November 19, 2020 • 57 mins
Clay Newcomb gives some updates to Kolby Morehead about his new job with MeatEater and gives cryptic insight into the future of the podcast. They go into detail about their whitetail hunting season, including Kolby's muzzleloader double. Clay talks about three years of patterning bucks on the same scrape and the very clear patterns he's noticed, as well as the hunter's deep connection to place and why that's important.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
My name is Clay Nukeleman. I'm the host of the
Bear Hunting Magazine podcast. I'll also be your host into
the world of hunting the icon of the North American
Wilderness Fair. We'll talk about tactics, gear, conservation. We will
also bring you into some of the wildest country on
the planet chasing Fair. This week, Kolbe and I dial
(00:36):
it back a notch and bring up some pretty relevant
topics that are relevant to the Barony Magazine podcast, Meat Eater,
my association with Meat Eater and magazines, and the current
state of our hunting. We talked about a bunch of stuff,
but this is definitely a different style of podcast that
(00:59):
I think there's some relevant information. I mean, if you're
a Barony Magazine podcast listener, you're gonna want to check
this out. And that's why you're here, because you're checking
it out. Hey, just yesterday I was It's the Arkansas
Modern gun season, but I was carrying my c V
A Accura Mountain Rifle for several reasons because of its lightness,
(01:19):
and I was getting back in there a long ways
and didn't want to carry a heavy gun and in
these tight quarters in the mountains where I'm hunting and
you're not gonna get two shots and animal anyways, might
as well be carrying the muzzloader. So I carried my
c v A Accurate Mountain rifle Kolbe. I haven't even
told you this. I fell in the creek on the
way out in the dark. He was crossing the creek,
(01:40):
fell in the creek, went down to my knees. The
muzzleloader went totally underwater. The butt of the muzzleloader, including
the breech plug, with totally underwater. So you see where
I'm going with this. So I pull the muzzloader out
of the water, and I'm like, if I was hunting
it was dark now, yeah, but with this gun fire.
So when I went back to the truck, I wanted
(02:02):
to see if it would shoot. I've actually videoed this.
Uh and uh. The breech plug was underwater for about
two seconds, which you know historically muzloaders would be uh
if they get wet, they wouldn't shoot. You know, boom,
gun fired. And you know that breech plug that you
(02:23):
can unscrew with your hand on that CB A Accurate
Mountain All c v A muzzloaders was tight enough that
no water got on that powder shot. So anyway, that's
my like real life, you know, plug for c v
A muzzloaders, the breakover action. I love them, the lightweight,
(02:44):
like I enjoyed carrying that gun. And uh, you know,
it's a twohundred yard gun to me, and I've only
shot it a couple of times, you know, uh, and
didn't didn't kill a deer. But c v A man,
check them out. They've got a great warranty on all
their guns and a very full line of all types
of muscles. It is, man, it's killing me, kolbe that
(03:06):
I haven't coon hunted very much this fall killing me.
It's time and W hunting supply. Man. I've got a
new garment Alpha two from W that I'm about to
get cranked up because we're about to start coon hunting.
I pretty much just can't combine coon hunting and deer
(03:27):
hunting very well. A lot of the places I hunt,
I can't coon hunt there. But point being, it's time
for guys to start thinking about, well not thinking about
they're doing it. Sounds releasing the hounds, releasing the squirrel dogs,
releasing the border collie out of your backyard. Later a
minute uh, not sporting dogs, pet dogs, any kind of
(03:49):
dogs you've got. I know, people listen to podcasts, have dogs.
Go support Buddy Woodbury and w Hunting Supply. These guys
aren't just business owners. They're fighting a good fight for hounds,
for sporting dogs, and they're they're they've got an incredible company,
incredible customer service. Anything you ever need for dogs, garments, supplies, anything.
(04:10):
Our friends, our buddies right vocal for you, yeah, man.
And our good friends at the Western Bear Foundation, UM
check them out there doing a lot of great stuff
in the West for black bears. They're they're hunting conservation organization,
but they're interacting with a lot of the issues out
(04:33):
there related to the delisting the Yellowstone grizzly So there's
a lot of anti hunting activity out there. And Western
Bear Joe Coon Dellas, those guys, they're they're great spokesman
for us. And as we talk about Garden the Gate,
this may not seem relevant. You may not live in Wyoming,
in Montana and Idaho, and you may not have to
worry about grizzly bears, but what's happening out there is
(04:55):
going to affect you at some point. In Pennsylvania and
Arkansas and can Hockey and New Mexico. It's like, these
fundamental issues of predator hunting are gonna be key for
the future of the North American honey model being sustained.
So that's why guys like the Western Bear Foundation are
so significant. So go join their organization, check them out. Lastly,
(05:19):
north Woods Bear Products man Bear Bayton is pretty much over.
I mean it's like November, but spring is coming up,
and there's there's no better bear scent products than than
north Woods. There's just not. And so north Woods Bear
Products they're they're they're great guys, great friends of ours,
and have an incredible full line of all kinds of
(05:42):
commercial sense. You hear me talk about it all the time.
What do I talk about? Gold rush and gold rush
north Woods gold Rush. If you open it up your truck,
your truck will smell like that for three years. We
know that. Yeah. They should make a gold rushed candle,
a gold rushed candle, yeah, just for your house. Yeah,
just manly candle like Dolly bag is not exactly manly. Strong,
(06:06):
it overwhelms you. Yeah, it's kind of a butter, it's
kind of a it's kind of odd that it tracks
bears like it does. But oh man does it ever?
Yeah man, yeah yeah, butter Northwoods candle from Colby, Hey,
I would I would try it. Hey, check out our
buddies at Northwoods and uh, thanks for listening to our podcast, guys,
(06:27):
we really appreciate it. There's some changes coming in the
future that are gonna be awesome and you'll learn a
little bit about it on this project. We are at
the Bear Hunting Magazine global headquarters. I've got here with me,
Colbe the Bear Tech more head How are you doing,
(06:47):
Kobe fantastic? All right, Well, this is gonna be a
little bit different of a podcast, um, for many reasons,
many reasons. We've got some few things we need to
address directly and um, and those very things are the
(07:08):
things that are kind of affecting our current podcasts. And
these are all like, uh, these are good things, good things. Um.
But then we're gonna talk about we're gonna talk a
little bit about our hunting season, which man, I've had
a tough one so far. But hey, the the monkey,
the monkey on the table on the table. The monkey
(07:31):
on the table come from I don't know, probably Brent
Reeves that sounds like a Reeves thing. No, Um, hey
I work for meat Eater. Yeah have you heard about that?
Are you talking to me or are you talking to somebody?
I'm talking to you. I wanted to, I wanted to
(07:52):
officially on the podcast talk about this because this is
a public knowledge. Like a like three weeks ago, Dobbly
uh meat Eater came out with a video and you
guys could go watch it if you hadn't seen it.
It's on Instagram and on Facebook of of introducing me
as the newest team member of meat Eater, um in
(08:15):
mountain men style. Yeah. So there's like a little two
minute video that's pretty fun that you could go back
and check out. But I thought it would be uh
valuable to our listeners to hear me talk about this situation,
um and kind of tell them about the structure of
the way things work. Um. So the good news is
(08:37):
is that Bear Hunting Magazine is gonna stay the same
and even be better. Uh Bear Hunting Magazine. I still own, operate,
you manage Bear Hunting Magazine, So like the the actual
print magazine, it's not going to change at all. Like
you'll still see me and they're still see me writing,
(08:59):
Um still see just like toils and stuff. Yeah. Yeah,
so Bear Hunting Magazine, Um, it's still intact. And man,
we've been in print for twenty years. Um, this is
our twentieth year of production. And you know, maybe it'd
be kind of cool to go into a little bit
(09:19):
of history about bar Hunting Magazine for people that hadn't
been following along. We've got some subscribers that have been
subscribing since the day one. You know, they have twenty
years of magazines. Um, but Bar Hunting Magazine was what
were we gonna say. I was gonna say, that's a
on the phone when they call in there, like I've
got every single one. I don't want to miss one.
(09:40):
So yeah, and they get real crazy by the post
office loses their magazine, so they call real quick if
they don't get it on time. It's like, I just
am I am I missing out of my subscription? Listen
to this, Kobe. I just like, right when we got
on this podcast, there's a there's one here that you're
gonna have to deal with. He said. I was wondering
why I haven't received my November December issue. I look
(10:01):
forward every other month receiving your great publication for the
past ten plus years. So for whatever reason, he didn't
get his magazine. Yeah, I think those are the people
of that see the value in having a full library.
Yeah yeah, Well so Baronning Magazine was started by a
friend of mine, a guy guy named Jeff folsom Um.
(10:21):
Jeff and his wife ran the magazine for fourteen years
and in ten acchoired the business, acquired the magazine and
so I've been running it since. So now going on
seven years June of one, eight years and uh so, yeah,
(10:41):
Baronting Magazine is the only print fully dedicated bear hunting
magazine in the world. There's been a few kind of
come and go, not necessarily print magazines, but there was
an online magazine. But I mean, we're the only dedicated
bear publication in the world, just for interest sake, just
(11:05):
so people can kind of understand the print world and
kind of what's happened inside of media. So about two thousand,
probably about the time that this business was started, print
was really at its peak. I mean, think about like
the nineteen nineties. Let's just go back to the nineteen nineties.
If you wanted to consume outdoor media, you would have
(11:26):
pretty much had two options, which would have been television
that was the start of kind of like outdoor television
which was big, which became big, and VHS taste. When
I say television, I mean just like watching Hunting on
your TV with you about VHS tapes? Did your dad
by VHS hunting tapes? What do you remember any of
the names? Man, I wore out? Okay, so this isn't
(11:49):
a legit hunting when but I wore were out Jim Varney,
the Misadventures above. But whenever I was a kid, I
don't even know who that is. Like t K might know,
like you know, Buck Masters and like all that stuff,
the Real Trick Guys and ye Prime Primetime Bucks. Yeah,
it sounds like we watched so many. I had no
idea like what they were called. But every once a
(12:11):
while go back at home and I'll see one. I'm like, oh,
I remember that one brings back memories. Man, I've still
got like in the office here, I've still got a
bunch of my DVDs. Now. I got rid of the
VHS tapes because they were just like irrelevant. I don't
even have a VHS player anymore. Vcr Um. But man,
there was a time when that was like the main
(12:31):
way to consume outdoor media was through the television or
number two magazines. Like, man, I grew up on magazines,
and then most people did if they were consuming media
before let's say two thousand five. Like just you know,
(12:53):
so like people that are like in their twenties probably
weren't as focused on magazines. But I'm still amazed at
how much magazines have infused the culture. Like I was
at that For instance, I was at the dentist the
other day and uh, he was talking about teeth whitening,
and he was like, now, if you were going to
be on the cover of a magazine, we would do this,
(13:18):
and like in his mind, like uh, he was a
little bit older guy. Yeah, like the pinnacle of like
someone that would need like really white teeth and a
good smile would be someone that was on the cover
of a magazine, very visible and put together. Well, but
my point is is that like, uh, still people people say, oh, man,
(13:40):
you're gonna put that in the magazine, you know, like
magazine is still like this iconic prestige. Yeah, place of
prestige in just about anything the cover of a magazine cover. Okay,
so it turns out. The Internet came along Kolbe and
the Internet. I remember I graduated high school eight and
(14:00):
I remember as a senior them having us set up
email addresses, and I remember the words coming out of
one of my teachers, Miles, about the World Wide Web
w w W. And so that was and it was
like what really the Internet email? Huh? And then I
went to college, graduated college in two thousand five ish,
(14:23):
and uh, you know, by about two thousand five, like
the Internet was like rolling. Um. As the Internet began
to roll, magazines began to lose their relevance for mainstream
distribution of information. I would say probably Ish would have
(14:48):
been like into this day. I mean by like the
Internet had changed the world so much so that it
would never go back to what it was, and in
doing so, by then most magazines were like the fluff
of the magazine world was gone, Like the fringe magazines
(15:08):
that weren't that great, that didn't have that weren't gonna
make it, had already died. By the magazines that we're
going to make it pretty much we're still there because
there was there's always What we found is there's always
this percentage of people that want to get a print magazine,
that want to have something shipped to their door, that
(15:29):
want to have something that they can hold, that want
to have something that's not digital that they're looking at
that's burning holes in their brain, you know. And uh
So here we are in and the magazine is still
going strong. We've got this is this is what amazed
people is we've pretty much had the same number of
subscribers since like the very beginning until like our numbers
(15:53):
have remained relatively stable. And that's amazing to me because
people some ties here that have a magazine and they're like,
oh man, that's a tough business. Um and uh, I
don't know, it's been a good it's it's worked for us. Yeah,
and it's been a good way to disseminate information. And
people are still and I'm I'm I'm revealing all my
(16:16):
cards here. People are still willing to pay for a
print magazine. They're not willing to pay for a subscription
to our YouTube channel. I think, you know, you think
like they like if we started selling subscriptions to our
YouTube channel, like I don't know, I mean, I don't think.
I mean, we do have digital subscriptions, like you know,
through Maxter but right, right, right, But that's just to
(16:37):
the actual like print, so you can have it on
your on your phone and stuff, you know. Yeah, like
the same thing that you would get in your hand,
you could have in with your phone. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
But I say all that I'm describing Bear Hunting Magazine
just because we've never really like officially talked about it.
But Barretti Magazine is usually like a seventy six page
(16:58):
full color magazine, columns, um, and it's all gonna be
the same. I started off talking about Meat Eater, so
but I just wanted to say that Barony Magazine is
gonna persist in its current form and even be better. Um.
Colby has been writing some for us, been doing some
uh are we We usually we almost always have a well,
(17:19):
we always have a recipe, a big recipe with like
photo essay, recipe, legendary barhound, columns, um, all kinds of
stuff meat Eater. So what I'm gonna be doing for
meat Eater. And the one thing that is changing is
(17:41):
um um at some point in the future that's as
vague as I'll be, is that I'm gonna be doing
a podcast for meat Eater. But the good news is
is that the people that listen to this podcast keep
getting it won't have to do anything different. Like if
you're subscribed to this podcast, just one day, you're gonna
(18:04):
wake up and it's gonna be different and it's gonna
be awesome. Yeah. Uh, that's pretty much all that I'll
say about it. Um, But the the the meat Eater
platform of podcasts. You know, meat Eater has Steve Ronnelli's
Meat Eater podcast, which is the biggest podcast in hunting
(18:26):
by far. Um there's uh Col's Weaker Review, which is
always a top five, if not top two or three
podcasts in the hunting world. Mark Kenyon's Wired to Hunt,
which is always in the top I've seen it, number two,
I've seen that, number five, Mark Kenyon's podcast as a
(18:48):
meteor podcast. Uh. Ben O'Brien's Hunting Collective is always a
top tier podcast. Remy Warren's Cutting the Distance is all
base Sickly Mediator kind of like dominates the podcast world,
which is pretty cool because I guess what boys are
podcast it's gonna be with those guys, and uh, it's
(19:11):
pretty exciting. So more of your friends will you'll be
able to talk to you about the podcast. You listen
to because maybe they'll listen to. Yeah. And so yeah,
there's gonna be some change. It's gonna be some changes
in content. Like it's it's gonna be totally different. So man,
all all anybody that would be listening to this right
now would kind of be like our core guys that
(19:34):
came in when when we are are as we are.
So man, you can help us just by just keep listening,
keep following. And um, I don't know when the the
moments it's gonna be because we're we're working hard kind
of behind the scenes on a bunch of stuff right now.
But it's cool. But what you can see that I
(19:55):
am doing for metators, I'm writing some articles for them
and we're doing some video will work for him. There's
a cool video up right now and shocked pouching a
deer which James Lawrence, my old mountain man buddy. He
his grandmother taught him how to carry out a deer
on his back. Cool grandma, cool grandma. Yeah, And so
like we did a video on that that's that's come out.
(20:16):
That's on the Meteor website. It's on mevia your Facebook
and Instagram and stuff. Um, and I'm doing some writing
for him. Wrote an article about how not to be
a public land knucklehead. So there's some there's some cool
stuff coming out and uh everybody can check it out.
(20:37):
So that's that's all I got on that for now.
Um hey, hunting season, tell me Colby you killed? You
had a good season. Yeah, yeah, I've had a good
season so far. Got uh I got that that Barrett
to be opening weekend of of bear season archery season,
and then uh, I end up getting a dough with
(20:57):
my bow and then I got two bucks with my
muz lotter. Yeah, so tell us about the bucks like
kind of like you know, was your if some family
land southwest Arkansas has some private land, uh that cousin
of mine owns, and so uh yeah, I end up
getting the uh the a buck that morning in the
same stand that I got the dough out of. And uh,
(21:20):
you know, this year I decided, oh man, I'm I
didn't really do much last year. I need to put
some meat in the freezer. And so I felt like
I really need to come out pretty strong, and so
I uh, I was just I was there and there
was a dough and a fun and a yearling. Um
it still had a few spots on it, just wandering around,
and then the dough kind of you know, kind of
(21:43):
winded me a little bit, or not winded me. She
looked up and she she saw something she didn't like,
and she jumped and jumped back out of scene or
I couldn't see her. And then uh, I heard what
I thought was her coming back in to where the
yearling is and then you uh turned out gruce mantlers.
So I look over him, like, wait, she looks different
(22:07):
as a dude. So so anyways, uh, I was debating
whether or not I was gonna take him, just because
it was like opening day a muzzleloader season. This is
like way too easy. And then uh but then I
was like, well, I'll just take advantage of the situation,
put some meat in the freezer, and so I, uh,
(22:28):
I was able to get him. You know, he didn't
he didn't run off too far. And then uh, yeah,
and got him. And then we've had some bucks that
were that were really we we didn't really have many
pictures of that buck, and he wasn't very big, but
you know, it just felt like a good one to
take out. He had a like a few like small
(22:49):
kickers off the off of his base and stuff. It
was just you know, he was kind of he was
a I think a seven point yeah. And so then, uh,
that evening, my dad and I we had been seeing,
uh looking at we looked at our trail cameras the
night before in one particular trail camera, and there was
this good buck coming in uh pretty early in the
(23:12):
in the afternoon, like he was consistently coming out around
three o'clock, three o'clock, three thirty, and so we were
just like, man, that's a good buck. And my dad
was like, that's my buck. So we knew where he
was gonna hunt. Then as we continued looking at the pictures,
there was a bachelor group of of bucks that had
some good bucks in it coming in later in the evening.
(23:34):
And so that dear that dad was hunting was consistently there,
and then another group would would come in and join him,
and just we would get pictures of I think there
was like five different bucks really still hanging together, still
hanging together during muzzleloader season, which we were you know,
it's like what are they doing? Uh well, and so uh,
we decided that we weren't going to hunt there. We
(23:55):
had checked in the camera the night before. We decided
that we shouldn't hunt there that morning because they they
might be there, might not. We don't want to bump anything,
and so we didn't hunt there well that afternoon after
I shot my buck and my dad and it was
just like, hey, won't we just sit together over here?
You know, He's like, if that buck comes out, I'll
shoot it. If anything else comes out at suarts, you know,
(24:18):
and so you know, three o'clock, three thirty rolls around,
we don't see this buck, and then ride around five,
I look up and that buck is just standing there
looking at us, and we were sitting on the ground,
and uh, right as I look over and that buck's
looking at us, my dad just like he'd seen him
before because he was in a better spot, and uh,
(24:38):
you know, I just got his buck. So we got there.
So he didn't say like no, no, I just I
just looked up. And as soon as I saw that,
I was like, man, I saw the rack before I
saw the buck, and then it just took off and uh,
I didn't take off. I don't know why said that,
but in my mind he was about to take off
and and I just seemed dropped. So Dad's all excited.
(25:03):
We go and we drag it off and then we
just sit there and it wasn't It was probably an
hour later, maybe a little longer than that. Uh my
dad sees deer moving behind us, and so I stand
up and look. Or I don't stand up, you know,
I just get kind of crouched and turn around and
I see, uh, I see a buck, and then I
(25:26):
see a dough and they kind of go out of sight.
And then just not long later, I just see a
rack coming up above the above the vegetation. It's one
of those pictures that you just you always want to see,
but you know, I've never actually seen it play out
that way, and he was just coming lateral to us,
and just I just see this rack, and then all
(25:46):
of a sudden, I see the head and all of
a sudden, I see the deer, and so I I
was like, as soon he sees in the opening, I'm
not gonna wait. I'm just gonna pull the trigger. This
is a good thing. How long is this after your
dad a shot? It's probably an hour and a half. Really,
So y'all just sat there. Yeah, we just sat there
and we went. We went and drugged the buck away
from from where he was, and so y'all walked down
(26:08):
there to the buck. Yeah, I checked it out, make
sure everything was good, and then we decided to drag
him away, um from where we were getting pictures of
these other bucks too, and so uh anyways, this buck
was coming up and the wind was perfect. I mean,
the wind couldn't have been any better. And so uh anyways,
once his buck came up, like, that's a good buck,
(26:29):
and so I shot him and uh and then he
runs off into into the brush and then and out
of the corner of my eye, I see an even
even bigger buck running the opposite direction. So I didn't
know there were multiple bucks there, but the way that
the landscape was, I thought that the buck that came
out was the one that I had seen before. Um,
(26:50):
but it turns out he was really really like he
had a really good mass. You know, it's eight point yeah,
solid typical eight point probably uh yeah, he just had
good mass and ye had dark horns. Yeah, biggest you've
ever killed. No, that other one's bigger hunh yeah youah,
the one I have a meal at the house is okay, okay, Yeah,
(27:11):
I've never had a buck scored, but I mean everybody
guesses even around one forties, which is good for him.
You know where I've been hunting the one this time,
I think I think Dad actually tried to measure it,
and I think it was like a little over a hundred,
you know. But you're the first one, this one, that
this this one this year. Yeah, that dark horn one. Yeah, yeah,
(27:36):
cool man. Well, I would, uh, I'd trade a lot
for to have had some encounters like that because I've
had a super tough season. Um I haven't done any
good probably white towel hunting more this season that I
have been a long time. And uh I had an
interesting hunt yesterday I'll tell you about. I went on
(27:59):
to some public land several hours from here that uh
I keep a camera on what I would call a
primary scrape. So like there's you know, a lot of
different You go in the woods and the twenties of
October and you're gonna see scrapes all over the place.
Some scrapes are you know, perennial scrapes, like they're gonna
(28:23):
come back year after year in the same spot. And
these deer use these licking branches year round as sent
communication posts for just distributing information. Um. And I know
I've I've I've read that and whynot seen it? Well,
I've seen it firsthand because I leave this camera up
(28:44):
pretty much year round and I have for the last
three to four years. This year I started to like
compare photos and it kind of happened on accident. I
can't say that I was that put together, but I
I saved photos from nineteen and then now I've got
(29:05):
photos from and I started seeing very clear patterns in
the way that these deer were using these scrapes. And
this place is way back in it's hard to get to.
I would say it's there's very little hunting pressure in here.
Um So these deer kind of act like deer act um.
(29:26):
And I know why there's a little hunting pressure because
it's very difficult to kill a deer in their wind
is tough. It's just it's just there's many factors that
make it tough. But that's cool for dear movement and
what whatnot on a camera. Now, I've never killed a
deer back in there, um So I can't say that
(29:46):
like it's great hunting because it's not been for me.
But for getting pictures, it's pretty cool. Um. No, here's
a trend that I've seen is that these deer use
the scrapes in the twenties of October. That's when you
start seeing buck activity. Most of it is at night. Okay,
(30:10):
about the between October, between November one and November five,
the scrape activity completely dries up, completely dries up. And
what that would indicate is that the bucks are no
longer worried about communicating from piano a scrape and and
and putting their scent on a licking branch. They're actually
(30:32):
chasing and breeding, tending with dose. So the last three years,
pretty much after November five, no pictures on the scrape
scrapes dead. Now, that does not mean that that spot
wouldn't be a good spot to hunt though. It just
means those deers aren't standing in that scrape like that.
(30:54):
It's a travel area, so and that's why the scrape
is there. I made a statement the other day, like
a lot of people are like, why would you how
to scrape? It's always nighttime activity. That's true, But that
can be true, and that's been proven in some research
that like a whole bunch of scraping has done at night.
But that doesn't. That doesn't dismiss that the fact that
(31:16):
scrapes are in dear travel areas, like a buck doesn't
go put a scrape in some crummy spot that no
does ever go to. Buck is putting especially primary scrapes
and primary deer travel areas, so that deer may not
be coming through that scrape during the daytime, but he
might be twenty yards away, thirty yards away, just walking
through that corridor if you're following me. But here here's
(31:38):
where I began to correlate this information that kind of
after three years um and I don't have the information
from but three solid years of data is that after
about and it varies each year between like the first
of November to November five, the scrape shuts down, the
(32:01):
scrape reactivates from like November the twelve all the way
through the twenties of November peaking around November with scrape
activity except the second round of scrape activity Kolby is
(32:22):
not at night, but it's during the day. And see,
I would have thought that that that was like outlier information.
Like the first year in ten, I got a picture
of a big buck that I was after like standing
in that scrape on November seventeen at like eleven o'clock
in the day and I was like, I'll be darned
there he was, you know, kind of outline. You know,
(32:43):
it's like, well, yeah, I mean they're gonna visit the
scrape sometime. That was just like outlier data. Well I
remember that year. I got a flurry of bucks coming
into that scrape in the daytime in the teens, middle
teens of November. Okay, and again all the stuff you
can read about it in a magazine because magazines are important,
(33:07):
but it's it's almost like when you see it in
the fields yourself, it begins to become like real functional
data that you can use that's not just abstract you know,
somebody telling you that, oh, bucks work scrapes in late
October and then they work them again after peak breeding period.
Like something inside of my brain clicked yesterday when I
(33:29):
went and checked this camera and what the way it works.
It's it's way back in there. And I don't try
to be to this stand before daylight. It's just almost
not possible for me, considering the drive to get there
and the walk back into this place. So what I
usually do try to get to where I parked by daylight,
(33:49):
and then I hunt my way back in there. And
by hunting my way yesterday, what that meant for me
is I rattled on three different occasions on the way
back in it, and it took me two and a
half hours to get back in there. And it's not
that far back in there, but that's just how long
I hunted. You know, Like I walked, and I would
come to a good, uh place that I felt like
(34:12):
had the audio conditions, the sound conditions to carry sound good.
You know, like the sound would drop off into this
holler and into this holler and go up the side
of the mountain, and so I would rattle, had a
pair of synthetic rattling horns, which I'm making a video
for Mediator about later you'll see um. And uh, so
I'd rattle and I might sit there for fifteen minutes
(34:34):
and then I would kind of slip hunt in anyway,
got back to where I wanted to be. At nine
o'clock in the morning, checked my camera. I've got an
iPhone and I've got an Apple SD card reader little
pocket thing, yeah that I just plug in and check
the check the pictures and uh, it's it's a good
(34:54):
idea to buy the Apple, the genuine Apple one for that,
no doubt. I've got another one in. I need to
get the genuine one that you got. The the other
ones you have to download an app. Oh it's jump,
it's junk. Yeah, I get a get a get the
I don't know if they make one for Android out Yeah,
(35:14):
tech tip, get the Apple device if you have an Apple.
So check the camera. And then I had already knew
I was gonna hunt, Like, I wasn't gonna like look
at pictures and then decided to hunt. So I just
checked the camera, that climbed up the tree and my
saddle got into saddle at nine o'clock, pull out the phone.
I didn't want to check the card while I was
on the ground. I wanted to check it while I
was in the tree. Just I knew I was gonna
(35:36):
hunt there. The pictures weren't gonna dictate it, but I
knew there would be pictures on it. Well, Kobe, this
third year of data just totally aligned. Like the Bucks
used the scrape in the twenties of October for sure
in the daytime, some but not a lot. They quit
using the scrape on November the second, they started using
(35:59):
up the scrape again, using the scrape again on November.
The day a hunter was November. So from the tenth
to the seventeen there was a mature buck on that
scrape during shooting hours five of seven days. That's pretty
incredible data. Yeah, five of seven days from the tenth
(36:23):
to the seventeenth. Actually it wasn't. I didn't count the
day I was there, because from from the from the
tenth to six six days, five days, there was a
mature buck. And there were three mature bucks usn't it,
which is crazy where it's low density. Yeah, it's just
it's just it's national forest. I mean it's just like
(36:44):
low density, tough hunting. Uh And and so three mature bucks,
nothing major. I mean if any of those bucks had
been like right around here where I hunt, like, we've
got some pretty good deer up here in northwest star
and saw like I've got a couple of deer that
I think or maybe you know, they're pretty good. These
(37:06):
deer wouldn't score good. They were just mature by their
body characteristics. And by the years I've been getting pictures
of them, Like I've got three years of data, and
I can i recognize these deer from three years ago
and now they're four and a half to five and
a half year old. Deer wouldn't wouldn't score good. I mean,
you know if you saw the picture of this guy,
(37:27):
you know, if I killed that buck and you saw
my picture, you'd be like, oh yeah, click, killed a
decent buck. But to me, that buck would mean like
the world because where he came from places everything inside
of hunting places so significant. And by place I mean
um geographic location that a human is connected to by many, many,
(37:48):
many factors. He's connected to it culturally by you know,
my dad hunted there, You're connected to it, um by
just your your history with that place. You know, you've
hunted there for so long. You're connected to the land,
connect the place, you you you you, you know, places
(38:09):
everything like you t That's that's why, Uh, a deer
on a high fence ranch doesn't mean as much. I mean, uh,
you know what I'm saying, Like if you if you
went and bought a deer hunt on a on a
high fence ranch, It's like, what does that place mean
to you as a hunter? Uh? Not much? And uh
(38:32):
that's why you can go to a place and maybe
not have great deer, but it would be real significant
and that hunt could be translated into any species. You know.
They're just places that are significant. And I'm kind of
I'm kind of intrigued by this idea of place and
hunting because nobody's coming to Arkansas to hunt trophy deer.
(38:53):
I would rather kill a deer back in where I'm
talking about, as I would trade every deer I've killed
in Canada for a big one back over there. People
averard me say that and they think I'm crazy. Um really,
I killed a hundred sixty incher in Manitoba, Canada last
year that I didn't even mount. I got it on
a you know, a euro mounted it. And that deer
(39:14):
is valuable to me. Uh, it's it's valuable because I've
now gone to Manitoba several times. I do feel connected
to that place through the people that I know. They're
you know, the the guy we hunt with has become
like a friend now, like there's some i feel like
I'm starting to kind of set my roots there. So
there's value in that. But place and hunting is almost
(39:39):
always connected back to human relationship. I find that interesting
analyze that, like somebody listening to this, think about that,
like the places that you love to hunt, why do
you love to hunt there? Is it just because it's
good hunting? And I, as much as anybody want to
kill stuff when I hunt, I don't just go on
nostalgic hunts and love like eating tags. No, I want
(40:00):
to kill stuff. But I bet money if you think
about the places that you love to hunt, that that
that love that it's connected to success you've had there,
but it's also connected to people. I know that some
of the places I loved and hunt are always connected
to people. Yeah, I know the place that that you know,
(40:22):
I shot deer this year. I mean it has a
lot of memories, like my dad and I both killed
our first muzzle loader bucks the same morning there, you know,
And so realizing that there's a connection to to just
events like that in memories, sitting down with him hunting,
you know, hunting deer together, it's like how often were
we going to do that? You know? And so it's
(40:43):
like after he shot that first buck, I knew it's
like whatever walks out, I don't want to shoot it,
you know, just because it's like punching that memory, you know.
And so for me this year is like, you know,
every everything that I got this year, Well, the bear,
I was surrounded about people, and then with the deer,
it was it was you know, less people. It was
it was just building stuff with my dad and so
(41:04):
but those same memories have been built inside of like
public land areas to you know, or on the river
or whatever. And so I find that a lot of
my my value as assigned to like places I've been with,
like on a hunt with Dad or or someone else.
So like, even though I'm living in northwest Arkansas right now,
I don't have like a huge drive to find a
(41:25):
place to hunt around here because I'm not connected to
it yet, you know, if that makes sense. Yeah, and
you've got connections, You've got connections down there. Yeah. Well
this so getting back to my hunt, I I got
in the stand at nine o'clock and it was a
very exciting feeling to check that camera and there had
(41:46):
been a big, nice shooter buck there the day before,
six November at two pm. Um. And what's interesting again
is these the trend is is these mid November. This
mid November scrape activity is during the day, which is
better than the late October scrape activity. That's a trend
(42:09):
for this spot. I don't I can't say that that
would I have not noticed that trend other places. But
like I don't get a lot of nighttime scrape activity
there during mid November. It's it's always this mid day stuff,
almost all of it midday, not even late in morning,
late in evening. Some of that could be lunar phase
or whatnot, but there's a trend from so I'm hoping
(42:34):
to be able to get back in there sometime just
in the next few days. We'll see if I can. Um.
I've already spent so much of my hunting right here
in northwest Arkansas, uh and don't have anything to show
for it other than one encounter with a really nice deer,
actually two really good encounters with deer that with my bow,
and I just wouldn't able to kill the deer. Um.
(42:57):
But I'm going to use that intel in the future.
Like I feel this, this is the kind of place
it's hard for me to go scout, Like, I don't
just like going there and scout and go well, it's
not very good hunting. It's the kind of place that
you make up your mind you're gonna go hunt, and
you just go hunt it no matter what, Like you're
not just gonna go visit that spot very easily for
me being a couple hours away from it at least
(43:20):
if I lived down there, maybe to be different. But
like next year, going to keep that camera up there,
and I'm just gonna plan on being hunting that spot November,
and if anything is like the trend of the last
three years, there's most likely going to be buck activity
(43:41):
in there. And also that trend is significant and substantial
because all three of those years were very different with
mass crop, with weather, with everything, but that scrape activity
remained the same. What that tells me is is that, uh,
you know, when these dear okay, let me go back.
(44:05):
The thing that remains constant, and that is that that
is almost unchanging is the peak breeding period of any
given time, because that is biology and evolution. That's finest state.
Um And I want to talk about that word evolution
here in a minute, I will kind of qualify that statement.
(44:29):
But like font, peak, fond survival is what dictates conception.
And so by this analysis that I have, clearly bucks
are breeding doze from about November the five about November
the twelfth, and research backs that in Arkansas as for
the at least the highland regions, the mountain regions being
(44:51):
peak breeding dates that down in areas, and this is
all super interesting. Down in areas influenced by the flooding
of the Mississippi River, peak breeding dates are much later.
And you know, why have you ever heard me break
it down? But you know, well, I would think it's
because of rainfall. Well, it's because of seasonal spring flooding.
(45:15):
Think about that, Like so ges station period of a dough.
I think it's two hundred two days. So in the
mountains and highland, the highland areas of Arkansas washtall, those
dark mountains, you know, average dough. Let's say she's getting
bread on November eight, Well, two hundred two days from
that is going to end up being somewhere around June
the one. I haven't done the math in my head
(45:36):
in a couple of years, but from we start seeing
fawns about, you know, any given time, from a week
after to a week before June the one um. And
you know, the white tail breeding period is a is
a is a gradient scale, like some doze will come
(45:58):
in and get bread in late October like that for sure,
happens because I have seen fawns on the ground in
like early to mid May in Arkansas, which you do
the math backwards and it's like, holy smokes, that faun
was that dough was bred early. Most of them are
are dropping in June, and my math may be wrong.
(46:19):
I wouldn't plan on talking about this. It maybe later
in June that two and two days from like November
the eighth or something. But my scrape activity shows that
those bucks are with those are not worried about scrapes.
By about November the twelve, most of those doughs are bred.
These bucks are back to work in scrapes, and that
(46:40):
scrape is the place where they're communicating about. You know,
those are communicating to the therein Asterius bucks are communicating.
So anyway, I'm gonna take this intel and use it
in years to come, because that is something that is consistent,
is that breeding date. Like weather could change, mass crop
could change, they could clear cut that place. Uh like
(47:03):
everything could change, but that peak breeding date isn't gonna change.
And uh, I think sometimes as hunters, uh, we get
lost in the in the details of the moment. I
do like of weather, of looking for deer sign and
or or or looking at our app that tells us
(47:26):
if it's a good day to deer hunter or not.
I got one buddy who will remain unnamed, who's like
deer cast says it's gonna be a good day hunt.
You think it's gonna be good And I'll be like,
I don't really care what deer cast says. If you
can go hunting today, go hunting like it's November the nine,
you know, Like, so you know, there's there's there's some
(47:48):
things that just remain the same, which is going to
be that peak breeding time you need to be in
the woods. And by the time this podcast comes out, uh,
some of that will be over and will kind of
be kind of towards the post rut here gone. At Kobe,
I was gonna talk about the Mississippi River, and I
didn't Mississippi River, the mighty Mississippi Well, I was gonna
talk about why it's the reason the rut is later
(48:10):
in mississ well in areas influenced by the Mississippi River
in the Delta regions of the South is because of
seasonal flooding in the spring. So if doose are dropping
fawnds in mid May, which is like peak rain season.
(48:30):
All those bottom lands flood, so their rut is later.
It's a month later. I mean like the peak rut
for my buddies down in south east Arkansas, it's like
mid December, early to mid December peak rut. Like right now,
it's like not even much going on down there with
the rut. Mid December. Bucks are chasing, bucks are breeding.
(48:51):
It's crazy, and those funds are getting an extra month
for the water to recede because and in that all
is dictated by if you think about the process, the
biological process, there were does that were bred on November
the five down there in uh in the Lowland River country,
(49:12):
and they had fonds that drowned, so that doze genes
her d n A that dictated when she came into estrus,
which would be genetic and hereditary. Like there would be
some that would have you know, the DNA structure. You know,
every everything that our body does is dictated by DNA.
(49:33):
DNA is like this this this this code that's precoded
to do certain stuff. You know, for you your red hair, yeah,
blazing red hair, super recessive that you haven't combed in weeks. Yeah,
but you think about it, it makes perfect sense that,
(49:55):
like so a dough that would have the DNA to
come into Estris early whatever triggered that her jeans would
not be passed on the doe that had the hereditary
inclination to come into Estrius. Later, she would be rewarded
(50:17):
because her fund would survive, her genes would survive. So
you do that for ten thousand years or twenty thousand years,
and all of a sudden, all your dose down the
Mississippi River bottoms coming to Estris in mid December. It's
pretty fascinating, isn't it. Yeah, up here it's not as
critical when they come in, but it's still a relatively
(50:38):
tight period of time. So anyway, that's my that's my story.
So I sat there and didn't see the buck. I'm
telling you a hunting story, and like weaving in and
out of like all this stuff. Um, I sat there
all day yesterday, gotten the stand at nine o'clock, and
I climbed out of the stand at basically sunset, which
(51:00):
would be thirty minutes before you could stop shooting, because
I wanted to be able to hunt my way out
of there for at least some period of time before
it got dark. I've had a fair bit of not
success because I've never killed a buck like this, but
I could have killed deer multiple times late in the
(51:20):
evening coming out of there, uh grunting, moving slow, kind
of slip hunting out of there. And multiple times I've
had deer encounters that if it had been a buck,
I could have killed it. So I got out of
stand basically at five o'clock, uh, you know, of like
five or eight. I got out of stand legal shooting
light lasted till like five thirty eight for all the
(51:41):
for just to give you the real details there down
to the nitty gritty, and didn't see didn't see a buck.
I saw one dough at twelve twenty five. I turned
around directly behind me, and I watched a dough bed
down sixty seventy yards away. Watched her for she stayed
on the ground for only ten minutes and got up
and walked off. But no buck ever came in. Most
(52:05):
shepherd thinks they smelled me, which he's probably right. Uh,
probably they smelled me, and I never saw him. The
wind up on this place as squarely as it can be,
like if if if you check, I mean wind indications
on the weather app mean nothing up there. Nothing. I mean,
(52:25):
like if it says winds out of the north, does it,
it doesn't does not matter. The wind will be swirling
in there or it will pick its own direction. Like yesterday,
the wind blew out of the east about seventy percent
of the time. Uh, And I didn't even look at
what it predicted. But they never predict an east wind
down there. I mean, like we're very rare and east
wind is like pretty much almost all of our wind
(52:49):
is out of the north, south, or west. In the
combination of those rarely out of the east. It blew
out of the east almost all day, which was which
was favorable for me. Um. So anyway, that's my story, man,
that's my story. Um We're not gonna be labor this podcast.
(53:11):
I don't want to say this because it it, but
we're working on so much stuff for the new version
of this podcast. I got a bunch of stuff that
I'm kind of holding back. Kobe. Yeah, because we had
a string of podcasts there that we're like, awesome. We
we've had some awesome ones lately, but you know, like
(53:33):
we were traveling, we're going out of our way to
get some great guests. I mean, we had Ted Nugent,
we had Steve Ronnell and your honest to tell us,
we had we were traveling doing some biology podcast with
Sarah Lita and Laura Conley and and and uh, we
got a whole bunch of great stuff that we just
(53:53):
can't release it. Yeah, and so right now we're kind
of kind of just sticking local, sticking local. Yeah. Yeah, Um,
I was gonna talk about this book right here against
the grain. Um, but but I'm not Kobe. I don't.
I just don't think we can get into it. Yeah. Um,
(54:15):
I man, I'll tell you what. If there's one thing
that I would encourage people to do, it's it's read
you can. Uh. We were gonna do like a book
review on a couple of these books I'm reading. I
am not a voracious reader either. Like, I don't want
people to hear me talk about reading books and think
that i'm because some people are. Some people just like
can pick up that book and read it like in
(54:36):
a weekend. That is not me. I gotta pack on
these books for long periods of time with pen in hand. Yes,
and uh, and that's what I do. And I I
love it. I love it it's I don't know, we
gotta keep I think as adults, and most people that
listen to this podcast would be an adult. This idea
(54:58):
that you stop learning once ye're out of school or
out of college or something that's crazy. I mean, we're
we're designed to continue to learn and grow as people
for our entire lives. Um, we really are. And so
this idea that we quit like academic learning once we
get out of school or something that's I don't know.
(55:21):
I don't think it's very healthy and everybody's gonna have
a different appetite. But I've had to develop a discipline
inside of me to read books and make time for it.
But it's just something I prioritized over the last twenty years.
And man, I don't there are people that I'm not
well read. I promise you I'm not. But I have
(55:42):
consistently read for for twenty years. You know. It's just
stuff that's interesting to me, and uh, it's it's valuable.
And I'm I'm only talking about this because we were
going to talk about this book Against the Grain. I
want to so much, so much, Well, we'll have to
(56:03):
do it on another podcast. Yeah, So I'm working for
meat eater. It's not changing Bear Honey magazine, and I'm
still trying to kill a buck. Colby just went out
in all this red haired glory and killed two bucks
on the same day. Just easy peasy. I don't know, man,
I guess he's got a silver spoon in his mouth
(56:24):
when it comes to deer hunting. It was just a year.
It needed to be easy. I didn't need to be
spending a lot of time out there, I guess. I
still I still don't want to go see if I
can get another dough or two, and I might hunt
Texas a little bit in my parents house. Yeah, alright man,
Well yeah, we're about to start working on the January
(56:47):
fripary issue Barny Magazine. Right around the corner, Right around
the corner, Yeah all right, well, ma'am, keep the wild
places wild. Is that's where the bears live. Yep.
My name is Clay Nukeleman. I'm the host of the
Bear Hunting Magazine podcast. I'll also be your host into
the world of hunting the icon of the North American
Wilderness Fair. We'll talk about tactics, gear, conservation. We will
also bring you into some of the wildest country on
the planet chasing Fair. This week, Kolbe and I dial
(00:36):
it back a notch and bring up some pretty relevant
topics that are relevant to the Barony Magazine podcast, Meat Eater,
my association with Meat Eater and magazines, and the current
state of our hunting. We talked about a bunch of stuff,
but this is definitely a different style of podcast that
(00:59):
I think there's some relevant information. I mean, if you're
a Barony Magazine podcast listener, you're gonna want to check
this out. And that's why you're here, because you're checking
it out. Hey, just yesterday I was It's the Arkansas
Modern gun season, but I was carrying my c V
A Accura Mountain Rifle for several reasons because of its lightness,
(01:19):
and I was getting back in there a long ways
and didn't want to carry a heavy gun and in
these tight quarters in the mountains where I'm hunting and
you're not gonna get two shots and animal anyways, might
as well be carrying the muzzloader. So I carried my
c v A Accurate Mountain rifle Kolbe. I haven't even
told you this. I fell in the creek on the
way out in the dark. He was crossing the creek,
(01:40):
fell in the creek, went down to my knees. The
muzzleloader went totally underwater. The butt of the muzzleloader, including
the breech plug, with totally underwater. So you see where
I'm going with this. So I pull the muzzloader out
of the water, and I'm like, if I was hunting
it was dark now, yeah, but with this gun fire.
So when I went back to the truck, I wanted
(02:02):
to see if it would shoot. I've actually videoed this.
Uh and uh. The breech plug was underwater for about
two seconds, which you know historically muzloaders would be uh
if they get wet, they wouldn't shoot. You know, boom,
gun fired. And you know that breech plug that you
(02:23):
can unscrew with your hand on that CB A Accurate
Mountain All c v A muzzloaders was tight enough that
no water got on that powder shot. So anyway, that's
my like real life, you know, plug for c v
A muzzloaders, the breakover action. I love them, the lightweight,
(02:44):
like I enjoyed carrying that gun. And uh, you know,
it's a twohundred yard gun to me, and I've only
shot it a couple of times, you know, uh, and
didn't didn't kill a deer. But c v A man,
check them out. They've got a great warranty on all
their guns and a very full line of all types
of muscles. It is, man, it's killing me, kolbe that
(03:06):
I haven't coon hunted very much this fall killing me.
It's time and W hunting supply. Man. I've got a
new garment Alpha two from W that I'm about to
get cranked up because we're about to start coon hunting.
I pretty much just can't combine coon hunting and deer
(03:27):
hunting very well. A lot of the places I hunt,
I can't coon hunt there. But point being, it's time
for guys to start thinking about, well not thinking about
they're doing it. Sounds releasing the hounds, releasing the squirrel dogs,
releasing the border collie out of your backyard. Later a
minute uh, not sporting dogs, pet dogs, any kind of
(03:49):
dogs you've got. I know, people listen to podcasts, have dogs.
Go support Buddy Woodbury and w Hunting Supply. These guys
aren't just business owners. They're fighting a good fight for hounds,
for sporting dogs, and they're they're they've got an incredible company,
incredible customer service. Anything you ever need for dogs, garments, supplies, anything.
(04:10):
Our friends, our buddies right vocal for you, yeah, man.
And our good friends at the Western Bear Foundation, UM
check them out there doing a lot of great stuff
in the West for black bears. They're they're hunting conservation organization,
but they're interacting with a lot of the issues out
(04:33):
there related to the delisting the Yellowstone grizzly So there's
a lot of anti hunting activity out there. And Western
Bear Joe Coon Dellas, those guys, they're they're great spokesman
for us. And as we talk about Garden the Gate,
this may not seem relevant. You may not live in Wyoming,
in Montana and Idaho, and you may not have to
worry about grizzly bears, but what's happening out there is
(04:55):
going to affect you at some point. In Pennsylvania and
Arkansas and can Hockey and New Mexico. It's like, these
fundamental issues of predator hunting are gonna be key for
the future of the North American honey model being sustained.
So that's why guys like the Western Bear Foundation are
so significant. So go join their organization, check them out. Lastly,
(05:19):
north Woods Bear Products man Bear Bayton is pretty much over.
I mean it's like November, but spring is coming up,
and there's there's no better bear scent products than than
north Woods. There's just not. And so north Woods Bear
Products they're they're they're great guys, great friends of ours,
and have an incredible full line of all kinds of
(05:42):
commercial sense. You hear me talk about it all the time.
What do I talk about? Gold rush and gold rush
north Woods gold Rush. If you open it up your truck,
your truck will smell like that for three years. We
know that. Yeah. They should make a gold rushed candle,
a gold rushed candle, yeah, just for your house. Yeah,
just manly candle like Dolly bag is not exactly manly. Strong,
(06:06):
it overwhelms you. Yeah, it's kind of a butter, it's
kind of a it's kind of odd that it tracks
bears like it does. But oh man does it ever?
Yeah man, yeah yeah, butter Northwoods candle from Colby, Hey,
I would I would try it. Hey, check out our
buddies at Northwoods and uh, thanks for listening to our podcast, guys,
(06:27):
we really appreciate it. There's some changes coming in the
future that are gonna be awesome and you'll learn a
little bit about it on this project. We are at
the Bear Hunting Magazine global headquarters. I've got here with me,
Colbe the Bear Tech more head How are you doing,
(06:47):
Kobe fantastic? All right, Well, this is gonna be a
little bit different of a podcast, um, for many reasons,
many reasons. We've got some few things we need to
address directly and um, and those very things are the
(07:08):
things that are kind of affecting our current podcasts. And
these are all like, uh, these are good things, good things. Um.
But then we're gonna talk about we're gonna talk a
little bit about our hunting season, which man, I've had
a tough one so far. But hey, the the monkey,
the monkey on the table on the table. The monkey
(07:31):
on the table come from I don't know, probably Brent
Reeves that sounds like a Reeves thing. No, Um, hey
I work for meat Eater. Yeah have you heard about that?
Are you talking to me or are you talking to somebody?
I'm talking to you. I wanted to, I wanted to
(07:52):
officially on the podcast talk about this because this is
a public knowledge. Like a like three weeks ago, Dobbly
uh meat Eater came out with a video and you
guys could go watch it if you hadn't seen it.
It's on Instagram and on Facebook of of introducing me
as the newest team member of meat Eater, um in
(08:15):
mountain men style. Yeah. So there's like a little two
minute video that's pretty fun that you could go back
and check out. But I thought it would be uh
valuable to our listeners to hear me talk about this situation,
um and kind of tell them about the structure of
the way things work. Um. So the good news is
(08:37):
is that Bear Hunting Magazine is gonna stay the same
and even be better. Uh Bear Hunting Magazine. I still own, operate,
you manage Bear Hunting Magazine, So like the the actual
print magazine, it's not going to change at all. Like
you'll still see me and they're still see me writing,
(08:59):
Um still see just like toils and stuff. Yeah. Yeah,
so Bear Hunting Magazine, Um, it's still intact. And man,
we've been in print for twenty years. Um, this is
our twentieth year of production. And you know, maybe it'd
be kind of cool to go into a little bit
(09:19):
of history about bar Hunting Magazine for people that hadn't
been following along. We've got some subscribers that have been
subscribing since the day one. You know, they have twenty
years of magazines. Um, but Bar Hunting Magazine was what
were we gonna say. I was gonna say, that's a
on the phone when they call in there, like I've
got every single one. I don't want to miss one.
(09:40):
So yeah, and they get real crazy by the post
office loses their magazine, so they call real quick if
they don't get it on time. It's like, I just
am I am I missing out of my subscription? Listen
to this, Kobe. I just like, right when we got
on this podcast, there's a there's one here that you're
gonna have to deal with. He said. I was wondering
why I haven't received my November December issue. I look
(10:01):
forward every other month receiving your great publication for the
past ten plus years. So for whatever reason, he didn't
get his magazine. Yeah, I think those are the people
of that see the value in having a full library.
Yeah yeah, Well so Baronning Magazine was started by a
friend of mine, a guy guy named Jeff folsom Um.
(10:21):
Jeff and his wife ran the magazine for fourteen years
and in ten acchoired the business, acquired the magazine and
so I've been running it since. So now going on
seven years June of one, eight years and uh so, yeah,
(10:41):
Baronting Magazine is the only print fully dedicated bear hunting
magazine in the world. There's been a few kind of
come and go, not necessarily print magazines, but there was
an online magazine. But I mean, we're the only dedicated
bear publication in the world, just for interest sake, just
(11:05):
so people can kind of understand the print world and
kind of what's happened inside of media. So about two thousand,
probably about the time that this business was started, print
was really at its peak. I mean, think about like
the nineteen nineties. Let's just go back to the nineteen nineties.
If you wanted to consume outdoor media, you would have
(11:26):
pretty much had two options, which would have been television
that was the start of kind of like outdoor television
which was big, which became big, and VHS taste. When
I say television, I mean just like watching Hunting on
your TV with you about VHS tapes? Did your dad
by VHS hunting tapes? What do you remember any of
the names? Man, I wore out? Okay, so this isn't
(11:49):
a legit hunting when but I wore were out Jim Varney,
the Misadventures above. But whenever I was a kid, I
don't even know who that is. Like t K might know,
like you know, Buck Masters and like all that stuff,
the Real Trick Guys and ye Prime Primetime Bucks. Yeah,
it sounds like we watched so many. I had no
idea like what they were called. But every once a
(12:11):
while go back at home and I'll see one. I'm like, oh,
I remember that one brings back memories. Man, I've still
got like in the office here, I've still got a
bunch of my DVDs. Now. I got rid of the
VHS tapes because they were just like irrelevant. I don't
even have a VHS player anymore. Vcr Um. But man,
there was a time when that was like the main
(12:31):
way to consume outdoor media was through the television or
number two magazines. Like, man, I grew up on magazines,
and then most people did if they were consuming media
before let's say two thousand five. Like just you know,
(12:53):
so like people that are like in their twenties probably
weren't as focused on magazines. But I'm still amazed at
how much magazines have infused the culture. Like I was
at that For instance, I was at the dentist the
other day and uh, he was talking about teeth whitening,
and he was like, now, if you were going to
be on the cover of a magazine, we would do this,
(13:18):
and like in his mind, like uh, he was a
little bit older guy. Yeah, like the pinnacle of like
someone that would need like really white teeth and a
good smile would be someone that was on the cover
of a magazine, very visible and put together. Well, but
my point is is that like, uh, still people people say, oh, man,
(13:40):
you're gonna put that in the magazine, you know, like
magazine is still like this iconic prestige. Yeah, place of
prestige in just about anything the cover of a magazine cover. Okay,
so it turns out. The Internet came along Kolbe and
the Internet. I remember I graduated high school eight and
(14:00):
I remember as a senior them having us set up
email addresses, and I remember the words coming out of
one of my teachers, Miles, about the World Wide Web
w w W. And so that was and it was
like what really the Internet email? Huh? And then I
went to college, graduated college in two thousand five ish,
(14:23):
and uh, you know, by about two thousand five, like
the Internet was like rolling. Um. As the Internet began
to roll, magazines began to lose their relevance for mainstream
distribution of information. I would say probably Ish would have
(14:48):
been like into this day. I mean by like the
Internet had changed the world so much so that it
would never go back to what it was, and in
doing so, by then most magazines were like the fluff
of the magazine world was gone, Like the fringe magazines
(15:08):
that weren't that great, that didn't have that weren't gonna
make it, had already died. By the magazines that we're
going to make it pretty much we're still there because
there was there's always What we found is there's always
this percentage of people that want to get a print magazine,
that want to have something shipped to their door, that
(15:29):
want to have something that they can hold, that want
to have something that's not digital that they're looking at
that's burning holes in their brain, you know. And uh
So here we are in and the magazine is still
going strong. We've got this is this is what amazed
people is we've pretty much had the same number of
subscribers since like the very beginning until like our numbers
(15:53):
have remained relatively stable. And that's amazing to me because
people some ties here that have a magazine and they're like,
oh man, that's a tough business. Um and uh, I
don't know, it's been a good it's it's worked for us. Yeah,
and it's been a good way to disseminate information. And
people are still and I'm I'm I'm revealing all my
(16:16):
cards here. People are still willing to pay for a
print magazine. They're not willing to pay for a subscription
to our YouTube channel. I think, you know, you think
like they like if we started selling subscriptions to our
YouTube channel, like I don't know, I mean, I don't think.
I mean, we do have digital subscriptions, like you know,
through Maxter but right, right, right, But that's just to
(16:37):
the actual like print, so you can have it on
your on your phone and stuff, you know. Yeah, like
the same thing that you would get in your hand,
you could have in with your phone. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
But I say all that I'm describing Bear Hunting Magazine
just because we've never really like officially talked about it.
But Barretti Magazine is usually like a seventy six page
(16:58):
full color magazine, columns, um, and it's all gonna be
the same. I started off talking about Meat Eater, so
but I just wanted to say that Barony Magazine is
gonna persist in its current form and even be better. Um.
Colby has been writing some for us, been doing some
uh are we We usually we almost always have a well,
(17:19):
we always have a recipe, a big recipe with like
photo essay, recipe, legendary barhound, columns, um, all kinds of
stuff meat Eater. So what I'm gonna be doing for
meat Eater. And the one thing that is changing is
(17:41):
um um at some point in the future that's as
vague as I'll be, is that I'm gonna be doing
a podcast for meat Eater. But the good news is
is that the people that listen to this podcast keep
getting it won't have to do anything different. Like if
you're subscribed to this podcast, just one day, you're gonna
(18:04):
wake up and it's gonna be different and it's gonna
be awesome. Yeah. Uh, that's pretty much all that I'll
say about it. Um, But the the the meat Eater
platform of podcasts. You know, meat Eater has Steve Ronnelli's
Meat Eater podcast, which is the biggest podcast in hunting
(18:26):
by far. Um there's uh Col's Weaker Review, which is
always a top five, if not top two or three
podcasts in the hunting world. Mark Kenyon's Wired to Hunt,
which is always in the top I've seen it, number two,
I've seen that, number five, Mark Kenyon's podcast as a
(18:48):
meteor podcast. Uh. Ben O'Brien's Hunting Collective is always a
top tier podcast. Remy Warren's Cutting the Distance is all
base Sickly Mediator kind of like dominates the podcast world,
which is pretty cool because I guess what boys are
podcast it's gonna be with those guys, and uh, it's
(19:11):
pretty exciting. So more of your friends will you'll be
able to talk to you about the podcast. You listen
to because maybe they'll listen to. Yeah. And so yeah,
there's gonna be some change. It's gonna be some changes
in content. Like it's it's gonna be totally different. So man,
all all anybody that would be listening to this right
now would kind of be like our core guys that
(19:34):
came in when when we are are as we are.
So man, you can help us just by just keep listening,
keep following. And um, I don't know when the the
moments it's gonna be because we're we're working hard kind
of behind the scenes on a bunch of stuff right now.
But it's cool. But what you can see that I
(19:55):
am doing for metators, I'm writing some articles for them
and we're doing some video will work for him. There's
a cool video up right now and shocked pouching a
deer which James Lawrence, my old mountain man buddy. He
his grandmother taught him how to carry out a deer
on his back. Cool grandma, cool grandma. Yeah, And so
like we did a video on that that's that's come out.
(20:16):
That's on the Meteor website. It's on mevia your Facebook
and Instagram and stuff. Um, and I'm doing some writing
for him. Wrote an article about how not to be
a public land knucklehead. So there's some there's some cool
stuff coming out and uh everybody can check it out.
(20:37):
So that's that's all I got on that for now.
Um hey, hunting season, tell me Colby you killed? You
had a good season. Yeah, yeah, I've had a good
season so far. Got uh I got that that Barrett
to be opening weekend of of bear season archery season,
and then uh, I end up getting a dough with
(20:57):
my bow and then I got two bucks with my
muz lotter. Yeah, so tell us about the bucks like
kind of like you know, was your if some family
land southwest Arkansas has some private land, uh that cousin
of mine owns, and so uh yeah, I end up
getting the uh the a buck that morning in the
same stand that I got the dough out of. And uh,
(21:20):
you know, this year I decided, oh man, I'm I
didn't really do much last year. I need to put
some meat in the freezer. And so I felt like
I really need to come out pretty strong, and so
I uh, I was just I was there and there
was a dough and a fun and a yearling. Um
it still had a few spots on it, just wandering around,
and then the dough kind of you know, kind of
(21:43):
winded me a little bit, or not winded me. She
looked up and she she saw something she didn't like,
and she jumped and jumped back out of scene or
I couldn't see her. And then uh, I heard what
I thought was her coming back in to where the
yearling is and then you uh turned out gruce mantlers.
So I look over him, like, wait, she looks different
(22:07):
as a dude. So so anyways, uh, I was debating
whether or not I was gonna take him, just because
it was like opening day a muzzleloader season. This is
like way too easy. And then uh but then I
was like, well, I'll just take advantage of the situation,
put some meat in the freezer, and so I, uh,
(22:28):
I was able to get him. You know, he didn't
he didn't run off too far. And then uh, yeah,
and got him. And then we've had some bucks that
were that were really we we didn't really have many
pictures of that buck, and he wasn't very big, but
you know, it just felt like a good one to
take out. He had a like a few like small
(22:49):
kickers off the off of his base and stuff. It
was just you know, he was kind of he was
a I think a seven point yeah. And so then, uh,
that evening, my dad and I we had been seeing,
uh looking at we looked at our trail cameras the
night before in one particular trail camera, and there was
this good buck coming in uh pretty early in the
(23:12):
in the afternoon, like he was consistently coming out around
three o'clock, three o'clock, three thirty, and so we were
just like, man, that's a good buck. And my dad
was like, that's my buck. So we knew where he
was gonna hunt. Then as we continued looking at the pictures,
there was a bachelor group of of bucks that had
some good bucks in it coming in later in the evening.
(23:34):
And so that dear that dad was hunting was consistently there,
and then another group would would come in and join him,
and just we would get pictures of I think there
was like five different bucks really still hanging together, still
hanging together during muzzleloader season, which we were you know,
it's like what are they doing? Uh well, and so uh,
we decided that we weren't going to hunt there. We
(23:55):
had checked in the camera the night before. We decided
that we shouldn't hunt there that morning because they they
might be there, might not. We don't want to bump anything,
and so we didn't hunt there well that afternoon after
I shot my buck and my dad and it was
just like, hey, won't we just sit together over here?
You know, He's like, if that buck comes out, I'll
shoot it. If anything else comes out at suarts, you know,
(24:18):
and so you know, three o'clock, three thirty rolls around,
we don't see this buck, and then ride around five,
I look up and that buck is just standing there
looking at us, and we were sitting on the ground,
and uh, right as I look over and that buck's
looking at us, my dad just like he'd seen him
before because he was in a better spot, and uh,
(24:38):
you know, I just got his buck. So we got there.
So he didn't say like no, no, I just I
just looked up. And as soon as I saw that,
I was like, man, I saw the rack before I
saw the buck, and then it just took off and uh,
I didn't take off. I don't know why said that,
but in my mind he was about to take off
and and I just seemed dropped. So Dad's all excited.
(25:03):
We go and we drag it off and then we
just sit there and it wasn't It was probably an
hour later, maybe a little longer than that. Uh my
dad sees deer moving behind us, and so I stand
up and look. Or I don't stand up, you know,
I just get kind of crouched and turn around and
I see, uh, I see a buck, and then I
(25:26):
see a dough and they kind of go out of sight.
And then just not long later, I just see a
rack coming up above the above the vegetation. It's one
of those pictures that you just you always want to see,
but you know, I've never actually seen it play out
that way, and he was just coming lateral to us,
and just I just see this rack, and then all
(25:46):
of a sudden, I see the head and all of
a sudden, I see the deer, and so I I
was like, as soon he sees in the opening, I'm
not gonna wait. I'm just gonna pull the trigger. This
is a good thing. How long is this after your
dad a shot? It's probably an hour and a half. Really,
So y'all just sat there. Yeah, we just sat there
and we went. We went and drugged the buck away
from from where he was, and so y'all walked down
(26:08):
there to the buck. Yeah, I checked it out, make
sure everything was good, and then we decided to drag
him away, um from where we were getting pictures of
these other bucks too, and so uh anyways, this buck
was coming up and the wind was perfect. I mean,
the wind couldn't have been any better. And so uh anyways,
once his buck came up, like, that's a good buck,
(26:29):
and so I shot him and uh and then he
runs off into into the brush and then and out
of the corner of my eye, I see an even
even bigger buck running the opposite direction. So I didn't
know there were multiple bucks there, but the way that
the landscape was, I thought that the buck that came
out was the one that I had seen before. Um,
(26:50):
but it turns out he was really really like he
had a really good mass. You know, it's eight point yeah,
solid typical eight point probably uh yeah, he just had
good mass and ye had dark horns. Yeah, biggest you've
ever killed. No, that other one's bigger hunh yeah youah,
the one I have a meal at the house is okay, okay, Yeah,
(27:11):
I've never had a buck scored, but I mean everybody
guesses even around one forties, which is good for him.
You know where I've been hunting the one this time,
I think I think Dad actually tried to measure it,
and I think it was like a little over a hundred,
you know. But you're the first one, this one, that
this this one this year. Yeah, that dark horn one. Yeah, yeah,
(27:36):
cool man. Well, I would, uh, I'd trade a lot
for to have had some encounters like that because I've
had a super tough season. Um I haven't done any
good probably white towel hunting more this season that I
have been a long time. And uh I had an
interesting hunt yesterday I'll tell you about. I went on
(27:59):
to some public land several hours from here that uh
I keep a camera on what I would call a
primary scrape. So like there's you know, a lot of
different You go in the woods and the twenties of
October and you're gonna see scrapes all over the place.
Some scrapes are you know, perennial scrapes, like they're gonna
(28:23):
come back year after year in the same spot. And
these deer use these licking branches year round as sent
communication posts for just distributing information. Um. And I know
I've I've I've read that and whynot seen it? Well,
I've seen it firsthand because I leave this camera up
(28:44):
pretty much year round and I have for the last
three to four years. This year I started to like
compare photos and it kind of happened on accident. I
can't say that I was that put together, but I
I saved photos from nineteen and then now I've got
(29:05):
photos from and I started seeing very clear patterns in
the way that these deer were using these scrapes. And
this place is way back in it's hard to get to.
I would say it's there's very little hunting pressure in here.
Um So these deer kind of act like deer act um.
(29:26):
And I know why there's a little hunting pressure because
it's very difficult to kill a deer in their wind
is tough. It's just it's just there's many factors that
make it tough. But that's cool for dear movement and
what whatnot on a camera. Now, I've never killed a
deer back in there, um So I can't say that
(29:46):
like it's great hunting because it's not been for me.
But for getting pictures, it's pretty cool. Um. No, here's
a trend that I've seen is that these deer use
the scrapes in the twenties of October. That's when you
start seeing buck activity. Most of it is at night. Okay,
(30:10):
about the between October, between November one and November five,
the scrape activity completely dries up, completely dries up. And
what that would indicate is that the bucks are no
longer worried about communicating from piano a scrape and and
and putting their scent on a licking branch. They're actually
(30:32):
chasing and breeding, tending with dose. So the last three years,
pretty much after November five, no pictures on the scrape
scrapes dead. Now, that does not mean that that spot
wouldn't be a good spot to hunt though. It just
means those deers aren't standing in that scrape like that.
(30:54):
It's a travel area, so and that's why the scrape
is there. I made a statement the other day, like
a lot of people are like, why would you how
to scrape? It's always nighttime activity. That's true, But that
can be true, and that's been proven in some research
that like a whole bunch of scraping has done at night.
But that doesn't. That doesn't dismiss that the fact that
(31:16):
scrapes are in dear travel areas, like a buck doesn't
go put a scrape in some crummy spot that no
does ever go to. Buck is putting especially primary scrapes
and primary deer travel areas, so that deer may not
be coming through that scrape during the daytime, but he
might be twenty yards away, thirty yards away, just walking
through that corridor if you're following me. But here here's
(31:38):
where I began to correlate this information that kind of
after three years um and I don't have the information
from but three solid years of data is that after
about and it varies each year between like the first
of November to November five, the scrape shuts down, the
(32:01):
scrape reactivates from like November the twelve all the way
through the twenties of November peaking around November with scrape
activity except the second round of scrape activity Kolby is
(32:22):
not at night, but it's during the day. And see,
I would have thought that that that was like outlier information.
Like the first year in ten, I got a picture
of a big buck that I was after like standing
in that scrape on November seventeen at like eleven o'clock
in the day and I was like, I'll be darned
there he was, you know, kind of outline. You know,
(32:43):
it's like, well, yeah, I mean they're gonna visit the
scrape sometime. That was just like outlier data. Well I
remember that year. I got a flurry of bucks coming
into that scrape in the daytime in the teens, middle
teens of November. Okay, and again all the stuff you
can read about it in a magazine because magazines are important,
(33:07):
but it's it's almost like when you see it in
the fields yourself, it begins to become like real functional
data that you can use that's not just abstract you know,
somebody telling you that, oh, bucks work scrapes in late
October and then they work them again after peak breeding period.
Like something inside of my brain clicked yesterday when I
(33:29):
went and checked this camera and what the way it works.
It's it's way back in there. And I don't try
to be to this stand before daylight. It's just almost
not possible for me, considering the drive to get there
and the walk back into this place. So what I
usually do try to get to where I parked by daylight,
(33:49):
and then I hunt my way back in there. And
by hunting my way yesterday, what that meant for me
is I rattled on three different occasions on the way
back in it, and it took me two and a
half hours to get back in there. And it's not
that far back in there, but that's just how long
I hunted. You know, Like I walked, and I would
come to a good, uh place that I felt like
(34:12):
had the audio conditions, the sound conditions to carry sound good.
You know, like the sound would drop off into this
holler and into this holler and go up the side
of the mountain, and so I would rattle, had a
pair of synthetic rattling horns, which I'm making a video
for Mediator about later you'll see um. And uh, so
I'd rattle and I might sit there for fifteen minutes
(34:34):
and then I would kind of slip hunt in anyway,
got back to where I wanted to be. At nine
o'clock in the morning, checked my camera. I've got an
iPhone and I've got an Apple SD card reader little
pocket thing, yeah that I just plug in and check
the check the pictures and uh, it's it's a good
(34:54):
idea to buy the Apple, the genuine Apple one for that,
no doubt. I've got another one in. I need to
get the genuine one that you got. The the other
ones you have to download an app. Oh it's jump,
it's junk. Yeah, I get a get a get the
I don't know if they make one for Android out Yeah,
(35:14):
tech tip, get the Apple device if you have an Apple.
So check the camera. And then I had already knew
I was gonna hunt, Like, I wasn't gonna like look
at pictures and then decided to hunt. So I just
checked the camera, that climbed up the tree and my
saddle got into saddle at nine o'clock, pull out the phone.
I didn't want to check the card while I was
on the ground. I wanted to check it while I
was in the tree. Just I knew I was gonna
(35:36):
hunt there. The pictures weren't gonna dictate it, but I
knew there would be pictures on it. Well, Kobe, this
third year of data just totally aligned. Like the Bucks
used the scrape in the twenties of October for sure
in the daytime, some but not a lot. They quit
using the scrape on November the second, they started using
(35:59):
up the scrape again, using the scrape again on November.
The day a hunter was November. So from the tenth
to the seventeen there was a mature buck on that
scrape during shooting hours five of seven days. That's pretty
incredible data. Yeah, five of seven days from the tenth
(36:23):
to the seventeenth. Actually it wasn't. I didn't count the
day I was there, because from from the from the
tenth to six six days, five days, there was a
mature buck. And there were three mature bucks usn't it,
which is crazy where it's low density. Yeah, it's just
it's just it's national forest. I mean it's just like
(36:44):
low density, tough hunting. Uh And and so three mature bucks,
nothing major. I mean if any of those bucks had
been like right around here where I hunt, like, we've
got some pretty good deer up here in northwest star
and saw like I've got a couple of deer that
I think or maybe you know, they're pretty good. These
(37:06):
deer wouldn't score good. They were just mature by their
body characteristics. And by the years I've been getting pictures
of them, Like I've got three years of data, and
I can i recognize these deer from three years ago
and now they're four and a half to five and
a half year old. Deer wouldn't wouldn't score good. I mean,
you know if you saw the picture of this guy,
(37:27):
you know, if I killed that buck and you saw
my picture, you'd be like, oh yeah, click, killed a
decent buck. But to me, that buck would mean like
the world because where he came from places everything inside
of hunting places so significant. And by place I mean
um geographic location that a human is connected to by many, many,
(37:48):
many factors. He's connected to it culturally by you know,
my dad hunted there, You're connected to it, um by
just your your history with that place. You know, you've
hunted there for so long. You're connected to the land,
connect the place, you you you you, you know, places
(38:09):
everything like you t That's that's why, Uh, a deer
on a high fence ranch doesn't mean as much. I mean, uh,
you know what I'm saying, Like if you if you
went and bought a deer hunt on a on a
high fence ranch, It's like, what does that place mean
to you as a hunter? Uh? Not much? And uh
(38:32):
that's why you can go to a place and maybe
not have great deer, but it would be real significant
and that hunt could be translated into any species. You know.
They're just places that are significant. And I'm kind of
I'm kind of intrigued by this idea of place and
hunting because nobody's coming to Arkansas to hunt trophy deer.
(38:53):
I would rather kill a deer back in where I'm
talking about, as I would trade every deer I've killed
in Canada for a big one back over there. People
averard me say that and they think I'm crazy. Um really,
I killed a hundred sixty incher in Manitoba, Canada last
year that I didn't even mount. I got it on
a you know, a euro mounted it. And that deer
(39:14):
is valuable to me. Uh, it's it's valuable because I've
now gone to Manitoba several times. I do feel connected
to that place through the people that I know. They're
you know, the the guy we hunt with has become
like a friend now, like there's some i feel like
I'm starting to kind of set my roots there. So
there's value in that. But place and hunting is almost
(39:39):
always connected back to human relationship. I find that interesting
analyze that, like somebody listening to this, think about that,
like the places that you love to hunt, why do
you love to hunt there? Is it just because it's
good hunting? And I, as much as anybody want to
kill stuff when I hunt, I don't just go on
nostalgic hunts and love like eating tags. No, I want
(40:00):
to kill stuff. But I bet money if you think
about the places that you love to hunt, that that
that love that it's connected to success you've had there,
but it's also connected to people. I know that some
of the places I loved and hunt are always connected
to people. Yeah, I know the place that that you know,
(40:22):
I shot deer this year. I mean it has a
lot of memories, like my dad and I both killed
our first muzzle loader bucks the same morning there, you know,
And so realizing that there's a connection to to just
events like that in memories, sitting down with him hunting,
you know, hunting deer together, it's like how often were
we going to do that? You know? And so it's
(40:43):
like after he shot that first buck, I knew it's
like whatever walks out, I don't want to shoot it,
you know, just because it's like punching that memory, you know.
And so for me this year is like, you know,
every everything that I got this year, Well, the bear,
I was surrounded about people, and then with the deer,
it was it was you know, less people. It was
it was just building stuff with my dad and so
(41:04):
but those same memories have been built inside of like
public land areas to you know, or on the river
or whatever. And so I find that a lot of
my my value as assigned to like places I've been with,
like on a hunt with Dad or or someone else.
So like, even though I'm living in northwest Arkansas right now,
I don't have like a huge drive to find a
(41:25):
place to hunt around here because I'm not connected to
it yet, you know, if that makes sense. Yeah, and
you've got connections, You've got connections down there. Yeah. Well
this so getting back to my hunt, I I got
in the stand at nine o'clock and it was a
very exciting feeling to check that camera and there had
(41:46):
been a big, nice shooter buck there the day before,
six November at two pm. Um. And what's interesting again
is these the trend is is these mid November. This
mid November scrape activity is during the day, which is
better than the late October scrape activity. That's a trend
(42:09):
for this spot. I don't I can't say that that
would I have not noticed that trend other places. But
like I don't get a lot of nighttime scrape activity
there during mid November. It's it's always this mid day stuff,
almost all of it midday, not even late in morning,
late in evening. Some of that could be lunar phase
or whatnot, but there's a trend from so I'm hoping
(42:34):
to be able to get back in there sometime just
in the next few days. We'll see if I can. Um.
I've already spent so much of my hunting right here
in northwest Arkansas, uh and don't have anything to show
for it other than one encounter with a really nice deer,
actually two really good encounters with deer that with my bow,
and I just wouldn't able to kill the deer. Um.
(42:57):
But I'm going to use that intel in the future.
Like I feel this, this is the kind of place
it's hard for me to go scout, Like, I don't
just like going there and scout and go well, it's
not very good hunting. It's the kind of place that
you make up your mind you're gonna go hunt, and
you just go hunt it no matter what, Like you're
not just gonna go visit that spot very easily for
me being a couple hours away from it at least
(43:20):
if I lived down there, maybe to be different. But
like next year, going to keep that camera up there,
and I'm just gonna plan on being hunting that spot November,
and if anything is like the trend of the last
three years, there's most likely going to be buck activity
(43:41):
in there. And also that trend is significant and substantial
because all three of those years were very different with
mass crop, with weather, with everything, but that scrape activity
remained the same. What that tells me is is that, uh,
you know, when these dear okay, let me go back.
(44:05):
The thing that remains constant, and that is that that
is almost unchanging is the peak breeding period of any
given time, because that is biology and evolution. That's finest state.
Um And I want to talk about that word evolution
here in a minute, I will kind of qualify that statement.
(44:29):
But like font, peak, fond survival is what dictates conception.
And so by this analysis that I have, clearly bucks
are breeding doze from about November the five about November
the twelfth, and research backs that in Arkansas as for
the at least the highland regions, the mountain regions being
(44:51):
peak breeding dates that down in areas, and this is
all super interesting. Down in areas influenced by the flooding
of the Mississippi River, peak breeding dates are much later.
And you know, why have you ever heard me break
it down? But you know, well, I would think it's
because of rainfall. Well, it's because of seasonal spring flooding.
(45:15):
Think about that, Like so ges station period of a dough.
I think it's two hundred two days. So in the
mountains and highland, the highland areas of Arkansas washtall, those
dark mountains, you know, average dough. Let's say she's getting
bread on November eight, Well, two hundred two days from
that is going to end up being somewhere around June
the one. I haven't done the math in my head
(45:36):
in a couple of years, but from we start seeing
fawns about, you know, any given time, from a week
after to a week before June the one um. And
you know, the white tail breeding period is a is
a is a gradient scale, like some doze will come
(45:58):
in and get bread in late October like that for sure,
happens because I have seen fawns on the ground in
like early to mid May in Arkansas, which you do
the math backwards and it's like, holy smokes, that faun
was that dough was bred early. Most of them are
are dropping in June, and my math may be wrong.
(46:19):
I wouldn't plan on talking about this. It maybe later
in June that two and two days from like November
the eighth or something. But my scrape activity shows that
those bucks are with those are not worried about scrapes.
By about November the twelve, most of those doughs are bred.
These bucks are back to work in scrapes, and that
(46:40):
scrape is the place where they're communicating about. You know,
those are communicating to the therein Asterius bucks are communicating.
So anyway, I'm gonna take this intel and use it
in years to come, because that is something that is consistent,
is that breeding date. Like weather could change, mass crop
could change, they could clear cut that place. Uh like
(47:03):
everything could change, but that peak breeding date isn't gonna change.
And uh, I think sometimes as hunters, uh, we get
lost in the in the details of the moment. I
do like of weather, of looking for deer sign and
or or or looking at our app that tells us
(47:26):
if it's a good day to deer hunter or not.
I got one buddy who will remain unnamed, who's like
deer cast says it's gonna be a good day hunt.
You think it's gonna be good And I'll be like,
I don't really care what deer cast says. If you
can go hunting today, go hunting like it's November the nine,
you know, Like, so you know, there's there's there's some
(47:48):
things that just remain the same, which is going to
be that peak breeding time you need to be in
the woods. And by the time this podcast comes out, uh,
some of that will be over and will kind of
be kind of towards the post rut here gone. At Kobe,
I was gonna talk about the Mississippi River, and I
didn't Mississippi River, the mighty Mississippi Well, I was gonna
talk about why it's the reason the rut is later
(48:10):
in mississ well in areas influenced by the Mississippi River
in the Delta regions of the South is because of
seasonal flooding in the spring. So if doose are dropping
fawnds in mid May, which is like peak rain season.
(48:30):
All those bottom lands flood, so their rut is later.
It's a month later. I mean like the peak rut
for my buddies down in south east Arkansas, it's like
mid December, early to mid December peak rut. Like right now,
it's like not even much going on down there with
the rut. Mid December. Bucks are chasing, bucks are breeding.
(48:51):
It's crazy, and those funds are getting an extra month
for the water to recede because and in that all
is dictated by if you think about the process, the
biological process, there were does that were bred on November
the five down there in uh in the Lowland River country,
(49:12):
and they had fonds that drowned, so that doze genes
her d n A that dictated when she came into estrus,
which would be genetic and hereditary. Like there would be
some that would have you know, the DNA structure. You know,
every everything that our body does is dictated by DNA.
(49:33):
DNA is like this this this this code that's precoded
to do certain stuff. You know, for you your red hair, yeah,
blazing red hair, super recessive that you haven't combed in weeks. Yeah,
but you think about it, it makes perfect sense that,
(49:55):
like so a dough that would have the DNA to
come into Estris early whatever triggered that her jeans would
not be passed on the doe that had the hereditary
inclination to come into Estrius. Later, she would be rewarded
(50:17):
because her fund would survive, her genes would survive. So
you do that for ten thousand years or twenty thousand years,
and all of a sudden, all your dose down the
Mississippi River bottoms coming to Estris in mid December. It's
pretty fascinating, isn't it. Yeah, up here it's not as
critical when they come in, but it's still a relatively
(50:38):
tight period of time. So anyway, that's my that's my story.
So I sat there and didn't see the buck. I'm
telling you a hunting story, and like weaving in and
out of like all this stuff. Um, I sat there
all day yesterday, gotten the stand at nine o'clock, and
I climbed out of the stand at basically sunset, which
(51:00):
would be thirty minutes before you could stop shooting, because
I wanted to be able to hunt my way out
of there for at least some period of time before
it got dark. I've had a fair bit of not
success because I've never killed a buck like this, but
I could have killed deer multiple times late in the
(51:20):
evening coming out of there, uh grunting, moving slow, kind
of slip hunting out of there. And multiple times I've
had deer encounters that if it had been a buck,
I could have killed it. So I got out of
stand basically at five o'clock, uh, you know, of like
five or eight. I got out of stand legal shooting
light lasted till like five thirty eight for all the
(51:41):
for just to give you the real details there down
to the nitty gritty, and didn't see didn't see a buck.
I saw one dough at twelve twenty five. I turned
around directly behind me, and I watched a dough bed
down sixty seventy yards away. Watched her for she stayed
on the ground for only ten minutes and got up
and walked off. But no buck ever came in. Most
(52:05):
shepherd thinks they smelled me, which he's probably right. Uh,
probably they smelled me, and I never saw him. The
wind up on this place as squarely as it can be,
like if if if you check, I mean wind indications
on the weather app mean nothing up there. Nothing. I mean,
(52:25):
like if it says winds out of the north, does it,
it doesn't does not matter. The wind will be swirling
in there or it will pick its own direction. Like yesterday,
the wind blew out of the east about seventy percent
of the time. Uh, And I didn't even look at
what it predicted. But they never predict an east wind
down there. I mean, like we're very rare and east
wind is like pretty much almost all of our wind
(52:49):
is out of the north, south, or west. In the
combination of those rarely out of the east. It blew
out of the east almost all day, which was which
was favorable for me. Um. So anyway, that's my story, man,
that's my story. Um We're not gonna be labor this podcast.
(53:11):
I don't want to say this because it it, but
we're working on so much stuff for the new version
of this podcast. I got a bunch of stuff that
I'm kind of holding back. Kobe. Yeah, because we had
a string of podcasts there that we're like, awesome. We
we've had some awesome ones lately, but you know, like
(53:33):
we were traveling, we're going out of our way to
get some great guests. I mean, we had Ted Nugent,
we had Steve Ronnell and your honest to tell us,
we had we were traveling doing some biology podcast with
Sarah Lita and Laura Conley and and and uh, we
got a whole bunch of great stuff that we just
(53:53):
can't release it. Yeah, and so right now we're kind
of kind of just sticking local, sticking local. Yeah. Yeah, Um,
I was gonna talk about this book right here against
the grain. Um, but but I'm not Kobe. I don't.
I just don't think we can get into it. Yeah. Um,
(54:15):
I man, I'll tell you what. If there's one thing
that I would encourage people to do, it's it's read
you can. Uh. We were gonna do like a book
review on a couple of these books I'm reading. I
am not a voracious reader either. Like, I don't want
people to hear me talk about reading books and think
that i'm because some people are. Some people just like
can pick up that book and read it like in
(54:36):
a weekend. That is not me. I gotta pack on
these books for long periods of time with pen in hand. Yes,
and uh, and that's what I do. And I I
love it. I love it it's I don't know, we
gotta keep I think as adults, and most people that
listen to this podcast would be an adult. This idea
(54:58):
that you stop learning once ye're out of school or
out of college or something that's crazy. I mean, we're
we're designed to continue to learn and grow as people
for our entire lives. Um, we really are. And so
this idea that we quit like academic learning once we
get out of school or something that's I don't know.
(55:21):
I don't think it's very healthy and everybody's gonna have
a different appetite. But I've had to develop a discipline
inside of me to read books and make time for it.
But it's just something I prioritized over the last twenty years.
And man, I don't there are people that I'm not
well read. I promise you I'm not. But I have
(55:42):
consistently read for for twenty years. You know. It's just
stuff that's interesting to me, and uh, it's it's valuable.
And I'm I'm only talking about this because we were
going to talk about this book Against the Grain. I
want to so much, so much, Well, we'll have to
(56:03):
do it on another podcast. Yeah, So I'm working for
meat eater. It's not changing Bear Honey magazine, and I'm
still trying to kill a buck. Colby just went out
in all this red haired glory and killed two bucks
on the same day. Just easy peasy. I don't know, man,
I guess he's got a silver spoon in his mouth
(56:24):
when it comes to deer hunting. It was just a year.
It needed to be easy. I didn't need to be
spending a lot of time out there, I guess. I
still I still don't want to go see if I
can get another dough or two, and I might hunt
Texas a little bit in my parents house. Yeah, alright man,
Well yeah, we're about to start working on the January
(56:47):
fripary issue Barny Magazine. Right around the corner, Right around
the corner, Yeah all right, well, ma'am, keep the wild
places wild. Is that's where the bears live. Yep.
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