals can pick up on. And you know, not to go crazy down that rabbit hole. But I've had some really good hunts. I've killed so of my biggest deer on days where I didn't take my cell phone with me. You know, there was one night you can see over my shoulder here this two hundred inchure, my first two hundred inch I killed. They're

technically one hundred ninety seven inch. That night, I was like stressed out with work. I got to my truck and I've just shut my phone off and left it in the truck and I went out out there, had gotten the stand and I killed that deer, you know, it could have just been coincidence. But you know, I think cell phones in general kind of affect us either from distractions or potentially noise. But but the camera thing, I think is very plausible because the electronics in those

trail cameras are obviously not as advanced. You know, it's a lot of the same chips and everything, but they're not the same as like your cell phone camera, right. A lot of them are bigger, clunkier, lower cost components. They're bigger, you know, some of these inductors and capacitors in these circuits that are charging up and dumping all this energy and stuff. They're probably not fine tuned to

be as efficient in general. But overall that concept and knowing that there there are you know, significant high frequency noises emitted from these electronics, from that researcher's results and testing them, it's very very plausible, very plausible. And I've had situations actually this year over here, the year before I killed him, I had a camera on the back end of our farm and it was a cell camera.

It was up in the tree and this like back corner of the field where the deer kind of cut this corner, you know, between two betting areas was also a food source. It was a good hybrid type setup, but it was up in the tree high enough where I had to drive my ATV up to it and stand on the handlebars to reach the camera. So ten plus feet up in the air, in the middle of a snowstorm, the middle of a snowstorm, that deer came across that field and his eyes went straight up to

that camera and he turned around and ran off. So you can't tell me that he saw the flash or heard a click or anything. In that snowstorm, something drew his attention to that camera.

deer is going to be different. Every property is going to be different. Every area is going to be different. But in general, I think that it's very, very plausible.

of guys nowadays are running all cell cameras. Try to get in the habit at the end of the season to swap that card, dump that car on your computer, catalog it by location, because then next year it's way easier to go back on your computer and scroll through those pictures. Then try to scroll through that app and find you know, a little tiny thumbnail or something, or you know, even better yet is go through those pictures

and catalog the information. Whether you're using a planner like this or you know what Xcel spreadsheet or whatever it might be, but catalog the important information there and save that because that historical data is so important and it really will help you anticipate, even if it's a completely different deer that you're pursuing. That historical data is going to help you kind of reveal those trends and prove those theories.

concept to something that came up last week. So I just want to get your thoughts on that real quick. What do you mean by playing defense and why is that important?

mature deer to begin with. So this comes into play whether you're pursuing a specific deer or you're trying to grow or increase the age class or age structure of deer on your property. But it ultimately goes back to that pressure thing. You don't want to push deer off your property. You don't want to disturb those deer. You want to make sure that when you're hunting, you're utilizing the high quality sits versus just getting out there to

get out there. And that's where having a easy access stand. Whether it's box blind or just a non invasive location where maybe you do only have a couple of days to hunt. Okay, go hunt that, but don't go into the depths of your property unless you have a good plan. And back to the wind element and again the pressure.

Understand that if you bump deer they're going to run into the wind, and they almost always run into the wind, and then they're going to go to the next best cover, depending on how hard they're bumped or what the quality of that cover is. You know, they might just go to the other side of the valley on your property,

or they might vacate your property altogether. Then they end up on the neighbor's property and some kid that's you know, never step foot in the woods goes out and shoots a giant buck, which you know, that's great, but I think that they should earn it right, So that's a

big thing. But also again, like you put in all his time and effort and work on your property or just the time that goes into pursuing these deer, you want to take smart or make smart moves when you pursue them so that you don't bump them off your property because once they're dead, they're dead, right then there's no opportunity. So that's what I always mean by playing defense in that situation.

talk about. Some people will say, man, bucks will almost always travel with the wind to their advantage in some way. Other people will say, geez, I've seen deer walking with the wind at the back plenty of times, and there's no way they could go around all the time through their daily life. So the wind in their favorite because they'd walk in circles half the time, or whatever it is. What's your take on that? Real quick?

advantageous for them. Right, they can't see a whole lot, but they can smell what's coming from behind them, and they're moving forward, then they have a little bit of advantage there. They really in there's a direct relationship between how deer used the wind and the pressure on the property or in the surrounding area. So the higher the pressure is, the more they're going to use the wind.

been at their back. But they maintained cover the whole time they dropped down on this creek bottom, and then they approached the food source with the wind at their face. So I think if you're hunting a food source or the fringes of a dough betting area during the rut, in a food source during the rut is a really

good spot to hunt too. I would stay on the down wind side of it, or anticipate movement from the downwind side, because whether that buck's approaching that food source to feed and anticipating, you know, the potential of an ambush from a predator. Or he's approaching that food source to pick up a cent trail from a dough and follow her back to a bedding area. He's gonna follow, he's gonna get down wind of it. So I think that's a big thing there.

So when to take your shots, when to make your plunge, when to get aggressive, when to sit that best spot or that spot you've been waiting and waiting and waiting for. You touched on in your hunt earlier this year that the cold front was the trigger for you. But there's a whole bunch of other kind of variables that different people really assign a lot of value to when it

comes to timing their hunts. Can you run me through really quick the most important variables you look at from a weather perspective, you know, whether it be precipitation or temperature, or barometric pressure, or wind or moon. Those are things that some people have got strong opinions on. Would love to hear yours real quick.

and give me more precise information. But for the most part, I don't. I don't invest a ton in that. I don't invest a ton in the in the red moon or anything like that. I mostly look at the weather and the wind, specifically the wind direction and temperature changes. So I really really really like to hone in on wind direction changes. I've killed my biggest deer on wind changes.

You know, whether that wind changed midday and I went out that afternoon or that wind changed overnight and moved them to a new area, and then I went out and hunted them. But I really try to dial in on that, and more often than not, when there's a wind change, there's a temp change. You know, it either maybe it flips and it warms up, but a lot of times it flips and it cools down. Now, when it comes to cold fronts in general, I think, honestly, I think that those are harder to really be super

precise with. You know, some cold fronts, like last night, we had a cold front move through here, but it wasn't really that good of a night for movement. You know, I talked to a lot of guys that were oute. I've got a handful of cell cams out on food

sources right now, and there really wasn't much movement. I would anticipate tonight that there's more movement, and that's a lot of times what I'll see is especially like as we progress into the fall and we get like real cold fronts, you know where it goes from fifty degrees to twenty eight degrees and a little bit of snow. A lot of times that first day of that cold front. The deer just shut right down, they don't move, and

then the next day they start moving a lot. More So, to answer your question, I try to just collect as much information as possible, and I start with the wind, but most of the time I'm looking at that timing element. So again, and I think this is probably gonna be the most helpful for anyone listening to this, try to

hone in on your timing in general. You know, we're already getting past the early season by the time this podcast drops, I would say we're already out of early season, not saying that there's not some early season stuff still trickling. And you know, I've seen bucks pretty consistent on food plots patternable into mid October before. But for the most part, think timing, think ahead, and i'd be looking at historical information.

Where are those doughs, And if you don't have this data yet, start tracking your does, start following those doughs, and try to figure out where those doughs are spending their time, because obviously the bucks are going to start showing up there. But once I drill in on my timing, so say I've got this three to five day window that I'm trying to target in you know, whenever it is. It could be early October, could be late October, early November. I'm trying to figure out the timing there and then

ultimately I'm looking at my setup. Right. So one thing that we didn't really touch on earlier is that, you know the second half of my holistic approach, and just to kind of hit that on a high level quick, what I what I do is, you know, I refer to it as holistic hunting land management. So we in the first podcast we talked about the habitat itself, but it's I think it's important to talk about the setups

and the systems on property. So from a holistic standpoint, what I'm always doing is I'm looking at the properties and how that property functions as a system as a whole, right, you know, again, habitat is a big part of that, but specifically talking about the hunting side of things, how does that property function as a system where dear betting,

how are they moving, where are they feeding? And then I you know, we dial back a little bit on that and how does that property fit into a bigger system on the landscape, especially if you have a small property and even our farm you know, IVE got fifteen hundred acre farm. One of the big advantages I always had was it's broken up. It's connected, but it's broken up by topography so much so that it almost hunts

like four different properties. And those deer, you know, they might spend a lot of time on our farm, but it's only a small amount of their actual range, and whether they're not on our farm, we don't know where they are. So it's part of a much bigger system. So kind of anticipating and understanding that, but more importantly than anything else is to drill in to see how the property is made up of these smaller systems or setups, and that's a big one. So we talk about timing,

and I've got my time frame kind of narrowed in. Okay, I really need to focus on this time frame, whether it's the ideal time frame or I need to schedule a week off of work period. Right. I haven't had to deal with that for a while now because I make my own schedule. But for a long time it was like, Okay, I got to put in a notice a month or two in advance of when I'm going to be gone from work. Looking at that historical information drilling in that timing, and then within that timing, I'm

looking at my specific setups. Where is that buck going to be, where do I anticipate him going to be, and what wind direction do I need to hunt that setup? Now, not specifically the safe wind to you know, this is obviously important, but I think that's one oh one level of like how do I get in and out of there and hunt it without deer busting me? More importantly is what wind is going to place that buck in that betting area or that adjacent betting area that feeds

that setup. You know, so simple at setup possible, right, just think food, where they're going to end up betting, where they're coming from. If it's an afternoon setup or you know, inverse of that in the morning, and a pinch point in between. You know, it could be a lot of different types of pitch points. But that's a setup at a high level. So what is the wind

that I need to hunt that? And if I'm looking at that time frame and I plan that out now I'm looking at that and I might get screwed and oh the wind's out of the same direction the whole week, Well then I'm just going to hunt it the best I can, but it's not really putting me in a

position where I'm I have the highest donds possible. But if there's some fluctuation in the wind that week, and I know the wind, that's gonna again have the wind at that bucks back in that betting area, or it's a betting area where he's gonna cruise down window to pick up do set. I'm gonna stay out of that setup until that wind is perfect for that situation. I'm gonna hunt the fringe. You know. Maybe I'll just sit in the truck and glass a field that night, you know,

rather than adding pressure to that location. But I think that's probably the most important element there again, the wind in combination with the timing.

done every single year. So that person is sitting with you at the table, and you've got five minutes to tell them one thing that would help them take that final next step for the late October time period, and then one piece of advice for like peak run, because those are maybe the two windows where most people think they've got their best chance, right that late October window, Man, there's this great opportunity to still have a pattern on a deer that big boy might be getting on his feet,

So that's a special window. And then there's that special window when everything's just on their feet. Can you give me that one advanced idea for each of those windows for that person?

that wind direction thing. You know, I've consulted on some properties with some pretty successful hunters, some fairly big names in the industry, business owners within the outdoor industry. You know, they've killed a lot of good deer over the years, a lot of great deer over the years. But it

comes back to that wind thing. And you know, again, I could explain this to one guy like, yeah, I already know that, but looking at the wind and how it places those deer is such an important things, so important, you know, I think all too often we just look at simply that's a stand I can hunt on this wind direction, but it's not necessarily going to put that buck in the area because of that wind direction. You know, in combination of where they bed and also how they travel.

You know, those bucks really want to travel on that leeward side of the hill, the down wind side of the hill more often than not, not saying they won't travel on the other side, but they usually are going to spend most of their time on the down wind side of the hill when they're traveling. If you have topography or just in general, you know, I say the hill a lot or topography. Topography is the greatest form of cover. Just think of topography as cover, plain and simple.

It's cover without food value, and that's all it is. So if you're hunting flat land in Iowa or Illinois or something, those bucks are going to travel more on the down wind side of the cover while still maintaining cover. So having those buffer areas or transition areas is important. But I'm sure you talk about all the time the hard edges and different edges and stuff. Right, they're going

to follow that edge on the down wind side. But I think it's the most important thing to consider there is that wind element in general, and most of the properties that I'm on they have one or two really good stands. You know, maybe there's some that are not in the best locations to hunt and wind swirls or it's just not great. But more often than not, guys have stands in pretty good locations. They just hunt them on the wrong wind directions or they access them the

wrong way. So understanding the wind and how it places those deer is one going to give you a huge advantage in anticipating when to hunt that location, but it's also going to give you an advantage of how to access that right. So just trying to avoid a potential betting area, so your sense not pushed into that to access that

stand is obviously what's going to create the opportunity. Because if you blow them out of there or just alert them, right, I've seen this time and time again, where dose deer know you're there, it doesn't necessarily mean they're blown out of the country, right because most areas it's deer are going to see, smell, or hear people on a daily basis. It doesn't mean they're running all the time, but they're simply not going to move towards the direction of a potential threat.

I call the Golden Hour. It's a one hour consultation. It's going to give you access to kind of like a little mini course talking more about the scientific approach and now we sit down and we break down your situation and talk about all these concepts and how it applies, and that a lot of times will will be all all most guys need, just kind of shift their perspective and get them going to where they're collecting information that they can build off of and you know, again start

putting together these theories. The other thing actually pretty exciting from my position is I'm actually working with the white tail Master Academy now. So if you go to whitetail masteracademy dot com and actually it gave me a code so you can get twenty dollars off WA for white tail Ambition WA white tail Master Academy. There's gonna be a lot more detailed videos coming out on my approach, which you know, white tail Master Academy's got a lot

of great videos Bobby Kendall's on there. He's got a lot of great videos with land plans. Don Higgins obviously he's got all his land plans and stuff on there. I think what I offer is probably a little bit different from those guys, where mine's again trying to address more common scenarios where you have less control or limited control, trying to make the most of the situation. So you can go there, sign up for that. You can get access to all those videos and all this stuff I'm

talking about, and use that code w A twenty on there. Otherwise, social media, the Untamed Ambition and White Tail Ambition. Again, white the Untamed Ambition is my primary business. White Tail Ambition is kind of the coaching division specifically for white tails. But you can find me on social media Instagram the Untamed Ambition, and then on YouTube the Untamed Ambition.