Ep. 677: Whitetail Scouting Priorities and Strategies Leading into the Season

This week on the show, Tony and I are sharing our own strategies for scouting whitetails as we wrap up our month-long scouting series leading into the upcoming deer season.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey guys.

Speaker 2 (00:00):
Before we get into the show today, I want to
give you a quick heads up on our latest Working
for Wildlife Tour events that are coming up now. If
you are listening to this on the day this new
episode drops, which will be Thursday, July twenty seventh, twenty
twenty three, I believe we've got a Working for Wildlife
Tour event coming up this very weekend on Saturday, July

(00:22):
twenty ninth, up in the Panhandle of Idaho. So if
you are up there in the Northwest, if that's Montana, Idaho, Washington,
anywhere in that neck of the woods, please come on
out this Saturday from ten am to three pm. There's
going to be an after party at a local brewery.
But the main gist of this project is that we
will be getting a bunch of volunteers, together with our

(00:44):
partners at the National Deer Association and the United States
Forest Service to do some aspen habitat restoration work. We're
going to improve big game forage, increase forest health and resilience,
and do some good stuff for the critters out there
that we love to hunt. Come on out Saturday, July
twenty ninth out there in Idaho. The Details and registration

(01:05):
for the event can all be found over on the
National Deer Association website.

Speaker 3 (01:09):
If you just.

Speaker 2 (01:09):
Google Working for Wildlife Tour NDA, that will show you
a link to the registration page. Now, if you're not
in the West, don't lose hope. We've got another one
coming up in August in the Midwest. If you are
anywhere near Missouri, we've got you covered. On August twelfth,
that's a Saturday as well. We've got another Working for

(01:32):
Wildlife Tour event in partnership with backcountry hunters and anglers.

Speaker 1 (01:37):
This is gonna be some work we're gonna do at
the B. K.

Speaker 2 (01:39):
Leech Memorial Conservation Area, which is near Ellsbury, Missouri. I
think this is kind of like North Northwest Dish outside
of Saint Louis. It's gonna be a great time. We're
gonna be doing some wet prairie improvement. That's gonna include
some willow and cottonwood cutting, some seed harvesting, some invasive
species removal, and a few other cool things like that too.
So again doing good work for wildlife. We're going to

(02:02):
get together a bunch of hunters and anglers who care
about this stuff, have a good time and do something worthwhile.
It should be noted first twenty five folks at each
one of these events is going to get one of
our very cool I Work for Wildlife t shirts. There's
all sorts of other fun stuff going on this one.
On August twelfth, there's actually going to be a kind
of get together raffle storytelling event after the volunteer project

(02:26):
as well, So going over to the BHA events page
where you will be able to register for that event. Again,
that's August twelfth. The actual working aspect of that is
from eight to one and then the social get together,
the storytelling all that kind of stuff is going to
be from one to five. So hope to see you
guys there again. Please sign up either in Idaho on

(02:48):
July twenty ninth or August twelfth in Elsbury, Missouri. Looking
forward to seeing you guys shaking some hands, taking some pictures,
sharing some stories, and working for wildlife.

Speaker 1 (02:58):
Now to the show.

Speaker 4 (03:01):
Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your guide to
the whitetail Woods presented by first Light, creating proven versatile
hunting apparel for the stand, saddle or blind. First Light
go farther, stay longer, and now your host.

Speaker 2 (03:18):
Mark Kenyon, Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. This
week on the show, Tony and I are sharing our
own strategies for scouting whitetails as we review and wrap
up this month long scouting series. All right, welcome to

(03:41):
the Wired to Hunt podcast, brought to you by first Light.
And first Light is the maker of the Spector Whitetail Camo.
If you don't know, every purchase of Spector Whitetail Camo,
a portion of that purchase goes to support the National
Dear Association through our Camo for Conservation program.

Speaker 1 (04:00):
It's very cool.

Speaker 2 (04:01):
A few new things on the First Light side of things,
the source vest, the Origin pant, and the trigger flip
mitt have recently been released. Tony has recently been telling
me about the Origin pant. I'll tell you that the
source vest and the source jacket are something that I
actually was personally involved in designing over the last five years.
So I'm very biased, very happy with the outcome. So

(04:24):
check all those out over at first light dot com.
And yes, by now you can tell that your resident
guest host, Tony Peterson is not running the show this
week because I am Mark Kenyan, your host, and I'll
tell you what I've gotten over the beating that Tony
gave me immediate to trivia. I caught more trout over

(04:44):
the last few weeks than Tony could shake an ugly
stick at the Wizard Cosply competition is all wrapped up
and I killed it as Gandalf the White And that's
Gandalf after he fought the bell rog. That's for all
you nerds who don't know your Lord of the Rings
trivia and knows to anyone. Tony actually got called in
to take over for me in the lead role in

(05:06):
that kung fu film that Spencer's producing, because, as some
of you have likely guessed by now, Tony is much
better at faking competency than most, so ill seriousness. If
you haven't listened to the last four episodes, probably none
of that makes sense. We are here today to talk
about Deer, and Tony is with me as well, guest

(05:30):
hosting with me to wrap up the series on scouting
that you, Tony led for the last month. So thank
you for manning the ship and talking a whole lot
of smack while I was gone too.

Speaker 3 (05:43):
Listen to people just want to know Mark. You're a
busy guy.

Speaker 2 (05:46):
So we were driving home from a camping trip the
other day, and I was listening to one of these
episodes that you recorded while I was gone, and it
was the one where you opened by talking about how
me and Spencer were supposedly filming a kung fu film
and kicking at each other in our pajamas.

Speaker 1 (06:02):
While saying hiya.

Speaker 2 (06:04):
And my boys were listening because they were in the
car with me, and they just started cracking up. They
thought it was really, really, really funny. And then Everett said,
I think that's what you should do to Tony. You
should get dressed in your pajamas and kick at him
while saying hiya. So next time, next time we've got
a Bozeman sleepover, that's the game plan.

Speaker 1 (06:22):
All right.

Speaker 3 (06:23):
Look, I think I think three to seven year old
boys or my target market for my humor.

Speaker 1 (06:28):
Yeah, it killed with them. I'll give you that.

Speaker 3 (06:31):
Good good And I am glad that you're back to
talking to me after that trivia situation. Mark that it
feels good that we've got to mend these fences.

Speaker 2 (06:38):
Yes, I'm over it. It was a beating Barren Square.
I accept defeat graciously and I congratulate you.

Speaker 3 (06:46):
Hey, can we can we just talk about that for
a second, because the trivia that trivia show is weird.
Spencer does a really good job with it, but there's
like a it's like a weird level of anxiety and
stress when you're competing on there. I don't know if
it comes through or not, but sometimes he asked a
question and you're just like paralyzed, like I can't think

(07:10):
of I mean, it's just weird, like the pressure that
comes in there. So I know people listen to it,
you know, I'm sure they do this to you too.
They're like, oh, I got seven right out of this
one too, And I'm like, man, it's just different when
you're in the hot seat and you're sitting there and
you have to think in the moment. It's a weird experience.

Speaker 1 (07:26):
Oh my gosh.

Speaker 2 (07:26):
Yeah. Well the worst ever was and I think this
just I completely crumbled after I totally muffed on the
softball throw my way, which was the question about the
turty Point Buck, which is like this song I religiously
listened to all Hunting Season.

Speaker 1 (07:42):
I grew up on it.

Speaker 2 (07:43):
And that thing you just said it happened exactly to me,
Like it was remember this lyric from this song, so
imagine like trying to remember a lyric from one of
your favorite songs and that should be a piece of cake, right,
and it just like my brain went to crap and nothing.
There was no retrieval mechan anywhere, and uh, from there
it was just all downhill.

Speaker 1 (08:03):
So it was not my day.

Speaker 3 (08:05):
But dude, it's tough. I mean it. And there's some categories,
you know, when when I'm on there and they're like,
here's fishing, I'm like, oh, thank god, because Spencer's questions
on fishing, Like I feel usually pretty confident, but then
sometimes like the conservation or the food category, I'm just
like I if there's a if there's a question about

(08:28):
a food named after a city, I'm gonna have the
dumbest answer possible. Like I don't get those right, and
it drives me crazy.

Speaker 2 (08:35):
Yeah, well it doesn't help that, Like you've got a
lot of very competitive people. Like when you get like
a group of folks where everyone likes to be the winner,
you're inevitably a gonna get some fun, banter and good competition,
but yeah, some high some high stress levels too.

Speaker 3 (08:50):
Well I did it. I did discover a new thing
that I really really like, which is beating cal at
something like that, because I've never competed against him before.

Speaker 1 (08:59):
Well, congrats relations on that, Tony.

Speaker 3 (09:02):
He doesn't like he doesn't like being wrong.

Speaker 1 (09:04):
No, probably not. It was good though. It was fun.
I U.

Speaker 2 (09:12):
I enjoy getting the opportunity to get on there and
talks and smack dispenser and uh yeah, no complaints about that.

Speaker 3 (09:20):
Yeah, it's fun.

Speaker 1 (09:21):
Yeah, man, So trivia was fun.

Speaker 2 (09:24):
But I I gotta tell you that my little time
away here, which has not been extravagant as you like
to make it seem, but my little bit of time
away over the you know, a week here, a little
time here over the summer, has me so like bubbling
over with white tail craziness that I could almost burst.

(09:47):
I am high school Mark Kenyon that wants to buy
every single hunting magazine on the Walmart shelf. I am
the college Mark Kenyon that wants to wake up early
in the morning to watch the cheesy hunting shows.

Speaker 1 (10:01):
Even I am I'm.

Speaker 2 (10:04):
That kid right now, So very very excited right discussion
today and uh and kind of I think the game
plans to kind of wrap up this series on scouting, right,
what what do you have?

Speaker 3 (10:16):
What do you have?

Speaker 2 (10:16):
In mind here for how you want to kind of
wrap up this month that you helped us.

Speaker 3 (10:20):
Lead man, just just talking about you know, some of
the takeaways from the guests we had, you know, I
mean obviously you know, started with Andy, and Andy May
is just real consistent on you know, delivering you know,
actionable ideas and strategies. And he's just he's the kind

(10:40):
of person that you just want to emulate him. You're
just like you talk to him and there's there's so
much intention in his like his strategy. It's just I
don't know, it's just fun, you know. And then had
Clint Campbell in there too, and that dude's just a
scouting machine out east and brings brings a pretty neat perspective.
And then I really enjoyed talking to Adam Moore about,

(11:04):
you know, just down south, like I'm in fact, I
was texting with Andy today about you know, what are
the odds we could just put together some kind of
late season deep South hunt and just run down there
in like January or February and just you know, hit
up Mississippi or Louisiana or somewhere because I'm just I
don't know about you, and I know you've hunted down
I think you hunted in Alabama what two years ago? Yeah, yeah,

(11:27):
I'm kind of the southern white tail thing is is
getting more and more appealing to me, and I don't
really know why, and so I just like, maybe it's
the big woods thing. But talking to Adam about that
stuff was really cool. And then of course getting Ted on.
You know, we hear from the THHP guys quite a bit,
but Ted's kind of one of those under the radar

(11:48):
guys you don't hear from very often. And what I
loved about what he talked about was so much of
it was, yeah, you know, we checked out this spot,
we checked out that spot, but then when they show up,
they use sort of that baseline and it's like we
knew there were good bucks here, probably using this, probably

(12:09):
doing this, probably doing that, but we had to adapt
and it took us three days of observation of moving
and then we killed this buck and it was really
cool And here's why. And I love that kind of
I love those kind of stories because it's like you
take people from, you know, the idea that we're in
right now, of like go find them, go watch them,

(12:30):
go start to get pictures or camera or you know,
some observation, but there's a lot of daylight between that
and actually fill in a tag and hearing about how
that works out for people. I think it's just I
don't know. It's kind of a powerful motivator.

Speaker 2 (12:46):
So I think I know the answer to this question,
or at least I have my own thoughts on it.
But I'm curious for you because this we almost should
have talked before the series two. Because what I'm curious
about is when you were presented, you know, this idea, like, hey,

(13:06):
you could you know, run with things in July. You
could have tackled any kind of topic you wanted, You
could have done a series on anything, and you chose
to spend all of July focusing on scouting. That might
not be the thing that's on most people's mind right now.
So I'm curious why, I guess, in short, why why

(13:27):
was scouting the thing that you thought we really as
an audience, as a community, really need to like double
and triple down on leading into the season. Because I
think right now, like we are in full blown ramp
up mode, we are less than you know, we're almost
just a touch over a month out from a bunch
of openers. So why why scouting in the dead nuts
middle of the summer should we be thinking about.

Speaker 3 (13:49):
Because I think it's probably the most underrated aspect of
fill in tags and I and I say that. I
think a lot of people think they scout enough and
they don't. And I think part of that is because
it's so easy to hang trail cameras and think that's enough.
But to me, getting out there is so important, Like

(14:14):
it's so important, and if you don't do it now,
if you don't get some of that foundational stuff now,
just the same thing, like if you don't do it
in February or March, you missed a window that matters.
I just firmly believe that, And so I just wanted
to you know, I thought about doing something maybe on
shooting or gear or whatever, but I think it's so

(14:35):
beneficial to whitetail hunters to get into the mindset where
you just don't scout enough, you know what I mean.
Like I kind of think I've been listening to you know,
I listened to a lot of podcasts that are outside
the hunting space, and you know, I hear a lot
of people talk about fitness and a lot of people
will say, you know, I found myself like not happy

(14:59):
with you know, my physical shape, right, and so I'm like, oh,
I'm two hundred and forty pounds and I want to
get to two ten or whatever, pick some arbitrary number.
And then they get there and they go, well, good enough,
I did the goal, and then they slide right back
into their old routine. And the thing about it is
is it's not just getting there. It's the maintenance that matters.

(15:21):
Like it's it's the lifestyle of like I'm going to
stay in shape, So every week is a new challenge.
I kind of look at scouting White Tails like pretty similarly,
where it's like, you know, we have these different time
frames throughout the year where we're like, well, it's pretty
important to go out there and see last season's rubs
in March or whatever, or it's pretty important to get

(15:42):
those cameras out there now and get that inventory of
the hit lister's going. But it's it's not enough for
most of us, especially if if you're hunting pressure ground
or you're kind of always on the hunt for new
spots on public. I don't think you can scout enough.
I mean I think the only situation where you can
really overdo it, as if you're super sloppy or you

(16:04):
do you like, are really restricted to small properties, then
I think you got to play a little bit different game.
But I think for a lot of us it's just
easy to think you're doing enough and you're probably not.

Speaker 2 (16:16):
Yeah, I think that's a great point and one thing
that has happened. And I don't know if this is
a relatively recent thing or if it's always been like this,
but we have in many ways, you know, defined different
parts of the season. Is like it's this season, it's
this season. So like you know, when February, March, April
comes around, scouting season, everyone's got to go out there

(16:37):
do your off season scouting.

Speaker 1 (16:38):
So I mean, rightly, so a lot of folks.

Speaker 2 (16:41):
In our community have beaten the drum of off season scouting.
When there's no greenery out there and the snow starting
to melt off, like that is a great time to scout,
no doubt about it. So everyone knows to palm the
ground at that time of year. But to your point,
you know, if someone's listening now and they haven't done
that yet, it's really important to remember that it's not

(17:02):
too late. And by that I mean like, of course
you want to be doing all that, but like the
scouting shouldn't just start an end at that one time
which is the best time. It should continue all year round.
It should be there's still stuff you can learn in
the summer, and you should keep on scouting all through
the season. If there's anything I've learned over the last
decade plus of knowing Andy May, it's the value of
in season scouting, like never stopping scouting.

Speaker 1 (17:25):
And I think that was really pounded home.

Speaker 2 (17:28):
With this series, was just the idea that, hey, it's July,
it's scouting season, and guess what two months from now,
when your season kicks off, it's scouting season. And this
is something that you know, we could have ran this
series in September and it would have been just as
relevant as important, you know, as it is now as
it could have been if we were in it in February.

Speaker 3 (17:46):
Oh for sure. And I think I think it's important
to kind of just like clarify that it's it doesn't
have to be like and I know we say this
a lot, but it doesn't have to be like this
terminate or endeavor where it's like I'm getting into the
woods and I'm looking at this waypoint, this waypoint, this
point point, I'm checking these spots out, and like, it

(18:08):
doesn't have to be like a militant exercise. It has
to be just something that is built into your life,
because I've noticed with me, like I think there's like
two really distinct advantages there is if you get into
the habit of just like I gotta go check this
spot out, or I gotta go out tonight and watch
or you know, I'm just gonna go drop a trail

(18:28):
camera here or whatever whatever little task you're gonna do
on any given day, it's so much easier for me
to go, oh, okay, well the condition's changed here. So
what I thought from when I was here in March
or April, I got to rethink this this part, and
it just it helps me like frame up my plan

(18:49):
for the season and just get into the mode where
I sort of expect some changes and I expect things
to just be a little bit different or not work
out the way I want them to, and that's okay.
It's I think it's easier to adapt than just being like, well,
I'm going to take one long Saturday in July and
I'm going to scout and I'm going to hang a
bunch of stands, and that's going to be good. I

(19:10):
just I don't think that's the best method. I think
it's better to be in the habit of like I'm
going to do a little bit each week or every
couple of days and just accumulate a better strategy that's
like evolving with the conditions.

Speaker 1 (19:25):
Yeah, yeah, one hundred percent.

Speaker 2 (19:27):
So this topic is super exciting for me right now.
The idea of scouting properties, especially the new properties, scouting
old properties, is still very valuable and it's always a
good idea. I'm not telling you anything new, but you know,
looking at old properties with new eyes and clear eyes
is always a good idea. Always keeping up to speed

(19:48):
and what's changing, what have you missed, YadA, YadA, YadA.
But it's hard to beat the blank slate when you
come onto a new piece of public or privately you
have access to and you just have to figure it out.
I mean, it's just like a brand new puzzle poured
out on the table in front of you, and it's
it's all fresh, all new. The sky is the limit

(20:09):
and I actually just got that. I got access to
a new property that I am very excited about. It
is two hundred acres, which is by far the biggest
piece of private land i've well, I guess that's not
entirely true, but one of the biggest pieces I've ever
had access to in Michigan. At least half of it's
just a big open field, but the back half, so

(20:31):
about one hundred acres ish is.

Speaker 1 (20:33):
Like really good. It looks really good at least.

Speaker 2 (20:36):
But this is all based on East scouting, because this
is a piece that, like, I've not been to, but
it's been something I've known someone has, you know, access
to they manage it, and I thought maybe someday and
it finally came together.

Speaker 1 (20:50):
So I haven't got to walk it yet. I've just
been able to study maps obsessively.

Speaker 2 (20:55):
And now I actually do have the opportunity to walk
it when I get back in town. And and you know,
one hundred acres of primo whitetail ground in an awesome
area that just screams like great terrain, pinch points and
funnels and good food and good bedding and all that
kind of stuff. That amazing playground of white tail goodness
is like right in front of me, and I am

(21:18):
so excited Tony to start scouting it and learning it
and figuring out this new piece, Like I am ecstatic
to dive into this.

Speaker 1 (21:26):
I'm excited, is what I'm trying to get across.

Speaker 2 (21:28):
And so right now I'm just doing step one of
what a lot of folks scouting efforts is, which is
lots and lots of just staring at the map and
thinking about different things, going from like big picture like
zooming away out and looking at the aerial and thinking about,
you know, where does this property fit in the big
scheme of things, like where does this fit in the
larger landscape? How do pet or how do do you

(21:50):
move in and off of this block the square mile block?
Like where does this stand? And then you know, zooming
way in and thinking about, okay, what's going on in
this little corner where the cree comes around the bend
And it seems like there's a drop in topography here,
and this looks like a wet spot based on this map,
But if you flip over to another app and look
at that, like, well is that wet or is that

(22:11):
just like a crp grass?

Speaker 1 (22:13):
Or you know what I mean. Where you're sitting and
dissecting every little bit. I love that. So what about this?

Speaker 2 (22:22):
Maybe this is useful, maybe this isn't, Tony, But what
do you think about taking the ideas that you and
that all of us learned from Andy Adam Clinton ted
over the last month, and what if we filter it
through this example, Like what if we walk through everything
that I have to do over the coming months, and
then you and I kind of think, Okay, well, what

(22:43):
would what would Andy? What could take from Andy when
it comes to the summer scouting, or what would you
do Tony when it comes to when I show up
there on day one and get to walk for the
first time, You think that might be a useful exercise
to kind of illustrate some of the stuff we're talking
about here.

Speaker 1 (22:59):
I'm gonna love.

Speaker 3 (23:01):
I have to say, though, I'm a little bit I'm
I'm jealous, and it makes me a little bit sad
because very briefly here I thought I had permission on
a new place, and I can feel like that permission
is not going to actually happen. And so this high
that you're in of like e scouting and getting ready
to go see this property and do this stuff, I

(23:22):
was like, right on the cusp of that, and now
I feel depressed and sad because I think I think
I'm not gonna get it just by the way the
landowners kind of acting, and so it makes me a
little sad.

Speaker 1 (23:34):
I'm sorry, buddy.

Speaker 2 (23:35):
That's the thing, those like these acts if you don't
own your own land, these private permission type things are
so fleeting, right, So it's so exciting when you get
permission on new piece, but then you also need to
like hold it lightly, do you know what I mean?

Speaker 1 (23:48):
Because you know, like at any moment it could be gone.

Speaker 2 (23:50):
So I'm gonna I'm gonna try to appreciate this because
you know, who knows, it might be just this season. Heck,
I mean by the time this errs, who knows, maybe
I won't even for this. For this brief moment in time,
I can look at a map and think to myself,
I will hopefully be able to hunt this spot in
a couple months, And that is a good feeling.

Speaker 3 (24:09):
Yeah, ride that high, buddy.

Speaker 1 (24:11):
I'm going to I'm gonna milk it for all it's worth.

Speaker 2 (24:14):
So, so you know, something you guys didn't talk about
a lot in the series with the crew was the
scouting side of things. There wasn't a ton of emphasis
on that, but I would you correct me if I'm
wrong here, But I think all of them would probably
look at that as a very very important first step
to being efficient in any of their efforts on the

(24:35):
ground after that.

Speaker 1 (24:36):
Wouldn't you say?

Speaker 3 (24:37):
Sure? I absolutely? And you know that was sort of
intentional because I didn't. I feel like we've covered est
scouting quite a bit, and I feel like East scouting
is so valuable in some ways, but it doesn't matter
unless you're willing to do the other part.

Speaker 2 (24:59):
You know.

Speaker 3 (24:59):
It's kind of like kind of like trail cameras, Like
I feel like trail cameras can be so valuable, but
you have to do that other part otherwise it just
doesn't matter the same way.

Speaker 2 (25:07):
Does that make sense, Yeah, it absolutely does. It's like
a way both of those tools can make your efforts
on the ground more efficient. I think this is the
biggest thing. Like they provide really good starting points. They
provide like really good anchors. You know, if we're looking
at a puzzle, like, okay, take that puzzle on analogy

(25:29):
I mentioned earlier, you dump a new puzzle out onto
the table. Very exciting if you didn't have any flat
pieces or corner pieces, it would be a lot harder
to get that puzzle going. But since you've got those
corner pieces and those flat sides, you've got somewhere to start,
you know, like, okay, all of these flat sides, all
these corners.

Speaker 1 (25:45):
I know where that goes.

Speaker 2 (25:47):
I think that's kind of how e scouting or trail
cameras you know, come into the mix. Is they give
you those starting points, those anchor points, where you know something.
I now know this, but you can't extrapolate that to
knowing everything. So I know a corner piece, that does
not mean I know what the entire center looks like.
So the same thing goes for when you look at

(26:07):
you know, I'm looking at the aerial of that new property,
and I see a really cool looking, you know, cover,
thin strip of cover that winds this way through a
big open field that screams out, you know, pinch point,
screams out a cover funnel that man, there should be
deer cruising that in the rut from that thick cover
down in the southeast up to the thick cover up
to the northwest.

Speaker 1 (26:29):
But if I.

Speaker 2 (26:30):
Don't show up on the ground and fact check that
you gotta you gotta proof it, you gotta confirm. If
you don't there's there, you know it might work out,
but then you also might waste a lot of time.
So I think you know, the way I look at
East scouting is the same way I know you do.
Is you know, you're you're getting those starting points, You're
marking a bunch of places that you think this, this

(26:50):
should be high quality, this could be really good. And
then when you go out there on the ground, you're
not walking willy nilly blindly everywhere. You can go and
hit those spots you know efficiently and fact check and
use our limited time the best possible way for sure.

Speaker 3 (27:07):
And it's you know, the est scouting thing. I mean,
part of the reason it's so cool is it does
give you I mean, it just does give you, like
a really good idea of what you're going to run into.
But there's nothing like seeing it in person. And so
you know, you pick out a spot and you do
this with a property like you're talking about, or you
go travel somewhere to hunt and you pick out a
spot and you walk in there and sometimes it is

(27:30):
as good as you expect, and that's such a rush. Yeah,
and sometimes you walk in and you're like, this is
definitely not it. But it's like a ET scouting and
then your first like ground truthing trip in there, it's
like being a gambling addict or something. You're like, I'm
just like waiting for that high of the of both
things coming together where what I believed it to be

(27:51):
and then seeing it actually be that or something even more.
Maybe it's pounded more with your tracks or sign or something.
So there's like there's like a neat motivation to it.
Once you put in enough time ET scouting, it just
makes the whole process of ground trew thing that much
more fun.

Speaker 2 (28:08):
Yeah, so tell me this really quickly. You know, when
what I'm doing on the east scouting side is I'm
doing those two things I mentioned. I'm looking at the
big picture, like trying to understand where this property fits

(28:30):
into the larger landscape. And then I'm also zooming in
and thinking very you know close or what you know.
I'm thinking micro here and thinking to myself, Okay, this
block of timber looks like it connects in here and
looks like there might be betting here. It looks like
there's a hill here, YadA, yad ydah.

Speaker 1 (28:46):
But so I do.

Speaker 2 (28:47):
I spend a lot of time picking this apart, and
then I'm marking all my different areas of interest. I'm
marking like, man, this looks like a good pinch point,
put it away point, and I'll label it like good
pitch point question mark. And then I'll find a spot
that think, man, I bet you this would be a
great stand site because of this and this, and so
I'll put you know, standsite question mark, and I'll have
all of these question marks scattered all over the property

(29:08):
before I ever step foot. So I try to find,
like where I think good betting could be. I try
to mark where I think, you know, good travel quarters
could be. I will mark where I think there might
be a crete cross, all of these different things so
that when I show up that first day, what I'm
gonna do is, you know, perfect world, this would be
in the you know, February March April timeframe, but my
case is going to be dead of the summer, and

(29:28):
I'm gonna go out there on day one and that's
going to be cover as much of the place as
I can and really make sure I hit those priority
points that I'm marked, and the whole time I walk
a new property, I have my phone out and I'm
matching up where I am on the map to what
it looks like on the ground so that I can
as i'm walking, like, Okay, here i am, and this
is that little block with the with the point and

(29:49):
that little ditch that runs through it. And now I'm
seeing with my own eyes what it actually looks like.
And I'm looking at the map and I'm saying, Okay,
this is what the map looks like. This is what
the ground looks like, so that by the end of
that day, and I'm doing this kind of every other
day i'm out there scouting, I'm constantly bouncing back and
forth between those two things, so that eventually, by season
or next season or whenever it is, I have like

(30:10):
a two layer map in my mind where I know, like,
when I'm standing here, this is where I am in
the map in my mind, and this is what it
looks like on the ground.

Speaker 1 (30:17):
Do you do something similar?

Speaker 3 (30:19):
Yeah? Man? I Not only that, but I've also started
using the what is it the track feature? What is
the one that, yeah, dude, or the tracks feature? I've
been using that like crazy. When I go in and
I you know, if I'm looking at a spot and
I get in there and I'm like, yep, I'm definitely
gonna hunt this, I will walk out the way that

(30:43):
I think I need to access it. I'll run that
track feature, and I'll actually time how long it takes
me to go out now, and I'll make a note
of that so when I show up there. I did
this for one week in November that we're going to
drop this fall and the stand that I ended up
having a pretty good hunt out of and Wisconsin, even
though it was like a I mean maybe a couple

(31:05):
hundred yards and probably two thirds of that was through
an open field, but I didn't want to expose ourselves
getting in there because it was going to be tight,
and I wanted to take a very specific route through
the woods to get to the stand, so I didn't
lay down any scent where the deer probably were going
to come from. And so even even though I could
have walked there in the dark, I mean without hardly

(31:28):
thinking about it, using that feature was just so nice
to be like, you are exactly on the line you
want to, you know, the line that I created in
the daylight, And I've started doing that on when I'm
looking at new properties and new places, and it gives
me so much more confidence to go back in there
and actually hunt just the way I want to.

Speaker 2 (31:51):
Yeah, I've done that in like some nasty hell holes
where like if you don't cross this draw in this
one spot, like you're gonna be cliffed out or something crazy.
But I've never paid attention to timing it. And that
timing thing actually is kind of a nice thing to
know as far as like when you're trying to plan,
all right, how really do I need to get up?
What time do I need to be at the trailhead

(32:13):
or what time do I need to be parked at
the side of the road, and know, okay, it's going
to take me exactly twenty three minutes at you know,
expected walking speed during the season to get to my stand.
That would be a smart thing to time out, at
least for someone that's as type A as me who
likes to know exactly what time it gets somewhere.

Speaker 3 (32:31):
You probably don't need to do it because you get
out there, what four or five hours before first light?

Speaker 1 (32:35):
Not quite, but I do get out there pretty early.

Speaker 3 (32:39):
But I think that stuff part of it comes from
just like you know, think about how often you go
out and you hang a set and you're like, man,
I'm coming back here tomorrow morning. The deer we're definitely here,
and you're like, it's an easy walk. I go across
the wetland here and I just look for this big
oak tree. And then you go out there in the
dark and you're like, ah, son of a bitch, Like
everything's different. And even if you're off by like ten feet,

(33:03):
you might make twenty times as much noise as you'd
make if you just stayed on the right course. And
I know that it probably doesn't sound that important to
a lot of people, but if you do a lot
of mobile hunting and you hunt mornings a lot, man,
that trick is like it's just so worth getting in
the habit. Let me say that.

Speaker 1 (33:22):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (33:23):
So so after that first back to my example here,
after that first walk through, where I'm going to go
through and cover as much as I can with the
time I have while trying to map my mind to
like what I see on the ground to what I
see in the map. I'm gonna be that first day
or if it's a weekend or whatever, the amount of
time I have is I'm going to try to get
like that big picture over for you of like here's everything,

(33:45):
and here's I confirmed all the things I thought I
knew and I crossed off the things that didn't end
up being what they really were. But probably in that
first day or first weekend, assuming I have time. In
this case I do have time, I'm not going to
be trying to scout for like the kill spot that
I'm just trying to collect. I'm trying to collect, collect, collect, click, collect,
and then I will come back at a later date

(34:06):
and I will do like my fine tune scouting, which
will be like I'm gonna take that time after my
big picture scout, and I'm gonna think a lot, and
I'm gonna look at the map again a lot and
try to think through all the things I learned, and
again kind of think, Okay, big picture, here's what I
now know, and micro level here's what I now know,
and really start fine tuning. Okay, given all that, where
do I think the best locations will be for the

(34:27):
early season? Where do I think those best locations will
likely be for middle of October? And kind of just
think through my season and maybe I'll also learn like man,
this just isn't gonna be an early season spot, or
this isn't gonna be an October spot, this is maybe
it's only gonna be a peak rut, or maybe it's
for whatever reason, maybe it's gonna be a place that Jesus,
it's probably not gonna be that great until gun season
pushes all the deer out of everywhere else.

Speaker 1 (34:49):
And funnels them all into here. Whatever it is.

Speaker 2 (34:52):
I will then try to think through, Okay, what are
those places that I need to have prepped to start
hunting season as like those starting points, And then I'll
go back out prior to the season, still in the summer,
and I'm going to try to scout for a handful
of starting point stands, So knowing that I'm going to
learn and scout a lot in season, but I want
to have some places prepped ahead of time so that

(35:13):
I've got something.

Speaker 1 (35:14):
To start with to observe and adjust from.

Speaker 2 (35:17):
So then I'm going to go out there and I'll
maybe i'll mark let's just hypothetically say that I find
like a sweet little bedding area coming off of a
hilltop that drops down to this ag field, and I
can see old a bunch of old rubs, from last season,
and there's a ditch crossing that drops right into this
little skinny finger of what's now standing corn, and I'll think, man,

(35:39):
I wouldn't be surprised if there's a big buck betted
off of that point. And I wouldn't be surprised if
he drops down off of this point and comes down
and kind of mills around in this transition area after
he crosses that ditch here, that might not be a
bad place to hunt him in October. So let's just
hypothetically say I find a place like that after my
big picture scouting in my east scouting. Now I'm going
to come back in in August and try to the

(36:00):
spot within that spot. So I'm gonna go in there
and then I'm gonna do some fine tune scouting. I'm
gonna walk that area thoroughly, really think they're okay? Is this?
Is this the exact spot on the ditch that I
think is most likely for deer to cross, and YadA, YadA, YadA,
And that would be what I would play out a
handful of times across this property.

Speaker 1 (36:16):
And I would want all of this done, you know, in.

Speaker 2 (36:18):
As few trips as possible, So I would probably It'll
probably be like one big picture scouting day like I
talked about, and then it will probably be one you know,
fine tuning scouting day like I'm discussing, in which I
will pick these spots and prep a few spots, and
then I'll probably hand cameras and that will probably be
what I will start with until we get to the

(36:41):
next phase of my scouting. Does any of that bring
any questions to mind or additional thoughts as far as
you know, a last minute kind of scouting and prepping
situation that I'm in here.

Speaker 3 (36:53):
One thing that you said right at the beginning of
that that makes me question a lot of what you
do is really you said that you're going to go
in and not look for kill spots right away.

Speaker 1 (37:06):
Well well no, but sorry.

Speaker 2 (37:10):
It's not that I'm not looking for them, but it's
that I'm trying to be in like big picture. I'm
trying to be a vacuum of everything right now. Of course,
like I will be paying attention to spots that stand out.
If there'll be a spot, I'm sure like I will
see things. Man, this is a kill spot, but I'm
not going to spend six hours in that one spot.

Speaker 1 (37:29):
Fine, tuning it. I will be like, Okay, man, this
looks awesome. I'm gonna grid it a little bit more,
and then okay, keep moving.

Speaker 2 (37:35):
Got to move to the next place because I'm planning
on doing the deep dive the next time I come.

Speaker 1 (37:39):
Does that make sense?

Speaker 3 (37:41):
Yeah. For a little while there, I was like, Oh,
I think I needed to explain to Mark what deer
scouting is for, because I was like, I think he's confused.
I'm definitely not going to look for a good spot
to kill a big buck yet.

Speaker 2 (37:54):
No, it's just like, wow, the level of time I'm
going to spend a certain parts of this process.

Speaker 1 (38:01):
You know what I mean?

Speaker 3 (38:02):
Yeah? You do you know that that field is planted
in corn.

Speaker 2 (38:05):
I do know that, Yes, okay, yes, so I do
know that. What I don't know is like, there looks
like there might be some that's in CRP or or
just too wet for crops, So I don't know how
much is planted and how much is kind of set aside.

Speaker 3 (38:17):
Now you're speaking my language.

Speaker 1 (38:19):
I know, I know, and I'm hoping.

Speaker 2 (38:21):
I'm hoping there are some of that stuff because it
looks like in the maps that some of it is
like that, and you. But you can also see, like
when you go to different maps or different apps, they've
got different date ranges for when the aerial photography was taken.
I can see sometimes where it looks like it was
planted and sometimes when it was not planted. So I

(38:42):
just don't know what it is this year so interesting.

Speaker 1 (38:47):
That is interesting.

Speaker 3 (38:49):
I'm still jealous. I'm actually a little more jealous.

Speaker 1 (38:52):
Now, Yeah, I'm sorry.

Speaker 3 (38:53):
Man.

Speaker 2 (38:54):
You were talking a decent bit with Ted there at
the end about his trail camera strategy, and I think
you talked you, oh gosh, Clint a little bit about
his trail cam strategy, especially like summer to fall and
that kind of stuff when it comes to scouting. You know,
I thought that something that Ted said really resonated with me,

(39:16):
or an example he shared at least, and that being
you know, how he ended up there was a property.
So hopefully folks heard this last week, but if not,
I'll give you the very quick cliff notes him.

Speaker 1 (39:27):
Ted and I don't think.

Speaker 2 (39:28):
Aaron or someone were out hunting a new property and
they'd put a trail camera out on this little fence
line I think, or a trail that they thought would
be good and they let it run through late summer
into like just before opening day, and they had a
group of bucks that was on there like over and
over and over, really well patterned. And then when they
checked the camera, like just prior to opening day, they
saw it they were here, here, here, here, And then

(39:48):
the last few days of the last week or something,
they totally disappeared. And what Ted and Aaron did was,
rather than saying, oh, the bucks are completely gone, or
just thinking oh man, and you know it's all blown
up and move off to some other property, they asked why,
Like they thought, okay, well, why aren't the bucks here
and where must they be now? And they use that

(40:10):
again like kind of like the puzzle piece thing. You know,
if this piece does not fit into a corner, it
must fit somewhere else. And so in this case, they thought, well,
if the bucks are not on trail camera here anymore,
they must be somewhere different, and so let's think about
where else they could have pivoted to and what additional
information do we need. So they use a camera and
not to say, oh, the buck was here yesterday, I'm

(40:30):
gonna kill him here and kill them there. They instead
said the bucks used to be here now we know
they are not here. That will force us to move
away from what we thought was good and scout this
new area, which led them to this ridge, tore up
with sign and that confirmed, oh this is where they are.
They hunted there, they killed the deer. Did that kind
of like did that make you smile the way it

(40:51):
made me smile?

Speaker 3 (40:52):
Yeah? But dude, that story that is just And I
might love it because it's kind of concert confirmation bias
for me because I'm really getting into that kind of
mindset about almost all of my hunting where instead of
going to find the easy one, I'm trying to find
a concentration of animals and just work them, you know,

(41:14):
whether it's elk or turkeys or white tails or whatever.
And that was such a prime example that he told
of just having them dial, losing them and finding them
again and killing one. And the beauty of it is
they didn't fill in the blanks, like they didn't go, well,
they're nocturnal or somebody must have bumped them out. They

(41:34):
had so much faith in their scouting. They said something
changed and we're just going to figure it out, and
they did. And I think that lesson is like way
poignant and I'll tell you what I've been. I've been
over in northern Wisconsin quite a bit recently, scouting and
catching a future out and doing you know, looking for
some bears with the girls or whatever. But we've been

(41:57):
we've been scouting quite a bit over there. And the
woods over there right now are almost like unwalkable. The
way the winter happened last year with super heavy wet snow,
It's like so many trees or tree tops fell down,
and then so many of the right aged you know,

(42:19):
kind of like poplar type trees are bent like completely
over to the ground, and so you know, like i'll
give you an example to frame this up. We went
to fish the stretch of this Brook trout stream. I
fished dozens of times, just a nice little stretch. It's
got nice rock walls. It's like a nice, picturesque, beautiful

(42:40):
little brook trout stream. We walked in there and started fishing,
and for most of it you couldn't hit the water
because it was there was so much so many trees
over the water now, it was like an underground tunnel.
And I know it sounds like I'm exaggerating, it was
a nightmare. And then I went into other spots that

(43:02):
I hunt over there just to look around, and it's
like I'm hunting a different kind of property. And so
I know from years and years of hunting there and
just seeing the general population, I'm like, Okay, those deer
are still here. I got to work them differently than
I'm used to. So if I was living off of,
you know, ten years of hunting experience there, it's not

(43:26):
the same. Now it's going to be a totally different hunt.
So yeah, when you think about, okay, mother nature could
hand you that and basically, like you said earlier, kind
of give you a blank slate. It's not a new property,
but it's it damn well, might it might as well be,
you know what I mean? Or you might get a
situation where those bucks just decide that they're going to

(43:47):
go eat acorns one ridge over, and your job, whether
you're in either spot, figure it out. You know they're there.
You've been doing some of the foundational work to get
yourself in a good spot. When mother nature throws you
a little curveball like that, it's like, Okay, what do
we do? How do we figure this out? Instead of
just making up a reason or just saying, well, I'm

(44:10):
gonna come back when it's the rud or the pre
rud or whatever. I'm like, no, you got to go
now and work through that stuff. That's that's like the
beauty of deer hunting. That's why white tails are so fun.

Speaker 2 (44:21):
Yeah, And I think, well, it's a question, how would
you in a situation like that then, like where does
your when you're set back to square one to a degree,
how if it all, will cameras be involved in your
re scouting of it, knowing that you know, we're trying

(44:42):
to avoid the temptation to be overly dependent on them,
which I think is you know, I'm gonna go on
a brief tangent here, So remember that question, Tony. But
I feel like if you listen, especially the last year
or two years, as sell camera have become ubiquitous, like
just everyone has him now You've just you hear now

(45:05):
so so so so so many of the stories you
hear are well, I waited until he showed up on
my cell cam. He came in that day, and then
I went after him a hunted him. And you know,
either you saw him or he didn't, or he killed
him or you didn't. But there's a lot of people
doing that now, and I think, without a doubt, like
these cameras are great tools, but it's so important to

(45:26):
remember that they are this tiny little snapshot of a much, much, much,
much much big, bigger picture. So again the puzzle analogy,
a cell camera gives you one single piece of the
thousand piece puzzle. If your entire hunting strategy is based
on whether or not that single puzzle or single piece
in the thousand piece puzzle is flashing on that given

(45:46):
day and saying hey, I'm here, you are missing so
so so much. And I think there's a lot of
people that are being tempted to believe that that's all
you need to know is put a sweet little cell
camera out in a cool little spot and wait till
it gives you that ping. And I think, while sometimes
I know there are stories of that being successful, but
if that is your thing going into the season, you

(46:08):
are going to be hitting a hard wall many, many,
many times and missing a lot.

Speaker 3 (46:14):
Yep. I mean, sure, you know, I look at them.
I'm actually a little more excited for trail cameras this
year than I usually am, at least over there, because
I don't know how those deer are getting through that stuff,
but I know they are. And so even even just
what I saw when we were when we were trout

(46:34):
fishing that spot before we turned around and went to
a different spot, the difference between the trees that were
big enough to weather that winter and not become this
tangled jungle is tangible. And so you used to have,
you know, I mean, thousands of acres of that it's
big woods, and now you have these these areas that

(46:57):
are just so gnarly. They'll function as a betting area,
maybe some browse or whatever, but those deer are probably
going to be traveling through a certain type of woods
more and at least I suspect that. So I'm going
to run some cameras and find out and if I
get you know, between now and whenever I get a

(47:19):
chance to go over there and hunt, if I get
some confirmation of that. It's not necessarily like, oh, you know,
I've gotten pictures of this buck going through here once
a week for six weeks, I'm going to go hunt him.
It's just a clue into how they're using that terrain,
and I think that's just important. But it's again, it's
just this complimentary piece of the bigger puzzle.

Speaker 2 (47:38):
Yeah, yeah, one hundred percent agree. And I think that,
you know, hunting this new property, it's gonna be the
same thing for me. I'm going to go out there
in the summer and put up some cameras, but it's
going to be simply to you know, I'm gonna place cameras.
This will probably August when I'm doing this. I'm going
to be putting up cameras in places, you know, to

(48:00):
get me in season information. But I'm not going to
be getting a picture in August and then thinking, oh man,
this bucks showed up five days in a row in
this spot, and then think I'm gonna go there and
kill them on October fifth or whatever. I'm gonna go
in there simply trying to confirm, like what's around, What
are some general ideas I can get about, maybe a

(48:20):
trend or maybe just how dear use certain areas. But
I'm going to be depending on that as just like
a very small piece of the larger picture that then
I'll have to figure out based on what I learned
in those first couple of days of summer scouting, but
then really learning a lot on the go, you know,
hunting that's going to be scouting my way into whatever
I'm hunting.

Speaker 1 (48:39):
On every given day.

Speaker 2 (48:40):
It's going to be basically every hunt will be a
scouting session and probably doing some you know, begin a
little exterior, observe, adjust, observe, adjust, and slowly learn my
way as I go scouting with a bow in my hand,
and then every once in a while getting those camera
pictures that will then give me a little bit of

(49:02):
color that I think camera if you look at those
pictures as like adding color to you know, it's like
you're reading a book and then there's a color photo
in there. It's pretty nice, but it doesn't tell you
the whole story. You gotta read what's on the pages there.
And so I will appreciate the color photography throughout the
book to illustrate things a little bit more, to add
a little bit more flavor to what I'm you know

(49:24):
how I'm interpreting things. But give me the text and
I'm going to be getting that, you know, every day
when I'm out there. It's going to be getting on
the road and glassing with the spotting scope as many
evenings as I can. If there's any kind of opening
I can see, or if there's like a neighboring field
where I can see down to a CRP patch, or
if I can, you know, if there's a bean field
in August, I'll be checking that out, just to know,

(49:46):
like what's out here, what's the deer density at this
point of the year, what does the age structure look
like at this time of the year. Knowing that that,
you know, some of that's going to change, but some
of that will give you a big picture idea of like, Okay,
this area has a ton of and very few older
bucks that might you know, sort of translate at least
gives me a starting point of how to think about

(50:06):
things as I get into the season. So long distance observation,
it's going to be scouting on foot, it's going to
be observing from the stand. It's going to be you know,
as much as I possibly can make it be, you know,
similar to the Andy May model or the Jesse Coots model,
or the Justin Wright model, the ted it's the scout
more hunt less, hunt smarter, not you know, beat him

(50:31):
over the head with time on stand.

Speaker 3 (50:44):
Can I say something about that too, because when you
were talking about that, it reminded me of I don't
I actually don't remember if Andy, Andy and I had
this conversation on the podcast or we had it in
the many many hours we spent in my boat trying
to catch some bass. But Andy talks about woodsmanship all
the time, and you and I have talked about this

(51:05):
a lot, and that's like a I don't know, it's
sort of a blanket term that really doesn't mean that
much to a lot of people, because you know, when
we talk about you know, Okay, I'm in a long
distance glass, I'm gonna run cameras and I'm gonna get
in there and I'm gonna ground truth this stuff, it
sounds like a complete plan to figure out what the
deer do, right, And so it's like, is that woodsmanship

(51:27):
kinda But one of the things when you think about
the example with Ted, you know, those guys had that
Bachelor group dialed in. It disappeared, but they knew where
there were some oak trees that those deer might have
moved to. That's so important And I know it seems dumb,
but they didn't panic when they lost those deer. They

(51:49):
just said, what's the likely culprit for pulling these deer away?
And the more time that you spent in the woods, like.
We had this experience just just recently when we were
over there in Wisconsin. We were actually driving back from
this spot we were fishing, and it's I don't hunt
this place. This is a private place, but it's really
close to this huge chunk of public land that I

(52:10):
do hunt. And we're just driving by and I saw
this dough off the road, so we pulled over to
look at her, and I was shooting a few photos
of her, and she was just munching away on this bush.
And as I zoomed in with my camera, I'm like, Oh,
she's eating raspberries. And I've never seen like in my life,
I've never watched a deer walk up to ripe raspberries

(52:34):
and just eat the crap out of them. And I
was like, I actually wrote about this for Foundations. It's
coming up here. I'm like, just spending more time out
there exposes you to things like that. We actually saw
three tom turkeys eating on the same raspberry bush, which
is fascinating to me. But when you think about it,
you know, I've been hunting white till since I was twelve.
If you just said, hey, Tony, do you think deer

(52:54):
eat raspberries? I'd be like, I don't know, probably it
seems like something they would do, but I'd never actually
observed it. And then now I'm thinking I've had times,
especially in states where the opener is in like September,
where I'll be walking down the trail over there and
I'll see raspberries or blackberries or some kind of berry

(53:15):
and just assume that it was bears eating them. You know,
sometimes you can tell it was bears or whatever. But
I'm like, I've never considered a berry as any kind
of white tail draw in my life, and it maybe
really doesn't play into the season that much, but for
scouting it might. And it was just one of those
little moments where I was like, I just have so
much left to learn, Like there's so much that I

(53:38):
don't know about their life. And I think that when
you look at scouting the way we've been talking about it,
you learn those things like, yes, deer on this property
use this ridge to go from point A to B,
or deer on this property like to bed in this
CRP because it's a badass spot to bed. But there's
so much more out there to learn, and the more

(53:59):
time you spend deserving in person and walking through and
running those cameras, the more you just figure out like
what their daily lives are like. And I think that's
so important.

Speaker 2 (54:09):
Yeah, and man, this is gonna be for people that
have listened to the podcast for a long time. They're
going to roll their eyes because they've heard both of
us say this like two hundred times.

Speaker 1 (54:20):
But it's just so true. And it's the fact that.

Speaker 2 (54:24):
This this I think this woodsmanship ability. I think one
way to think about it is kind of like getting
a new pair of glasses, is the way at least
it's been for me. So like when I first started,
like a deer hunter, I've deer heard sounds, little kid,
but I you know, followed kind of a family program
that was like very very very basic, and for you know,

(54:47):
a long time, that's all I ever knew.

Speaker 1 (54:49):
And so I was like walking through the woods wearing like.

Speaker 2 (54:53):
The blurriest, fuzziest, creuddiest cheap gas station glasses you could
ever get. I could see the basic things, like I
knew enough basics to know this is a deer trail.
I could see a deer trail. I knew what a
rub was. I knew a rub was rub equals good
and so I could see a couple things like that,
but I just I didn't have enough context and experience,
having seen a bunch of different places, having seen a

(55:14):
bunch of deer, having been able to confirm what deer
do in real life, I didn't have enough to actually
even consume, like all this stuff was around me, but
I couldn't even really see it because I was just
focused on the only thing I could focus on, where
the rubs and the trails and these basic things. And
then you know, I learned a little bit more and
I started getting a lot more serious about it. And
then all of a suddenly I got a little bit
better prescription glasses. And then when I was out there

(55:36):
in the woods, like all of a suddenly, I was noticing, oh,
that's an oak tree, and that means there could be
some good food here. And then I could start to know.
I say, okay, these are you know, fresher tracks, so
that means this was more recent. Signed that's a good thing.
And then you know, let's fast forward to now, you know,
fifteen years since then, now I've got I feel like

(55:57):
super high definition, very clean your glasses, where all of
a sudden, the world is a totally different world now
that I'm looking at when I walk in the woods,
I'm seeing all the little details. I understand all these
little details. But if someone's listening today, and if they
are where I was fifteen years ago, you just there's
so much out there you won't even be able to

(56:18):
pick it up without the time out there and without
diversity of experience. This is the cliche thing, which is
that you and I Tony always talk about the value
of going to new places and like just exposing yourself
to new places where you can see different deer habitat,
different deer behavior, different everything. The more you do that,
I think, the more the acuity and the clarity of

(56:39):
your your woodsmanship glasses improves to the point where you
can finally actually, you know, start picking up on all
these little fine tuned things that when you scout do
make a big difference. But fifteen years ago, I could
have listened to all these very same things, and I
just would have walked through the woods and like I'd
be overwhelmed with just the basics. You would never be

(57:02):
able to get to the point where you could recognize
the little things that matter, because you're still trying to
figure out the big picture things that matter. So this
is a long witted way of saying yes to what
you're saying, Tony, which is, spend lots and lots and
lots of time out there just consuming as much of
the real world stuff as possible, and diversify as much

(57:22):
as possible. So go to new properties, scout new areas,
go to new regions, YadA, YadA, YadA, Because all of
that is the only way that I know of to
actually be able to scout and understand what you're seeing
in any kind of real actionable way, which is I think,
how you develop this woodsmanship.

Speaker 3 (57:40):
Yeah, and would I would take it even a step
further and say, you have to be open to all
kinds like learning about all kinds of stuff. And so
when I talk about like that raspberry example, I probably
will never kill a deer on a raspberry pattern, like

(58:00):
I just probably never gonna have I don't think it
was interesting, But it also put me in a spot
where I found some apple trees that were absolutely loaded
with half grown apples, and that might come into play
at some point. But it's also just a reminder to me,
you know, Like I pointed this out to my little

(58:21):
girls when we were we were in a spot in
the woods. We just hit this spot where there were
there was so much browse, like you could see that
there's just tops were nipped off all over. And the
more that you find stuff like that, the more it
just like picture curiosity a little bit and you're like,
what is what is this plant? And why are they

(58:42):
eating it? And I think that feeds everything. Like you
you talked about a you know, like oh, a ditch
crossing or something earlier in this conversation. You know, one
of the things I think about with stuff like that
is we think about scouting and you go out and
you're like, I'm gonna walk this river and I'm gonna
find a good crossing and i'm gonna set up a
stand on there. I'm gonna kill one or I'm going
to walk that ditch and I'm going to find where
they cross it. Now, how often do you do that?

(59:05):
Or how often have you done that? Set up? And
You're like, I am on a pounded crossing. They are
all going to come through here, and what happens is
a spike in you know, three dos walk through there
and then the two big ones cross at a secondary crossing.
You know, sixty yards downwin and bust you Yeah, and

(59:25):
you could have walked to that. You could have just said,
you know, this spot looks real good, but just in case,
I'm going to check the rest of it out. And
maybe you walk, you know, fifty sixty yards down there
and you find another trail that has way bigger tracks
in it, and you go, Okay, here's way more information.
And then instead of just thinking the job is good

(59:47):
enough because you've found what you think you're supposed to find.

Speaker 2 (59:51):
Yeah, and that's that's even more relevant, but also tricky.
If this is an in season scouting situation, you know,
where you are hunting a new place and you're learning
it as you go, and then you're scouting along, you know,
and then you find the spot and you're like, man,
this looks pretty good. So there's the temptation of Okay,

(01:00:12):
this looks great. If I go any further, you might
blow it up. But at the same time, am I
settling if I go further and then it's not as
good that I did. I just then leave my scent everywhere,
and then I got to go back to where I
was and settle there. I mean, all of that is
like the constant constant mental gymnastics. We have to navigate
while trying to figure this out when you're actually trying

(01:00:33):
to kill something at the same time too.

Speaker 3 (01:00:35):
Yeah, well, and I mean that kind of leads back
to you know, Ted's story about killing that buck, the
way they did, the way that they moved in. I
guess it's not the one that you're talking about. He
talked about one that was in a using a little
wooded draw on a small walk in property and how
they kind of, you know, work their way in until

(01:00:57):
they observe, Like man, every buck that comes through seems
to go right through the middle of this little shoot
of timber. And I think about that stuff so much because,
you know, he kind of just glossed it over because
that's what those guys do, is they just observe, move, observe, move,
and kill. But it's so important. And there's like two
lessons there, like you don't you know, like you said

(01:01:18):
in in season scouting trip, like yeah, you want to
be careful. You don't want to stomp all over there,
so you might you might not get that crossing right,
like you might just say I'm not pushing this any
further and I'm gonna sit here and who knows right?
But which which is a safe way to do it?
And sometimes you're just gonna make mistakes and who cares?
But it's it's like a good mindset to get into.

(01:01:41):
But the other part of it that with like Ted's example,
was they had something that was very limited that the
deer wanted to use, which was cover. And I keep
thinking about this with my scouting where like you know,
he's talking walking stuff in Iowa, So trees are king right,
Like they got food everywhere, They've got water in a

(01:02:03):
lot of spots. What they don't have in many areas
Iowa's cover. So that's real important to manage your presence there.
You focus on that rarity, you move in, you're real careful,
you handle it with kid gloves. Now you think about
you know, like where I've been scouting in northern Wisconsin,
there's no shortage of cover. It's freaking everywhere. So that's

(01:02:25):
not rare. It doesn't matter. So what is rare not water,
So it's like some certain kinds of food and some
elevation and you just look at it and go, Okay,
Now when I'm scouting, yeah, I want to be better
at woodsmanship. I want to find this spot in this
crossing and whatever, but also just thinking like what what
is a limited factor here that deer really gonna like,

(01:02:48):
you know, and you and I have both hunted places
where that might be water and that dumbs the things
down a lot. But also, you know, Andy talked about this,
Clint talked about this, Adam talked about this, like how
does it play into each part of the season, you know,
like because you're not only hunting the rut, or most
of us aren't. So if something's rare, you know, if

(01:03:09):
I'm out there in July or August and I'm like,
this thing's real rare, maybe I can use it, you know,
like timber cover is not going to change. Water might
not change it. Might food will change a lot, But
what is it going to mean for me if I
have an October one opener versus you know, being out
there on Halloween or being out there in the late

(01:03:30):
season and thinking through the stuff you find through the
scope of an entire season, you know, like that puts you, again,
like on such a good foundation, even if you do
plan to go mobile and in season scout a whole bunch.
The more you think about that and the more you
work to that kind of season long plan and those
those rare features out there that deer want to they're

(01:03:52):
gonna need. Man, when that stuff starts to come together,
like you, you find yourself having a lot fewer sits where.

Speaker 2 (01:03:59):
You Yeah, So what what if any other major takeaways
did you have coming out of this month that we
haven't covered yet? Is there any other major thing that
you feel like needs to be hit on again to
make sure that everyone kind of captured those key points.

Speaker 3 (01:04:20):
I think you got to learn to, if not love it,
at least really like it, like when you when you
talk to Andy, you talk to some of these guys,
they even though the scouting thing in the summer can
really suck, like you're gonna I mean, you're gonna get
stung by bees. Eventually you're gonna be hot and sweaty
and it's gonna be nasty. And you know, if you

(01:04:41):
ask my daughter, you're gonna get you know, you're gonna
hit stinging needles, not nettles, Like you're gonna have shitty
stuff out there, but that find that information, you know,
even jumping that buck out of that little swale or something,
it's always worth it. And so you got to learn.
You know, like you're a runner, you've been running some

(01:05:02):
half marathons, like everybody, I'm sure you have this conversation
ten times a month where people are like, I hate running.
I can't do it. It's like nobody likes running like
I mean, we like how it makes us feel, right,
but you know, there are very few people are like
I just love the process of running, like I feel
so it's so fun to run. You're like, no, Like,

(01:05:23):
that's not it's not what it's about. It's about like
the reward, it's like the result. Like it's a good
positive thing to do. And if you learn to tolerate it,
or you learn to like not hate it, it eventually
becomes a pretty good lifestyle choice. And I think with scouting,
you know, kind of like the all day sits like

(01:05:44):
people talk a big game, but it's not that easy
right off the bat to just love that process. But
if you can learn to get to a point, and
this is why, right at the beginning, I said, like, man,
if you can take a little bite sized chunks of
this stuff versus you know, one eight hour stand hanging
marathon or whatever every three months, the whole process is

(01:06:08):
way way better. And you just you learn to just
love it more. And I think that when I talk
to all those guys, I think one of the takeaways
was just like get to a place where you at
least like it, like it's it's so important.

Speaker 2 (01:06:22):
Yeah, it's another cliche, but you know, and this can
be applied to a lot of different aspects of hunting.
You can apply this to you know, some people can
replace some of this scouting with habitat work or those
kinds of things. But you know, the cliche idea that
you kill your deer in the off season and you
shoot them in the fall, and you could also say

(01:06:44):
you kill your deer you know on well this is
that would be eliminated in season, Scott. What I'm trying
to say, scouting kills deer shooting when you're actually in
the tree stand, that's very a relatively small part of
the hunt, right. It's it's really the work done in
the off season, in the spring, in the winter, in
the summer, and on the days when you're not in

(01:07:06):
the tree stand, when you're actually on the ground walking
or glassing all of that stuff. It's so much of
deer hunting is done ahead of the moment when you're
in the tree stand versus like elk hunting or meal
deer hunting, where like the hunt is happening right now,
and so much of is the decision you make next
based off of what the deer did just now. But
you know, white tail hunting world at least ambush hunting

(01:07:29):
the way we're talking about right now, So much of
it is putting this whole puzzle together ahead of time,
leading you to the one final piece that you then
place on October first or November fifth or whatever. But
you can't get to that point unless there's been all
of this other stuff leading up to it. And it's

(01:07:49):
very worthy of a full month of discussion, if not
much more.

Speaker 3 (01:07:53):
I totally agree, buddy.

Speaker 2 (01:07:55):
So do you want me to keep you up to
speed on the new property scouting and learning or will
it be too bitter of a pill to swallow and
you'll be bitter and jealous and you'd rather me just
keep it all under wraps.

Speaker 3 (01:08:07):
Listen, I'm very used to you having this kind of
sesame street life where everything's amazing and you're just this
muppet with a big smile on your face, So you
can I'm okay with it if you want to keep
me posted on this beautiful new property that you got
just because you're best friends with Steve Verneller or whatever.
That's fine.

Speaker 2 (01:08:27):
Well, it might also be a total clunker. I might
go out there and it be like overrun with trespassers
and you know, stolen trail cameras and all sorts of craziness.
So it might actually be a lot of fun for
you to follow a long dude.

Speaker 3 (01:08:42):
Everyone's in a while that happens, and it sucks so much.

Speaker 2 (01:08:48):
You just never know, And that's part of the fun
of the new places that you just could be anything.
So I will despite the sesame street dig I'm gonna
keep on sharing the story with you, hey, and we'll
see if I can figure it out.

Speaker 3 (01:09:03):
Speaking of Diggs, one thing that I've been seething about
since you said it at the beginning of this podcast
was metrout fishing with an ugly stick.

Speaker 1 (01:09:12):
Do you like that one?

Speaker 3 (01:09:13):
Yeah? Yeah, I would probably be able to retire tomorrow
if I had bought ugly sticks instead of the fishing
rods that I've been buying my entire life.

Speaker 2 (01:09:24):
Yeah, you and me both, man, They're a much better
deal when it comes to pennies in the piggy bank
at least. Oh okay, is there any other final thing
you want to cover off on or are we good
to wrap this up and move into August?

Speaker 3 (01:09:39):
Man, I think we're good. I think we've covered it
pretty heavy.

Speaker 2 (01:09:43):
All right, buddy, Well, thank you for manning the Mothership
and leading us into hunting season full blown crazy prep
mode here with a really good foundation of new scouting
ideas or reminders. And this coming month, as we lead
into the openers that many of this will experience in September,
we're going to kick off with another one of my

(01:10:05):
series of the what would you Do? Themed episodes? So
I think you recall these, Tony, I think you were
a guest on one of them.

Speaker 3 (01:10:12):
I absolutely was.

Speaker 2 (01:10:14):
Presenting a series of folks with like very specific hypothetical
situations and then asking them, you know, what would you do?
How would you approach this? What would be your thought process?
Walk me through all that? And these end up being
some of my favorites every year. So we're going to
get some new folks on, some new guests and really
digging deep on you know how they would tackle some
tough hunting situations and hopefully give us some new ideas

(01:10:37):
for this coming.

Speaker 1 (01:10:37):
Season because it is going to be here soon.

Speaker 2 (01:10:41):
I can't believe it, but we are staring down like
weeks until opening day for some states.

Speaker 3 (01:10:46):
It's crazy.

Speaker 1 (01:10:48):
I love it. I guess.

Speaker 2 (01:10:50):
With that, ill said Tony, let's wrap her up. Thank
you everyone for tuning in. Appreciate you listening. As I
managed at the top, there's those new products over all,
first light dot Com, the new source vests, the Origin pant,
and the trigger flip Mitt highly recommend him worth giving
a little time on the website there. And with all

(01:11:10):
that out of the way, good luck out there in
the wood scouting. Hope you're shooting, Hope you're having fun.
And until next time, stay wired to Hunt.