Wired To Hunt Podcast #82: Neil Dougherty’s Expert Advice for Late Season Success

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to the Wire to Hunt podcast, your home for
deer hunting news, stories and strategies, and now your host,
Mark Kenyon. Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. I'm
your host, Mark Kenyan, and this is episode number eighty two,
tay the show. We're joined by Neil Doherty and we're

(00:23):
talking late season hunting tactics. All right, welcome to the

(00:49):
Wired to Hunt podcast, brought to you by Sick of Gear,
and today, as in this day that I'm actually recording
this today is December one. So with November officially now
in the rear view mirror, my mind, in the minds
of many other hunters, has shifted into late season hunting mode.
So with the late season smack deb in front of us,

(01:11):
it only made sense today for us to dive right
into some ideas and tactics for hunting at this time
of year. And joining us to share his expertise on
this very topic is Neil Doherty, who is a wildlife
habitat consultant, outdoor writer and author and just overall white
tail extraordinary. So with all that being said in short,
Neil is going to give us some great advice on

(01:32):
how to fill our final tags in these last weeks
of the season. But as we always do before we
give Neil a call. Mr co host Dan Johnson Dallas
Fort Worth guests where I am right now. You're in
the state of the Big Ten champions. It's funny you

(01:53):
mentioned that because I'm actually in the state where there
is a football team that I'm actually planning on going
and slashing the tires of all their busses. And so
you're afraid of losing. Oh, yeah, you're afraid to lose it,
I guess. No, to be short, no, I'm not afraid.
I'm excited. I'm very excited. It's maybe be a good game. Man.

(02:14):
It's a big week, big week for the podcast, and
it's not about white tails. I mean, it's like, but
the let's see next week one of us will be
bashing the other one, right, I kind of just want
to start now, Okay, Well, I looked. I looked at
the statistics, right, and we have as far as a

(02:36):
season as the season is concerned, we have almost the
same exact stats except for one major difference. Have one
loss and we have zero losses. No, the big major
difference is strength of schedule. My friend, you guys have
played cupcakes if hey, I tell you what, if going
undefeated was so easy, why hasn't more people done it?

(02:57):
Why haven't more people done it? Because they don't play
as easier schedule is you guys, dude, we beat in
Nebraska who you lost to? We did it was on
a bad call, but regard you're right, we lost him
one bad call. You know, I'm not gonna use as
an excuse. We should have been able to win the
game plenty of other times. So yeah, we lost a game, absolutely,
but we've played you know, I kid, I kid want

(03:20):
to give I a hard time. I know you guys
are legit. I know you guys are going to be
a serious piece of competition for us. I just simply
have faith in the fact that we have beaten the
most top twenty five teams in the FBS, and we
have played one of the hardest schedules out there. And
I think that we've just been through a lot of

(03:41):
really tough, nail bedding games and we found a way
to win year after year after year. Really, um, so
I have a lot of faith, have a lot of faith.
I have a lot of faith faith to Mark. So
I guess we'll just have to uh see what happens
on Saturday. I feel like we can't just see. I
feel like we need to add a little more in
the line. And now, the last time we didn't even

(04:03):
do anything we need. I bet you a million dollars
that my fault. I just have failed to get the
stupid thing online. I need to just do that tomorrow.
But let's up the ending, maybe even more. But I'm
not sure how we'll have to think about it. I

(04:24):
got an idea, how do you want to do this?
I don't, dude, I don't know. I just um, I
don't know. I just really well, how about to your point, well,
we'll just give each other a lot of crap next week?
That's right? Uh? Public shaming? Public shaming? I agree. Maybe
I'll tell you what. The loser or the winner gets

(04:44):
to make a meme out anything they want to do,
gets to make a meme and post it on the
Wired Hunt and the nine Finger Chronicles Facebook pages. All right,
fair enough? No nudity and no swear word because we
don't have people out there who I guess, I guess
I'll look down on that kind of thing. There's a couple,

(05:06):
there's a couple. There's a couple, all right, I like
your idea. Well, did you see anything tonight? I did? Shooter? Yes?
Oh yeah, man, I'll tell you what this is. Uh.
You know, for like I mentioned back in Iowa for
the first time since early November, and you know, as
we talked about back when I was here last time,

(05:28):
you know, of of these couple of big properties I
got permission on, I found one little corner of this
one property that wasn't getting hit by a bunch of
other hunters, seemingly, And that's where I saw several shooters
the first time I was here, And so I went
back in there tonight hung a new tree stand and
I saw two shooters. Again. Really, when you say shooters,

(05:49):
what what are we talking about here? Both were I
would say four year olds are older and both over
one fifty'd say last light? Yeah, no, um, when was
the last light? One was like forty five minutes before dark.
Who was the first deer in the field. Yeah. The
the issue with this spot is that there's a ton
of deer that come out. You see a lot of deer.

(06:10):
You see, I've seen like I don't know, seven different shooters.
It's just really difficult to hunt because this is the
only spot I found where I can see mature bucks consistently.
But the issue is it is just a corn field.
It's a field, you know, kind of like your situation
where these deer were moving on the other side of
the neighbor's line um on your little property. You hunt there. Well,

(06:31):
this property all these deer bedding and coming out on
the neighbors and my property doesn't start till literally the
edge of the field. There's a fence that crosses just
the open field. So where these deer coming onto my property,
I can't even hunt near because there's no trees at all.
It's just open. There's not even like brush, it's just
like flat cut corn um. And they're coming off of

(06:53):
the neighbor's cover, walking through like a kind of strip
of open grass, and then hopping the fence into my warrnfield.
So there's there's three spots where these deer have been
coming out into the field. One of them is completely
unhuntable because it's just right in the middle of nothing um.
One of them I could put a ground blind up

(07:15):
on the edge where there's some tall grass and a
couple of little bushes. I could kind of brush myself
in there. And then the other one is where I
can hunt, and I've got a tree stand and that's
where I hunted tonight, and that's where I hunted a
couple of times last time I was here. Um but
it's just like you know, there's three options, and it's
which one is the big buck gonna come out of tonight? Really?

(07:36):
Um so three times the big buck three times shooters
walked past this spot where I'm at now, but it
was before I hung my stand there, and now I've had,
um a couple of one shooter come out of this
middle spot that's just not huntable. And then another buck
last time I was here, came by the other side

(07:56):
where I could put a ground blind. But I don't know,
I'm I'm it's just kind of playing the odds and
hoping to get lucky. Unfortunately, because I'm stuck hunting this
field edge. There's just not a better spot I can figure,
at least if I want to hunt this corner um
where I am actually seeing good deer. So Friday, Friday year,
last day, Yeah, so when are you gonna start throwing hell?

(08:18):
Mary's Well? Tomorrow night, tomorrow morning, I'm hunting a different
set And then tomorrow night, I'm gonna hunt that stand
again where I hunted tonight and saw these deer, and um,
I'm gonna potentially make an adjustment based on what I
see tomorrow night. If it's just that there's almost not

(08:38):
even a hail mayer I can throw, I mean unless
I have. Yeah, I brought a ground blind. I can
pop the ground bland up on the other side. But
I don't know if that's any better than this spot. Um,
when I'm looking at every encounter I've had and every
time I've seen a deer, Um, I don't know. I've
been sitting here thinking and thinking, you know, is it
worth going honey on that side? When really I think

(08:59):
I've just as get to the chances of getting a
shot up top here. I had twelve deer come by
me tonight within shooting range that you know, just as
easily could have been one of the big bucks that
just happened to be that tonight the big buck popped
out in the other one. Um. So I'm gonna hut
tomorrow night and then make a decision. Um, if I'm
gonna adjust something, UM, I might just get a blanket

(09:21):
and lay in the stubble corn and put the blanket
over me and then sit up and shooting my boat.
That might be my hail Mary. Hey, that's something John
Rambo might do, and you know, from the sounds of it,
he's pretty successful. Yeah. You know what what I really
need is a hay bill blind. If I had a
hay bill blind here, um, which I don't have one
at home, but if I wouldn't be able to kind

(09:42):
of set one up easily here. But if I had one,
that is the one thing I bet I could pop
up right in the middle of this cornfield right where
some of these deer come out. Because the issue is
they they're coming right into this field, way right in
the middle of it, away from our either side, where
I can get some type of standard ground line. Unless
I just pop a ground line in the middle of
the cornfield, wide open, you know, no brush, no nothing,

(10:05):
I'm serious. You give them a day to get acclimated
to it, and I feel that they would just come
right up to it. Now, one thing you should try,
and I've done this before if I had, because I
tried to pull the same stunt similar set a ground
blind up in the middle of a field. I found
a standing cornfield and I cut maybe eight stocks down

(10:27):
put them in the bed of my truck. So when
I went down to set the trail the ground blind up,
I zip tied these cornstalks together and kind of put
them as a face on one side where I felt
the deer were gonna be coming through, and I almost
pulled it off, but that was that was before any

(10:50):
type of scent control type stuff, and I didn't. I
got busted down wind. Yeah, I don't know, it might
come to that. We're gonna We're gonna see how it
goes tomorrow and adjust accordingly. But I thought tonight, man,
they're moving early. I saw that nice buck come out
eight yards away, hundred yards away, and then these deer

(11:12):
came barreling out from the timber to my right, coming
right past them, like oh man, like there's six does
running looking over their shoulder. I'm like, gotta be you know,
a buck popping out, because there's one of the bucks
I saw was still nosing the dough around and I
think there's a little bit u I'm still kind of curious. Um,
So it's like, maybe we gotta we gotta buck pushing
these deer. Sunday night. Sunday night, I saw a dough

(11:34):
not pushing them, but nosing them, nosing one and grunting
at her. So and then I heard two shotgun uh lasts. Yeah,
it's not good. It's a little it's a little early too, right.
I bet you. I bet you the shot, Yeah, I bet.
And I called the d n R. Did you know?
And I tried to report this crime. I didn't. It

(11:54):
wasn't really a crime. It was just like me going, hey,
I heard two gun shots, but I have no evidence
of anything. And he never even called me back. So
that's a bummer. So much for that. You tried. I tried.
Next time, I'll go John Rambo style and I'll just
you know, full sprint through the trust, passing into somebody's

(12:17):
backyard and ha ha busted and then they shoot me.
We've we've never had a Rambo reference ever in the podcast,
and now twice in one podcast I saw I watched
Rambo First Blood Part one the other night. Well there
you go. Yeah. Nice. So you went out Sunday night, yep. Uh.

(12:37):
And it was looking good too. I mean a lot
of deer movement, a lot of good sign as far
as tracks are concerned. I didn't see any fresh rubs
or scrapes, um. But but a lot of deer started
coming through and the dough that was being quote un
not it wasn't really chased, but he was. He was

(12:58):
walking fast wherever she would. Oh, and she stopped right
undneath my stand. And this this younger buck, he was
probably only a two year old, uh, was following her.
And then another spike buck came through and he was
kind of following her. And Uh, I saw, you know,
all my buddy's property. It's really thick, right, it's just
fifteen acres of just really thick betting. And I could

(13:20):
see a buck walking and then I put my binoculars
up and I could see like a time, but it's
so thick and so far, you know, it was like
eighty yards. But I could just make out the motion
going through the thicket and I didn't know what it was.
But then that's when I heard the shotgun, the two
shotgun blasts, and then after that everything died down. But

(13:45):
the big bucks are still in the area, because what
was it last I checked my trail camera on Monday
or on Sunday night, and uh, last Monday and Thursday,
both or the big the one big buck was still
in the area, So I don't know that's encouraging. Yeah, so,

(14:08):
but I was at work, so broad day daylight movement.
But I'm sitting in a cubicle. When's your next chance
to get out? Tomorrow night? And then it shotgun season
and then I probably won't see another deer. Well, let's
both killing tomorrow. It could happen. If it does, I'll
take Thursday off and we'll we'll have a photo shoot

(14:28):
DoD that be legit. That'd be sweet. Yeah, because really
we're not too far away if you shoot one at
that property, probably about forty five minutes to an hour. Yeah,
that's not bad at all. Yeah, we'll take pictures in
the Coralville Mall parking lot that go over well right?
Oh man, Well, how about we, uh we table this

(14:52):
conversation and we get Neil on the line, who we
now need to give a call and maybe he can
share with us a couple of ideas will help us
actually pull that double off. What do you think? Hey,
let's do it all right. First, we need to pause
briefly for a word from our sponsors of this podcast,
Sita Gear, and this week we're joined by Sita Product

(15:13):
category leader Dennis Suck, and we asked Dennis to say
to share with us his recommendation for what the perfect
layering system would be for hunting on a frigid late
season day. Here's Dennis. Yeah, and you know, and so
that one's all about warmth, warmth, warmth, you know, and
making sure you you have you know, enough insulation to
carry you through the set, but also you know, being

(15:35):
really careful because if you know, I don't know how
far you hiked on that day, but if you don't
manage that moist you're getting in and out, you know,
it could absolutely take you on a curve to be
really cold. Um. So I still think you're wearing a
Marino based layer. I think you're you're gonna wear one
of the warmest products you can find. And because of
the nature of a day like that, you know, I'd
make sure it has some kind It definitely has to

(15:55):
be blocking the wind. It definitely has to be blocking
the elements and and control in that installation and making
sure that it stays intact and keeps holding that that
that valuable warmth that you've built up that you're not
going to get back um from the sick of line
um you know, I would you know, I would use
our Marino systems UM, but I would use our incenterator
as the autoware piece UM, which for us is a

(16:17):
it's a it's a down protecting protected with gortex. You know,
so no matter what happens, I'm gonna be okay. UM,
I can make it through that day. It packs up,
you know. So we talked about stay and dry, you know,
making sure that you don't try to just wear this
huge like Michelin suit, you know, into the woods and
and and sweat. You know, you don't want to do that,
so we try to make sure we can pack that system. UM.

(16:40):
So if you have another, if you know, whatever you
might wear, you know, put in your picture jacket in
your pack. And one thing people don't realize, I think
is when you get to where you want to be,
let yourself get cold before you can get warm. And
I know that doesn't make sense right away, but what
you're doing is as you're letting that moisture evaporate before
I should put that last jacket on and hold it
and trap it. Essentially to make sure if you you know,

(17:02):
you do get to that point, you give yourself time
to kind of the event before you put that out
of where on. So there you go. And if you
are interested in learning more about sick because late season
options or other white tail gear, visit sick of gear
dot com. And now let's get Neil on the phone.

(17:22):
All right with us. Now on the phone is Neil Doherty.
Welcome to show. Neil. Hey, it's great to be here, guys. Yeah,
we're excited to have you. Um. We chatted with actually
your dad, Craig a year and a half ago right
when we started this show, and ever since then, I
wanted to get you on because I know you've got

(17:43):
some some great insight and experiences to share with us,
so I'm especially excited to finally make this happen. Um. Now,
I kind of gave a really brief introduction to who
you are at the top of the show, But for
those who aren't familiar, can you fill us in a
little bit on what you've been doing in the past
and what you do now related to your in deer hunting. Sure,
absolutely so. Uh. You know, the short version of the

(18:05):
bio started a consulting business and in the early two thousands,
I am based up in New York State, and yes
we do have country and deer in this part of
the world. But as a consultant, I work up mostly
in Northern States, and I have laid out management plans
for some pretty special properties, but laid out properties about
three fifty thousand acres worth of property at this point time,

(18:28):
and it mostly specializing in small pieces. There's a lot
of exposure to to lots of ground out through there,
from Wisconsin and through the Ohio and Pennsylvania and New
York of course where I am in Maine and everywhere
in between. UM also had done a tremendous amount of
research in the in the food plod industry. Early on
in the two thousands, I was working with massok and

(18:49):
Biologic and helping to establish Nebraska lines up here in
the North and and also did a stint with Whitetailed
Institute as well as they were logged from some of
the Nebraska plantings so badily grounded kind of the food
plots and plant stuffs and propably. Appropriate tool we're talking
about today is how it relates to late season. Uh.
You so we're primarily you know, northern guys, we're trying

(19:11):
to store food for late the year. Uh. During the
time of doing the consulting thing, written a few books, uh,
grow them right and white Tails from Ground to Gun
and and they haven't a lot of TV stuff and
things like that, but primarily specialized in helping folks grow
some good deer in their property. And uh and really,
once we grow them, you know, a little bit more

(19:31):
than a photo contest, find a way to wrap our
hands around him at some point during the season and
bring him home with us. So we're not just getting
camera pictures. So we're trying to marry the art of
growing the deer with designing a pieces that we can
kill them or strategy we can kill them as well. Well,
it sounds like you're the right guy for us to
talk to because me and Dan are pretty good getting
pictures of him, but getting your hands out of his

(19:52):
another story. Well, I don't know. We'll we'll try to invest.
We can. We'll see. I'm seeing some of your pictures.
They're looking pretty good. Thanks. It has been a pretty
good a pretty good year. But uh, I actually was
just talking to Dan a minute ago. Um, I just
drove up to Iowa this morning, so I'm trying to
fill my final tag of the year here and uh,

(20:14):
I'm hoping maybe there'll be some ideas that I can
take from you in the in the next hour or
so that can help me close a deal. And and
Dan has been after a really nice big bucking in
Iowa actually too, So we're both kind of just just
hoping to put the final pieces of the puzzle together.
And I think we just need a probably a little
bit of help from mother Nature. Yeah, exactly, that is

(20:35):
the truth. Um. So here's something you know that whenever
I think about the late season, I actually think. I
don't mean this in a weird way, but I think
about you, Neil. I don't know, okay, because because I
talked to you a year or two ago about the
late season hunting for an article I was working on.

(20:55):
I think it was for Quality White Tails magazine. Um,
I'm not sure, but I think that was the magaz
is for And I talked to you about some of
your different ideas in the late season, and something you
had mentioned in that conversation I believe was that And
you can correct me if this is wrong, but I
believe you had said that you would if you had
to choose, you would choose hunting in the late season
over hunting in the rut, and that stuck with me

(21:17):
is kind of profound. I guess for number one, is
that accurate? Is that quote accurate? Before I get absolutely
if if you have the ability to work with a
piece of ground or even you know, even if you're
not owning the piece, or you have access to do
some work on, if you have the ability to put
some time in you know, kind of thinking game, and

(21:39):
the strategy starts when we start getting through that whole
rut mess. And I chuckle, is you know the rut?
Everybody is equal to the rut. It's pretty much just
grinding out the time in a tree and sooner or later,
you know, you might be lucky enough for him to
run by it. Or you know, the buck you've been
thinking about and dreaming about, it could be three miles
away the day that you're out there Saturday morning hunting. Uh,

(22:00):
it's just such a lucky period of time. It could
work for you or it could just totally blow up
in your face. That it drives me crazy. On the
managed properties that work with the help guys, try to
figure out how we're going to get him in the rut,
because you just need to sit in the tree, you know,
and and kind of hope. But when we get this
late season period of time, you know, kind of this

(22:20):
whole strategy session and designing the mouse trap of the
property and strategic hunting of the peace and pressuring and
non pressuring areas, all this stuff can come together and
start to kind of almost put the deer where you
want them to be. And you have to have help
from other nature, but you can really start to develop
a strategy in and work an individual and you know,

(22:43):
if if everything lines up, you can get done in
a couple of days. So for my personal hunting property,
forget about the run. I would I would take you know,
we go as late in the middle of December here
in New York this year, a little bit later in
December twenty two, we finish up and I would give
up November and just hunt that last four or five
days a season. That keep in line, that's after we've

(23:03):
had sixty five days a hunting. So the deer are
worn down, their ground down. But but there's some strategies
you can put in place to you know, to get
him out there, especially if you can plant and do
things like that. You're giving us hope. This is a
good neal well, Yeah, it is. I'm saying all the
strategy thing. I was still lucky enough to you know,
get it done here in November and pleasantly surprised that

(23:25):
a big one walked by and I was able to
tag one. So it's it's still nice to have everything
often they come march and by and he didn't have
to think too hard, he just had to be in
the right tree. So it's still happy to take the
take the lucky portion of it. But this this is
where really I start to groove and get a kick
out of the honeys, this late season stuff. Yeah, I've
really started to see some of the same things with

(23:46):
some of the properties that I've been able to hunt
where you know, especially in those areas where you can
find either low pressure areas within a property or if
you actually control the property, if you can control the pressure.
That's one of the things I found make such a
profound on difference to late season success. But before we
dive into into that or um any one specific aspect,

(24:07):
you mentioned a whole bunch of different things there that
kind of lead to success during the late season. UM,
So I'm kind of curious if we can set the
table at the high level, What would you say are
the high level ingredients for a perfect or for a
great late season hunt. And then if you can lay
those couple of categories out, then I'm probably gonna want
to dive into each of those in more detail. But

(24:28):
I'm curious at the top, what are the categories of
things that we need to start thinking about to find
that right hunt in the right place. All right, So
so probably the greatest limiting factor I'm always thinking of
properties and limiting factor, what's gonna jack up the program
and screwing up screwing up for us. So the greatest
limiting factor for late season is is actually not the

(24:51):
inventory of bucks. And I'm always gonna trust the bucks
typically can if you deal with four or five year
old states, usually are smart enough to get to that
point and you can almost kind of ar tee they're
gonna be there come the end of the season, but
likely they'll be there. But the greatest limiting factor for
late in the year is to have the weather that's
going to force them out of their poles that they've
been hiding in for in my case sixty days of

(25:13):
hunting season or other places uh the poort and will
force them out and bring them out whether they're gonna
be exposed to the gun or bow or whatever the
tool is of late year. So that number one is weather. Uh.
In for a lot of us this year we are
we are highly weather dependent. This year we reveal with
warm temperatures and we'll get into that detail and probably
a little bit later on, but we need to have

(25:33):
some stuff, some temperatures that are gonna burn some calories
and force them to get out there. Uh. The second
thing is we have to feel the control pressure and
uh and try to get in a situation where we
we at least know what everybody's doing and how they're
playing the chessboard. Um, you know, even if guys you're hunting,
know what their play is, so we can kind of
play off of that in a predictable manner. You know,

(25:55):
hunt Bob does this in this tour of the property.
We have stuct the deer to react this way and
we kind of know how to play off of him.
So you know, it's not necessarily no hunters in the woods,
but understand that they're out there and what the impact
is going to be. And then we have to rely
on the deer in the physical makeup of the deer
as well, so is that still healthy? The rut is

(26:16):
a grueling, mean process of a white tailed box, especially
if there's other age in the neighborhood, he's a liable
to have at this point in time open abscesses from
antler wounds and busted up legs and torn shoulders and
broken jaws. I mean, there's all kinds of stuff we're
seeing in photos now, and my customers are killing deer
that have just been pounded during the run. You know,

(26:36):
not to mention some hunting issues that can happen as well,
that these there are in some cases worn out, and
if you know your deal of the worn out here,
that's going to change the women to react and trying
to adjust my hunting strategy to versus a deer that's
fat and happy on you know, the last camera you're
pulled and looking to be a really good shape. How
they're gonna behave a little bit differently in the late

(26:56):
season as well. So all this stuff kind of marries
and comes together, and you know, as well as the
food sources in your neighborhood, so you know, knowing what
you were able to plant and do the hard work
and in may or June and food plot season. With
this type of food sources, you're able to put them
around and kind of score for late and year will
dictate how that late season hunting is going to be.

(27:17):
So all that stuff kind of comes together and in
the juggles variable to determine whether or not you're going
to have some success late in the year or not.
So one of the first things you mentioned, Neil was weather,
and that is I think you know a lot of
people would agree one of the very most important variables
to late season success. And like you mentioned, it's been

(27:38):
pretty warm throughout a lot of parts of the country. Um,
So let's dive into that first. You know, when it
comes to the late season, what kind of weather are
we looking for, um, and how do we take advantage
of that? Yeah. So, so you know, I'm watching this
stuff really closely to the point of we finished out
the month, and I'll tell you from my region of
the country where I'm where I'm currently sitting right now.

(27:59):
You know, I'm in a parking a lot in a
little bit of pound getting ready to guide some some
of the hunters of the client I work for on
their late season hunt. Their last couple of days up hunting,
and I'm tuned into the point that I know that
the temperatures from the last thirty days has been seven
point seven degrees about normal. And it may not sound
like a big deal, but the white tail have had

(28:19):
to burn a significant amount of less calories to stay warm.
And what that's going to result and you can see
this in the skinny said, what that's gonna result in
is we have bidified contents that are higher than they
were last year and the year before the year before that.
So I have deer that are relatively full, they're fat,
and they're not it's worn down, or for that matter,

(28:41):
they're not even close to where they are on average. Uh.
And now this is a perfect storm of deer and
not wanting to come to a food plot. You need
to have it here that's kind of worn down a
little bit for this late season hunt to come together.
And you know, I four or five years ago we
started looking at this. I really was of the opinion it, Hey,
it didn't really matter so much that you had a

(29:03):
bump of crop of acorns all September, October and November
and your property if you could get December snows to
pile up a little bit. There are four or five
days and below average temperatures, your deer would come to
the food plots. That I think that was We're wasn't
the cost of kind of understand what was going on there.
But the bottom line is it'll bring them to the
plot a little bit. But if they're going to consistently

(29:25):
get to the plot, especially in states where they have
pretty high hunting pressure, you need to have a deer
that's kind of worn down. The fat content has worn
down some and it's they don't have the luxury kind
of hanging back and not eating for a couple of days.
They need to go and consume the food in the
good locations and and then head back and you know,
get back to the bush and and those circumstances. We

(29:45):
see a lot of these. And when I'm not talking
about two year old bucks showing up on a food
plot preying around a year in bucks that I'm talking
about the four wards and the fives and the seven
year olds that are in out there that really know
how to play the game. When they're worn down, then
we see them showing up in the plots quite a bit.
And it's not unfortunately, it's not a couple of days
of weather. So where I personally am and where a
lot of us stuff already this year, Your seven eight

(30:07):
ten degrees about normal for the last dirty days. If
you've been paying attention to those kind of things, that
content is really probably higher than what you would hope
for on those deer. And you're here looking at the
ten day forecast and going, hey, there's a couple of
days of a little bit below average temperatures. Maybe we
get a little bit of snow. What it was likely

(30:28):
to take for you to have that significant feeding event
that you, you know, calling sick from work and and
and charge out to the woods. It's probably gonna take
a good bit of snow covering for three or four
days to cover up a lot of those easy excess
foods and nForce them into the high concentration foods. Uh So,
it's it's we're kind of in a tricky position for

(30:48):
a lot of people on specially East Coast and kind
of the central part of the country this year in
terms of whether we're gonna get the deer to come
out with the weather's gonna properate for us or not,
and we'll get that kind of that mass movement where
things are a little bit easy on the hunting side.
So one of the big things, and this is you know,
kind of just re saying what you said there. But
one of the major um points that I focus on

(31:13):
a lot during late season is my timing and and
you know, not pressuring those deer at all until timing
is just right. During the late season, a massive amount
of that correct timing is related to getting this weather
event like you mentioned that will push these deer out
early before dark into some type of food source. Um.
And so a lot of my hunting this time of

(31:33):
year is doing just what you mentioned, watching the forecast,
waiting for that event, and then you know, taking off
work or whatever to make sure I hunt on that
day or whatever it might be. Um. I want to
talk a little bit more about those specific conditions, but
I want to first what happens if you don't get that?
Like what happens if I have a week of vacation
or whatever it might be, or a guy has a

(31:55):
gun the guns season is open December one through six
or whatever, and it's fifty degree ease the whole week
and no significant event. I mean, what do you do
in that type of situation when you you want to hunt,
this is your chance to hunt, but you just don't
have those correct weather conditions. Are you of the mind
that you say just still don't hunt, just you have
to wait it out and maybe you only get one

(32:16):
hunt thrust of the year, or which is there some
other option when the weather isn't ideal in the late season?
All right, So we've been playing a lot with formulas,
and I do work with some outfitters and we're trying
to balance pressure versions results. Okay, so we've been playing
and tweaking these formulas this time of year, late season,
de yer that are not rut driven. Uh And and
keep in mind too, we're not we're saying they're pretty

(32:38):
well done with the rut. If your fonds reach seventy pounds,
they're going to come into astris. So a lot of
those do fonts can come into astrisk. Does that weren't
read in the first time can cycle in later. So
while we're all sitting back here saying at fifty degrees,
don't go hunting, it's a small percentage. It might be
ten or fifteen percent of your doughs aren't currently read
that could fire up and bring the big guy out

(32:59):
in any minute, and you can shoot them on a
six degree a day. So there is so a little
bit of kind of Las Vegas luck ahead of us
as a potential. It's not you know, hey, let's shut
the season off and not go But if we're strictly
you know, forget about that lucky variable of a possible
esther though, go back to the feeding window. If we
have fat, happy dear uh, and we have temperatures that

(33:22):
have been running by ten degrees above normal, the frequency
of hunt that I'm advising my clients as they can
hunt for about two days and they better pull out
of the woods and give it about a seven day
rest um. And and even in the big pieces, these
are five acre pieces, thousand acre pieces, put a couple
of days on them, and I give him a break
to try to keep it as fresh as possible and

(33:42):
be extremely strategic, like you're talking about in terms of
the weather and the wind, and in trying to pick
the days when they might be I'll feel a little
bit fresher to show up a little bit earlier. Are
things of that nature. So you know, the cooler days
and days you're going to try to go out. We're
really this time of year, limiting our morning hunting pressure
just to try to, you know, take one more shift

(34:03):
off the fields or one more shift off the properties,
just slipping out in the evening when we's a little
bit more of a concentrated and feeding environment. So, uh,
no other type of strategy we're doing in uh. In
our last book, we put out we we've heard to
it as kind of a drone drone hunting. We were
kind of taking analogy out of the military, and and
this time of years where you've almost envisioned the drone

(34:24):
is circular. I'm gathering camera footage. I'm you know, hopefully
we're in a state where wireless cameras are available to us.
You're getting that wireless input to your cell phones, so
you're not putting pressure on your deer or you're checking
your cameras every seven and ten days, you know, middle
of the day, total wal pressure, trying not to get
in the middle of betting areas. And you're watching and
watching and you're looking for a buck to show some

(34:46):
kind of vulnerability. At the same time, you're watching the
next ten day weather forecast. I'm you know, up at
four o'clock in the morning every morning to look at
the weather forecast. I might think I'm crazy and you
haven't memorized by now a lot, just trying to see
hopefully it's gonna get cold, and yeah, I've got a
couple of good bucks. I'm trying to wear it down
in our place here. So you're you're saying, man, I'm
just looking for that that change at weather for forecast change,

(35:06):
it's gonna start to set up. We're gonna change the
schedule a little bit and try to get to the woods.
But you know, a long way around the block on that.
It's it's you get. You really have to measure the
pressure and really start to look at things this time
of year, and you have to figure out how much
pressure you canna put on it on a weather window
unlike we're having right now, or the temperatures are five

(35:26):
ten degrees below normal, we've got blow and snow, we've
got blizzard conditions. It's been snow covered for four or
five days straight, seven days straight, and the deer getting
beat up with wind chills and stuff like that. You
can almost grind it, you know, you can grind in
some cases, grind a field over and over and over again. Uh,
even a situation sake standing corn or something like that.

(35:48):
Just put a ton of pressure on and they're just
gonna keep on comment as they have to um And
you can really get a good opportunity that way. Not
and you can't get down out of the tree and
spook all the deer off the field every night, But
if you're sensible about it, trying to chip away at
the corners a little bit, you can get some really
good hunting input. This is not one of those years
where you can manhandle a piece of property. Yes, so
I gotta I got a quick question, and sorry to interrupt, Mark,

(36:10):
but okay, so we're talking about this late season type
of hunting, and you know they're focusing on the bed
too food source pattern, right, So if the weather is not,
if the weather may not, scream, get in the tree,
stand and sit on this field edge of this food

(36:31):
this food source or this food plot. Are you telling
any of your clients to take your stand and get
back further in the woods to to catch them in
a staging area or maybe a travel route at the
end of you know, great, great, great input on that.
And and here's where we're gonna watch our cameras. So
if our cameras are showing some good fer the frequency

(36:54):
I'm looking for. Let's say we take a seven day
window and I have a shuggarbut showing up for out
of the seven day as in front of the camera,
I'd say that's that's high frequency. So I'm really pretty
pumped about that level of use. You've got to believe
he's coming to the field at other locations as well,
not just past your camera. If he's showing up at
two or three in the morning, every time, you know,
eleven thirty, twelve o'clock, at ninth, four or five hours

(37:16):
after dark, I'd probably say he's just hunkering so tightened
it's not going to be anywhere even close to that
field edge or within two hundred yards of it when
I can still get you know, have legal shooting lights.
If he's an hour after dark, if he's a half
hour after dark, he's just on the edge of twilight,
and I'm getting photos like that, then we're gonna take

(37:38):
a real hard look at it. Uh, it's possibly moving
on him. Now. Now here's another variable. So most of
my client's own ground or playing on leases that they
have long term, and and we have back here and
knees the relatively competitive hiding garments. So I may be
working with a three acre piece of ground and there's
you know, a hundred acres or three or four acre

(38:01):
pieces that enjoy it. There's a lot of potential tags
and lots of potential hunters in the woods. And one
of the things I worked with my clients and say,
you know, when we're dealing with with quality, dear, dear
of age, it's a long chest match and it doesn't
happen necessarily end at the conclusion of this season. So
when we're growing deer year after year, we get to

(38:21):
know we might hunt them for two or three years
before we finally get a chance to have you know,
the movement stars line up and we connect with them.
But one thing that can change that absolutely is when
my property and my property to pack with guys and
rifles are on the edges right now that you know,
they're kind of a perceivers a lot of good deer
in there and there they work are just hard. If

(38:41):
I bumped him out of a bedroom, one, he's definitely
not showing up the food block because I came too
close to him. And two, if I move them too
far is debt because I'm you know, the deers within
three yards of a property line at the skips across
that thing. He's just not going to get back. So
you do have to run. You have to know your
neighborhood and know what you get away with. In some case,
as you believe it or not, I've had years or

(39:02):
I say, you know what, guys, he's gonna be bigger
next year. And that can be a very difficult scenario
if you're looking at five days left in the season going,
oh man, I'm gonna I'm gonna gonna fold up my
tent and give up on this year. But sometimes if
you're really trying to cultivate that one buck and and
you want to have them for another year playing chat,

(39:23):
sometimes you have to pack off them and just say
it's it's not gonna happen this year, and I've done
in a bunch and swallow the tags. And these are
on pieces that you manage. Now, if you're in a
public lay and haunts your permission to hunt situation, you
don't know what your access is, totally different scenaria go
for you know, going and try to make it happen.
But but I err on the side of caution. I

(39:43):
just don't want to bump these deer or pressure these deer,
and and right now with the weather conditions the way
they are, that matter. It's it's not even so much
as it's just warmer this year, it's if you bump
a five year old back or six year old bluck
now post breeding season when he's not good, if you
bump him, he's gonna be significantly changing his patterns for
you know, the next five to seven days. Not saying

(40:04):
he's not going to kill him the next day, but
but he's just not going to tolerate that path that
pressure too well. And and especially get out of the
Midwest and go to areas with a little bit more
hunting pressure. You know, those deer are gonna affect and
change quite a bit. And I'm really luctant to found
some are a bit too close to them. So I
like your idea, but I just would like to try
to make sure we're gonna one get that betting area

(40:26):
a little bit of room, and then just to know
if we're we're really well in the pressure and maybe
maybe run the risk of run them off the property
and not seeing him again. The fine line you have
to walk, isn't it. It's it's kind of a tight rope. Yeah,
and I probably air on the side of caution too much,
but you know, I'm we're let's you know, we're killing deer.

(40:46):
There are five six seven years of age uh in
in properties that one they're too small to typically do that.
And too we're in areas of the country where there's
really high hunting pressure, so um, we have to be
real cautious and areas to get that kind of uh
was kind of results. So so, Neil, one of the
important distinctions I think you made was the difference between

(41:08):
hunting on a scenario where you have control of the
property at the least or you own the ground, versus
being on public or private and how different those two
scenarios are and how different your mindset needs to be. Um.
And I'm in one of the situations similar to the ladder,
where I have permission on a piece of private ground
but other people can hunt it. And I've got the

(41:28):
shotgun season here, opening an aisle in four days, and
I know a lot of people are gonna be hunting it.
So it does require a little bit more of the
aggressive tactics, maybe, like Dan mentioned or something totally different. Um,
But it's just a really important point that I want
to emphasize to everyone out there is that you know,
keep in mind what your specific scenario might mean and
why you might want to be a little bit more

(41:49):
aggressive versus a little more passive and careful if you
have that control. Like you mentioned, Neil, I think airing
on the side of caution is definitely the way to go. UM.
But back to something with men a couple of minutes ago.
When it comes to this weather, these conditions that help
you know when to go in and strike, Like you mentioned,
I love that drone strike analogy. By the way I
borrowed that. I really like that one. Um, how much

(42:14):
how much of a temperature drop or how much snow
on the ground do you believe you need to trigger
a significant feeding event? All right, So here here's what
I've kind of And every year, this time of years,
we're getting our first snow in this part of the world.
So we get the first snow covering, and I'll get
a million texts from my clients that are out to oh, yeah,
it's gonna be a great morning this morning. They all

(42:36):
get back at eleven o'clock and say we didn't see
hear the first snows of the year. Generally outside of
the right, I'm finding dear to be incredibly paranoid and
not moving at all. Uh And you know, we've got
to take it from their perspective. They've been probably being
ground down a little bit with hunting season. Now they're
incredibly exposed. So I'm not seeing a lot of good

(42:56):
movement the first snow. Give it about thirty six hours
worth the snow cut evering, and you know, it's all
systems normal, and they're right back doing what they do.
So I'm not a big fan of the first day
of the snow, but a day and a half after
that first snow, I'm really starting to look at it.
Temperature wise, we're just look at the normal temperatures. That
ain't you boiled down to if it's normal temperatures or below.

(43:18):
And I like to get ten fifteen decreased below normal
with some wind, I mean some raw stuff where it's
you're gonna beat you up in the tree. Those are
the kind of temperatures we're getting good deer to show
up and and it's not oftentimes it's not just a
quick little front blows through and you can certainly play
the game on hunting front to deer feeding during the front,

(43:39):
post front after the front, that kind of thing. But
what we're talking about here is the weather conditions that
kind of force them to feed during daylight hours and
they're in a scenario where it's cold and the deer
burning too much energy defeat at night when the nighttime
temperatures are plumbing and yet lots of wind and snow.
Keep the line, you know, when the deer is laying
down and it closes events and its body, the events
being it's kind of it's growing area and its armpits,

(44:02):
and those are the areas where it loses the vast
majority of the heat. It can lay down for two
or three days or you know, a couple of days
and burn less calories, and it can walking up to
the cornfield to try to consume food. So, uh, they
will go for that day or two laid down if
they have to, but at some point they really start
to gend up to go to food if that weather

(44:23):
is again five ten degrees below normal and whatever your
normal might be. I've got clients and say, you know,
forty five degrees is normal for them. So when it's
thirty five degrees. You know, we're in that perfect storm
my part of the world. This time of year, I'm
typically looking at temperatures, you know, below twenty degrees, preferably
in the load of mid teens at ninth and and

(44:44):
just kind of following nasty in that type of scenario
is going to trigger dear and bring him in. They
give you a quick little story from last year. So
last year we had that bumper crop of eight corns
that everybody talks about there like marbles on the forest
floor and in I couldn't buy a year to come
to the corn fields or any of the brassica plots
and eat guys getting some camera photos, but camera photos

(45:05):
about what they usually are. We're having, you know, deer
census meetings the camp going hey, geezt weave and you
want to shoot those. This year, we're not seeing anything
where of all the deer gone, So you know, the
neighbors are all on panic. We're kind of trying not
to be seasoned and say, you know, it's it's just
a blip with acorns, but in the back of our
mind going where of all the deer gone? And it's

(45:26):
a terrible both season eat tag you know, there's no
chance to shoot painting deferent piece, and even the luck
of the ride, it doesn't happen. Roll around to this
late season window. We're in the December of last year,
the muzzleloader season kicks in. That's that's mid December, and
finally the temperatures dropped and we picked up twelve inches
of snow. I waited a day and a half, actually

(45:48):
canceled a couple of road trips, got back home, and
within three days of that snow being on the ground,
the property went from having five or six beers showing
up on the standing corn field that granted pressure have
been low, to now there's eight or nine bucks showing
up with fifteen to twenty does in. The field was
full and there's age there. You know. I was able
to tag a great buck that that late season window,

(46:10):
and the next night went back and tagged the bear.
And then then the temperatures changed and the snow melted,
and they went right back to four or five six
year in the boot blatches primarily fonds, and it was
just a social thing. They went to the field to
kind of hang out, dancer out a little bit, but
they weren't going for the work of feeding. And it
was in that case, it took that eight ten inches

(46:30):
of snow that little weather event, and it was literally
a three or four day weather event, and then assume
as it melted it was over. And I watched of
course the cameras postseason and for that matter, that entire year,
because they were so full of fat from the acorn
prop that we had. It took significant snows in February
to put him in the corn. Uh and you know,

(46:51):
a mild weathers that we had even January February, no
one's been in the woods for a month and a half.
The deer still weren't hitting those feels the way that
I would have expected them too. They were just you know,
obviously in really good body condition. And that goes back,
you know when we were talking about body condition before. Uh,
my clients on a whole. When we see a deer

(47:11):
that's got a significant limp or you know, it's got
some kind of issue going on right now from fighting
or other things, we're batting, probably about to carvest that
deer on an energy packed food source like the carbohydrate
like corn or dry soybeans, things like that. We're back
and probably to harvest that deer in the next couple

(47:33):
of weeks and and they're when they're kind of getting
beat up and they're trying to repair their body. We
do extremely well harvesting those deer, you know when when
they get to that point, Uh, it's it's uh. I've
had two or three of them that showed up just
in the in the last couple of days with customers
that you know, Buck we've been chasing for two or
three years and had finally we got him and oh,

(47:54):
by the way, you know, somebody poking at Earners rerent
and uh, and he was a little bit beat up
and finally he's it up during daylight hours. Mhmm. Kind
of on this on this similar topic a little bit.
You know, we're talking about weather and snow and things
like that, how that might push these late season this
late season action up. Do you give any credence to

(48:15):
tracking things like barometric pressure or the moon setting, rising phases,
anything that does that have any effect in your mind
on when would be a good time to hunt at
this time of year. I'm watching it and watching it
pretty close, so I'm trying really hard to marry that
type of lunar stuff that's out there, and that's we

(48:36):
call that observational science versus the hard science that's being
done safety in the Quality of Dear Management Association, where
they have GPS colors on deer and they have you know,
scientists that in a lot of cases aren't hunters, you know,
watching deer doing their thing and translating that data. So
you have two different schools of thought, the observational science
of the moon rising and following and barometric pressures and

(49:00):
all that. There. There's a lot of good deer getting
killed that way. But if you were to look at
the cheap lot of the cheaps day of this out there,
and you really trying to objectively evaluate, there's not a
whole lot of scenarios there that are affecting too much.
The wight deer move. Um, so catching up with the
moons in the sky and that kind of thing and
the feeding, I'm conscious of it in but I'm not

(49:23):
basing my soul hunting strategy around it. I'm really more
towards kind of the more of than now of the
weather and things. Not probably not that much of a
moon guy. Okay, Okay, Yeah, It's been one of those
things this year that both Dan and I have been
trying to learn more about and asking all the various
people we talked to about and it's interesting. I think
we're hearing more and more. UM. I think that's probably

(49:44):
the most common way that people look at it is
weather seems to be you know, first and four once
was really going to make things happen, But things like
the moon pressure, there might be some ancillary effects that
are interesting to pay attention to and see what might happen. So,
you know, the neat part about that is we're we
call you know, we're the modern hunter now when we

(50:05):
have technology and information available to us that that no
other generation hunters have have. UH, in the next five years,
that the question that you've had is probably going to
be answered pretty darn well with science. So we're on
the cost of understanding a lot of those things and
what they mean to hear and and UH. It's a
pretty fun time to try to observe and learn and
in some cases change your opinion. There's some stuff that

(50:27):
I was convinced of, and I'm kind of dialed into
this stuff I was convinced of five or six years
ago that it's been turned in his head in the
last couple of years ago on howe you know, Um,
I guess uh, I guess that that science really disproved
that that was kind of observational, live style type things.
So some of that stuff is really changing, you know,
almost on a on a yearly basis. There are some

(50:48):
fascinating studies, like you mentioned, we had We had Matt
Ross from the QT May on the show a few
weeks ago and he shared some recent studies that were
similar to what you said, kind of upturned some of
our assumptions about dear behavior and things like that. And
it's interesting, like you said, to see what some of
this hard data can show. UM. But also like also
like you mentioned, UM, lots of times these are these

(51:10):
studies are conducted maybe by non hunters, and maybe there's
a little bit of you know, different interpretations you can
take on some of this, but if nothing else, is fascinating, UM.
And it's another interesting piece of data putting the hopper
as you try to start making these decisions. UM. So
we've talked about this drone strike idea, which is, you know,
something that I like to think about the entire year,

(51:31):
you know, especially October and December. Is that time frame
that you know, making this type of drone strike. Part
one is knowing the right timing. Part two is knowing
where to be. And a big part of knowing where
to be during the late season, as we've talked about,
is food. What do you think or what in your
opinion are the best food sources to be keying in

(51:52):
on at this time of year, both if you can
control food on your property with food plots or crops
or something like that, and then on alternative, if you
don't have the ability to have that kind of man
made food source, what kind of natural food sources should
we be king in on. If there isn't anything food
plot or egg field related, let's start a natural just
so I'm liable to go off crazy on the food

(52:14):
plot type things. So if I start with the natural foods,
I'm looking for native foods. I'm looking for brushy, overgrown, weedy,
grassy fields with shrubs in them and brambles and wire
patches in them and things like that. So it's it's
so thick, little pockets of brush and and if you're

(52:34):
evaluate the available food breaker and that stuff in September,
you're gonna have you might have two or three thousand
pounds of edible breaker in that environment to a white
field deer. I mean, it's the same thing as you're
gonna get out of over field for going to say,
in those blushing environments of the post first process, it
starts to windle down a little bit. We get this
time of year it's dwindling down again, but it's probably
still head and shoulders above what we're going to find

(52:57):
in your wood lots unless you're dealing with acorns, you know,
right the probably areay kind of gets the acorns to pay.
If we get acorns land the ground go hu um.
It's the it's the kind of the magic being of
the deer world that they're going to be. You know,
keep on working. But those brushy fields that where I'm
really a key in, and I get a lot of
deer in those grassy open areas this time of year,
I've seen a lot of deer in them, and I

(53:18):
think they're also going to stop. The guys aren't putting
much pressure on it. You don't see a lot of
people kind of hunting those overgrown grassy dogwood areas uh
too much in you know, camping onm on them. And
there's a really neat place that I've had a chance
to spend some time hunting back here in my home state.
And we've got a couple of great, big power blinds
and we can literally watch from two tower blinds like

(53:40):
eight dred acres worth of areas. And these are THEUS
you know, ten years ago there were planted corn fields
have been allowed to go fellow, and it was a
real big eye opener to watch the lont of deer
that used these fields even up into the December period
or betting they got out of the woods. Who got
the heck away from any potential hunting pressure was there.
They got marriage where they're very visible. They can kind
of detect danger coming from a long distance with the eyes,

(54:03):
and they got the whole nose thing going. They got
a lot of escape patterns. But we could watch and
you might be, you know, watching a hundred acre section
of this this grass and brush, and then at three
thirty you haven't seen a deer all day. You know,
seven bucks stand up at three third and you know
where in the world that they come from, and they're
just kind of throwed in that grass. They stand up,
eats some forwards and dig down and through there and
get some good stuff. And in this in a particular scenario,

(54:26):
there's some food plots involved, so eventually they would typically
drift to the food plots and having watched a deer
in that natural environment and then the food plot environment
all kind of from you might be watching here from
three cours a mile away. Um, they're hitting the food
plots maybe maybe thirty percent of the nights that they're
up on their feet before they got to the plot. Um.

(54:48):
In some cases there are only two yards in the plot. See,
you have no chance of getting in between them and
the plot. But but it's really interesting to see. So
I look for the natural vegetation. That way, if we
get out of the natural vegetation, go acting the eggs
side of things. Why it's a little bit warmer um
than than kind of that cold you know, pedigrees below
normal that we're looking for a little bit warmer like

(55:09):
we're having now. I have lots of reports coming in
of guys doing extremely well on like a winter week
right now, clover. So they're on greens, they're still consuming proteins,
and they're they're working protein pretty well. Of course, grassicas
like forge rapes and stuff like that are are still
doing extremely well. Uh So those are kind of the

(55:30):
key food sources that we're seeing deer on, and it
kind of goofs up a lot of people's hunting strategy
because he usually not centering that late season stuff in
and around the clover field that they're doing really well
right now. Um, all thats are off the temperatures truck,
especially with frozen ground. I'm not seeing a lot of
beer using frozen clover field. So usually if it gets
down and we get you know, good below freezing temperatures

(55:51):
were there too, they tend to get off of that
frozen venetation gets something a little bit easier to consume.
The next favored thing was go back to a little
bit more of a normal year dried soybeans. Dried soybeans,
I think there is about head and shoulders of upstanding corn.
I see they have soybean fields typically all things being equal,
getting consumed before year will go to corn. Uh and

(56:15):
they're they're they're usually hitting them that late November December
period and for that metaphere, as long as those beans
are available and as the weather really starts to sock in,
then they transition to corn. So the corn is kind
of the third level of food that they would be
going to in about the same time they're hitting corn.
You know, your turnips are starting to kick in turn

(56:36):
up by nature. I don't think it's very attractive to deer.
I think, uh, you know, all this whole starts to
sugar things happening. They are getting sweet, and I think
bottom line is everything else is getting consumed and you know,
getting cross to delay and all of a sudden they're
looking pretty good because everything else is ground and wealthy
and dead, and now it's time to eat turnips. But
that can also be a really good late seasoned food.

(56:57):
So we look at those to come into their own
in early shake here and in good shape. You're pretty
quick guys in Ohio and Iowa. Where you're gonna be,
I'll find I'm having a heck of a time getting
to the turn ups in a warm year like this, Uh,
just because of your densities are high enough in an
uncut pressure for the food. If they're in a high
deer density area and they're really looking seeking food, and

(57:18):
then you know what, you can do really well on
the turnip patch in the next couple of days. But
I'm really thinking the warm weather it is overs may
not be a bad bet right now, All right, now,
I know you're enjoying what Neil has been sharing so far,
but we do need to pause briefly for word from
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(58:43):
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But the fact is is what whatever is in the air, Okay,
you know, I uses the example of the skunk. You know,
you've been somewhere and you snot the skunk that you
couldn't see a skink, so you knew where skunk is there,
but you're the same wing, and so they recognize human odor. Well,

(59:08):
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(59:29):
once that happens, once the seeded bite happens in that
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osonics hunting dot com. And now let's get back to
the show. Interesting Now you laid out several different scenarios.

(01:00:15):
They're based on different conditions in which food source might
be the ideal one. What if I'm the kind of
guy who I've got a forty acre piece or hundred
acres behind my house, whatever it is, and I've got
one food plot that I can set aside as a
late season food plot. Maybe it's an acre, half an
acre acre and half something like that, relatively small food plot,
and I can only have one late season spot. What

(01:00:37):
is your choice for that one late season food plot
that would give me the greatest breadth of opportunity across
the late season. I'm gonna try to always I'm really
trying to squeeze as much out of as I can.
So I'd like you to explore and wrap your head
around the possibility of putting an electric defense around that field,
and goopy is that might sound. We're doing small acreage plantings.

(01:01:00):
Spend a little bit of money, put an electric fence
around and keep the deer out of it until you
want it late in the year. Because keep in mind,
if you plan on one acre corn field, there's five
thousand pounds of kernel in there that can be blown
up and used up in in thirty or forty five
days worth of hunting. You know when the deer, when
the corn drives down, deer start to use it. And
by the time we get the right now December, there's
nothing lots, so they're not using it. So really, if

(01:01:24):
you're open to the idea, put an electric fence around
the field, and if you're willing to do that. I
take an awful hard look at planning soybeans. I'm real
high and planning soybeans during the summer. I wish I
could put the deer and let them feed on them,
but they're going to use them up too much. If
that's the case, let the beans get up mature. We
get all the bean pods and sometime depending on the

(01:01:44):
type of bean you're planning, in the late August period
of time you know, those bean skyters start to dry
down and turn you actually can go out there broadcast
in a brassica or a turn up right over top
of those beans with a hand broadcaster. As the leaves
fall off, the beam means and we start to get
some you know, some sunlight to the ground. I guess
a lot that stuff is gonna germinate come up underneath.

(01:02:06):
In some cases you can get two crops out of
one with with limited amount of soil disturbance, and have
a three thousand pounds of beans sitting there, plus an
understory admittedly small kind of young grassica which you've got
some greens underneath their pretty, it's good shape. Then you
would drop the fence if you're trying to target. I
mean you're talking, you know, two weeks before huding, before

(01:02:27):
you really want to get that late season hunt, kick
hands and uh and try to put the deer in there.
If you're willing to do that. If you don't want
to do the kind of that fence idea, then look
at planting something that's gonna be if you're in a
relatively hide your number, something that's not attractive to them.
I'm gonna go back to like a turniffex. Some of
these radishes that are out there probably not that attractive,

(01:02:48):
and the tuber form plant some of it uh in
in chances our idea, we're leaving nothing it alone that's
going to be there late there in late in the year.
Watch a grassicas. You know, we've been planning them for
years and property in the first three or four years,
dear stay away from until we get that snow pile
up their late season, and then all of a sudden
they developed a taste for it. Soon it comes out
of the ground. So we're seeing that happen in some

(01:03:10):
of the smaller plantings as well. When it comes to things.
And I'm real high on corn for late in the year.
When it comes to corn, unless we have a super
low dear density, unless we can keep the dear out
of it somehow. I'm not a big fan of planning.
You know, one acre corn fields and things like that,
they just get used up too much. I'm kind of
typically in my mind thinking of minimum two acres too
and a half acres of corn. Go back to your

(01:03:31):
original question, if you had forty or fifty acres, you
need to plan for this possible scenario. Maybe some carbohydrates
in the form of corn or beans, and then you
know what, you need to have a border over around
the thing just in case it happens to stay warm
like it is right now, and and maybe a strict
plants of reska and there, and you have a little
bit of a little bit of variety, a little bit

(01:03:52):
everything to make sure you cater to whatever the weather
is can offer for that here. So when I'm working
with clients, they're five or six tools, and that kind
of went through the top tool plants that we use.
There's five or six tools that we use for late
the year, and even if I'm doing a small piece
of ground, I make sure that all those tools are
available just in case the weather's going you know, cold,

(01:04:14):
or it's going to be warm. So we have a
little bit of variability and we're not sunk if the
weather turns one way or another, we're not prepared for it.
It's something you mentioned there, and I'm kind of you
probably kind of already answered what I'm going to ask you,
but I just want to rephrase this question. Um. As
I've talked to different people when it comes to thinking
through food plots and what you plant, there seems to
be a couple different schools of thought. I hear some

(01:04:35):
people that like to plant, you know, pure food plot,
one thing in a certain area, and they know that
that certain food plot because of what's planned there. Let's
say it's just a straight clover field. They know that
because of they know what it is, and they know
when dear prefer to hit it. They know, okay, during
this part of the season or during there's these types
of conditions, I hunt here, and then they have a different,
separate spot that that this is gonna be the late

(01:04:57):
season plot because it's just brassicas. And so this school
thought has separate plots of one thing, and they know
that hunt here with this condition, hunt here that condition.
The second school of thought is more in line with
the type of the scenario you just mentioned there, where
you put together some type of plot that should be
consistently attracting deer throughout the entire season. Maybe it's a
mixture of clover and brassa because like you mentioned, or

(01:05:19):
strips of snybeans and winter weed or whatever it is
um and then that develops a consistent pattern regardless of
the time of the season. Do you have a preference,
do you like to always have all of your poo
food plots be a combo that keeps them coming all year.
Or do you ever do straight plannings where you know
that it will be dead during the winter but great
in early season. I don't know what are your thoughts

(01:05:40):
on those two things. Yeah, absolutely, I mean that now
you're getting into the real science, as we call that
gear escaping, you know, laying out the property landscaping for deer.
So before we get into the deer escaping conversation, We've
talked in the past about this, but I'm a huge
kind of wind is the key to doing everything in
the property. And and so when I'm first looking in

(01:06:00):
a piece of property I have on the table, maybe
we're going to put kind of calm feeding destination areas
and we might have the multiple proper system, or I
might be doing certain pots, you know, scattered in clovers
go here and blasts go here. So I might be
using one of those two tools. In What drives me
to make that decision is hunter access number one. If

(01:06:20):
I have a couple of spots where the hunters can
get to super low pressure and they can you know,
the best case in the world, they walk up over
a ridge of ravine and they pop up just barely
visible and they can see an open field, and they
can build an open field. That's there. I said, man,
we've got a tremendous situation, especially if it was favorable
for west or northwest winds that certifically get late in

(01:06:41):
the year. This is an ideal location for a big
destination feeding area. You know, maybe the scent from that
tree stand blows out over top of the road, or
blows across the river, or blows out into an open
hay field or something like that. Work here aren't expected
to come from. You know, those are perfect scenarios too
for everything that can sink at them. Uh. So that's

(01:07:02):
kind of gonna be wind dependent in that case, hunter
dependent if they get to and from it. Uh. The
other thing, I would go back to the winds if
we have areas where the winds are very consistent for
three d and sixty degrees worth of hunting. By that,
I mean hilltops. So flat land guys are planting more
strategic where they put you know, color plot up here
in the north end, and we put a brasket plot

(01:07:24):
up here in the west end, and they don't worry
so much about this whole swirling wind that I'm talking about.
But if you're in hill country like I am, we
were really focusing on what the wind's gonna do, if
it's gonna be steady and true or be very turbulent
on the back side of a hill, based at the
time of the year. Uh, and we plant accordingly. So
in those environments, I'd say, well, we get a lot

(01:07:46):
of south winds first part of those seasons, so the
areas where the winds are gonna be steady and true,
I plant my clovers in those locations. I might even
plant some teas in those locations super attractive early in
the year. And then they eat it off the dirt
and turns there's nothing left, and and then they focus
on another couplet. They go to a different part of
the property, and maybe they're transitioning to a part of
the property that's no more conduces to hunt during the

(01:08:08):
westerly winds or northwesterly winds. So we can kind of
almost by the season and by the wind direction and
lead them to the most productive spots to hunt based
on wind currents, based on their food preference. So there's
there's a real science to trying to figure out what
you were just asking about. And every property is going
to be a little bit differently, but they're a little
bit different. For the variables that I first looked at

(01:08:29):
are going to be can I get the hunter to
and from that location? And then to what's the wind
scenar area going to be? How consistent is going to be? Uh?
If I look back to our research center, right, if
I say research center, I mean it's it's where my
dad and I hunt and and we've got done a
lot of habitat research and books about the place. But
the bottom line is, you know, this time of year,
it's it's our hunting camp, it's not the research center. Um.

(01:08:50):
There's one spot up on top of the hill where
I had pretty good access. I could get to it,
I could get away from it. And it was literally,
you know, a six year plan for me. I created
sinction worry. I created betting cover all in the proper
locations to kind of get the deer used to laying
in certain areas. And they admit the bullet and actually
hired a dose or bottom in and we we cleared
five acres. What was localis and you know, piling up

(01:09:13):
white oaks and oaks and everything else, because I had
the perfect scenario for a food plot to be on
the build up there that no matter what the wind
direction was, I could hunt it. I could come at
it from the outside edges. And we you know, was
take twenty years of doing this kind of stuff and
build the perfect mousetrap. And in that case, I have
clover planet there right now. I have some winter wheat

(01:09:34):
that was planted in there. I have ample amount of corn.
I don't do beans because I'm too high evlevation. With
elevation of beans really don't grow very well. But I
have everything with the kitchen sink on that particular spot.
Take up and move outside of that where it's easy
for me to hunt. And I go into a spot
that's only good during south winds, and I'm literally just
planning clovers in that location. I don't want the deer

(01:09:57):
going there late in the year. I was hoping it
gets covered up by know and by default they go
from being able to eat you know, fifteen acres or
too plots to seven by the time we get to
this late season hunt. Uh. And it happens to be
the spots at work for me for access and and
min Wow. So there's there's definitely a lot to that
thought process that I put it together. I mean, it's

(01:10:19):
it's if you're if you you know, can kind of
work your way through the wind thing. You take a
clear transparency, put an aerial photograph down and sketch on
the transparency where the winds are steady and true, and
put lead texes where the winds really nasty. And then
you lay another transparency, you know, clear sheet over top
of it. Here's how we walk to our stands and
lay another transparency over and you can kind of build

(01:10:40):
this whole layer of thing and and and it doesn't
take long. Study in that that way you say, wow,
there's I could actually plant this one here and it's
good for shout winds and planting early season food and
something gets used up. I mean, you can you can
work a piece of property that way, if you're working
with a piece. Yeah. I love that chess aspect of
putting a property together like that. That's that's pretty cool. Um, Dan,

(01:11:03):
I know that you have got to bounce pretty shortly.
Do you have a last question for Neil before we
lose you? Yeah? Um, And it's kind of taking a
three sixty turn here, and it's kind of talking about
management from management level. And let's say you have a
food source, right, it's kind of a hard winter, and
we all know that deer kind of group up in

(01:11:24):
numbers and they attack the available foods, the you know,
the the easiest available food source in this late season,
and then they move on to the next one or uh,
you know, or the snow melts and then they can
go back into the timber. How do you how do
you get an accurate number of how many deer are

(01:11:44):
supposed to be on your property and and um, and
how do you plan for that particular food source knowing
that there could be instances where you know, you may
have the only food plot or the only food source
and three or four properties and every deer in the
area is going to get sucked to that until it's gone. Yeah. Um, yeah,

(01:12:09):
that's a really difficult scenario. And the way you do
that it's with trial and error. So you're gonna have
to plan a little bit and kind of sort things out. Um.
So when we're looking at kind of the biology side
of things, we're hopefully doing some deer census numbers, you know,
in the months and in September first part of October
or you know, mid September, first part of October. We're

(01:12:31):
working through some deer census to get an idea of
what you're to the ratios might be your fond recruitments
and and from all that, there's lots of stuff work
about that. Now, from all that, you can determine how
many dose ought to be harvested and kind of get
an idea what your numbers are. And then you you
you forget about the ruck because everything's really skewed and
you can use observational data, you know, just time and
the stand to to calculate those numbers. Forget about the

(01:12:53):
ruck because everything is stewed heavily towards fox and movements
a little bit goofy and then need the floodgates open,
so you play to that core field. And my my
research center is that same way. There is no one
and investing the energy and planting for probably five miles.
And when the weather piles up and the guys are
pounding their woods, driving deer and other stuff, we had

(01:13:14):
pretty heavy and deer numbers. I mean, I might be
dealing with the numbers of of UH. I hope that
when locals listening but we might be dealing with h yeah,
and if I want to say this, it could be
many eight ninety year persp a mile in there. Uh
you know, we're talking about twenty five or thirty bucks
on the on the property in this next week. We
can half if the weather had to cooperated and so

(01:13:35):
things get really heavy, how do I keep enough food
to keep them healthy? That's a really difficult scenario. And
and and quite honestly ends up how much can you
budget the plant and any work through? And I have
I've taken our on just the kind of new nutrition
side of things. I'm taking a little bit different uh step.
I have made the leap of faith where I'm comfortable

(01:13:55):
on this whole electric fencing and keeping plots um keeping
deer out of the plot us. And you know, my
little honey hoole, I was telling you about. I have
three and a half acres of corn planting there right now.
I keep two and a half acres of that corn
field undisturbed, which by weight you know, there's ten thousand
pounds where the current uh kind of I keep it
away from the deer and don't let them have access

(01:14:17):
to that corn. And and I based them the weather,
I dropped that fence and left them in sometime late.
My goal there's I do want late season hunting, but
I'm not you know, strictly just I gotta kill these deer.
My goal is to find a happy medium where I'll
have food getting through the end of February, uh in
in the March period, and if I have food they

(01:14:39):
maintain until that time of year. I want to get
the extra bunk because they can pick up a bunch
of antlers around there. So I do the rewards from
that um. But that's that keeps the body fat content high,
and that lets those three year olds and four year
olds they're kicking around, you know, do what they want
them to do for next year for antlers. So we
do try to work pretty hard on that. In some
cases that just keep them away for some food and

(01:15:00):
kind of give them access to the food when they
need it late in the year or you know play Honestly,
when we're talking about all this floodplat stuff, if you
have deer descending on your fields in your area, like Locus,
the best possible thing that you can do late in
the year is to concentrate a natural habitat inspiring up
the chainsaw. It's doing natural habitat work. And for every

(01:15:21):
hour work to do out there, it's cheap work. One
you'll generate sustaining food that will carry them for winter's upcoming,
you know, far beyond the next couple of years. Just
for this natural food production, you can really get a
lot out of it. So, you know, those those types
of things we do a lot in a were on
to pay attention to our gear. But it's a tough
scenario when you draw every deer from the neighborhood and

(01:15:41):
it's real, you know, attempting to get in the situation
you say, hey, you know there's fifteen, there's twenty deer
show up for the food. While I wanted my body
is all in. We need to shoot a polo dose
and try to balance things things things out. In a
lot of cases, you're that artificial concentration screwing your numbers
so much you may not want to be harvesting heavily.

(01:16:01):
Those those the way that you you know, maybe trying
to plan and do that could hurt you the following year. Yeah,
and uh, that's something I'm actually dealing with to a
degree in one of my properties in Michigan where I've
been trying to figure out, you know, is this population
purely skewed by time of year and the available food,
or is this something that's a larger year round issue

(01:16:23):
that I need to be being concerned about. Um. And
I think to your point a while ago, is that
something like a trail camera survey where you're getting accurate
census of dear population at several times during the year
is probably a key, um, a key tactic to to
really use to make that proper decision. It seems like, um. Yeah,
And it's like right now on this property, I'm doing

(01:16:44):
a camera poll tomorrow morning at seven o'clock on this piece.
And I'm going to see tomorrow morning, uh, and I'll
do a camera poll one. We're doing a little strategic
you know, set up for where we're hopefully smart one
of these old boys in the next couple of days.
But too, I'm taking another snapshot. Yeah, we have actually
pulled back. We've got a real heavy cattle population of
heavy better population here. Our fond recruitment has been low,

(01:17:07):
and I put the brakes on do harvests this year
for the first time in seven or a year, so
we've we've actually not harvested anything. I'm gonna go back
and take a well quick let a look at the
census numbers and see whether or not we're gonna take
some camp beat this year in shoot a pudos or
we need to kind of ride the hard line and
not do that. But we weigh, say, my decisions based

(01:17:28):
on the September census in right now, the numbers that
you might be getting in your Michigan property or I'm
getting here in my need a property. That's going to
weigh into the conversation. But it's probably not can beet
equal weights in September, but it's definitely needs to be
addressed and looked at as as to what's happening on
a piece of property and make advantagement decisions. Speaking of
trail cameras, kind of jumping topics here, but when it

(01:17:49):
comes to in season scouting at this time of year,
what if anything do you do And it sounds like
trail cameras is part of them, and maybe you can
um elaborate on that, but what kind of scouting do
you do during the late season to make sure you're
in the right spot? Um, trail cameras are otherwise all right,
So the trail cameras were obviously revolution. I here hunting, right,

(01:18:11):
and the trail camera is keeping probably seventy percent of
my clients from killing the deer. And they should kill
every year because they can't stay away from the darn
things and and they've got to keep going. And you know,
it's at some point it transitions from being you know,
I'm getting good data, well back to this whole drone thing.
I'm kind of looking for the deer too. I'm getting

(01:18:32):
the beauty pageant. I want to just keep setting my
buddy's six more pictures of the suck at one o'clock afore.
And if you're in that that scenario and you're not
gathering the good data and you're just kind of just,
you know, gathering some pictures, and that's that's good. That
you might be dis hindering things by going to frequent
the cameras too much. I have. I've got a couple

(01:18:52):
of new guys that that I'm hunting with this year,
and on our personal piece in Brian and Terror are
pulling their hair out right now because I haven't checked
their cameras in three weeks and they're going, what in
the world is going on here? You know? The guys.
I can't. You're you're a little bit too sensitive, You're
a little bit too deep in. I'm checking. There's nine
cameras out there. I am keeping tracking these ones that
are on the fringes where I can get to them

(01:19:14):
really easy, and if we get close to it, will
pull those cameras and see what's there. But I'm not
making a separate trip in the middle lightful season and
see what's going on. And I just fear kind of
jacking things. I'm not grand. I know the property pretty well.
We have a pretty good idea what's going on with
with the deer, and we're keeping track. I am, let's
call it, with a high level frequency, keeping track of

(01:19:35):
my carbohydrate food cameras, so my corn or my beans.
I would be looking at those kind of frequency every
seven days, ten days, the middle of the day check.
You know, we're real sensitive to winds, preferably some nasty
stuff for you. Don't think you're gonna be sentive, you know,
And and uh, I'm not doing any kind of really
cautious about checking those cameras outside of those windows. When

(01:19:56):
it's kind of a perfect I'll rather skip a week
rather than keep fun checking him um and and go
that route. So it's and if you're in an area
we're wireless works for you and you have a T
and T coverage, My goodness, I mean it's it's The
cameras aren't quite as good as some of your kind
of hardcore cameras out there, but you might miss the

(01:20:17):
camera photo potentials. But you you know, you put a
camera in place and leave it there for a month
and it text messaging pictures. That's a pretty nice way
to go. So if your state hasn't hasn't you know,
put the commas on those type of cameras and that's
an awful nice way to keep tracking things. Super look, pressure,
do you ever do essentially observation sits during this time

(01:20:41):
of year where you're in the tree or in a
tree somewhere, but really you're scouting a different place? Do
you ever sacrifice a hunt just to scout visually? Ever?
All the time, all the time. So I'm I actually
hunted last week. I was hunting pretty hard. I had
a really good buck that showed upside my house and
was hunting him pretty hard. I went in and hunted him,

(01:21:02):
you know, right in on him on the food source
one one day, and I spent the next four days,
and I spout where I potentially could kill him, um
if he came to the right corner of the field,
but I was kind of out of his zip code
a little bit. But more importantly, I could get there
and observe and get out without screwing up the entire field.
And its twenty some deer that we're working the field.

(01:21:23):
So I will go on that fringe shot quite a
bit and quite frankly this late period of time, unless
I have good intel that tells me to go to
the core, you know, go to that perfect will inside
corner and hunt the food plot. Unless there's something that's
that's compelling me to go there with camera data or
something else that I've seen. I'm hunting the fringe, you know,

(01:21:46):
observing from as far away as I can't, still hunting
and kind of keep track of things, uh in in
but I'm not going right in there unless I have
a good idea that I have, you know, stacked the
deck in much of my favorites at all possible, and
that's the luxury of sometimes so I can kind of
play that game. If I'm a Saturday and Sunday hunter,
you know, I might be a little bit more aggressive

(01:22:06):
with my style of hunting and kind of get there
in on, but I'm trying. I am burning a lot
of sits still in the field and the woods and
kind of on the fringes, kind of keeping track of
what's going on in over the years, you know, I've
killed quite a few good deer that way, and that
if they know they've they've transitioned to the downward side
of that group blod they kind of swung in there.

(01:22:27):
You know, there's been kind of a lot more sensitive
to how they enter the field now, and you know,
if you're all the way on the downward side of
a fifteen acre field, you're still liable to have those
bucks coming in cruise down there as they try to
verify with their noses. There's nothing out in the field,
so sometimes that you know you used to be right
on the core point where they would enter the field
three weeks ago, it's not the place where you want
to be there. They're using the nosis to back do

(01:22:49):
those areas from quite a distance. So if you kind
of measure up and get to the point where they
would be investigating the field of their nose, plus you
can still kind of see that social gathering area in field,
and I'd be watching a lot of deer three hundred yards,
but you might find that you're you're killing the big
buck that you want at forty as he swings around,
it kind of checks the field first before he heads
out there. So it sounds like, based on what you

(01:23:11):
just said there and some of the things we talked
through a little earlier, that most of your hunts at
this time of year are pretty darn close to the food,
almost right on top of it. Um Is that is
that accurate? Um? Or? Are you? Are you a little
bit farther back sometimes? Now? You know, Mark, I am
uh personally right now on my personal farms and probably

(01:23:34):
with the vast majority of my clients again have the
ability of plant and management their property. We're basing probably
ninety five percent of or man hours on the food
plots himselves right now, and and we're killing the vast
majority of the deer. We're killing her in the plot.
So if I look at it as a couple of
years ago, I did an observational native collection with with

(01:23:55):
my clients and polled, Oh it wasn't a lot of
people probably polled, you know, hundred and fifty properties of
guys that are pretty serious about it. And overall they
spent nine of their hours were in food plots themselves, hunting,
you know, get the outdoor channel experience and shoot them
over green during the low seasons, about fifteen maybe twenty
percent of the box. Maybe the three year olds are better.

(01:24:15):
We're killed in the food plot, seventy five percent of
the we're killed back in the woods. You know, that's
still the guys who are still logging ninety five percent
of their man hours on the food plot themselves and
still can only killing of the deer there. So five
percent of the time during the woods they're killing you know,
seventy five percent of the deer back there in the woods.
So that should probably a little bit about getting not
the plot. But when you get to this late season hunt,

(01:24:37):
I mean literally, we are taking less than ten percent
of our bucks off the fields this time of year.
Everything is being taken right there on on those food
sources and catch them showing up. And but again, these
are guys who have the ability to kind of play
that standoffic game and and hunts of the time is
right and and uh and in the low pressure they

(01:24:57):
don't have to play the aggressive move and go and
try to catch them off the ridge and you know,
well four five guys are coming at them from the
other side. You know what opening day honey pressure type
of scenarios. Yeah, yeah, that's that makes things a lot different,
that's for sure. So we are coming up here on time,
and I've got about fifteen other things that I want

(01:25:18):
to talk to you about. But I guess we've covered
some really some really great core topics I think related
to late season hunting. UM. And so maybe I'll throw
one more at you that we might be able to
cover something maybe we didn't talk about, maybe it's something
we already did. Um. But if you had to pick
the most common or most damaging mistake that you see

(01:25:40):
your clients or other hunters that you've talked to making
at this time of year, what do you think that
most Commum mistake is. Um, most Colum mistake is right
now hunting when they probably ought not to be hunting
in that prime location. UM. So I've had a couple
of plants and is talked to you just in the
last couple of days. This is why I do if
I hit it too hard in the last three or

(01:26:02):
four days of both season trying to fill that boat
tag in and now rightful seating. Their gun seasons rolled
around and beer pretty well burned up and they've used
up the area. So they they playing the chess game
a little bit too hard upon portion. It's gonna take
some kind of bout back. So managing pressure, i would say,
is the one thing where people are making a lot
of mistakes right now and letting these bucks get a

(01:26:24):
little bit of breathing room and get through. And there
is the longer I'm doing this for more time I'm
spending with deer and clients and really get to kick
out of observing. Let me beer teach, teach me a
lot of things, and more I'm seeing that there is
there's very few opportunities there is to force um and
encounter with those big deer. I mean, forget about deer

(01:26:45):
driving that kind of thing that the force by charging
in there and going for him. That it's a difficult
scenario to make play year after year and then make
work for you. I'm reminding of a GPS study that
was done in Pennsylvania recently were they they actually studied
the hat collar deer uh and they went through I
believe was GPS. I know they had college deer maybe

(01:27:05):
a radio tilemeterry that I'm pretty fairly share it was
a GPS study for the level of proceedson. But the
way it worked was they had their opening day of
bear season, uh, and they open to a bear season.
You know, if you're not famili where the p a
it's the right of passage for hunters. It's a week
before they're gone to and starts up and you know,
fifteen twenty guys get in. Then they drive these mountains
back and forth. They do a lot of pushing and

(01:27:27):
pushing the tickets and it drives me crazy because I
have guys are super serious about the deer hunting and
could really care less about their hunting. They go and
they drive there and you know, four or five hundred
acre pieces the week before they have to go out
for rifle season. What the GPS collar told us is,
you know, deer arranging covering five acres or square mile
depends on the individual deer in his personality. And that

(01:27:49):
pressure kicked in and literally, you know, dear went down
to the fifteen or twenty a or a little post
to stand forth the grounds as they're covering, and they
stayed that way for the next forty five or fifty nights.
That's through that constant kind of wearing of hunting pressure.
And if if you can back off on me again
the sense of security for seven days, ten days, fifteen days,

(01:28:11):
if your season will allow it, you can get them
out of that little donuts that they've decided as the
core saint area that you probably have no chance of
killing them, and anyhow can get them back to more
managmal pattern. You can do that kind of drone strike
and dive in there and and and and have a
good hunt on them. And sometimes the best hunting strategy
for this late time of year is just to leave
alone and wait capitalize another one or two days went right,

(01:28:34):
and it's it's really hard to get used to that
style of strategy of staying out of the woods. This
is the most valuable thing that you can do to
set yourself up from that light that right couple of
day hunts. Yeah, that's a that's a perfect way to
end this up, because I think that is the exact
advice that I would give anyone, is that exact approach,
and probably the reason why I give them that advice

(01:28:54):
because I've read stuff from you and other people smarter
than me that have taught me that, and it's paid off.
So that is, that is, That's the ticket to late
season success as far as I'm concerned. Um, if you
can follow that, if you have that type of opportunity
and you can manage the and have the restraint to
be careful about when you go in there, wait for
the right time to strike, and know the right place

(01:29:15):
to be based on some careful observation or scouting, and
then wait for that right time, like you said, sending
the drone make it happen that first hunt. That's pretty exciting,
even though it takes some restraint and not hunting maybe
as much as you would like to. When it does
all come together, when you put those pieces in the
right places and it all happens the way you planned it,

(01:29:36):
that is a pretty incredible feeling. And uh, that's the
wonderful accomplishments. That's as Yeah, I absolutely agree. So Neil,
if people want to learn, well, well, first you've written
co author with You're Dead, two books that I really
really really highly recommend. Can you give us a quick,
quick high level overhel those two books, what those might

(01:29:59):
be about and uh and where they can learn more
about them from shameless bugging at the ending. I like that. Uh.
The h our first book really dealt with kind of
land management we call the grown lights um in the
order to our website North Country Light Sales dot Com.
Also another way can reach out to email me if

(01:30:19):
or reach out and buy telephoneis and questions if you'd like.
But the Growing Rights book really focused on designing habits
a piece of property that was conduced with the holding
game and holding beer. We spent a lot of time
working through those wind scenarios. I was telling you when
designing food plot, what the plant, how to manage the
overall habitat concepts, and kind of design the peaks um fiber.

(01:30:43):
Six years after you designed your piece of property, you're
gonna find that it's actually one of the most challenging
pieces of ground the hunt because there's only so many
tricks that you have available on any given piece. And
in the beer start to learn your patterns and your tricks. Uh.
White Tales from Grounds and Gun was the complimentary book
to that, and it was kind of the next level. Okay,
so now you figured out how to grow them? UM.

(01:31:06):
Now here's how we capitalize on a piece of property
and we start to harvest them consistently and we it's
a great lake. We talked about a lot of those
kind of Deer Bilogy stuff. We spent a lot of
time talking about the hunting aspect to owning a piece
of property and working with a piece of property long term,
how it's leasing or again you know, ownership, but working
with the hunting strategy associated with it to keep the

(01:31:27):
piece fresh and and we're really trying to explore the
landowners statifical kind of glass ceiling events that every pro has.
It's not a progression to gets better and better better
every year. You will hit stumbling blocks as you become
alerted two different things that are going on. So we
want to spend a lot of time with that in
the second book. So a little bit more hunting strategy
in the second book and a lot more of laying

(01:31:49):
it out in the first one. Rome right, Well, like
like I mentioned, those are two of my favorite books
when it comes to white Tails and everything Neil just
laid out there. There's all that and a lot more.
So I definitely recommend anyone if you haven't already go
to like you mentioned Neil North Country white tails dot com.
And if I'm wrong, but that would be the right

(01:32:09):
place for somebody to go if they're interested in learning
more about your consulting business as well. Right absolutely from
that you'll find an office number. This time you're in
the college office. Who was going to pop right out
to my cell phone? The in the truck somewhere, so, um,
you know, four o'clock in the afternoon, I'm probably doing
quote unquote field of research somewhere, maybe overcome the corn
field I was telling you about. Yeah, they'll reach out

(01:32:33):
to us that way. It's a great way to to
get in touch with us store and just sit the
You know, a lot of folks you are asking the questions,
and it doesn't have to belies. You ask some questions
you want to about some ide us off, we're here
to help and uh and and here to explore and
and and hopefully can pay some good information. Terrific. Well,
thanks for sharing all that, Neil, and thank you for
taking the last, you know, hour of your time, busy

(01:32:55):
time of year I know, for you to to share
these experiences and ideas and nights. I think, um, I
think everyone is going to be able to have something
they can apply to their hunts moving forward. So thank
you so much, Neil. Happy to do my favorite time here.
It's a great time. Well, good luck with the rest
of your hunts and hopefully we can chat with you
against soon. All right, Thanks guys, good luck to us here. Thanks,

(01:33:16):
bye bye, all right, and that is going to do
it for us today. As always, if you've enjoyed this episode,
we would love it if you could leave a rating
or review on iTunes. It's a huge, huge help for
us and other news. Also, be sure to check out
Wired to Hunt dot com slash shop to pick up

(01:33:37):
some Wired Hunt swag like our new flatbill hats, trucker hats,
and hoodies. And finally, as we do every week, we
need to give a big thank you to our partners
who helped make this show possible. So big thank you too,
sick A Gear Trophy, Ridge Bear Archery, Redneck Blinds, Hunter A, maps, Ozonics,
Carbon Express, Lacrosse Boots, and the White Tail Institute of

(01:33:58):
North America. So with all of that said, thank you
so much for joining us today. And even though Sweet
November is in the past, don't lose hope. The late
season can be a great season, so good luck out there,
and stay wired to hunt.

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Mark Kenyon

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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;}Wired To Hunt Podcast #82: Neil Dougherty’s Expert Advice for Late Season Success