Ep. 963: The Legendary Roger Rothhaar’s Big Buck Lessons

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the wired to Hunt podcast.

Speaker 2 (00:03):
This week, on the show, we are doing a deep
dive into the big buck lessons of one of the
white tailed community's greatest legends, Roger Rothar. He was the
influencer of today's whitetail influencers, and today we're going to
learn exactly why. All right, welcome back to the wired

(00:29):
ton podcast, brought to you by First Light and their
Camo for Conservation Initiative. And today we have got a
unique episode, an episode that I think and I hope
that you are really going to enjoy and something that
you're not going to find anywhere else, not this fall
on another podcast, not you know, probably over any podcast

(00:50):
created anywhere, because we are going to be learning today
from somebody who tragically is no longer with us. We
are going to be doing a deep dive into the
lesson and the big buck hunting, mature whitetail chasing strategies
of the one and only Roger Rothar. And if that's
a name that you do not recognize, if that's someone

(01:12):
you do not know, I want to tell you a
little bit about who he is and why you should
be paying attention to this Because Roger Rothar is a legend,
and he is a legend because he is the guy
who taught the guys that we're all paying attention to now,
so Don Higgins, Mark Drury, Bill Winky, countless of other

(01:33):
folks that we look up to today as experts in
our field, as the ogs of whitetail hunting. Their guy,
the person that they were all looking up towards when
they were growing up and learning about deer hunting.

Speaker 1 (01:45):
It was Roger Rothar. He was the original, He was
the og, as they say, But we don't have the
opportunity to learn from him today the way we do
from the current folks like Mark and Bill and Don
and so many others that have been on this podcast.
So I got to thinking, how can we.

Speaker 2 (02:04):
How can we get into this, How can we kind
of digest and consume and learn from this person who
had so much to share and who influenced so many
other previous generations. Well, fortunate for us, Roger was a writer.
He wrote several very well selling and influential books and
a number of different articles. And I decided to go

(02:24):
find those books myself, read them and share with you
what I learned. Pick apart, the most important lessons, the
greatest philosophies and strategies and approaches that Roger applied to
his hunting in the sixties and seventies and eighties and
nineties that led to him being a true pioneer in
the white tail hunting world when it comes to targeting

(02:44):
mature books. I want to share with you what I
learned after going out and finding used This one's actually
not used, but from a used bookstore.

Speaker 1 (02:54):
I had to pay several hundred dollars for these out.

Speaker 2 (02:57):
Of print old books, but I was able to do it,
was able to see exactly why this guy is such
a legend. Roger Rothar has a lot to teach all
of us, not just about how to kill big bucks,
but also about the mindset that we bring to it.
So I'm excited to share all of that with you today.
This is going to be another just you and Me

(03:18):
episode where we're going to dive deep into the pages
of these books. I'm going to read you excerpts from
Roger's own words of how he taught so many people
and how he had success killing mature bucks back before
there were podcasts, back before there were a thousand videos
teaching you to do this back before there were trail
cameras and thermal drones and all this crazy stuff that's

(03:40):
we're going to talk about today. Before we get to that, though,
I want to set the stage and maybe set the
you know better, frame this all up for you by
bringing in a quick guest, a little surprise appearance here
from Don Higgins, because Don is one of those people
who I mentioned was seriously influenced by Roger. So I

(04:01):
want Don to hop on here briefly for a few
minutes to tell us, you know, why and how Roger
was so influential on him and so many other hunters
back in the seventies and eighties and nineties, and what
some of the most important lessons were that Don took
from Roger as he was becoming a white tail hunter himself.
So real quick, here's Don, all right, Don, So, this

(04:27):
name Roger Rothar has come up time and time again
for me over the years, from folks like yourself, Mark Drury,
Bill Wink, many of kind of our experts today, the
influencers today in the whitetail world all seem to have
been influenced by Roger Rothar. Why do you think that was?

(04:47):
What was it about him? And what he taught that
was so impactful. Well, he was ahead of his time.
He was super successful.

Speaker 3 (04:56):
Yeah, at the very beginning stages of the mod whitetail craze.
I think it all started with a series of articles
that he had in Bowhunter magazine, probably the late seventies,
maybe nineteen eighty.

Speaker 1 (05:13):
Somewhere in there.

Speaker 3 (05:15):
And then he wrote a couple of books, my favorite
being Whitetail Magic. I think his first one was titled
In Pursuit of Trophy Whitetails. But I liked the Whitetail
Magic because he just covered a lot of his hunts
for specific bucks in there. But you know, you've got
to remember that Roger gained his notoriety at a time

(05:38):
where there was no trail cameras, there was no food plots.
It was just observation and time in the woods and
woodsmanship skills, and he was just dedicated to that. And
you know, he a little bit older than a lot
of us other guys that were just coming onto the scene.
Like when I bet Roger, I was a teenager, I

(06:00):
was eighteen nineteen years old, and so he would have
been he'd probably been old enough to be my dad. Actually,
he would have been, he'd have been old enough to
be my dad. So I looked up to him as
a mentor, and he just ahead of his game in
term of knowledge and success both And that's what kind
of set him apart back in the day.

Speaker 2 (06:23):
Do you feel like some of that, you know, genuine
woodsmanship and that you know understanding your quarry, even without
trail cameras, without drones, without all of these fancy technological
tools we have today, is that missing a little bit?

Speaker 1 (06:39):
Now?

Speaker 2 (06:40):
Could we all benefit from a little bit of that
Roger mindset back in our lives?

Speaker 1 (06:46):
Oh, without a doubt.

Speaker 3 (06:48):
You know, guys, my age we cut our teeth into
the deer hunting woods before that technology. And when that
technology came along, it we in combination with the hunting skills,
the woodsmanship knowledge that we'd already picked up. And I
think today's younger hunter, he's had a super advantage over

(07:12):
what I had with the knowledge that's out there. I mean,
the Internet has just brought more deer hunting knowledge and
opinion to a person's fingertip so than we ever had
back in the day. I mean, we was lucky to
have North American White Tail, one magazine that came not
even once a month. I think it was published eight

(07:33):
times a year, and guys like me would read through
that in about twenty four hours and we're ready for
the next issue. And it might be it was at
least a month of not two months before you've seen
the next one. And so today's whitetail hunter has a
lot more knowledge at their fingertips, way more advanced than
I was early in my stages of my hunting career.

Speaker 1 (07:56):
But at the.

Speaker 3 (07:57):
Same time, the young hunter today is not gaining that
woodsmanship type knowledge that that guys my age picked up, you.

Speaker 1 (08:06):
Know when we were younger.

Speaker 3 (08:07):
So I think when you combine the two, there's a
and I'm probably in this generation where we had the
best of both worlds. You know, we had the Roger Rothars,
the Gene Winsils, the Berry Winsils, and then we were
yet young enough that we still caught some of the

(08:30):
the modern technology phase, if you will, the Internet, the
trail cameras, the drones. We benefit from both, and I
think today's younger hunter does not benefit from the previous
generation the way we do, or we did.

Speaker 2 (08:46):
Yeah, So when you look back, if you can think
back on those books that you read from Roger and
the articles. And I'm not sure if you ever got
to see any of the sentin ours or speak with
him personally.

Speaker 1 (08:57):
But what what st.

Speaker 2 (09:00):
With you now is maybe you know the couple most
important deer hunting lessons that you learned from Roger.

Speaker 3 (09:07):
Well, I mean, there's there's two things that really stick
in my mind that I heard from him. And I
did meet him in person multiple times, actually spent a
week in bear camp in Canada with him in Saskatchewan.
Back in I'd have probably been maybe thirty years old,
so I was around him to some degree, not near

(09:29):
as much as I wish I had been. But there's
two things that really stick stood with me through the
all this time that I still don't apply today. One
of those Roger said that years ago told me that
a mature buck will go at least one hundred yards
out of his way to go through an open gate
or a down spot in the fence rather than jump

(09:51):
that fence. And you know, I've used that knowledge on
my own farm. It was surrounded by a cattle pasture
and had the old cattle fence, and when I got
rid of the cattle, one of the first things I
did was take the wirecutters and cut some holes in
the fence for the deer to funnel through. Basically that

(10:13):
that all stem from Roger making that one comment to me,
and he made that in person. I remember we was
at a Professional bow Hunter Society event in Ohio when
he told me this, and so I've always kept that
in mind, that a deer, I'm mature buck especially, would
go a good little bit out of his way to

(10:34):
go through an opening and a fence. Another thing that
that stuck with me that he shared years ago was
that the biggest bucks in the woods, the most mature deer,
the best time to kill them is Thanksgiving weekend. Roger
loved Thanksgiving weekend, the tail end of the rut, and

(10:55):
that is really stood the test of time with my
own hunting, and in fact, there's a period of time
it's probably been close to twenty years ago now, but
for five consecutive seasons, the biggest buck I seen from
a stand each of those five seasons was Thanksgiving weekend.

Speaker 1 (11:13):
And this would have been back.

Speaker 3 (11:14):
In the day when I was hunting permission properties before
I owned my own farm. I would take the whole
month of November off from my job and so I
was out there every day, and a lot of times
my vacation would start at the end of October, so
i'd get the last couple of days of October and
then the entire month of November, and I would go
back to work, usually the Monday after Thanksgiving. That's how

(11:38):
I always set my vacation up. And it was just
ironic that I would hunt for an entire month and
the best buck I would see would be the last
couple of days of my vacation Thanksgiving weekend. And Roger
explained it perfectly, you know. He said that the ruts
winding down, those big boys know it's just about over
for another year, and they're desperately searching for that next

(11:59):
hot dough, and they're covering a lot of territory doing that,
and they're on their feet in daylight searching, and that's
when they become really vulnerable. And I know he killed
some of his better bucks during that time frame, and
I don't know that I've killed that many during that
time frame, but I've definitely seen a lot of giants
during that Thanksgiving period. And if it wasn't for Roger

(12:22):
driving that point home when I was younger, I probably
would not have spent near as much time hunting that
time of.

Speaker 1 (12:27):
The year as I have.

Speaker 3 (12:29):
So I think it's really important that they, guys, you know,
keep the faith, don't give up and lose hope. That
Thanksgiving weekend at the end of the rut is a
fantastic time to kill the biggest buck in the woods.

Speaker 2 (12:43):
Yeah, it's funny you mentioned that, and it hearkens right
back to what I talked about earlier about how today's
influencers were influenced by Roger, Because as you just said that,
I remembered that I had read an article in North
American White Tail that you wrote. I think that's where
I heard from you. It was either that or in
one of your books. But I remember you saying this

(13:03):
exact thing, saying Thanksgiving's a great time, and I remember
because of that, I made a return trip to a
property I had access to down in southern Ohio right
at that time around Thanksgiving, and I remember thinking myself,
all right, it can still be darn good for those
really old bucks. Stick it out and stay all day.
So I hunted in an all day sit on November
It was like the twenty fifth or twenty seventh or

(13:24):
somewhere in that ballpark, and sure enough, my target buck
came out at one o'clock in the afternoon. And so
so funny that you told me that, and Roger told
you that, the picture perfect example of what we're talking
about here.

Speaker 3 (13:38):
Yeah, and you know, Mark, one of the things that
I appreciate about you is that you give credit and
to others when you learn something. I try to do
the same, and Roger was very instrumental in my success
even today. And I think it's important that you know,
we give credit where it's due. We remember, I didn't

(13:58):
figure out much on my own. Maybe a little bit,
but you know a lot of the knowledge that I
have is has come from others, or it's come from
mistakes I've made.

Speaker 1 (14:07):
It's not because I was smart.

Speaker 3 (14:09):
And I just appreciate that you're willing to give credit
where it's due and do this basically this podcast on
Roger Rothar, who was definitely one of.

Speaker 1 (14:19):
My heroes when I was younger.

Speaker 2 (14:21):
Yeah, I'm excited for folks to hear this. So before
I let you go, I have one additional question that
just popped in my mind.

Speaker 1 (14:28):
If you could leave one.

Speaker 2 (14:31):
Like, if somebody that's going to listen to this podcast today,
if you could leave them with one important thing from Roger,
a Roger rotharism, a takeaway. What would that one takeaway
be in which you know you would like the listener
today to be a little bit more like Roger in
the future, or to put this into action in the
future that Roger would have said.

Speaker 1 (14:49):
What would that one takeaway be?

Speaker 3 (14:52):
Well, if you knew Roger at all, you know that
he was opinionated and stubborn, and that I am the
same way. I probably I don't know if I got
it from him, but you know he talk to anybody
knows me, and I'll tell you that I'm pretty opinionated,
and I shared my opinion openly. But you know, I
think that in today's society, people have become too politically

(15:16):
correct that they don't want to offend anyone. And Roger
was very outspoken about what he believed in compound bows.
His view of compound bow's was probably similar to my
view of crossbows, and even in our later conversations. You
know my the last book that I wrote, Real World

(15:37):
Wide tail Icons, Roger had three chapters in it, yep,
and he had a couple of gouges in there that
were maybe directed straight to me.

Speaker 1 (15:47):
I don't know. I didn't take any offense, but.

Speaker 3 (15:50):
And I don't want people to hear this and think
I'm anti crossbow. What I just my opinion is that
I don't think that crossbow should be in the archery
season for able bodied hunters. I definitely don't want to
keep anyone out of the woods. And I've had friends,
good friends sent on my farm in the same blind
with me using a crossbow and I never said a

(16:11):
word to him. I think, if it's legal, it's their choice.
But you know, Roger stood on what he believed in
and he'd made no apologies for it. He didn't look
down on me because I shot a compound. He didn't
like compounds, but he accepted me as a fellow deer hunter,

(16:32):
and you know, I try to be the same way.
But I think it's his willingness to stand up for
what he believed in and speak out for what he
believed in that I hope others take from this, and
you know, that whole idea about Thanksgiving weekend. I hope
that resonates with people, and I hope it keeps the

(16:53):
deer hunters that are listening to this podcast. I hope
it keeps them motivated throughout the entire rut. In my opinion,
I think a lot lot of guys get really fired
up for the peak of the rut November fifteenth, and
I think that's the time of the year to kill
a giant on purpose. The very beginning of the rut
around November seventh is a great time. But then the

(17:13):
other great time is that Thanksgiving weekend. And that was
something that Roger brought to the deer hunting world all
those decades ago. And I just hope people listening to
this remember that and they stay motivated throughout the entire
month of November in the white tail rut, and they
don't get burned out, you know, fifteenth or twentieth of
November and think it's over. There's still a really good

(17:35):
time coming up towards the end of November, that you
got a chance to kill the biggest buck in the woods.

Speaker 1 (17:41):
Yeah. That's a great point.

Speaker 2 (17:42):
And back to what you mentioned at the beginning there
about his outspokenness and his opinion, his opinionated nature on things.
I think one way that came out for me in
his books was just how much emphasis he put on
the way you do things. It wasn't so much about
if you kill the giant buck or if you succeeded

(18:03):
with your goal. It was just as important, maybe more important,
that you did it in such a way that you
you know, did it the right way, or did it
in the way that was enjoyable or ethical. He put
a huge emphasis on that throughout all of his rating,
and that that really stuck out to me too.

Speaker 1 (18:19):
Yeah. Absolutely.

Speaker 3 (18:20):
I mean those that don't know roger hunting with a
recurved bow, I think he used an Austenheimer was the
brand or the bow maker, the bowyer of his choice.
He also invented the snuffer broadhead. The snuffer has been
really popular, especially back in the day. I'm not so

(18:40):
sure today, but I'm sure it is to some degree
with traditional archers. So you know, he had a major
impact in a lot of different ways on the modern
deer hunting movement, and I just appreciate that he's going
to be remembered.

Speaker 1 (18:57):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (18:57):
Yeah, Well, thank you don for sharing you or your
memories here and your perspective. This is this is really helpful,
So thank you.

Speaker 1 (19:04):
Yeah, you're welcome. Thanks for having me Mark. All right,
So great chat. That was, Don. I hope you now
have a better sense of just how.

Speaker 2 (19:17):
Impactful this guy, Roger Rothar was. Now let's get into
the material. Let's get into my book reports here. I
have gone through these books, taken extensive notes, picked out
the most eye opening and important and impactful passages that
I could find, the things that I think really frame
up Roger's philosophy in many ways. And as I alluded

(19:37):
to before Don came on, some of my favorite things
about Roger based on these books are not just his
you know, x's and o's tactics, but also the approach
he took as far as how he thinks about our
role as hunters, and how he you know, approaches the
pursuit in a way that respects wildlife in the wild

(20:00):
places and really what it means to be a hunter.
He very much and I mentioned this with Don, he
is very much about the how just as much the what.
So let's open here with a passage from his book
that I think sets that up very nicely. This is
an extended one, but going to read it to you
here briefly. All right, So Roger says in his book,

(20:23):
in Pursuit of Trophy, Whitetails To be sure, very few
wild animals can compare to a mature whitetail buck for
pure grace and beauty, and his regal bearing attests to
the majesty with which he regards his domain in spite
of the pressures and challenges thrown against him by man.
In nature, he is king, and he shows it. He

(20:45):
exudes confidence in his ability to accept those challenges and
to win in spite of the odds against him. And
he has fitted with a complete set of senses which
are razor sharp from eons of defensive living, and a
cunning matched in the animal world world only by those
of the bounty sought predators. He represents the ultimate challenge
to the trophy hunter, but he is much more than that.

(21:08):
The fact that he has survived and flourished in territory
which has been robbed of any sort of wildness by
the progress of man makes the white tail deer something
very special. He abounds in many areas undesirable to man
because of the harsh nature of the land, but so
have other species of wildlife. What really makes the whitetail
so very special is that he survived where the others perished,

(21:31):
and in so doing he preserved a measure of the
wildness now missing from these spoiled lands. As the land
is taken over by man and his numbers multiply, the
situation is soon crowded with too many people in too
small a space. When this happens, there are many people
who cannot tolerate the constant pressures put upon them by
that kind of lifestyle, yet they are trapped since that

(21:54):
is their only known way of making a living. However,
many seek periodotic relief from these pressures by escaping for
short periods of time through short vacations into wild areas
on hunting or fishing trips. Often due to limited time
or finances, he can't travel far and is still the
victim of overcrowding in the field or on the stream.

(22:16):
It is at this time that the whitetail gives the
gift that makes him the most respected and valuable game
animal in the country. That gift is a touch of
wildness that the soul of man so desperately needs in
a crowded and controlled world. Pursuit of the other big
game trophies, such as the sheep and elk, bear, and
moose most often requires an expensive and somewhat involved trip

(22:39):
into wilderness country, which is the type of environment these
animals must have to survive. The presence of the whitetail
makes a wilderness of a ten acre woodlock. For the moment,
the hunter is free from the sights and sounds of
civilization all around him, and he's taken back through time
to that prehistoric age when man was a predator and

(22:59):
life was as simple as drawing a breath.

Speaker 1 (23:04):
How good is that? And how true is that that
the presence of a.

Speaker 2 (23:08):
White tail can make a wilderness of just a ten
acre lot, or heck, even a three acre lot, that
little bit of woods behind your house, or that little
brushy draw on the cornfield, or maybe it is the
big wild woods of the North having that white tail
out there that brings this electricity to it. I know,

(23:28):
if you have hunted yourself, if you've been out there
with deer, you can relate to that. Whether it's right
behind your house or deep.

Speaker 1 (23:34):
In the wilderness.

Speaker 2 (23:35):
Having these deer running around out there just makes everything
so much more, just pulsing with life. And I think
Roger just absolutely nails it there.

Speaker 1 (23:47):
So I really like this. I really like the way
that he.

Speaker 2 (23:52):
Frames everything up and maybe sets the stage with how
important these critters are, and important, how important you know
our pursuit of them is. I want to give you
one more example of that here before we get into
some of us nitty gritty thoughts on hunting. This one's
from Whitetail Magic, his second book in that first one,
in Pursuit of Trophy of White Tails, I believe, was

(24:13):
published in the early eighties. Whitetail Magic was published in
the early nineties. He asked the question what makes a
good deer hunter? Rogers says this, So, what does it
take to be a good deer hunter? Invariably a good
hunter is a good woodsman. Every really good deer hunter
that I've ever known of literally loved the out of doors.

(24:35):
They not only are comfortable and at home in the woods,
they deeply respect it and find a peacefulness in the
wild that reaches to the soul. They are the people
who spend lots of time in the woods because they
want to, and not because they know they must in
order to kill big deer. The good hunter first and
foremost wishes to be a part of that environment.

Speaker 1 (24:54):
He loves. To do so requires knowledge and understanding not
only of the plants, and animals, but also the wind
and weather. The more one understands of these things, the
more he becomes a part of it. To this type
of person, the killing of an animal is truly the
harvesting of nature's bounty, and the opportunities to do so
are granted to him because he deserves them, and later

(25:17):
he continues. But it still takes more than all these
things covered thus far to make a good deer hunter.

Speaker 2 (25:23):
The key to it all is the word good. The
dictionary definition of the word lists first and foremost morally excellent, righteous, pious. Now,
in my book, that all boils down to basic honesty.
A good deer hunter must be honest and truthful to
himself and the game. He must be honest enough to
admit there will be a lot to learn and a

(25:43):
lot of work involved in gaining that knowledge. He must
be truthful in assessing his own inadequacies in order to
realize which aspects he must improve on. And most of all,
he must be honest with his fellow man and grant
him his rights. None of the good deer hunters I
have ever known blamed another man's success for his own failures.

(26:04):
Each admitted his own shortcomings and worked to improve them.
That is also traeval athletes who rise to the top,
as well as people who are successful at any endeavor.
There is a message here, So what really makes a
good deer hunter? Obviously the answer cannot be based purely
upon the numbers or size of the deer taken. There

(26:24):
are too many variables involved, nor can it depend upon
the amount of time or money spent on the endeavor.
The answer lies totally and the reason one is hunting.
Roger nails it there. This is something that has taken
me years and years and years to learn, but Roger
had written in these pages decades ago. So much of

(26:58):
what comes down to, you know, being a good deer hunter,
or really you know, enjoying and being satisfied as a
deer hunter, is why you're getting after in the first place.
If you are trying to be a quote unquote good
deer hunter just because you want to put a huge
rack on the wall or just because you want to
impress people on Instagram.

Speaker 1 (27:16):
You are doomed for failure.

Speaker 2 (27:19):
But as I hope I can show you through the
rest of this podcast and the words of Roger, if
you come to the woods, if you come to deer hunting,
hoping to enjoy the process, hoping to enjoy the animal
and the landscape and the incredible challenge of trying to
get close enough to one of these animals with a
bow or a firearm and successfully kill mature buck.

Speaker 1 (27:39):
If you are doing it because.

Speaker 2 (27:40):
Of that process, if that's your reason, in your why,
you are bound to succeed and be very satisfied and
probably punch a lot of tags too. Roger makes that
point over and over again, and I wanted to make
sure we lead with that because I think everything else
that follows, everything else that follows, has that is its
fund foundation. So keep that in mind as we continue

(28:03):
down this path. All right, So, I think another thing
Roger mentioned early on in that passage.

Speaker 1 (28:10):
I think it was actually in the first passage.

Speaker 2 (28:12):
He mentioned that all good deer hunters want to be
in the woods as much as possible, and not just
because they have to be to kill deer, but because
it calls to them, because it fills them with some
kind of life force. And this is something that Roger
emphasizes over and over again, with scouting being one of
the major ways that comes manifest. If there was anything

(28:34):
I think that Roger preached more than anything else, and
something actually that as I did some research on this,
I found out that he really was one of the
pioneers of this idea in the hunting world. It was scouting,
and not just scouting once or twice, but scouting all
year round. Roger popularized some of the things that we
are talking about today you know all the time, which is,

(28:56):
you know, scouting postseason, when the snow melts and when
you can see stuff before greenup. He then talked about
different kinds of scouting the summer, and then finally he
talked about in season scouting and how important that was woodsmanship,
truly knowing the landscape, truly knowing deer behavior, being able
to decipher all of that in the woods.

Speaker 1 (29:15):
He was one of the first to really.

Speaker 2 (29:17):
Share with the public why that's so important and how
that can lead to deer and it was more important
than ever back then because again, there's no trail cameras
to give you that data. There's no deer prediction models
and apps that tell you when deer should move. He
had to be out there in the field to see it,
to confirm it, to figure out the timing of all
of it.

Speaker 1 (29:37):
And I think we.

Speaker 2 (29:38):
Would probably all do well to go back to some
of that and to not lean too much on our
modern scouting technology. If we can bring some of this back,
if we can bring the Roger Roth techniques and approach
back to our modern day deer hunting, I think we
will all benefit greatly. So I want to read to
you a few different excerpts from Roger about his scouting approaches,

(30:02):
about his scouting mindset, and specific things that he's looking for.
So first an excerpt from in Trophy in Pursuit of
trophy white tails. All right, So, in this excerpt, he
really I think helps us answer the question of why
why scouting is just so important and why you know,
looking at scouting as a year round endeavor and maybe

(30:24):
just as important or more important than actually hunting.

Speaker 1 (30:27):
Why that is?

Speaker 2 (30:28):
He discusses that here some readers may recall my reference
to the trophy hunter resigning himself to a lot of
hunting between shots. This is not to be interpreted to
mean that the time between shots will be dreary and uneventful.
Quite to the contrary, unless, of course, one considers the
observing of sub trophy whitetail, deer and other wildlife as

(30:49):
well as nature's wonders as boring. If that's the case,
you are definitely involved in the wrong sport. Actually, the
time spent on stand constitutes only a small frack of
the time I spend a field in pursuit of my
chosen sport. On the overall basis, the ratio would probably
figure out to something like one to ten or less.
The greater part of my time is spent scouting for signs,

(31:12):
familiarizing myself with the terrain and wind conditions of my areas,
and generally becoming acquainted with the dear movement patterns within
the areas. While doing this, it is important to mentally
evaluate all these things. Consider all the facts as you
know them from every possible point of view, try to
compare them to former hunting experiences that might have been similar,

(31:33):
then draw logical conclusions. To do this requires the development
of an outstanding memory. The facts may be gathered over
a long period of time, but must be stored in
the memory bank until they fit into the puzzle. I've
had several occasions where a certain aspect of a hunting
situation just did not quite fit into place. Then, after
hours or days, in some cases, weeks of pondering the solution,

(31:56):
it would suddenly hit me when some forgotten fact was remembered.
Patience is probably one of the most difficult to develop
forms of mental conditioning, and at the same time one
of the most important for many hunters. Impatience is the
product of uncertainty, uncertainty born from improper or incomplete pre
scouting preparation. As an example, one can imagine how easy

(32:19):
it would be to sit in the same stand day
in and day out, through good weather and bad for
weeks if necessary, so long as you are one hundred
percent certain that sometime during that period you would get
a good shot at a real trophy buck. On the
other hand, put yourself in that stand with no positive
knowledge of the odds of the bucks showing up, or
worse yet, thinking the odds are against it. The key

(32:40):
to patience, then is to do whatever is required to
develop an affirmative confidence attitude. So important scouting equals confidence,
and confidence kills key key lesson here. If you scout enough,
you will have the confidence it's necessary to go into

(33:01):
the field with the right mindset. The mindset that's going
to keep you focused, it's going to keep you positive.
That's not only going to put you in the right place,
but it's going to put you in the right mindset
to actually execute on a quality hunt when that opportunity
finally does come together. It's a really really important thing
here that I appreciate Roger sharing. Here's one more thing

(33:22):
on scouting. Roger writes, the whitetail did not get his
reputation for craftiness by being an easy mark. So long
as one part time deer hunter pursues one full time deer,
there will never be any danger of his losing his
place in the wild. I would have to agree with
the philosophy of the old deer hunter who said deer

(33:43):
cannot actually think, they only think they can. And so
it must be understood that in order to do a
good job of white tail hunting and to rate a
decent chance of collecting a real trophy buck, it's necessary
to know all you possibly can about him. This means
hours and hours of fear, either scouting for sign an activity,
or an actual observation. This scouting must be done all

(34:06):
year round and at every opportunity.

Speaker 1 (34:09):
So I love these two ideas side by side.

Speaker 2 (34:12):
This idea that you know as long as one part
time deer hunter pursues one full time deer, there will
never be any danger.

Speaker 1 (34:19):
Of him disappearing.

Speaker 2 (34:20):
Right, So this idea that you know, this deer is
out there all the time, we are on their terms
when we head into the field. So as long as
we're part time and those deer are full time, it's
going to be a serious, serious struggle. You are going
to need to scout and learn and observe and put
lots and lots of pieces together if we're ever going
to succeed. But at the same time, he also brings

(34:43):
up the point in that same passage that you know,
deer can't actually think, they just think they can.

Speaker 1 (34:47):
Right.

Speaker 2 (34:48):
This brings to mind something that my pale Tony says
a lot, which is that you know, deer just you know,
mature bucks are just rabbits with antlers. They are not genius,
They are not magical. They are not you know, statisticians
making calculated, probabilistic decisions about where Hunter is going to
be and how I'm going to try to kill them.

Speaker 1 (35:08):
They're not doing that kind of thing. So I think
that they have.

Speaker 2 (35:11):
This incredible set of survival instincts, and as he mentioned,
they're living out their full time so they understand their
home better than anyone else. That is going to make
our job incredibly challenging. But at the same time, it
is not impossible for us. If we understand the basics,
if we scout, if we work year round as much

(35:32):
as we possibly can to immerse ourselves in these settings,
we can have success. We can intercept these deer. I
think Roger makes that point over and over and over again.
Be in the field, scout more, learn more, ask questions,
get out there. Don't rely on your cameras. I think
he would be saying, don't rely on your digital maps.

(35:53):
I think he would be saying, don't lean too much
on the deer predictions or whatever somebody tells you on YouTube.
Get out there see it for yourself. That is I
think Roger's first and maybe very most important lesson to
all of us here today. Now, how do we effectively
scout when we're actually out there in the field.

Speaker 1 (36:14):
What do we do? What can we do? How did
Roger do it?

Speaker 2 (36:17):
One of the most interesting things that I think he
wrote about in his book here was having the right mindset.
So when you're actually out there walking through the woods
looking for sign, Roger brings up a very important thing,
which is you know the questions you ask while you
are taking all this in. So I'm going to read
you another piece here from in pursuit, he writes. While scouting,

(36:40):
first needed is a proper frame of mind which will
gear the senses to alertness and observation and yet allow
the imagination to wander a bit too. Many hunters regard
scouting as a necessary evil, something to toil at while
they would rather be socializing or glued to the boob tube.
When such an attitude is present, they may as well

(37:01):
forget the scouting, for most of the time will be wasted.
Proper scouting technique is an art form of creative reasoning
in which the number one component is imagination. The key
is to combine this imagination with reality to produce an
experience of total involvement, much like daydreaming. Your legs and
body are merely a vehicle to transport you from place

(37:23):
to place. In this mental condition, one can transpose himself
from the role of hunter to that of the hunted.
It is even possible to develop the ability to be
both at the same time. I would suppose that is
where the saying thinking like a deer came from the
saying is not very accurate, since you are really trying
to imagine what a deer would do under certain circumstances

(37:44):
based upon your past observations of deer behavior, rather than
what he's actually thinking. In this way, the mind can
put the evidence seen and felt into a variety of
situations for analyzation and avoid the common mistake of jumping
to a single minded, usually erroneous conclusion. Imagination, creativity, art.

(38:07):
I love the fact that Roger uses these words to
describe the mindset we need while scouting. He also I
might read this later. I can't remember if I wrote
this down as something to include here or not, but
Roger makes a point in several of his books to
mention that scouting maybe is best done on your own
and not with another person, because if you're not with

(38:28):
another person, you're distracted from connecting these dots. You're just
simply taking stuff in and talking about it with somebody else,
but you are not having your imagination and your creativity
fully engaged. Because this is the key thing that I
think Roger's getting at here in these pages is that
while you're out there, you can't just you know, notice, oh,
there's a rub or oh there's a scrape. You need

(38:51):
to be trying to think what was the deer doing
when he made this sign? Why was he passing through here?
Why was he doing this? What set of circumstances is
put that deer here? Where did that deer come from?
Where was that deer going? Why was he here? What
time was he here? All of these questions require imagination.

(39:12):
They require you to be fully engaged when you're out there.
I think that is so important, huge lesson here. Do
not mindlessly scout just to check a box. If you're
going to be scouting, fully get into it, fully take
in what's out there, but then analyze it.

Speaker 1 (39:29):
Answer those questions.

Speaker 2 (39:30):
Always be asking why we're going to get back to
this more because Roger brings this up over and over
and over again.

Speaker 1 (39:37):
So I want to let's see here.

Speaker 2 (39:40):
I want to next discuss another aspect of that, one
of these questions that Roger's always asking, which is when
when he's scouting, He's always trying to answer the question
of when did this happen? How recent was this? Is
this sign from the last rut? Is this sign from
last week? Is this sign from today? So let's get

(40:00):
into a couple different examples of that. So, in regards
to scouting and understanding the timing, the proper time and
really putting together, you know how to be in the
right place at the right time based on that scouting.
Roger says when scouting an area, you must always be
mindful of the fact that all the knowledge you will

(40:22):
accumulate must eventually be correlated to put you in that
one particular spot at the right time. This is not
to say there's only one spot where the buck can
be taken, but rather that you can only be one
place at any given time. Therefore, you must try to
match your situation to his. Knowing exactly when the sign

(40:43):
was made is of the utmost importance if one is
to derive from it a working knowledge of the pattern
of movement and use in the area. The simplest and
most certain way of knowing is by checking periodically. This
may have to be done daily if conditions warranted. Naturally,
when the hunting's season is in full swing, one cannot
spend all of his time scouting and checking. Therefore, it's

(41:04):
essential that the hunter becomes so familiar with the activity
within his area before season that he can quickly spot
check one or two places to know whether the deer
are present there and what they are doing. Becoming that
familiar with an area requires a lot of time and observation.
Some regard a casual stroll through a hunting area as
a scouting session. Such a meager effort will hardly allow

(41:28):
one to skin the surface and may well serve to mislead.
I usually spend at least half a dozen trips of
two to three hours each into a new area before
I really begin to get a true understanding of it.
After that, the real learning begins. I firmly believe that
it's imperative to hunt a small area well rather than
to try to cover half a county. So a couple

(41:51):
of really important things there. Number One, scouting out of
the season so well that you know what's going on,
so that in season when you do continue that scouting,
you don't need to be scouting every single day, but
you can achieve with a handful of quick trips, efficient trips,
careful trips of in season scouting. You can just get
updates on what you already knew. You can say, okay,

(42:14):
all this stuff I learned in March and April May,
now I just want to confirm it, or now I
just want to see if it's turned on again, or
now I want to see if this changing conditions has
gotten the deer out there. That's a way to combine
kind of postseason and off season scouting with in season scouting.
And then I think something Roger mentioned there is interesting,

(42:34):
which is this idea that you know, he would rather,
you know, understand and hunt a small area really well
rather than trying to, you know, hunt a half county
and spread himself thin. So this idea of like an
inch wide but a mile deep is his approach to
hunting he prefers versus the you know, mile wide inch deep,

(42:55):
which I think some of us are guilty of today,
in which we try to have a thought in different
hunting spots and we try to have cameras all over
the place, and we're trying to find that one big
giant buck, and we're kind of bouncing from place to
place to place to place. Roger advocates for a much
more focused approach, and really much of what he preaches
is about having a deep, intimate understanding of a spot,

(43:18):
of a specific deer, whatever your goal is, really diving
deep versus this kind of scattershot approach that sometimes we
fall prey to these days. So he is recommending a
few things that you know, we all know today, and
again he kind of pioneered all this right, the postseason
scouting being that best time to see what happened during

(43:40):
the run. He talks a lot about getting out there,
you know, right after the season, or even you know,
if you fill your tag, you know, continuing to scout
through the hunting season those places so you can see
what's actually happening then after the season, especially if the
snow you know, melts off for you in you know,
late February or March or April, whenever that is. He
is a strong advocate of that postseason scouting when you

(44:03):
can see rut sign As we'll discuss, Roger was a
big rut hunter. He advocates really focusing a lot of
our time during that pre rot and rot time phase,
so finding the scrapes, finding the rubs and clearly knowing
when they were made.

Speaker 1 (44:18):
That is key to his approach.

Speaker 2 (44:21):
Of course, trails tracks, understanding all that is a particular importance,
but scrapes are huge in Rogers world.

Speaker 1 (44:31):
We're going to get to that.

Speaker 2 (44:32):
Finally, something he mentions that I think is worth kind
of keying in on is scouting for wind. We talked
about this with Mark Drury just last week on the podcast.
But Roger in some of his writings has advocated actually
scouting in the off season or in season when you're
hunting on what wind currents are doing, how thermals impact wind,

(44:55):
and specific locations so that you can eventually have you know,
an understanding of well, well, on this property with a
west wind, it actually goes this way. On this other property,
when you've got a northerly wind, it's actually more like
a northeast or maybe this hillside impacts wind in a
certain way. You know, those types of ideas have continued today.
For example, I remember Neil and Craig Doherty frequently writing

(45:18):
in their books and work about the idea of building
a wind map, so actually going out and testing the
wind throughout the year in your key hunting locations, so
you know, okay, you know exactly what I said, but
actually putting it on a map, so when you look
at the map you can see, okay, from this stand
with a west wind, it actually does this thing or

(45:40):
that thing. That is very important stuff to have that
goes back down to this like deep intimate understanding of
your property in a way that can really impact your hunts.
I mean, I had this exact thing happened to me
just the other day where I had this realization that, oh, wow,
the wind here when it said that it's a north wind,

(46:01):
it actually is more of a northwest wind in reality.
And I took note of that during the hunt, and
I filed it away in my memory banks saying, hey,
in the future, you need to remember, if you want
to hunt this particular place, if it says north wind,
you should just assume it's going to be more westerly.
Because now, time after time I've been to this zone
thinking it would be a north wind and instead I
get this westerly push. I can't explain why, but it

(46:24):
just happens. So I am going to now, you know,
better be prepared. I will be better prepared for future hunts.
And really, I wish I had figured this out years ago.
Would have saved me a number of frustrating sits and
educated deer. Another thing that Roger mentions in some of
his writings about his scouting is the fact that he

(46:45):
likes to, you know, be repetitious with his scouting and
continues it in the off season right on through the season,
and talks about that even in season. He actually does
not mind deer smelling his tracks because he wants those
deer to get used to his presence. He specifies, he
doesn't want this to happen in those places where bucks

(47:07):
feel most secure, but if these deer can get used
to him, you know, semi frequently coming in and checking
out certain areas, checking out a scrape location, checking a
trail on these like semi secure but not you know,
actual betting years, that's a good thing for him because
these deer will eventually become some condition to his consistent

(47:28):
light presence in the area as he's scouting and observing,
and then eventually when he goes there to hunt, it's
nothing new. They're used to this, and this echoes, you know,
stuff that we're hearing today from people like Lee Lakowski
or doctor Grant Woods in which they talk about how
their consistent presence on their farms, checking trail cameras or

(47:49):
doing habitat work or whatever it might be, they're doing
that in such a way on a consistent bait, on
a consistent basis on purpose for the exact same reasons
that Roger was. They were conditioning deer to what a
certain level of human activity will look like. That these
deer become used to, and then as a hunter, you
can take advantage of that because as long as what

(48:10):
you do during hunting season seems close to what they
are used to you doing all year round, deer aren't
going to freak out about it. This is something that
you know you can see in the suburbs right or
in a city park or something. Deer get used to
people doing certain things. As long as you stick to
that certain thing, or at least it looks like you're
sticking to that certain thing, we'll give you the free pass.

(48:32):
But as soon as something changes, when that happens, and
then all of a sudden, red flags start popping up.
So Roger I think part of why he was preaching
this year round scouting, even in season, was that deer
will get used to a certain amount of it and
you can take advantage of that. So interesting point. Another
scouting factor that he was really looking at where tracks.

(48:56):
This is pre trial cameras, so tracks told a lot.
That was how Roger was identifying specific bucks. That's how
he was identifying if mature buck was in the area,
and he gives some very concrete information here about how
to identify a mature buck track. I want to read
you this very very helpful, and I think something that

(49:17):
all of us can keep in our back pocket.

Speaker 1 (49:21):
He writes here about tracks, the.

Speaker 2 (49:24):
Size alone is usually enough to separate the big bucks
tracks from those of other deer in the area. Any
clearly defined track over three inches long may be accepted
as trophy material and will warrant further observation to qualify
the rack carried by their maker as trophy class. Careful
inspection of such tracks is necessary because in a normal walk,

(49:45):
the hind foot will often be placed directly upon the
front track and may make it appear much larger than
it actually is. We hear frequently of tracks the size
of a Shetland pony. The largest I've ever measured were
tracks three and seven eighths in which is long, and
this buck ended up weighing three hundred and twenty four pounds.
The age and conditions of the buck can be estimated

(50:07):
by the condition of the.

Speaker 1 (50:08):
Tracks he makes.

Speaker 2 (50:09):
An older buck gets knock kneed and his front feet
turn out his hooves will be worn rounded on the front,
and the track will be flat. A younger buck walks
on the tips of his toes. More, a buck in
his prime will walk sprightly enough so that his hind
feet will reach his front tracks, and older bucks hind
feet will fall short of his front tracks as he walks. Okay,

(50:42):
few thinks here any clearly defined track over three inches
long maybe accepted as trophy material.

Speaker 1 (50:48):
So three inches or longer was one of the key things.

Speaker 2 (50:51):
The biggest track he ever saw from a three hundred
and twenty four pound buck was about a four inch
long track.

Speaker 1 (50:57):
All right, take note of that.

Speaker 2 (50:58):
Another thing here, an older buck will have his front
feet turn out, so if you see tracks where the
front track is turned out, that might indicate a mature buck.
He also mentions that an older buck will have a
rounded fronts and that the tracks will be flat. The
way I interpret that is kind of what we talk
about when we talk about identifying mature bucks, and that

(51:19):
you will see the full track as well as the
dew clause behind it, like that fully pressed in track,
while with a younger buck you often do not see
the dew clause pressed in because, as Roger says, they're
kind of more upright. I think that's really interesting. And
then to mention, he says that a younger buck, a
buck in his prime, will walk so spry that his

(51:41):
hind feet will reach all the way to his front track,
so you can see a backtrack and a front track
almost lined up, while with an older buck, his hind
feet will fall short of his front tracks as he walks.
So some interesting observations there to keep in mind as
you pay attention to tracks which Roger advocates for, which
Rogers constantly doing throughout his stories in his book Whitetail Magic.

(52:04):
This is mostly a set of stories, and in many
of those stories you will see that the way that
he found the buck he's gonna hunt was by identifying
a big track, and then he would come back time
and time again and see did those did those big
unique tracks show up on the trail again or were
they pressed into the scrape again? And that's how he
would be able to determine if these bucks were back

(52:25):
in the area, if these bucks were frequenting them, whether
or not he should start hunting aggressively. Tracks a big
deal then still big deal today. Trail cameras of course,
we lean on so much, but they only show you
a very small slice of what's going on out there.
I think more and more of us are coming to
find that we might be depending on them too much.

(52:46):
They show us a tiny window, when actually what's going
on out there is so much wider.

Speaker 1 (52:51):
Tracks can help fill in that picture.

Speaker 2 (52:53):
So I think cameras can be part of a wide
swath of scouting intel, they should not be the entirety
of it. So in addition to cameras that in season
scouting on the ground it's going to be very important.
Tracks are a part of what Roger advocates looking for.
He also, probably more than anything else, advocates for scouting
for scrapes. He spends a lot of time talking about scrapes.

(53:17):
This was his big unlock. He describes this as really
being the key that led to him going from just
killing deer to killing consistently big mature bucks. When he
figured out how deer use scrapes, how they visit them,
and how he can set up on them. That was
probably his big Aha moment. And he describes what you
should be looking for and how to identify three different

(53:39):
kinds of scrapes. And I want to cover some of
those now. First off, let's read a little bit here
about why they are important to him.

Speaker 1 (53:49):
He writes, the real key.

Speaker 2 (53:51):
To hunting the big bucks is to locate their scrape areas.
There's an old buck hunting a dodge that states, you
find fresh tracks, you know where deer has recently been,
you find fresh rubs, you know where a buck has
recently been. But when you find a fresh scrape, you
know where a buck is soon going to be. While
this statement may not be of one, may not be
one hundred percent true, it does provide the very best

(54:14):
odds possible for assurance of a shot at the buck
of your choice. All right, So he views scrapes and
as we'll get to a certain kind of scrape as
the number one way to assure yourself of opportunities at
a mature buck.

Speaker 1 (54:30):
As we get into.

Speaker 2 (54:33):
There will be three different kinds of scrapes that we're
going to talk about, boundary scrapes, secondary scrapes, and primary scrapes.
And much of what I will read you here about
scrapes will echo other hunters today. Especially I can see
the work of John Eberhart likely having been influenced by
Roger because much of what Roger wrote about here in

(54:55):
the seventies and eighties, John has taken into the two
thousands and applied to his hunt situations. Some of the
verbiage is a little bit different in some of the specifics,
but I can definitely see echoes of that which I
find really interesting, especially the whole primary scrape thing. So
let's read here a little bit about you know how
to identify what a boundary scrape is, what a secondary

(55:16):
scrape is, and what a primary scrape is, what those
things mean, and you know how to think about that
as you were scouting and then later hunting them. So first,
how do we id these? We'll read another quick excerpt.
All right, boundary scrapes. These scrapes are the earliest found
and are exactly what the name implies. They will be

(55:36):
found along the edges of woodcover, as well as along fence,
rows and creeks where limbs or branches hang low enough
to be reached by antlers. They indicate that there is
a young buck in the area, but are of little
more present use than that. Most will be made then
completely neglected, while new ones are made nearby with the
same eventual fate. Beginning scrape hunters very often find and

(55:59):
try to hunt these boundary scrapes because they are the
most easily found. Usually they are disappointed. So these are
the scrapes that you know, we have talked about for
years on this podcast, that show up on field edges,
that show up in open timber.

Speaker 1 (56:15):
These are also the scrapes.

Speaker 2 (56:16):
That many new scrape hunters, many new hunters, as Roger said,
they'd go and try to hunt these scrapes and don't
see anything, or they just see a young buck. And
that's because what we have found. Roger mentioned that these
are mostly made by young bucks. That may be true,
but also what recent findings have shown is that those
kinds of scrapes are mostly made and visited after dark,

(56:39):
so they are not too terribly useful for us as hunters.
The second kind of scrape would be the secondary scrape,
and these are the scrapes that Roger describes as being
one layer back. These are the scrapes that are made
on trails but are back into the cover a little bit.
He mentions in pursuit of trophy white tails that you

(57:00):
can have some success on them, especially for younger to
middle aged bucks, but this is not the key thing.
He is focusing on the one thing he does mention
about secondary scrapes that they might be important for, in
particulars for those of us who are hunting mature bucks.
He says that a secondary scrape can serve as a thermometer,
and I want to read to you exactly what he

(57:21):
means by that. He says, locating and reading the secondary
scrapes has a far more important function in the taking
of a trophy buck than that of actually hunting them.
It is the thermometer of the rut and will give
the clues necessary to predicting the exact time of the
peak rout period. To come to do this, one must
locate several secondary scrapes in different areas. The more the better,

(57:44):
But the hunter must govern his time so as not
to spread himself too thin and not be able to
keep almost daily track of these scrapes. If he has
done ample scouting early, he'll be able to check an
area quickly by examining a few key spots in the
area to determine the deer usage and how often the
scrapes are normally being hit. As the activity picks up
on these scrapes, usually in late October, it will generally

(58:08):
be evident in all areas simultaneously. So, in other words,
he recommends scouting in the off season to find where
these back in the cover scrapes might be, having a
full understanding of where those spots are, and then in
season doing a semi regular check of those secondary scrape
locations throughout the season until all of a sudden, all

(58:30):
at once, those handful of spots that you've chosen to
be your checkpoints, when those all of a sudden blow up,
now you can confirm, oh.

Speaker 1 (58:38):
Yeah, the rut is about to start popping.

Speaker 2 (58:41):
That was kind of his way of gauging the heat factor,
the the testosterone rise. As soon as the secondary scrapes
really start blowing up, Now it's go time. It's time
to focus on being out there in the field, more
time to get into my best spots and as we
will get to, time to start hunting primary scrape areas.
So an important thing if you find these next level

(59:04):
back in the cover scrapes, identify those as those secondary spots,
keep tabs on them.

Speaker 1 (59:10):
Now.

Speaker 2 (59:10):
Of course, we do have cameras now, and that can
give us another glimpse into what's happening on these scrape locations.
So maybe we don't need to go check all of
them in person, as he recommends. Maybe we can put
cameras on those scrapes to keep tabs on things. And
as soon as we start seeing those cameras light up,
all right, it's go time. I think a lot of
people are already doing this. It's really interesting that what

(59:32):
we are doing today with cameras mirror is what Roger
was saying that we should do on foot. There might
be something to be said though, about doing more of
us in person and seeing it on the ground and
getting more than just that little snapshot of the scrape,
but actually seeing all the sign around it as well too. Now,
primary scrapes, this is the big one. This is what

(59:53):
Roger keys in on. This is what he says was
the big unlock for him when he realized what a
primary scrape area was, why they were made, how they
were made, and how to hunt them. So I want
to read to you what you know what Roger was
meaning when he describes this, and then some more about
you know, how we can take action on this. The
primary rut scrapes greatly resemble secondary scrapes and looks in

(01:00:17):
size and sometimes even in location. However, whereas the secondary
scrapes were placed on active deer trails, the primary scrapes
are strategically placed and then the trails are made to them.
This is evident by the several obvious trails converging on them.
Once such a breeding area is located and the primary
scrape spotted, that bowhunter will never have a better opportunity

(01:00:40):
for taking a real trophy buck. So the key thing here,
and he mentions this in a number of different places.
Primary scrapes are located in a strategic location back in
what he calls a betting area, and then they become
the hub of the wheel. So we'll get to this.

Speaker 1 (01:00:59):
I think there's an example here where.

Speaker 2 (01:01:00):
He describes some of these spots. But what I think
he's referring to in a lot of these writings is
nasty thick cover, i e. Doll betting airs. These dough
betting airs are places where much of the running activity
that we see today happens. It's where a lot of
us focus our efforts. It's where a lot of these
bucks focus their efforts, and because of that, you tend

(01:01:21):
to get these big primary scrape areas.

Speaker 1 (01:01:24):
Again, back to John Iberhart, he talks.

Speaker 2 (01:01:26):
About primary scrape areas which are just like what Roger's
describing here back in thick cover and their hubs of
a wheel where you'll see, like imagine a thermal hub,
like a low spot with a bunch of points dropping
down into it.

Speaker 1 (01:01:40):
How many of us have found somewhere like that?

Speaker 2 (01:01:42):
And then there's a huge scrape down the bottom, all
sorts of trails leading into it, multiple scrapes, multiple spots
all around that big like car hood size scrape. That's
a primary scrape. That's what John Eberhart loves. That's what
Roger Rothar loves. These are the types of scrapes that
do seem to be, you know, worth hunting.

Speaker 1 (01:02:01):
Still today, a.

Speaker 2 (01:02:01):
Lot of people talk about it, and Roger absolutely discussed
that as well. Continuing on, Roger says this, when scouting
for primary scrapes, eventually we will discover small areas that
are literally torn to pieces with trails and scrapes. Usually
these spots will be on a ridge top or flat
in hilly areas, or in thickets of second growth or

(01:02:22):
crab apples, hawthorn or scrub pinoak in more level country.
In farm country, I find them in small dozed in
woodlots left standing in the middle of large fields, as
well as the few remaining swamp thickets along creek bottoms. However,
type of cover seems to be less important than strategic
location to the placing of primary scrapes. So again, I

(01:02:44):
think the point here is that these primary scrapes are
located in strategic spots that have a convergence of deer activity,
in particular dose, where those dough hot spots are where
a lot of travel all of a sudden converges on them,
you tend to find these primary The primary scrapes are
these mega scrapes that are like a hub with multiple

(01:03:06):
trails and travel corridors and like signs, all kind of
converging in that zone, in that thick, nasty bedding cover.
If you find that, you've got what Roger would call
a primary scrape area and your best chance to kill
a mature buck. So let's move from there. I feel
like that kind of covers some of the high level
scraping ideas. Let's move to some of his actual hunting ideas. Now,

(01:03:30):
a key point here is in Roger's mind, he probably
would say that there's no difference between the two he
would probably tell you that the scouting elements that we
just talked about are just as much hunting as actually,
you know, sitting in the field with your bow. So
maybe I shouldn't have even split this thing up into
two sections at all, because maybe the biggest lesson of
all from Roger is that scouting, learning, observing, having that

(01:03:54):
free flowing imagination while you're out there in the field
and trying to connect the dots that is hunting. That
maybe is Roger's greatest message. But we'll continue into some
more here, and actually before we move on to the
hunting side, I do have one more passage here from
him that I think, maybe even more eloquently sums up

(01:04:15):
what I just try to describe to you. He writes this,
I think most hunters know that there's value in scouting
ahead of the hunt, and if you even know how
important it really is, very few realize the importance of
year round scouting beyond that of detecting deer sign. I'm
referring to the advantage gained by feeling you are a
part of the environment.

Speaker 1 (01:04:36):
I know that when.

Speaker 2 (01:04:37):
I've been unable to get into the woods for several weeks,
I feel like a stranger when I finally get out again.
Continuous contact with nature has a way of enveloping one
until you finally become part of it. You get to
know trees on a first named basis as good old friends,
and I find myself mentally talking to them. Sometimes they answer,

(01:04:57):
I feel sorry for those who must be slaves to
all the supposed advantages of modern technology to convince themselves
their bowhunters.

Speaker 1 (01:05:05):
It's sort of like they're.

Speaker 2 (01:05:06):
Sitting in a room of scientific paraphernalia shooting through an
open window into a wilderness.

Speaker 1 (01:05:12):
They're trying to make.

Speaker 2 (01:05:13):
The natural order of things conformed to their philosophies, philosophies
which were incidentally formed by equipment manufacturers and salesmen, rather
than common sense, understanding and conscious.

Speaker 1 (01:05:27):
At any rate, perhaps.

Speaker 2 (01:05:28):
Many of the readers of this will understand why I
am so hard to get in touch with so much
of the time, why so many letters go unanswered and
articles and books remain unwritten. It also explains why I
wear out a complete set of Camo each year, and
why hunting boots designed to last ten years seldom make
it more than halfway through their second year of use.

(01:05:49):
It might even explain some of the trophy racks hanging
on my wall.

Speaker 1 (01:05:55):
How good is that?

Speaker 2 (01:05:57):
I think that just absolutely nails it so as far
as hunting. Right back to that message right there, he
talks about the importance of being in the field, having
this deep, thorough understanding of your environment, of your corey.
I mean scouting the off season. That means being in

(01:06:19):
the field a lot in order to see what's happening,
in order to let serendipity happen to you as well.
I want to redo something here where he echoes that sentiment.
Thorough knowledge and understanding will not make the taking of
a trophy white tail easy. It will merely make it possible.
Several cardinal rules must be strictly adhered to in order

(01:06:41):
to fully make use of this accumulated knowledge. The first
of these, and probably the most important, is the necessity
to spend as much time as possible in the field.
This may mean missing favorite programs on the boob tube
or a meal now and then. A drenched or frozen
tail is also commonplace, but the of success are compounded

(01:07:01):
in your favor with each extra moment you sacrifice. In effect,
you must hunt him at his convenience, not at yours.
Let me read that again, you must hunt him at
his convenience, not at yours. Roger's a legend for a reason.
I think sentences like that, I think, you know, thoughts

(01:07:23):
like what I've just read to you here in the
last couple of minutes truly illustrate the wisdom that he
is sharing here and that we can that we can
learn from. So much of today's modern deer hunting culture
and approach tends to be about making it convenient. Again,
it tends to be about minimizing the time you have
to spend the field. It tends to be about how

(01:07:46):
to you know, watch from afar and then go in
and strike, you know, one time, and have this big
giant buck on your wall, or to post a picture
of him. And I have been guilty of talking about
all of these things myself, but I think Roger's point
here is a really good one. It's that being out
there in the elements, at the whims of this natural

(01:08:06):
world not only will lead to more success than the field,
but also lead to a better experience, which is what
this whole thing is supposed to be about. Amazing so
scrapes when it comes to hunting. Roger really spends a
lot of time on setting up on scrapes. As I
mentioned earlier, primary scrapes were his big unlock. Of course,

(01:08:29):
there's other ways that he hunts too. There are stories
in Whitetail Magic and some ideas in this one in
which he discusses the importance of hunting inside corners. He
discusses the importance of hunting certain food sources and trails,
but really much of his success stems around primary scrape areas.

(01:08:50):
Sometimes he specifically has a scrape that is like what
he's hunting. Other times it is a zone which I
think now we would just call it a dough betting area.
He is keying in on and being downwind of that
and having his success. So I think we should cover
a few of those specifics here.

Speaker 1 (01:09:09):
First.

Speaker 2 (01:09:10):
I want to talk about how he sets up on
his stand spots, or how he sets up on scrapes,
how he picks a place to hunt once he finds
one of these dough betting areas or primary scrape areas.
There's a pretty good example here in his in Pursuit.
All right, so this is once he found once he
scouted and found his primary scrape ereer. He says in

(01:09:32):
picking My stand spot. I prefer not to sit directly
over a scrape, instead a tree some yards away that
will allow me to catch the buck as he approaches
it is chosen. My goal is to again use his
cautiousness against him, since he will likely be approaching with
great care and with his attention focused upon the scrape.
Such a position, if properly selected, should also put me

(01:09:55):
out of the scent stream of air passing through the
scrape which he is going to be using to check it.
This places me properly for the kill, and yet will
allow me to let all sub trophy deer pass without
detecting me. I find that the really productive primary scrapes
of the breeding areas are usually so located that air
movement and terrain are a definite disadvantage to the hunter.

(01:10:18):
Such strategic placement of the scrapes evolved through the successful
use and acceptance by generations of wise old bucks. They
must be very carefully scouted, studied, and analyzed in order
to be used successfully.

Speaker 1 (01:10:32):
Habitually.

Speaker 2 (01:10:32):
They'll be located in second growth areas where trees are
too small for good trees stand support, yet dense enough
to provide cover.

Speaker 1 (01:10:41):
I'm gonna move through a few of these specifics.

Speaker 2 (01:10:43):
He mentions that multiple trunks and motionless standing works best
for these. A clear small stepping spot so there will
be no twigs or leaves in the ground to foil
quiet movement.

Speaker 1 (01:10:53):
To my stand, I'm very.

Speaker 2 (01:10:55):
Careful to make as little disturbance as possible when climbing
into it.

Speaker 1 (01:10:59):
All.

Speaker 2 (01:10:59):
This is very important because of the strong possibility of
a buck being very close when dealing with the old
world wise bucks, you are only allowed to make one mistake,
you are not likely to get a chance to make
a second. I mentioned earlier how older bucks become hesitant
to come completely into a scrape after younger bucks have
started using it. This also applies to primary scrapes in

(01:11:21):
the breeding area. After one of these scrapes has been
active for several days, I start looking for a secondary
route he might be using to scent check it for
dough smell. It will usually be the safest, most discrete
approach possible to the prevailing downwind side of the scrape.
In so doing, he will eventually create his own travel
pattern throughout the breeding area. Unraveling this pattern is the

(01:11:42):
real key to taking the buck. So to echo some
of the scouting into their primary scrapes are in these
dough betting areas, these thickets, these nasty spots strategically located
where there's a convergence of deer travel and a convergence
of scent, especially to or in the rut. I think
his big finding here was that sometimes, if you were

(01:12:04):
trying to kill the big mature buck, setting up right
in the scrape is not the best approach, but rather
to be downwind of that scrape. This is something that
we've heard people like not just John Eberhart, but Dan
in Fault talk about about how mature bucks oftentimes will jayhook.

Speaker 1 (01:12:20):
I think maybe even the.

Speaker 2 (01:12:21):
Tequistos have talked about this. They will jayhook through betting years.
They will jayhook when checking scrapes. Again, it comes down
to scent. They want to scent check this stuff. They
don't always want to walk right into it and right
through it. Sometimes they can simply walk downwind of it
and learn everything that they need to know. Rogers saw this,
and because of that, he started setting up further and
further on the downwind side of these features to put

(01:12:43):
himself in a position to observe, but then have that
buck still be upwind of him.

Speaker 1 (01:12:49):
When they did come through. That's a pretty key thing.

Speaker 2 (01:12:53):
Here's another example, So this one he's talking about how
different age class bucks seem to relate to these scrapes.
This is pretty interesting. I found that up through the
age class of three and a half years old, the
same basic strategy will apply. Hunting on or near scrapes
and trails and heavily used deer areas will produce opportunities
for taking one and a half and two and a

(01:13:14):
half year old bucks during the pre rut, as well
as three and a half year olds during and through
the rut. The older of these bucks will naturally be
scarcer and less active during daylight hours, but still will
be involved in most of the ritual running activity since
they are very likely going to be displaced by more
dominant bucks when the breeding actually begins. In other words,
they're still vying for a place of dominance, so they're

(01:13:36):
going to be in there kicking butck as long as
they can and hoping for a piece of the action,
so to speak. It is on these bucks that the rattling, grunting, mock.

Speaker 1 (01:13:45):
Scrapes, etc. Will work to some degree.

Speaker 2 (01:13:48):
Mostly though, it's just a matter of reading the sign
and being there as much as possible until something happens,
while never forgetting that all the usual precautionary measures such
as wind direction, stand placement, and careful stand entry are
still vitally important.

Speaker 1 (01:14:04):
Now. While scrapes are still the nucleus of.

Speaker 2 (01:14:06):
My rut hunting strategy, I must point out that as
each advancing age class of buck is encountered, my setup
becomes further away from the scrape location itself. The two
and a half year olds, as well as the occasional
three year olds, can be taken right off the scrape site,
provided the wind direction and geography, the location offers the
opportunity to make a stand where the smarter bucks can't
approach from downwind. Situations which provide such an advantage are few,

(01:14:31):
but are now and then available. Most frustrated scrape hunters
are either hunting the wrong scrape at the wrong time,
or two trying to hunt the scrape too closely and
are being detected, usually from far enough away that they
don't realize it's happened. Mock scrapes can, if properly done,
help minimize this problem, since it can be located at
a spot advantageous to the hunter. However, The only case

(01:14:55):
I've ever known of a real trophy class buck being
taken off such a scrape was when he followed a
hot dough to one. Some of the more mature bucks
are frequently party to the first opening of perennial scrapes,
but then tend to shy away as the activity by
other deer begins to gravitate towards it. He obviously realizes
that all that activity will draw dangerous attention to the area.

(01:15:17):
It's not like he loses interest, or rather just stands
back and lets the kids make fools of themselves. His
involvement may or may not include actual visits to the scrape,
but if it does, you can bet extreme caution will
be exercised. More likely, he will take up a place
of vigilance where he can keep tabs on the activity
at the scrape through scent, sight, or hearing. While the

(01:15:38):
actual visits might be nocturnal, bucks older than four and
a half years old will be even more cautious and
seldom actually visit the scrape site, choosing instead to monitor
the bottlenecks in corridors which traveling doughs are using while
passing through or visiting scrape barriers. So again, this sounds

(01:16:08):
like what we've talked about already. This sounds like being
downwind of dough betting areas, being downwind of that major
hub scrape in that dough hot spot. This is something
that people are having success with today and that Roger
was really pioneering in the eighties and nineties, and that
we can still be putting into action now as well.
So all of that said with this point that he

(01:16:31):
makes about the fact that you need to be thinking about,
you know, being downwind of these scrapes, being downwind of
these dough hot spots, these these primary scrape areas that
you know, I think is a high level example of
something that he talks about in many other examples, which
is the implications of wind in general and how deer
use wind. He's often talking about, you know, earlier and scouting.

(01:16:53):
We need to be scouting for wind also while you're hunting,
observing how deer use the wind. Something writes here is
something that a lot of the best hunters today are
still trying to do, which is giving deer the illusion
of a wind advantage. I want to write to you exactly,

(01:17:14):
I want to read to you what he says about that,
and this is something that I'm sure you've heard before
spoken by someone in the modern day. He says, it
is hard to imagine that even the most cunning buck
does not let his guard down once in a while.
After all, he can't walk into the wind all the time,

(01:17:34):
and the rut can definitely coax even a crafty buck
whose normal lifestyle is practically one hundred percent nocturnal into
daylight movement, even though it will make him especially vulnerable.
One must keep in mind at all times that deer
must constantly make choices and play the odds. Whenever exposing
himself to danger, he will invariably choose the move that

(01:17:55):
is least risky. Moving crosswind is less risky than moving
with a tail wind, et cetera. I feel that my
thinking along these lines of reasoning have been responsible for
many of the opportunities that have developed for me. My
favorite setup is one that is almost wrong for me
and almost right for the deer, the keyword being almost so. Again,

(01:18:20):
my favorite setup is one that is almost wrong for
me and almost right for the deer. So the deer
is using this area because he has a wind advantage
of some kind, because he can scent check the betting area,
or scent check a scrape. But you are set up
in such a way that your wind is blowing just

(01:18:42):
off of that. So his advantage from a wind perspective
is just not quite right. We spent a lot of
time talking about this with Adam Hayes back on our
first or second podcast with Adam, we detailed exactly how
he tries to set up with these just off winds,
these cutting the corner winds where the wind is good
for the deer most of the way, but then there's

(01:19:02):
a little feature, an edge, a ditch, a pond, a cliff,
something that keeps the deer from getting just to where
your wind is blowing. That is a key thing that
works now, and Roger was kind of setting the stage
four decades ago. One last thing here on a hunting
perspective that when I read Roger write this, I thought

(01:19:25):
to myself, ad that that sounds like me.

Speaker 1 (01:19:28):
He talked about not outsmarting yourself.

Speaker 2 (01:19:30):
And he was detailing this in the story of his
He had been hunting this really impressive buck, a mainframe
eight pointer with four drop times coming down off underneath
every one of those regular times, and he ended up
seeing this buck come out of a fence row, and

(01:19:51):
he adjusted his location the next time to try to
be right where that buck.

Speaker 1 (01:19:54):
Came out last time.

Speaker 2 (01:19:55):
And the buck does come out, but he comes out
where he was the day before, right. And this is
the idea of like chasing bucks and then you know,
being one step too far behind. I've done this so
many times, I think a lot of us have. We
have heard time and time again the importance of the
first sip right, the fact that you can hunt somewhere
and surprise a buck there, you have an advantage and

(01:20:19):
that can be great. And also we've heard a lot
about the benefits of mobile deer hunting and the idea
that you can hunt different places all the time and
you can see deer do something one day and then
try to take advantage of that. There's a lot of
ways that can help you as a hunter. But I've
also found that you can also chase your tail, that

(01:20:40):
you can also outsmart yourself, as.

Speaker 1 (01:20:43):
Roger here will describe.

Speaker 2 (01:20:45):
Because deer are less predictable than we sometimes like to
think that they are. I think we sometimes try to
put them in a box. We sometimes try to, you know,
create rules around Oh well, mature bucks do this thing,
or mature bucks do that thing, or if I saw
him do it this thing yesterday, then he'll definitely do

(01:21:06):
that thing tomorrow. And more often than not, there unpredictable.
There's a randomness to them. There is a wildness to
them that you just simply have to accept and respect. So, yeah,
you can pattern deer to some degree, you can try
to predict what they're gonna do to some degree.

Speaker 1 (01:21:27):
That's a lot of fun. I love trying to do
it too, but there's only so much of that you
can figure out.

Speaker 2 (01:21:32):
And so Roger here makes a great point in kind
of admonishing himself for trying to overthink things and that
nipping him in the butt. So he says, here, after
making all these moves trying to chase this buck round
and then seeing the bucks show up where he just was,
I made one of the most common beginner's mistakes of

(01:21:52):
all by not sticking by my choice of a stand position.
Jumping from stand to stand generally results in being in
the wrong place at the right time, and doing it
quite possibly cost me a chance at one of the
best whitetail bucks I have ever seen a field. Always
remember that Patience is one of the key ingredients to

(01:22:14):
success in trophy whitetail hunting, and tenacity is another. Be
certain there's ample reason before making such a change. Do
not outsmart yourself like I did. Guilty as charged on occasion,
Roger guilty as charge. I want to share with you
next a story of his.

Speaker 1 (01:22:36):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (01:22:37):
One of these stories in Whitetail Magic. And I think
one of the cool things about that book is that
the lessons he shares are kind of sprinkled in within
these larger deer hunting stories.

Speaker 1 (01:22:47):
And in one of these deer hunting.

Speaker 2 (01:22:48):
Stories, I thought it perfectly illustrated a bunch of the
things that I've tried to share with you today, A
bunch of the ideas and strategies and approaches were actually
put into action on the buck. So starts out with
him going on a scouting trip. This scouting trip is
happening in the early spring. He says, he's out there
in March. He's scouting, he's also shooting ground shucks. He said,

(01:23:11):
he's out there kind of doing a multipurpose hunt and
learn as you go type of experience while he's out there.
And I think this is a great example of being
out there all year round, imersing yourself. While he's out there,
he comes across a set of tracks. Now this goes
back to what we talked about with iding tracks. He
looks at these tracks and identifies them as big, old,

(01:23:32):
mature buck tracks, and he says to himself, all right,
this is an opportunity to learn something, to connect some dots.
So he didn't just notice the tracks and say, oh, cool,
big buck round here. He said, all right, big buck tracks.
What can I learn from this? How can I connect
this to something else? So he started following those tracks.
He followed those tracks for more than a mile and

(01:23:53):
a half. So this goes to that tenacity, this coast,
to that willingness to really get out there and learn
the landscape. He follows these tracks for more than a
mile and a half. He gets to a piece of
timber where there's a nasty, thick, overgrown section. There's an
old orchard, and there is a I think he said
there was like a clear cut thicket that now is

(01:24:14):
about ten acres of just thick, nasty bedding cover. So
where this overgrown orchard and this nasty clear cut converge,
he starts seeing sign He starts seeing.

Speaker 1 (01:24:27):
Tracks.

Speaker 2 (01:24:28):
He starts seeing trails, He starts seeing scrapes, including what
eventually he determines to be you know, signs of a
primary scrape area, like multiple really big scrapes all in
the same zone. Problem is that he sees a bunch
of sheep in the area, and he mentions in the
book that you know, sheep and deer don't typically, you know,

(01:24:49):
mix very well for hunting opportunities. So he determines that,
you know, this isn't gonna be somewhere I'm gonna hunt
right now, but I'm gonna keep tabs on it. He
even goes so far as to pick a tree that
if he we were going to come back and hunt this,
he'd want to be on the downwind side of that spot.

Speaker 1 (01:25:04):
He would want to be set up in such a.

Speaker 2 (01:25:06):
Way that he could take advantage of that wind and
hunt a deer coming to.

Speaker 1 (01:25:09):
That primary scrape.

Speaker 2 (01:25:11):
Actually, I'm going to read you a bit here where
he discusses that, because I think the way he thinks
this through when he found this hot spot, or at
least a potential hot spot someday, I think it's pretty
eye opening. So he finds the spot, and he says
the whole scenario provided the perfect environment for deer, and
I had even found the perfect spot for a stand

(01:25:32):
in a broken maple tree growing on the rim of
the ravine at the orchard's upper end, upper end, some
thirty yards from the overgrown woods. I could easily visualize
an old buck making his rounds, checking the orchard for
hot doze, and following the rim around to this point
of entry into the thicket to bed for the day.
The route, while attractive because of the terrain, would also

(01:25:53):
tend to keep the deer in a cross wind all
along the route and until he had passed the tree stand.
So not only did he find this zone of interest,
this terrain and habitat that would probably be a spot
that's going to attract deer, not only did he see
the sign that confirmed that with the scrapes and trails
and stuff. He then also thought about how do I

(01:26:14):
position to account for wind to be downwind of it
to funnel deer movement. All that kind of stuff. He
maps all that out, He connects all those dots. He
uses his imagination to imagine how I deer would use this.
To imagine how a deer would use a crosswind to
imagine what the wind direction would need to be for
him to hunt there safely while also giving the deer

(01:26:34):
a perceived advantage. He does all that, but also determines
bat with all the sheep in here, now's not the time.
Now fast forward. He keeps this in the back of
his mind. Three years later he hears that the landowner
sold the sheep. He finds us out in season three
years later. Right away he's like, all right, I need
to get out there do some in season scouting.

Speaker 1 (01:26:56):
See what that place looks like now.

Speaker 2 (01:26:59):
So in early November he goes out to this place
at ten am. He's walking through. He scouts his way
back into this property. He finds that what was mowed
down vegetation by sheep has now really overgrown. It is
super thick. It is crisscrossed with highways from deer. Now
because now that it's thicker, it is even more of
a dough hotspot, and because of that a buck hotspot.

(01:27:22):
There are apples falling, and there are multiple huge scrapes
in the same zone. Small bushes and saplings are mangled
around some of these scrapes, all around this one big tree.
He works his way back to the tree that he
picked out. He confirms not only that there's those big
scrapes as there were last time, but he even goes
and checks and finds really big tracks that tell him

(01:27:45):
that this isn't just a bunch of deer, this is
actually a big mature buck. Two and he sees, you know, yes,
so he sees those big tracks and big rubs right
where that major primary scrape zone is. He then comes
back or two later for the hunt. First hunt sits it.
He has a lot of faith in that spot, but
does not see a big shooter buck, but he resists

(01:28:07):
the temptation to go bouncing all over the place. He
has patience and tenacity, returns back to it, hunts it
the next day, and in the late morning, a big
buck comes out of this overgrown thicket, hammers those scrapes,
and Roger gets a shot at him. So you've got
a whole bunch of these different things we've talked about
all coming together in one story. You have the off

(01:28:28):
season scouting, You have the iding big buck tracks. You
have the willingness to try to, you know, paint the
full picture by following the tracks, by seeing where they
took him, by then being able to identify this terrain
and habitat hotspot, which is the strategic location that he
talks about that.

Speaker 1 (01:28:45):
Bucks like to have primary scrape areas.

Speaker 2 (01:28:48):
He finds that sign it's not quite right, though when
he finally does here that it is, he goes back
in for that in season scouting confirms all these different things.
I think that's another key point. Do your off seat
and scouting, but then return in the end season to
confirm when it's happening, to confirm if now's the time
to get after all of these things all stacked together

(01:29:09):
over a three year time period led to him being
in the right spot at the right time. It's a
pretty amazing example, terrific story, and I think just very
nicely shows us why and how the Roger Rothar method
can lead to whitetaim magic. And I think this story,
as I mentioned, you know, illustrates how you know one

(01:29:30):
of the key aspects of Roger's strategy, whether it's scouting
or actually hunting, It goes back to that connecting of
the dots. It goes back to asking why why is
this happening, Why is this here?

Speaker 1 (01:29:44):
Why does deer do this?

Speaker 2 (01:29:46):
And you know that ultimately leads to this this attempt
to predict deer movement, to try to predict what these
deer are going to do.

Speaker 1 (01:29:54):
And I love there's this quote in the book.

Speaker 2 (01:29:55):
He mentions that, you know, while we're constantly trying to
put these deer in a box, we're constantly trying to
predict why a deer will do something or how a
deer will do something. He says that another author pointed out,
and I quote, the mature whitetail buck will do at
any given time and under any set of circumstances, the
mature buck will do as he damned well pleases. So

(01:30:19):
you know, we might like to think that bucks always
travel with the wind in their face, or that mature
bucks always want to, you know, travel in thick cover,
that mature bucks always prefer to go down wind of
a scrape or whatever.

Speaker 1 (01:30:30):
You know.

Speaker 2 (01:30:31):
Roger made these types of claims just like we still
do today. But in the end, they're gonna do whatever
the damn will please. Because they're wild animals. There's a
certain randomness to them. As I mentioned earlier, that said,
we still do need to try to put these puzzle
pieces together. And there's a great section in here in
whitetail Magic, where he talks about, you know, how we

(01:30:53):
can try to put all these pieces together as he
did in that hunt I just shared with you. So
let me read you one of just a couple more
pieces here before we wrap it up. Roger writes, many
times we've been told you have to think like a deer.
Good advice, for sure, but a whole lot easier to
say than to do. It's difficult enough to try to

(01:31:14):
think like another human, even when they happen to have
the same lifestyle, needs and desires as we do, never
mind another species of animal. But while the lifestyle of
deer is far less complex than that of humans, there
are similarities we can relate to and the problems encountered
when trying to understand each to the point of trying
to think like them. In the first place, it's necessary

(01:31:37):
to take note of what was done in the past
and to try to analyze why it was done. The
next step is to discover what's being done presently and
to try and determine not only why it's being done,
but how it relates to what was done.

Speaker 1 (01:31:51):
In the past.

Speaker 2 (01:31:52):
Then the final step is to take the resulting deductions
derived from these observations in the first two and from
them attempt to calculate a prediction of what is likely
to be done in the future. Unfortunately, it will not
be totally accurate to assume those things that have been
repeated in the past will be the only actions of
the future, since changing conditions will generate different responses. Therefore,

(01:32:17):
the most accurate way to predict what will what action
will be taken in the future is not by only
noting what action was repeated in the past, but the
reason for the repetition. Not until the reason is understood,
can we make accurate predictions of future actions through the
monitoring of those conditions and thus begin to think like

(01:32:37):
a deer. Not quite so simple, is it. Then he
goes on to say, and I think that that's a
lot of words there. I think the key thing there
is everything you see in the field, whether it's sign
or deer movement. It goes back to asking why, It
goes back to trying to decipher what's the reason for this.
Now he goes on to say, the good news for

(01:32:59):
the whitetail hunter is that success can be had even
if he can recognize only the repetition, since the factors
that motivate animals are fewer and less subject to radical change. However,
the further he develops, the more opportunities he will get.
The best way I can think of to illustrate the
difference is with the example that if a hunter notes
the action being repeated a second time, he should kill

(01:33:21):
the buck the third time he tries it. If the
hunter is able to recognize the reason for the action,
he should kill the buck the first time he attempts
to repeat it. There are not many hunters that possess
the ability to do the former, and even fewer the latter.
Rare still are the handful who understand the natural order

(01:33:42):
of things enough to predict something a buck is going
to do before he does it the first time. This
is something that I think goes back to some of
the conversations we've had about trail cameras, and again, we're
chasing trail camera photos. We're using technology and modern day
information to try to chase sees critters. You know, Okay,
I got a picture of him on this uh, you know,

(01:34:04):
this apple tree yesterday. So I'm gonna go sit there tomorrow.
What Roger's telling us and what you know? I think
the mistake that so many of us make is that
we see them do something once we go try to
have it happen, but we don't understand the reason behind
it having happened.

Speaker 1 (01:34:20):
So we don't understand why.

Speaker 2 (01:34:21):
He was of that apple tree yesterday, or the reason
he was at that apple tree yesterday. If we don't
connect those dots and we don't understand what's going on
in the background, we can't successfully predict when he'll be
there the next time. If you can understand the why,
if you can understand the reason, then you can note, oh,
it's because it was x wind this food source with

(01:34:42):
this entry route, maybe then it does actually work out
for you. In other words, you got to be the camera.
We've talked a lot about how people chase camera pictures,
they chase sell pictures. But I think it was Mark
Jury who told me a few years ago that instead
of you know, waiting for the cameras to show you
a buck there and then be there the next day,
instead you to predict where they're likely to be and

(01:35:02):
be the camera, be there in person to see it
all yourself, be there ahead of time, or be in
person enough to observe a wider area and to learn
more than just a camera can tell you. I think
that what he continues to say here is a useful
thing to take note of and in a good place
maybe to wrap this whole thing up.

Speaker 1 (01:35:22):
And what I really like here.

Speaker 2 (01:35:26):
About Roger's this final passage I want to read. And
so much of what Roger emphasizes in these books is that,
you know, doing what I just described, being the camera
and predicting deer movement and trying to kill these bucks,
all of that certainly can lead to more bucks on
your wall and meet in your freezer, which I know

(01:35:48):
we all want. We are all chasing that, we're all
pursuing that we have our goals. But there's also more
to it than just that. And Roger makes that point
over and over again.

Speaker 1 (01:36:00):
Right.

Speaker 2 (01:36:00):
He gives you the tools to have success. He shares
with you his stories of trials and tribulations and then
ultimately killing these deer and having the good luck you want.
So he's arming you with those tools. But throughout all
of these books, he's constantly going back to what I
just mentioned a second ago, which is asking why, understanding

(01:36:21):
the reason, and that can be applied to the deer
and to understand why a deer is doing something. But
I think maybe the bigger point he tries to make
through his work is us to ask that question about ourselves,
asking the why, understanding the reason we're out there. And
if the reason we're out there is just to kill
a big giant buck, we're oftentimes going to miss the point.

(01:36:45):
We're oftentimes going to lose out, loose sight of all
the beauty and amazing things that can happen in the
process there. So it kind of opened up with that idea,
and I want to.

Speaker 1 (01:36:56):
Close that idea again as well. So here's one last.

Speaker 2 (01:37:00):
Thought from Roger from Whitetail Magic that I think sums
allot of this up nicely and that I hope will
be a good place for us to leave off. Ironically,
all the attributes normally accredited to good hunters, such as patience, perseverance,
and knowledge, while important, do not seem to be the
real key to which level of success one achieves. Instead,

(01:37:24):
all these seem to be the end result of another
more important aspect of hunting, which is, once again the
attitude with which it is undertaken. In my opinion, the
desire to hunt should be the result of fascination curiosity
and deep respect for natural things, and how well one
does add it is directly dependent upon those things.

Speaker 1 (01:37:46):
While this may.

Speaker 2 (01:37:46):
Sound a bit corny to some, you can believe me
when I say that every good, legitimate whitetail hunter that
I've ever known, whether personally or through his writings, has
exuded that respect. All the native tribes of the world
world which lived directly off the land, regard the earth
as their mother. The wild animals are referred to as brothers.

(01:38:07):
Even trees and other living vegetation, as well as rivers
and weather that contribute to the quality of their existence,
are given status and honor. As a child, as well
as on through my adult years, books, magazines, and films
based on these things have interested and intrigued me. When
I came of age where I could do some serious hunting,
the temptation to become a killer for the sake of

(01:38:29):
killing was ever present, but the influence of the writings
of naturalists such as Leopold Thurrough, Teddy Roosevelt Rutledge, and
yes Edgar Rice Burroughs was always present, questioning my intentions.
Those authors and naturalist sportsmen were men of wisdom, with
understanding and vision. If some of these works were required

(01:38:51):
reading before one was allowed to hunt. I'm certain most
of our present day problems with hunter image and anti
hunting sentiment would be non existent now. I wish for
the reader to understand that I did not go into
all this philosophical prose to preach or toot my horn,
but rather to express my ideas on how do you
think like a deer and try to answer the question

(01:39:13):
I am often asked personally, which is how do you
keep on killing those big bucks? If you can understand
what I've tried to explain, you will know the answer
to both. Frequently at seminars I try to clarify the
point by noting the high percentages of hunters today who
can recite the scientific names of the scent glands as

(01:39:34):
well as vocalizations another technical data about white tailed deer,
but seldom can tell me what kind of tree their
stand is hanging in, or what is the favorite local
plant browse of the deer they are hunting. Another good
parallel I use often is reference to athletic sports. Consider first,
a person who simply loves a sport for its own sake,

(01:39:54):
be it gulf basketball, baseball, or whatever, and plays it
for the pure enjoyment.

Speaker 1 (01:39:59):
But he always gives his best.

Speaker 2 (01:40:00):
And gets good enough to think he might just be
able to become a proer win a gold medal at
the Olympics.

Speaker 1 (01:40:05):
So it goes for it.

Speaker 2 (01:40:07):
Whether he reaches his goal or not, he is a
winner simply because he invested his time in something he
thoroughly enjoyed and loved every minute of it. Now compare
him to a person who looks at a sport as
an opportunity to make big money and be set for
a life of ease. So he drives himself to fulfill
that obsession. Whether he reaches his goals or not, he

(01:40:30):
is a loser, for he has not enjoyed his life.
Even if he reaches his goal and makes millions, that
time was wasted. And if he does not reach his goal,
he has a total failure. Consider it seriously, the only
tangible thing we really have that is ours is our
own lifetime. My answer is that I never started out.

Speaker 1 (01:40:53):
To be a killer of big bucks.

Speaker 2 (01:40:55):
It's just a natural evolution of my respect for and
enjoyment of the outdoor, a love for shooting the bow,
and trying to do both to the best.

Speaker 1 (01:41:04):
Of my ability.

Speaker 2 (01:41:06):
I am having a great time, and each success is
not so much an achievement as it is a blessing
to be thankful for. And with that I will wrap
up this profile of Roger Rothar.

Speaker 1 (01:41:21):
I hope you found this helpful and interesting.

Speaker 2 (01:41:24):
I have been so thankful for this opportunity to get
to know one of our predecessors, one of our pioneers.
I certainly did not know why Roger was so influential
on so many before this, but now I one hundred
percent do. I think he has shared something in these
pages of these books, and hopefully I've been able to

(01:41:46):
be able to share with you in this podcast, not
only the tools for being able to tag dear to
be a more quote unquote successful deer hunter, but I
think he shares here how to be a good and
satisfied and thankful and all around deer hunter, which has
a lot more to do with what he mentions there

(01:42:07):
at the end than it has to do with what's
hanging on your wall or how many big buck pictures
you have on social media. So I hope that, maybe
more than anything, is what sticks with all of us.
And I hope you enjoyed this, and until next time,
thanks for being here and stay wired to hunt

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Ep. 963: The Legendary Roger Rothhaar’s Big Buck Lessons