Ep. 685: What Would Tyler Jones and KC Smith Do?

This week on the show I’m running Tyler Jones and KC Smith of The Element through our "What Would You Do?" gauntlet, giving us insight into exactly how they’d handle some of the most challenging deer hunting scenarios I could throw at them.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
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, Mark Kenyon.

Speaker 2 (00:19):
Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. This week on
the show, I'm running Tyler Jones and ca C Smith
through our what would you do gauntlet, giving us insight
into exactly how they handle some of the most challenging
deer running scenarios. I could throw it all right, Welcome

(00:40):
to the wire to Hunt podcast, brought to you by
First Light. If you're not aware, first Let's got a
pretty cool program called Camo for Conservation, in which they
donate a portion of proceeds from the sale of every
single one of their specter whitetail camel product back to
the National Deer Association to help that great organization continue

(01:02):
the work they're doing to fight for deer and deer hunters,
both on private land public land. Whatever kind of deer
hunter you are, the NDA is working for you, and
First Light is helping them do that. So I'm a
fan of that. That said, today we are continuing are
what would you do Gauntlet series in which we're running
our guests through a bunch of different hypothetical deer hunting

(01:25):
scenarios to see what they would do and why they
would do it, how they'd handle these challenging deer hunting
situations and the thought process that would lead them to
a good decision. And today's guests are folks who hopefully
you are familiar with. We've got Tyler Jones and k C. Smith.
They're the hosts of the Element YouTube channel, the Buck

(01:46):
Truck series over on our media or YouTube channel, and
as of last year, hosts of our Fresh Radio mini series,
so hopefully you're listening to that. Each hunting season, we
get weekly updates from the field, and Casey and Tyler
are helping us do that here. This coming season again
can be getting updates and reports from deer hunters all

(02:07):
over the country. So that's what you have to look
forward to starting in September. But today they have a
good time with me as we talk through some interesting hunting,
you know situations. That's the game plan, talking to Casey
and Tyler talking deer, getting everything from public land advice
to you know, things related to every phase of the season.

(02:30):
We talk the rut we talked early season. We talk
how to deal with adversity. We even talk about using bait,
which is the thing they've done here and there, as
well as chasing big deer on totally DIY public land
spots and brand new territories. So I think there's gonna
be a little bit something here for everyone. I thoroughly
enjoyed this one. They are their fun crew and very

(02:53):
very good deer hunters. If you've not seen their hunts
over on YouTube, whether it be on the Mediator channel
or their channel, you should because they get it done
in a wide array of situations and they've got a
lot to share that we can all learn from. So,
without any further ado, let's get into our latest episode
from our what would You Do? Series with Tyler Jones

(03:16):
and Casey Smith of The Element. The Gauntlet's gonna begin
in Michigan, Okay, my home state of Michigan. Because you
guys came up a while back and you did your
whole scouting series, right, you guys did some scouting and

(03:39):
check some stuff out, So I want to imagine, I
want us to imagine if you guys were to take
that a step further. So Let's say you had to
come back up here to my home state and you
were gonna hunt, and we'll say it's going to be
an October hunt. What I'm curious is if we stuck
you back in that same area you checked out. Without

(04:00):
giving out too much details, I think it was somewhere
in the southern half of the state, kind of agriculture country,
mixed habitat. If you were going to show up at
that piece of public land or something similar in Michigan,
you've got one week to hunt in October. You're on
your buck truck season two or whatever you know you're
gonna your season is gonna be. How would you go
about scouting and learning that property leading into the hunt,

(04:24):
And what would the first day of that hunt look like?

Speaker 3 (04:28):
Given all that, did we get to choose any uh?
Seven week stretch in October? Is that what you're giving us?
The option to day seven day?

Speaker 2 (04:37):
Yeah? No, I'm giving you. Well, in my head, I
was thinking the first week of October. But I'll let
you pick your week. I'll let you pick if you want.
If you don't want the first.

Speaker 3 (04:45):
Week, Uh, are you going? I would say I would
pick the first week.

Speaker 4 (04:53):
I think so that helps, I'll go ahead and kind
of play that through.

Speaker 3 (04:59):
I am.

Speaker 4 (05:00):
I'm a lot different than a lot of people in
that I like mornings in October because I'm not hunting
field edges like I love to hunt bed to feed,
where in that case it's feed to bed in the morning,
especially if you have good access. If you're like, say
you're hunting a public piece that's pretty good size and

(05:20):
it's got varied habitat, and you maybe can go do
some scouting in the evening before and see, you know,
deer hitting an agfield where whether it's you know, alfalfa, standing.

Speaker 3 (05:32):
Corn or whatever. Maybe and maybe maybe it's a bird
feeder you know in some of these places or whatever.

Speaker 4 (05:39):
I like the concept of going in early in the
morning and getting way back into something and coming from
the different direction than where the deer are, and that's
pretty consistent early in the year.

Speaker 3 (05:51):
So that first week of October works really good for that.

Speaker 4 (05:55):
And you know, I guess to go a little deeper
into that, I think you'd probably want to pair that
with some natural browse stuff.

Speaker 3 (06:04):
When's the first frost date in southern Michigan.

Speaker 2 (06:07):
Mm hm, you know, somewhere in that first couple of
weeks of October, I would guess most years.

Speaker 4 (06:14):
Okay, so that's gonna probably make a difference on what
the what you're doing. If you don't have a frost
date yet in early October, then there's a lot more
of that forbe stuff that's still available deer. But say
you do get an early frost, I'm sure, well I'll
pronounce it correctly for Michigan and ers, but acorns will

(06:35):
be potentially a thing at that point in the year,
right so, and it might be like some early dropping
reds or something like that. If you pair that with
close proximity to some thicket betting maybe across a marsh
or something like that from an agriculture food source, I
feel pretty good about early October, you know that. And

(06:56):
also Michigan has like a September tween opener or is
it always October.

Speaker 3 (07:02):
One or what is it?

Speaker 2 (07:03):
Oh is October one?

Speaker 4 (07:04):
So again I think that that lends itself to some
really good hunting maybe on like October fourth, uh deep
in there where like I'm the opener, you could opener.

Speaker 3 (07:17):
You can have you know a lot of pressure around
the first the.

Speaker 4 (07:21):
Half mile radius near the roads, and if you go
back in there and just anticipate those deer getting bumped
into the deeper stuff and be there waiting on them.

Speaker 3 (07:30):
Uh, it's a it's a pretty good process. I think,
what kind of scouting are you talking about? The East
East scouting or like the on foot stuff.

Speaker 2 (07:38):
Well, I'm curious about both. So so I was gonna
ask case if if that means he would not do
any east scouting, would not do anything but the glass
the night before, or are you gonna do any of
those other things leading into those first hunts?

Speaker 4 (07:53):
Uh? You you probably know my answer because you know me.
But I'm gonna he's got a ton on this stuff.
In fact way more, I don't like to stomp stuff
up if it's if it's within a couple of weeks
of when I'm gonna hunt, I just stay out of there.
I don't want to be in there messing around. And
I know that deer will recover from that stuff. And
you know, if you bump a buck once whatever, But

(08:13):
at the same time, you never know when that buck is.

Speaker 3 (08:15):
Just a little bit weird about that stuff or I mean, it's.

Speaker 4 (08:19):
Almost like a chaos theory type deal. You know, it's
like what if you just do the wrong one thing,
Like you don't know that that's a looking branch, but
you touch it and they freak out, you know. Like so
just you know, if you're say you show up a
couple of days early, I wouldn't even show up a
couple of days early. Probably I would just show up
a day early and have some very good eastcout preparation.

Speaker 3 (08:42):
And in this sense, I would be looking for proximity
to roads.

Speaker 4 (08:46):
I'd be using like that on X layer that shows
you crop rotation stuff. And the big thing in Michigan,
it seems is you can see deer trails from the
area pretty often crossing those swamps. In fact, that's one
of the things we used on scouting series was beer
trails to.

Speaker 3 (09:02):
Uh, you know, Betting Islands, and uh.

Speaker 4 (09:05):
It seemed to be pretty productive. And I would so, yeah,
it's super heavy scout. Uh, probably a lot of truck
scouting driving around. I mean, if you can see a deer,
that makes me feel way more confident. I mean, even
if it's a small buck at that point in the year,
you know, like there's still a chance that he's in
pretty close proximity to his buddy.

Speaker 3 (09:26):
He was hanging out with this summer, and I mean
shoot man in Michigan.

Speaker 4 (09:29):
They're all shooters, right, so, uh, he's small danger according
to your boys, they say small ones.

Speaker 3 (09:37):
They're right.

Speaker 2 (09:40):
What would you what would you do, Tyler? Would you
take the same approach?

Speaker 3 (09:45):
Yeah? Pretty similar? We you know, he and I spend
a lot of.

Speaker 5 (09:48):
Time uh together, and we are on a podcast every
week on our podcast, and so we talk about this
stuff a lot. So we tend to we tend to
agree with a lot uh and have a lot of
similarities in this. I'd probably add, like, I'm looking at
that pen right now, where.

Speaker 3 (10:04):
That camera was, and.

Speaker 5 (10:08):
I would I would definitely try to hypothesize the betting
a little bit because I think, if I remember correctly,
one of the bigger bucks was a night photo, and
so I definitely like those are useful to me if
they're if they're close, if they're close to the you know,
close to daylight or close to shooting time, So those

(10:29):
are those are fairly useful, even if they're within a
couple of hours. Sometimes I feel like you can assume
betting sometimes based off of that, especially in more open country,
which just isn't. But I think another thing I would
key in on that time of year, I would imagine
most of the corn is still in, is that correct
up there and around the first week of October, ye,
So I would try to stay away from corn. I

(10:51):
think there looks like there's a lot of alfalfa in
the area, and I would I would hunt that just because.

Speaker 3 (10:56):
Corn that's in just makes things so difficult.

Speaker 5 (10:58):
Man like you, just because your whole bed to feed
pattern gets thrown off in a situation like that. So
I don't like that because really, I mean, you can
hunt the edge of the corn and.

Speaker 3 (11:11):
Kind of play both sides of the coin.

Speaker 5 (11:13):
There, but you're just you don't know where to blow
your wind and all that. So I probably would just
stay away from corn that time of year, try to
be into either beans or out faluta.

Speaker 2 (11:24):
So this brings up a larger question that I've kind
of wrestled with over the years when it comes to
my approach to new places that I'm just showing up
and hunting. I've historically always taken a similar approach to
you guys, in which I would east out a bunch
and then show up and be conservative, you know, not
want to trump all over the place, and kind of
work my way and based on what I'm seeing. But

(11:46):
I've had a few times where I have you know,
missed the boat in a situation where I didn't find
the key place until at the very end, and where
I'm thinking, man, if I just taken half a day
or the first day and like burned through a bunch
more stuff and actually saw this stuff, I could have
figured it out much more quickly and probably still could
have got away with it. So I've sometimes debated this

(12:07):
in my own mind. Is there any situation anytime of
the year in which you would do something like that,
like take day one or half a day and actually
like pound the ground or is it always going to
be what you just described for a showing up to
a relatively new place and learning as you go.

Speaker 5 (12:26):
My e scouting would determine that more we it's so
hot textas we just e scout all summer everything that
we're kind of looking forward to going and seeing.

Speaker 3 (12:37):
You know.

Speaker 5 (12:37):
And so I'll have I usually have kind of some
some methods that I use. I'm not super detailed, but
I do have like some organization on X that I
use that helps me to determine kind of So what
I'll kind of do is just like shotgun everything in
the area that I think is pretty good, and I
usually am probably a little bit more particular and dial

(12:59):
dialed in on that stuff in case he is. But
his method pays off a lot on playing BCD and
all that. You know, it's it's it helps us out.
But I'll, like I won't have probably as many pens
as him, but I'll put a bunch out there, and
then I'll go through and continue to look at those
throughout the summer some and end up like I all
kind of blue ribbon a lot of my like really

(13:20):
spots that I think are just awesome, and those are
spots that, like, I'll probably end up hunting those those areas,
and I'll probably end up observing.

Speaker 3 (13:31):
A lot of times first in those areas.

Speaker 5 (13:35):
Man, I like to be able to hunt even if
I am observing, so like it's not just purely an
observation set. Sometimes I just sit where my wind is
pretty full proof or something like that, you know, or
my access is really good, and then kind of see
and then also just be ready. But I think that
would determine kind of how I approach that is, like
if I go to an area and I've got one

(13:56):
good spot or two good spots say that I really like,
like I can tell from the aerial that that is
going to be a spot that I will more than
likely build an encounter buck. Then say the wind is
bad for it for both those spots, then that's where
I'll go, and I may stomp something up or really
get a little more aggressive and try to get my
glass on deer that are running out of the bottom

(14:18):
or something like that, and then I'll go back over
those spots when the wind is right. I In fact,
in South Dakota twenty twenty, it took six days before
we had a wind that we could hunt deer that
we're moving on a bed defeat pattern in one spy,
And when we finally got the wind we needed on
that sixth day, we went in there the first time
and we both shot.

Speaker 3 (14:37):
Bucks that even on that same spot, probably a couple
hundred yards from each other.

Speaker 4 (14:41):
You know, you bring up a good point about if
I am going to stomp something up, I don't know
if it's the time of a year as much as
it is it's a low risk, high reward top place.

Speaker 3 (14:53):
So like I usually categorize my stuff like a through.

Speaker 4 (14:57):
F as far as like places to bounce and go
in thoughts and the like, uh, if my really you know,
top three places don't work for some reason, one of
those bottom places I'll go stomp up because I'm like,
I probably won't make it here on the week anyways.
But what if I go in here and just find
the thing that's like, oh this I was this was

(15:18):
severely overlooked.

Speaker 3 (15:19):
By me, and I you know, I have missed the
boat big time on this.

Speaker 4 (15:22):
So that's probably one situation where I might stomp something.
Was like, I probably won't make it there, you know,
so let's go in there and do a quick run
and maybe there's something to learn from that.

Speaker 5 (15:32):
I would say that the rut, though, is the time
that we're pretty aggressive on this stuff. Sometimes it's like,
you know, just you know, it's more forgiving. The spot
is because deer maybe three miles from there.

Speaker 3 (15:42):
The next day.

Speaker 4 (15:42):
You're almost not stomping it up though, You're almost just
like blasting in there hunting anything.

Speaker 3 (15:47):
Weird things can happen.

Speaker 4 (15:48):
Yeah, So uh, another time that I might do just
stomp it up thing is if I'm in an area
let's say, so we're still going with this Southern Michigan scenario.
Let's say, and I don't.

Speaker 3 (16:02):
Know the state well, but maybe there's a big chunk.

Speaker 4 (16:04):
Of state forest or something that doesn't have much agriculture around,
and it's the right time of year for those year
to be hitting some falling masts. That would be the
time when it's like I'm gonna go in there and
just stomp until I find the thing and and hunted.

Speaker 3 (16:20):
But all that said, I never have done that with success.

Speaker 4 (16:23):
So but it's still just because I haven't had success
doing something doesn't mean I wouldn't try it again, you know,
because I think it could work.

Speaker 2 (16:32):
See, you guys brought up something that I want to
get a little more clarity on. Again. It's another one
of those things I always find myself debating on these
traveling hunts. You go into a lot of these hunts
with a bunch of different options, right play ABC and
maybe let's say maybe like A B and C you
feel pretty good about and you've got like a lot
of sound reasons why you think that'll work, why you
like it a lot, and then you get to your

(16:53):
de FG's or whatever, and now you're kind of you know,
these are I don't know, you can give it a
shot if you have to, maybe how much time do
you invest Let's say you have a seven day hunt.
We'll just take for an average, how much time will
you give to your spots you really really like your
ABU c's whatever that is before you pull the plug

(17:14):
and they're like, man, we really got to try some
crazy stuff because this just isn't working. I know some
guy I talked to someone recently who likes to give
like a three day rule to his best spots, Like
he'll give them three good sits, you know, to give
them a chance to work out the random days where
they're just not there. I've seen you guys, you know,
sometimes stick it out in one area, but sometimes, you know,

(17:35):
bounce around quite a bit. What's what's your general take
about how long you'll focus on a spot because of
your confidence before you have to really start pivoting to
wildly different things. Like if you had three days in
your plan A or B and it's just like not happening,
or maybe four days and you're down to the last three,
are you really going crazy and finding brand new spots

(17:55):
or do you just trust?

Speaker 3 (18:00):
Uh? I thought you gave me a little finger down
here to say that you had you you had a thing. Okay,
I can go what happened about breaking?

Speaker 2 (18:11):
What's what's the finger thing?

Speaker 4 (18:15):
I was like I thought I thought it was like
you're raising your hands, but you're raising your finger.

Speaker 3 (18:18):
Weird how observing he is, but he doesn't like.

Speaker 4 (18:21):
Okay, So I mark to answer your question. In most situations,
and if I do not see a deer, uh, I'm
bouncing after the first hip.

Speaker 3 (18:35):
That's just It's just it, unless it's.

Speaker 4 (18:37):
A rut hunt where it's like the raging rut and
you're in an area that deer cruise and you're liable
to pick up new deer from a neighbor or something.
So let's go back to the scenario here with the
first week of October in Michigan.

Speaker 3 (18:51):
These these deer are probably on a pretty good pattern. Uh.
And the only thing that's changing that is hunter pressure.
So if I go to a place.

Speaker 4 (19:02):
And I don't see deer or a good sign, man,
the clock's kicking in my head. Like I have a
real hard time. I mean, this week, I've talked about
this with gregular Day and probably you two, but like,
I can't think of a single time this past season
I hung in the same tree twice.

Speaker 3 (19:21):
Now I might have been in the same area, but
I made some type of adjustment, you know, sixty yards
over here or whatever.

Speaker 4 (19:27):
But I don't think I ever hung in the same
tree twice. So it depends on what you call spot
right now. If you call on like an eighty a spot,
I could probably find a way to give that three days,
but I still wouldn't hang in the same tree.

Speaker 3 (19:39):
Yeah, I'm pretty similar.

Speaker 5 (19:40):
I mean I gotta see, Like most of the time,
I gotta see if you're out of state on an
out of state trip, Like time is just of the essence,
and we're just I mean, we spend a lot of
times truck scouting.

Speaker 3 (19:52):
A lot of a lot of our time early in
a trip is truck scouting.

Speaker 5 (19:55):
So just trying to learn, like what crops are around
and what you know, if there's deer moving to them,
if we can find trails, even we'll drive, you know,
like if we don't have a great play, we'll drive
during Golden hour, you know, just trying to see what
deer are moving around the area early on and learning
that way.

Speaker 3 (20:15):
And I'm the same way.

Speaker 5 (20:16):
Like in South Dakota on that buck Truck episode, that
that spot that I ended up shooting that deer in Basically,
we showed up a day before the season, right and
then and we scouted and everything that we had learned
the year before in that place was.

Speaker 3 (20:32):
Pretty much just dead.

Speaker 5 (20:34):
And so I mean I I basically relocated pretty far
away and found bucks. This was one of my This
is one of my spots that I thought was really
good that I had scouted on on X and.

Speaker 3 (20:47):
Went and found that spot and found deer bedding in there.

Speaker 2 (20:51):
So you phone deer in there, and I think, if
I remember it, you glass bucks the evening prior, then
you went back the next morning, glassed some more in
the morning, and then made play to hunt them that
following evening. So two nights of glassing and then set
up to kill the fallow evening. Right.

Speaker 5 (21:06):
Yeah, So I was really I was really torn between
They were moving kind of north and south, and I
had two spots I could kind of hunt them on
that were would be more lateral east and west. Thinking
about it on this property, and I basically couldn't really
pick which one. So I decided to hunt from the ground,

(21:26):
be mobile and just glass and see what came by me,
and ended up kind of glassing from distance, but I
thought they would actually come up my way, and so anyway,
I just I had a different win the next morning,
but I wanted to get a better look at the
area I was hoping to find water, and I didn't
actually wasn't able to see, but the buck I thought,

(21:47):
the buck that I saw the night before, I thought
was going to water, and so.

Speaker 3 (21:51):
I tried to get up high and see from a
different angle. That next morning.

Speaker 5 (21:54):
I couldn't see the water, but I found a buck
bedded and I just, I mean, I just had a
really good feeling he was gonna come the tree on
the east. So I got in that one and he
was like ten yards, I mean, he's super close.

Speaker 2 (22:06):
So now, how did you know there was water where
you ended up going in the evening? Did you know
that from the previous year or did you just scout
your way in and found that, like, oh, here's the
water I was hoping would be here.

Speaker 5 (22:17):
There was a there was a drawl in the bottom,
and I could I was using Tobo lines on on
X to kind of see, well, it's lower right in there,
and this buck was heading kind of opposite of where
I thought he would destinate us for food.

Speaker 3 (22:33):
And and so I was like, the.

Speaker 5 (22:36):
Only reason I think he would do that is because
there would be water there, and he kind of dropped
down into the creek, and uh that was I also
had seen a spike go kind of from a different
direction in that same area and come out, and I
didn't know if he was you know, what he was doing.

Speaker 3 (22:51):
So I just it was a big assumption, you know,
But it ended up.

Speaker 5 (22:54):
The tree I sat in was when we got there,
the hole was there, and it was like it was
like may be ten yards long by five yards wide,
just a water hole in the bottom of the creek
that it was just a deep spot, you know, hole
in the creek and it was the only place holding.

Speaker 3 (23:07):
Water right there.

Speaker 2 (23:09):
Primo.

Speaker 3 (23:11):
Yeah, it was awesome. I mean it played out just right.
I was. I was pretty excited for that hunt.

Speaker 2 (23:17):
Yeah, that was That was one of those hunts that
really made you look smart until you weren't.

Speaker 5 (23:24):
But yeah, yeah, to talk about the end of the.

Speaker 2 (23:28):
Story, yeah, but no, one all serious. I remember when
that all worked out and that buck came, I was like, man,
that's like the best feeling in the world for Tyler.
But when you you know, glass them a couple of
times and then like really think through like how do
you make this move? How do you make that play?
And then for it to work out like perfect like
that that's a good feeling.

Speaker 5 (23:46):
Yeah, it is, man, And a lot of times that
comes through that like map work still while you're sitting there,
you know, you really I've been like two hours dialing
all the spots making sure I had the trees right
and where I thought that that bucket bedded and everything.
So I think that's important to you. Don't just want
to be like, oh, there's a buck bet and I'm
gonna go over there and kill them, you know, so
you just make sure that it's done right. Because the

(24:07):
wind was kind of shady too. So yeah, it's it's fun,
Like that's the one that gets fun man.

Speaker 2 (24:13):
Yeah, I agree. Uh yeah, what do you got?

Speaker 3 (24:29):
So?

Speaker 4 (24:29):
I know this is where you interview us and I
appreciate that, But since Michigan is your home state and
you have done all this, I would like to know
can you just kind of give the third person perspective
on what we said.

Speaker 2 (24:44):
Well, I mean, the thing that's unique for me from
what your situation would be is like you would be
hunting on a short term time period in a brand
new place, you know, in my case being local, I
would just approach it very differently. But I guess like
if I were to be in your use, and if
I were traveling up here, and if I were going
to try to scout and figure out something new in

(25:04):
southern Michigan, I would do something pretty similar to what
you said. I would have a lot of east scouting done,
and then I would show up in that night before,
for sure, i'd be doing truck scouting. I'd be driving
around trying to confirm what's the food? Is it what
I thought it was gonna be? Where's the food? Can
I see any place that there are some deer, you know,
coming out and feeding in daylight? Something like that? The

(25:26):
next morning, I probably wouldn't hunt the first morning, I think,
you know, unless unless I just saw like a slam
dunk where I saw like a buck the night before,
and I felt like very confident for some reason with
where he was bed, I probably would truck scout again
in the morning, both to see if I could catch
anything going back in, and then more importantly though, see

(25:47):
where the hunters were. I'd really want to see what
parking lots have got guys and what parking lots don't
because I think, you know, finding those pockets where there's
not hunting pressure yet will really make a big difference,
especially in Michigan on an opening day when there's like literally
half a million or more hunters going out, maybe not
quite that, but right in that ballpark, and then you know, midday,

(26:09):
I would were late morning even I would probably do
my like slow scout my way into a location to
hunt for that evening. And the only thing I would
add to what you said would just be, especially with
the public land in most places in Michigan that I
have seen scouted or hunted, water is like the secret
weapon to getting away from people more often than not,

(26:32):
like anything that's super swampy, nasty or big bunch of
creeks and rivers and things like that, that's you know,
one of the only ways to get get away from
folks sometimes here. And so i'd really be keying in
on and you mentioned that a little bit, the swampy
spots where you can see like trails running through the
swamps and cattails and stuff. I'd be looking for that,
but just really keying in on, like what's the wettest

(26:54):
gnarliest stuff that I wouldn't want to go to, and
if that could coincide or be near to where I
also saw some deer feeding in a you know, a
pocket of green bean still or something like that, that
would be you know, something that make me feel really
good about it.

Speaker 3 (27:08):
So that would be all high level. The first week
of November, I mean October.

Speaker 2 (27:13):
If I were going to pick a week in October
for a traveling hunt, I don't think i'd pick the
first week in October. In a Michigan I would take
the last week in October's, yeah, but but the first
would be like my second choice, so i'd be you know,
I would I really like, I really like the first
like two to three days of October here in the state.

(27:34):
But that's for like my local properties I know well,
but I know like the places I know, well, there's
gonna be a day or two window where you almost
almost every single year, and if hunt of different places,
but almost every single year for the last like twelve
years at least when hunting my opening day, you know,
hunt in Michigan, the first day or two, you'll have

(27:55):
an encounter with the target buck the first day or two,
but then it you know, things change really fast. Stuff
for that, so speaking opening day, very good segue, and
thank you Casey for leading me into this wonderful segue,
because I want to send you guys home. We're gonna
talk a lot about traveling, but I want to send
you guys back home to Texas for an opening day question.
And I don't know if you guys hunt Opening day

(28:16):
a lot in Texas or if you're traveling during that
time period, but let's just say this year, you're gonna
hunt Opening Day in Texas, so the archery opener, hunting
at home, and same thing. I would imagine that leading
into opening day, you don't have as much pressure. So
I'm guessing maybe Texas Bucks would act like Michigan Bucks
and be relatively active still that first day or two.

(28:40):
But correct me if I'm wrong. But let's imagine Opening
Day in Texas is coming poor conditions though, so you've
got like hotter than usual, so I know it's already
gonna be hot, but let's say, and maybe you guys
need to tell me what that has to be. Maybe
there's not too hot, but in my mind that's uh.

Speaker 4 (28:57):
I mean, if I was gonna guess the high on
opening day is going to be between ninety three and
ninety eight.

Speaker 3 (29:04):
Yeah, you did bring it up.

Speaker 4 (29:07):
We do travel for opening I haven't made an opener
in five years and it kind of hurts my feelings.
But just because if you go a couple of states north,
it actually feels like you're deer hunting, you know.

Speaker 3 (29:19):
But we can definitely play along with your scenario for sure.

Speaker 2 (29:22):
Okay, yes, So so hearmor me on this one. Let's
imagine it's opening day in Texas and you have conditions
that are so bad that you worry that the dere
activity might be less than usual. So tell me what
that would have to be. And then secondly, do you
make a big swing on the opening evening or opening

(29:44):
day in Texas if you're hunting locally like I would
do in Michigan, like I go for a kill on
the first night because like that's usually a special day,
special day or two. So if you were local in
Texas during that time period, would you go for a
big swing and go for kill on the opener despite
this condition that are too hot? Or if not, how
would you approach that first day or two with those

(30:07):
super hot conditions? And what kind of setup would you
go for for that kind of hunt, and Tyler, I'm
going to figure you and you got to go, what
is this like a.

Speaker 3 (30:17):
Public land deal or what where? We don't ask me
where are we hunting? Man?

Speaker 2 (30:22):
You're hunting local at home. So you tell me you
can hunt your private stuff do you have access to
down there? Or you can hunt public?

Speaker 3 (30:27):
Okay, wherever you would want to hunt, I would I
would be on private.

Speaker 5 (30:31):
Uh it really, I'd probably be on private if I
had the choice anywhere, you know.

Speaker 3 (30:36):
But the man like I almost cannot.

Speaker 5 (30:40):
Come up with a scenario on October one or around
that day whenever we open that I would hunt it
on and feel good about. I mean, it's just like
I don't. I can't even water is not reliable. You know,
we don't have ag. We've got coastal Burguida pastures for
for for cattle.

Speaker 4 (31:01):
So to me.

Speaker 5 (31:03):
Uh in case, you may have a different idea here.
But as I'm thinking through this, like my property that
I hunt in particular that's private in in our area,
I would probably hope that we have a different wind
than the predominant wind we usually have, which is in southeast,

(31:25):
and so I would probably hope for a different win
than that. But if I get that southeast wind, which
is what I'm gonna get, if it's like ninety eight
degrees a little bit hotter than normal, and I'm going
to hunt in the in the northeast corner of this property,
on next to the woods, but on the edge by

(31:46):
the field, because what's gonna happen those deer there, Well,
as the sun goes down, they're going to come out
and their mosquitoes are gonna be kind of bad, probably,
and they're gonna try to find open areas that they
can get some reprieve and a little bit of breeze maybe,
and uh, they're gonna walk those edges and just kind
of browse around and find what they can find in

(32:06):
the back of those pastures or fields or whatever. Even
though there's it's not really an AX source, it's just
they're a creature of edge and they're gonna so I'm
gonna try to get them coming down. Basically, I'm hind
the northeast corner of the southeast wind, and I'm hoping
that they come out on.

Speaker 3 (32:22):
This edge and work east towards me.

Speaker 5 (32:25):
Uh, and my wind just kind of misses them, but
they feel good about going into a quarter two win
like that kind of that's my best my best answer there.

Speaker 2 (32:33):
What's that field that they're going on to.

Speaker 5 (32:36):
Well, normally, the like I said, most everything is coastal bermuda,
so it's just hay, you know, it's like, I mean,
the deer don't even I don't think they even eat
the bermuda in it. They eat other forbes that they
can find, they kind of grow within it. But for
for this particular field, I'll have I'll have a lot
of I mean, I don't know what they're exactly browsing,
but it's basically just wild. It's grown up, it's not

(33:00):
it used to be cattle pasture and now it's partridge
p and there's some golden rod, which they don't really eat. Texas,
We'll have some poke weed and stuff like that that
they'll neble on. I mean, uh, there'll be blackberries, not
the berries, but the bush. They'll eat a lot of that.
So yeah, it just kind of depends on what they

(33:21):
find out there.

Speaker 3 (33:22):
There's a bunch of different things growing out in that
field though.

Speaker 4 (33:25):
Case, so I'm gonna hunt private as well, and I'm
gonna hunt my property because Tyler is gonna be hunt
his but no, I had never asked.

Speaker 3 (33:34):
He would if I asked him, and I don't. Uh.

Speaker 4 (33:37):
So, my property actually sets up for south winds, which
is kind of our property is a little bit inverted in.

Speaker 3 (33:45):
The way that they set up.

Speaker 4 (33:47):
So for one, I would be running bait all summer,
which I'm doing right now. I've got corn on my property,
uh and so I've got a lot of bucks and
does coming in and hitting that bait. It's gonna be
pretty tough to hunt right over the bait. It's kind

(34:07):
of more of a thing to keep deer on the property.
So I would probably make sure that that is located
pretty central property and I can hunt. You're going to it,
And I would probably still choose in morning because.

Speaker 3 (34:22):
It stays hot late in Texas that time of year.

Speaker 4 (34:24):
But in the mornings you have a chance to have
a morning in the sixties, you know, like a sixty
nine or something like that. You know, more than likely
it's like a lowest seventy five or something, but that's
still way cooler. So you're gonna have a lot of
deer movement for an opening morning from sunrise till nine
ish o'clock and then it's gonna shut down for the

(34:46):
day until probably the last ten minutes of shooting lot,
which for me just it's real hard to go sweating
in a tree stand in the afternoon for four hours
waiting on that last ten minutes I'm sitting there. And
along with that, I'm gonna have a pre hung set
because I'm gonna swept my tail off if I go
in there and try to hang something. And if it's

(35:07):
on private, why wouldn't you, Especially if it's your own place,
you can go up there.

Speaker 3 (35:10):
I mean even you can take the kids.

Speaker 4 (35:12):
And that's another great thing about private on your own property.
The deer are a lot less sensitive to activity. So
you know earlier were talking about the stomp around thing.
I could go back there right now with a fifty
pounds bag bag of corn and put it out, and
there'll be a deer on there in twenty minutes, like
they hear me do it, you know, Like so they're
just a little bit more you know, comfortable with human intrusion. Now,

(35:33):
I wouldn't go back there and play music. There's a
bunch of people around here, yeah exactly. Yeah, So there's
people around stuff, and you can use that to your
advantage a little bit. Also, one of the things with
hunting in a morning, if you're hunting in a we
live rule, right, but it's it's not a neighborhood, but
there's houses around here and there people get up and
get stirren later in the mornings. Then they usually go

(35:56):
out in the evening and mother grass and make a
lot of noise, you know. So you also have that
aspect to it being more peaceful and that you're not
just being too disturbed.

Speaker 3 (36:04):
So that's kind of my take on the opener.

Speaker 4 (36:07):
Also have a I don't know, it's a real low
chance to shooting a buck, I think in general, so
it's probably an.

Speaker 3 (36:16):
Opportunity to shoot a dough uh.

Speaker 4 (36:19):
And I might be thinking about because you didn't restrict
us to hunting big target bucks, you know, in the conversation,
I might be thinking about getting that first year of
the year and just you know, having fun and shooting
something would probably be the first my primary concern out there.

Speaker 2 (36:33):
So you bring up my next question though, when you
mentioned your whole plan casey, because you know, being the
Texas guys, you guys are stuck having to answer these
kinds of questions. Sorry, but if I told you that
this year you had to kill a mature buck over bait. Okay,
how would you do it? When would you do it?

(36:53):
Where would you do it?

Speaker 4 (36:55):
When you say over bait, you don't mean eating it
like in his mouth? Right, but just like a deer
going to bait or like orienting to that.

Speaker 2 (37:05):
Yes, yes, so I'll give you some flexibility, should win
and where?

Speaker 3 (37:09):
Right?

Speaker 2 (37:10):
Yeah? So I want to understand, like, yeah, give me
basically as full of a picture as you could if
you have, like that was the only stipulation that you
can kill, you gotta kill with chure buck, and bait
has to be like a central part of it. I
want to all the details of what you would need
to make that work.

Speaker 3 (37:28):
Are you are you sticking us to our properties or
what do you.

Speaker 2 (37:31):
You can you can go? You can tell me anywhere
you could use.

Speaker 3 (37:34):
This okay to work with here?

Speaker 4 (37:37):
Okay, anywhere in the I thought you meant Texas, So
anywhere that allows baiting.

Speaker 2 (37:42):
Yeah, so if you if you'd rather do it in
Kentucky or Ohio or somewhere else. But basically, what I'm
trying to get at here is, like you know, for
people that do use bait, how can they use it better. Like,
that's what the lesson I'm trying to take from this.
And I want you guys to paint me a picture
that will teach someone, you know, a better way to
do it.

Speaker 3 (38:00):
Man.

Speaker 4 (38:01):
I tell you I'm not gonna actually say a state
because it's a little bit hard to you know, put
too much of a spotlight on some places.

Speaker 3 (38:10):
But let's just say like a Midwestern bait state.

Speaker 4 (38:13):
I think that on November sixth, on an evening, if
you set up sixty or seventy yards down wind of
that bait, there is a really good shot that that
that a mature buck knows that those are going to
go to that bait.

Speaker 3 (38:27):
And so like.

Speaker 4 (38:28):
You, now, this has bitten me in the butt before,
but Martin, we still have you.

Speaker 3 (38:34):
I lost your video. Okay, sorry, good. This has bit
me in the butt before.

Speaker 4 (38:40):
Where I set up like fifty yards from a bay
pall and I had a giant come in and just eat,
you know, and I couldn't take the shot.

Speaker 3 (38:46):
It was too Indian, too far.

Speaker 4 (38:49):
But I think that your that's kind of the obscurity
and not the norm. I think that there's a real
good chance that you have those come in to eat
the bait and big bucks will be sent checking those does.

Speaker 3 (39:03):
And if you can concentrate them with bait, that's the
way to do it.

Speaker 5 (39:07):
I would probably say that my key number one tip
for getting a mature buck killed over bait.

Speaker 3 (39:16):
It's it's very very similar in my way of doing it.

Speaker 5 (39:19):
Probably the casey but and he would do this too,
but just maybe failed to mention. Hand feeding is like
the way to do it. I mean, it's it's hard
to do it. It's a hand feed enough that you
don't let it go dry, you know.

Speaker 3 (39:34):
But if you can get.

Speaker 5 (39:34):
Out to a spot every other day and throw a
couple of bags of corn out or whatever it takes,
I mean a bel alf alpha, however you want to
do it hand feeding and not having a big feeder
that's making a bunch of noise and a big you
know feeder pen and cattle country that just it looks
like somebody set up a town, you know, in the
middle of the deer woods. So not having that is

(39:55):
pretty I think that's a pretty big key to debating situation.

Speaker 2 (40:00):
So so are you saying that it's the the physical like
feeder that would freak out mature bucks or is it
the fact that you going in there associates your presence
with food, and then they're not as wigged out when
you go and hunt because they're used to someone coming
in every other day.

Speaker 5 (40:17):
I think it's more about the noise that a feeder
would make, and some somewhat the visual aspect. I don't
think it's it's necessarily an association.

Speaker 3 (40:28):
Uh.

Speaker 5 (40:28):
It's an association with humans, but not necessarily because they
hear or see you.

Speaker 3 (40:32):
It's just an odd looking thing on the landscape, you know.

Speaker 4 (40:36):
I also think that if I can add two, that
the free choice aspect of hand feeding is way better
than the timed feeder uh situation. And now you will
feed a lot more so if you're traveling you have
a deer, least or something that you're feeding on, you're
gonna have to do the time or thing usually. But
say if you're if you're feeding locally, man, my dear,

(40:58):
just I will have so much many more dear on
my property if I do what Tyler's talking about, put
corn out on the ground in large quantities.

Speaker 3 (41:06):
But they still it's not like they're they're all day.

Speaker 4 (41:09):
They're still there around deer times, you know, like you
know the you know the.

Speaker 3 (41:14):
Hour window there after daylight, but they're just more comfortable.

Speaker 5 (41:19):
Yeah, yeah, there you go.

Speaker 3 (41:20):
There's your fuck Cavlie worried.

Speaker 4 (41:22):
Uh They uh, they're just more comfortable just knowing that
the food source is there as opposed to the It's
something about just I think that big Bucks know that
a feeder is unreliable in the sense that maybe something
already got there and ate the food, so they may
or may not go there that night.

Speaker 3 (41:40):
But if you have of eight station set up that.

Speaker 4 (41:42):
They just know that there's been food there the last
ten days, they're they're probably a little bit more apt
to go there. And also, uh, I could add to
that as well, if you want bait to be effective,
you need to hunt it on good winds and hunt
it really particularly like uh uh, because I mean it's
just like any other thing that concentrates the deer.

Speaker 3 (42:04):
Like the deer know that and they're going to go
downwind of it.

Speaker 4 (42:07):
So if your wind is a little off or whatever
it may be, and you booger one, like, he's not
going to recover from that quickly.

Speaker 3 (42:14):
He can find something else to eat.

Speaker 2 (42:17):
Yep. Makes sense. Kind of like a food source of
any kind of food pluck.

Speaker 6 (42:22):
Yeah, yeah, all right, I'm gonna send you back out
of state, back on the road doing your traveling thing.

Speaker 2 (42:40):
We'll say you're somewhere in that Midwest Ish region and
you're several days into a hunt, let's say you know,
three or four, and you've you've kind of been zeroing
in on the stuff, like you you're figuring it out.
You've found your spots, kind of like Tyler, you know
you've found some buck. You scout a couple of nights,

(43:01):
you realize like, oh man, like I found my kill spot.
You're heading in for a kill hunt. Like you feel good.
You got like those little nervous jitters because you're just
confident that like you're in it. You're getting close to
your spot, they'll hiking and all of a sudden you
see fresh boot tracks, like someone there are boot tracks
here that were not here you know last time you
walked in, whether it was this morning, the night before

(43:21):
or whatever. Uh, someone's been in here. Does that change
your strategy? Do you still go to your spot even
though there's boot prints like close to where you're planning
on setting up, or do you push through and do
your thing regardless of what this person might have done
or has not done.

Speaker 3 (43:39):
I'm glad he asked you. This is a very good question.

Speaker 5 (43:43):
Mark, You're a good question asker, I'd say, I mean,
this is this is very like situational dependent.

Speaker 3 (43:55):
Oh you could say that, but.

Speaker 5 (43:58):
I would say so some of the variables, some of
the variables that you would kind of consider would be
like how many spots do you have?

Speaker 3 (44:07):
You know what I mean?

Speaker 5 (44:07):
If you don't have very many spots that you feel
good about, then probably just gonna go ahead and commit
and see what you see when you get in there.
You know, I mean, because this guy might have just
done what you know you wanted to do and burn
in there real quick and done a quick scouting session.
It might not a mess anything up too bad. And
I think so you got to kind of understand, like

(44:29):
what your backup plans are. You want to have some,
but you don't always because later in the trip sometimes
you've already gone through a lot of those and seen
what actually panned out to be a pretty good spot.

Speaker 4 (44:41):
You know.

Speaker 5 (44:41):
Another thing is like what does the area set up?
Like are you hunting?

Speaker 1 (44:47):
You know?

Speaker 3 (44:47):
Are you going in there to cottonwood drainage?

Speaker 5 (44:50):
And you know, I don't know Nebraska or North Dakota,
and there's not really a whole lot of habitat in there,
and this guy's headed right into the nearest.

Speaker 3 (45:01):
You know, betting hole that you figure is in there.

Speaker 5 (45:05):
You know, I think it's that's that's kind of another
question you kind of have to answer to to understand
what your final answer is in this scenario. I think
I probably tend to, uh continue until I like figure
out for sure like this dude is in here or

(45:26):
you know, went right into a spot that was a
bad spot.

Speaker 4 (45:29):
You know.

Speaker 5 (45:29):
Another thing that you that helps you make that decision
is we I've gotten really really.

Speaker 3 (45:37):
I don't know, I really consider ground scent pretty heavily now.

Speaker 5 (45:41):
In the last couple of years, I've just I've really
worked on access a lot as being like a big
part of uh the hunt for me, and to understand
how what the best access is and how ground scent
can really mess up a hunt. Over the last few years,
I've seen that and and so I'm trying to really

(46:02):
limit that. So if this guy to me, if he's
walking you know, on or across a trail that is
going to be leading to my tree, that's that's an
issue I'm probably bailing at that point.

Speaker 3 (46:16):
You know, if it's it's a very.

Speaker 2 (46:17):
Fresh boot track, what's you kissy.

Speaker 4 (46:23):
We'll probably are a little more different on this, I guess,
but not drastically.

Speaker 3 (46:28):
I just am going to lean towards.

Speaker 4 (46:30):
Bouncing, uh, just because I think in most situations, I
have some other good opportunities that I could go to
instead of you.

Speaker 3 (46:42):
Know, staying there and just just getting somebody's leftover.

Speaker 4 (46:47):
You know, Like there's a few places that I know
that I hunt that are pretty forgiving in this stuff,
and that usually has to do with like it being
the only food source in for miles, and outside of that,
I just don't like to go where other people are
too much, I mean, and it does pay dividends.

Speaker 3 (47:07):
It is more difficult because some places it's hard to find.

Speaker 4 (47:09):
A spot where there's nobody, you know, you can talk
about like what you're saying there in Michigan, where there's
you know, half million folks going into the woods that
you might not find a partialow just doesn't have a
dude on it. But if if the option is there,
I'm probably going to try to figure something else out,
just because I not to discredit the general hunting populace, right.

(47:33):
I think I'm glad that people are getting out there,
but I don't trust the guy that was in there
before me to have made any good decisions. And I
think that that he might have right, It might have
been degging Bill Winki in there, you know, but like
you just have to assume the worst because it's a
great way to be hunting ghostbucks, you know, yeah, glosses.

Speaker 3 (47:54):
Yeah, you know, you man, you talk about wasting some time.
You know, it's there really a bad way to do that.

Speaker 2 (48:02):
Yeah, man, you're right. Even if it is Bill Winkie,
he sleeps at the base of his tree these days,
so you know, you don't know what you're gonna get.
There might be a tent all set up down there, too,
so watch out for Winkies tracks man like John Rambo.
All right, So I'm I'm with you guys on that.

(48:23):
I don't I don't particularly like h like seeing boots
coming in, but it is situational. Let's uh. I had
another kind of pressure lay question. But in the interesting time,
let's speed up and go into November, and I've got
a specific November question for you guys. Let's let's again
say you're in the Midwest. I'm gonna put you, like

(48:44):
in Illinois. You guys hunted there recently and had an
interesting hunt. Let's say you're back in Illinois, but it's
November and you discover a spot that's deep in the
cover that's like a no questions asked big buck hotspot.
There's a creek running through some tim you can see
a pretty defined crossing of the creek, and there's betting,

(49:04):
but it's all around you. Like it's a dynamite pinch
sort of because you've got this like very defined creek crossing,
but there's also betting all over the place, so it's
not like a terrain or it's not a not a
cover pinch. You can tell, like there's definitely bucks moving
in here. It's the rut they're gonna be crossing here.
They're checking these betting areas. It screams out good from
that standpoint, there's big bucks signing all around. Problem is,

(49:27):
there just does not seem to be a way to
hunt this spot without deer winding you because of all
that cover around you, and because there's betting on both
sides of the creek and kind of all around, and
it's a relatively high deer density area. So what do
you do in that situation? Do you hunt this despite
that riskiness of the wind and just say, man, it's
so good, I gotta hunt it and I'll deal with

(49:48):
the consequences of wind of some does winding merror or whatever?
Or do you hunt off the hot spot in some
kind of a way but you have a safer wind.
What would you do? Tyler?

Speaker 4 (50:01):
Time?

Speaker 2 (50:04):
I just know you, I know, I know you need
more time.

Speaker 3 (50:06):
Casey, okay, processing exactly. So how big is this betting area?

Speaker 2 (50:17):
Let's say we're talking like this is five six seven
acres that kind of thing, Like it's a it's five
acres ish, So that's like a yeah, let's go that
number for simplicity.

Speaker 3 (50:29):
The pinch. What's creating the pinch.

Speaker 2 (50:31):
It's like a creek crossing. So when I say, when
I say, I'm not a pinch might have been the
wrong word, but like there's a there's a funneling effect
because there's like a one very defined creek crossing. And
let's say there's like high banks in most other places,
so this is like there's not like twenty of these
creek crossings. This is like the creek crossing for quite
a ways.

Speaker 5 (50:49):
Yeah, Okay, so I learned this growing up fishing like
Fork in Texas, which is a kind of renowned bass like.

Speaker 3 (50:56):
But the big trees grow by the creek, and.

Speaker 5 (51:03):
The way that I would hunt this, I would probably
be pretty aggressive and try to get.

Speaker 3 (51:08):
In there, especially considering this is the rut.

Speaker 5 (51:11):
I would try to find a way to make an
assumption about I always try to assume where the deer
coming from, even if it's the rut, Like which side
do I think that these deer coming from, because they
even in the rut, these they're generally going to relate
bed to feed at least the dose. And then you

(51:33):
can make assumptions about if bucks are really amped up
and they're you know, trying to encounter those go in
the opposite way, or you know how that works out,
Like in any scenario, there's a bunch of variables. But
I would say that that I would hang in one
of those big trees right over the creek, potentially one
that hangs out over the creek, and I would let

(51:56):
my thermal in November a lot of times, supecially if
you get a high pressure day, which is gonna be
a good day to hunt November right at dark, you're
gonna get just a falling thermal and.

Speaker 3 (52:08):
The wind's gonna die, probably more than likely.

Speaker 5 (52:10):
And if that's the case, I would hang out over
that creek and let my wind just fall into the
creek and away from that crossing, and I would I
would shoot the first big buck that comes through in
the in the the gray hour. But I would also
say that I'm not afraid to sit in a place

(52:32):
during the rut where my wind is blowing in a
pretty shady direction down the trail, because I think a
lot of times, if you can, if you can make
a really good assumption about which way that you're traveling,
a lot of times what you're gonna get is a
dough with a buck pretty hot on her trail, and
you just have to make sure you can shoot that
buck before the dough gets you, or you can rely

(52:55):
on this and it works. The buck and the dough
are so just you know, you know, frenzy that they
don't even they don't even wind you.

Speaker 3 (53:04):
You know, they the DEVI will run through your winds sometimes.
So it's I mean, the rut is the bast man.
I love. It's hard to be.

Speaker 2 (53:12):
I like it. Casey, what about you.

Speaker 3 (53:15):
So I like Tyler's answers. I guess I'll just kind
of have some additions to that.

Speaker 4 (53:21):
Really, if it's really the rut, I think that calling
can work and say you feel good about.

Speaker 3 (53:31):
This place for a few days.

Speaker 4 (53:34):
Sitting up a little bit off of that and calling
to deer that are coming through there could be a
way for you to at least give it a day.
You know, go in there, try to grunt at a
big buck who's who's cruising through the creek crossing getting
to come off of it, and if he won't, then
the next day go in and burn the tar of
that thing and just hint it hard.

Speaker 3 (53:56):
But that that is one day. If you want to
play a little bit more conservative, you can do that.
It's good idea. Also, access would be a big thing
for me.

Speaker 4 (54:04):
And uh if you can walk the bottom of the
creek to get in there, that's gonna.

Speaker 3 (54:08):
Be awesome, because I think that.

Speaker 4 (54:14):
Blowing you in one uh through betting area is one thing,
but just swiping the whole sap sucker, because you can
just you know, have to walk in and your wind
just goes through the whole thing as you're walking. That's
really bad And stomping through there. It's bad too because
it's probably fixed. You're gonna make a lot of noise. See,
you have a lot of that going on as well.
So if you can get down in the creek to
get to get your access in, I would feel a

(54:36):
lot better about that. And then me, being the guy
who likes mornings, I might like to hunt this on
a morning because just like Tyler was talking about, I
love that thermal suck with the cold water, you know,
and having everything fall down into, you know, the the
valley as it cools.

Speaker 3 (54:56):
Off in the evening.

Speaker 4 (54:57):
That also can work in the morning though, as everything
heats up around you, the cold water is gonna still
kind of hold like a little pocket of air down there,
and if you can tap into.

Speaker 3 (55:06):
That, you're in really good shape. And also a thing
I've seen work.

Speaker 4 (55:11):
It's kind of crazy and I almost don't believe it,
but I think it's a deal that not a lot
of people talk about, is that if you have a
really frosty morning, but say it's you know, as soon
as the sun comes out, it gets above freezing. So
say you know, it got down to thirty one, but
sun hits everything and he gets.

Speaker 3 (55:30):
In the forties real quick and it's sunny.

Speaker 4 (55:34):
There is some level of a straight up thermal on
dead still days that you get from evaporation, and I
think that this is that scenario just screams that to me.
If you can get like a November fourth where it's
just dead calm in the morning and it's frosty, and
you let that sun come up, like you can just
have just this lift from the evaporating water vapor that

(55:57):
just brings all your scent up and maybe out, or
at least it's going to give you enough of a window,
you know, to to not have deer just you know,
two hundred yards away smelling you because there's no there's
no wind to take it to them.

Speaker 2 (56:13):
Yeah, that's a that's an interesting idea there, and.

Speaker 3 (56:19):
It works.

Speaker 2 (56:21):
No, I like it. I was just thinking through like
there's all these little things that that that creak gives
you these advantages I think in a lot of ways too,
like the thermal effects and the access to effects, and
that really does help you get away with some things
in these like heavy cover betting area kind of zones
that you otherwise might not be able to get away with.

(56:42):
I've had a few of these myself and this is, uh,
these are all things I've seen one more situational one,
and I think we'll get to our rapid fire and
wrap this sucker up for you. November again, we'll say
we're pushing a little bit. Let's put you like November tenth,

(57:03):
and you're out of state. It's day three and on
the first day when you set up, you or when
you arrived, you're doing your truck scouting maybe and you
hung a few cameras in a few like easy to
get two places like I've seen you Tyler, like hop
off out of the truck and put a camera on
the side of the road. Let's say it's something kind

(57:23):
of like that, like you found some easy to access spots,
you put up a couple cell cameras. Let's say to
begin now, it's day three and you've kind of figured
you're figuring some stuff out. You're finding locations that you
think will be good. You're kind of finding some rut
pinch point or betting yar kind of zones, and you're
you're getting there, but maybe you don't have like the

(57:43):
spot within the spot on the spot, but you're heading
somewhere you feel pretty confident with it's the evening hunt.
You're on your way to the evening hunt, and then
your phone pings and you get the cell camera upload
from the day previous and you get daylight pictures of
a shooter buck elsewhere, like somewhere that's not where you're headed.

(58:06):
How do you factor this new piece of intel into
your hunting strategy? Does it change what you're doing that night?
Does it change what you're doing the next day at all?
Or is one single daylight photo over shooter buck not
enough for you to do something with that case, you
get to go first because you are equal with Tyler

(58:27):
in my favorite rankings.

Speaker 3 (58:33):
We're just on the same plane.

Speaker 4 (58:38):
Thanks Mark. Let me think about this. So, first of all,
I think it's funny that you said, like yesterday's stelf
on stuff uploads, because I guess.

Speaker 3 (58:52):
Twenty four hours is the delineator of like what's ethical
and what's not.

Speaker 2 (58:55):
Is that what you're saying, Well, that's just what I do,
but some people do it to me. But I'm just saying, like,
but we'll roll with that.

Speaker 3 (59:03):
Okay, okay, but.

Speaker 2 (59:04):
You could tell me. But you could tell me like
if you have it on timely or instant and you
get an instant picture like right then what you would do.

Speaker 3 (59:14):
Quite a bit or every three hours or so.

Speaker 4 (59:15):
But I don't actually let it determine my moves right away,
like hardly ever, except for on hogs, which is we're
not talking about right so we're talking about white tail.

Speaker 3 (59:25):
One daylight picture.

Speaker 4 (59:28):
That means that but cruised through, he didn't hang out,
he didn't check a scrape, he didn't tend to go there.
I would This is a little bit location dependent, but
let's just say we're kind of like in the Midwest,
and uh, do your covering ground.

Speaker 3 (59:46):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (59:47):
I would probably just use that as an indicator as
to the time of day that I think bucks may
be on their feet, and I'm.

Speaker 3 (59:56):
Probably wouldn't let it affect my decis to go hunt
that particular buck at that place.

Speaker 4 (01:00:03):
Too much, except for I'm gonna kind of just pretty
much rewrite what I just said. I know he's in
the area, and that means a lot to me, so
like I'm not I'm not gonna go and think that
I'm gonna go set up and hunt him that exact

(01:00:23):
pattern for the next day.

Speaker 3 (01:00:25):
In fact, this happened for me in Oklahoma this past year.

Speaker 4 (01:00:28):
It wasn't it was like three days, but three days
before I had the picture of the deer I killed
in Oklahoma, had a picture of him at night even
I believe it was or maybe it was real late
or something, and we're actually were having a slow hunt,
and uh, that gave me the confidence to just know
that that deer does live in that area, he's there,

(01:00:49):
like he's he's not super far away, and went in
there on a first time set and killed him and
on a morning whenever he was there, like I think
it was like eleven thirty pm, you know, or something
like that.

Speaker 3 (01:01:01):
So it's almost like the picture of the buck just
lets me know.

Speaker 4 (01:01:05):
That he's still alive and that he is in the area,
and then I still just make the best hunting decision
I can at that moment.

Speaker 3 (01:01:14):
So, like.

Speaker 4 (01:01:16):
I guess your scenario was, you're going into a place
you feel good about, but then you see that there
was a deer yesterday at another place. If I feel
I felt good about my spot, there's a reason I'm
there in the first place, right, And I didn't choose
the other place because I didn't feel as good about it.
So you probably shouldn't let it rewrite what you're doing.
For that evening, just because something else happened yesterday at

(01:01:39):
the other place that was a little convoluted. I didn't
really have a lot of direction, but I did the
whole just talk my thoughts like you asked for.

Speaker 2 (01:01:46):
So that's perfect.

Speaker 4 (01:01:48):
And just the gist of it is that I would
continue on with the plan if I felt good about it,
and that was the scenario, like if there's if you're
a number one spot, is your ain't number one spot,
and all the conditions are set up right for it,
then go hunt.

Speaker 3 (01:02:05):
That because it's the rut and it's gonna be good.

Speaker 2 (01:02:07):
Trust it. Yeah, I like it? How about you, Tyl?

Speaker 5 (01:02:12):
I would say November tenth is one of my favorite,
maybe my favorite date.

Speaker 3 (01:02:16):
You killed the buck on remember tenth? I killed the
nameless on November tenth. Yeah, I killed a big one.

Speaker 5 (01:02:22):
My biggest year. I killed on the eleventh. But I
like the tenth a lot, which I don't. I don't
hunt the upper Upper Midwest much, you know, so it's
probably different and it's just a long way from home,
so we don't ever make it up to you know,
weird places like Michigan too often, but.

Speaker 2 (01:02:39):
We I love welcome.

Speaker 3 (01:02:44):
I was there this summer.

Speaker 5 (01:02:45):
Actually it's great, great, save you a great sea anyway.

Speaker 2 (01:02:51):
Didn't even go fishing.

Speaker 5 (01:02:55):
So I, like I said, I like the tenth a
lot because I think it's one of the most rage
rout rage days of the whole year.

Speaker 3 (01:03:03):
I feel like in a lot of the places I hunt.

Speaker 5 (01:03:05):
And so with that in mind, seeing that picture is
not really gonna divert my plan.

Speaker 3 (01:03:11):
In fact, I'm with case.

Speaker 5 (01:03:12):
It's almost like if I have a plan, I'm headed somewhere,
I'm not divert diverting from that for any sort of
positive influence. Really it's it would only be for a
negative influence, like the Winkie's track being in there.

Speaker 3 (01:03:24):
You know. So I feel like that it's not gonna
divert me.

Speaker 5 (01:03:30):
And I would just make a note that the reason
cell cams are are are great, but just trail cameras
in general are a big part of what we do
that just helps us to learn more about like like
I can't tell you how many times that I'm able
to or either one of us.

Speaker 3 (01:03:51):
I mean, like the story he just mentioned, or able
to kill a deer.

Speaker 5 (01:03:55):
Not necessarily where the trail camera was, but because we
had photos of him at a certain time, especially like
night photos. We'll get night photos a lot because we're
running and setting a camera right next to the.

Speaker 3 (01:04:08):
Road and hiding it, you know, down low in the
grass or something, and they're easy to check.

Speaker 5 (01:04:14):
So it's a it's a time efficiency thing. But you
know you're gonna get get dark pictures. But then that's
when you start making assumptions about betting and and also
like you know, uh, deer density assumptions for that property
or that area as well. So you know, the one
buck is not really gonna fire me up, even if
it's a monster, a monster mind, but yeah, he's not

(01:04:37):
gonna he's not gonna like, uh, one thirty walking through
there is probably not gonna really change a whole lot
for me. But if you know, a one oh five
and two, when thirties walk through there within like a
four or five day window.

Speaker 3 (01:04:51):
I might start thinking about what's going on over there,
you know.

Speaker 5 (01:04:53):
So it really is more that those trail cameras uh
allow us to think about areas that maybe we weren't
one hundred percent sure about.

Speaker 3 (01:05:03):
I mean, they're just the eyes when we're not there,
you know, Mark, I want to change my answer if
a one ninety is on there the day before I'm
going to the other place. I'm gonna make it, you know,
like it's kind of a joke, but it is true.

Speaker 4 (01:05:13):
I mean, there's hardly anyone who is solely motivated for
me when he comes to Honting, right, I mean, there's
a ton of motivations. It's the experience, it's the camaraderie.
It's absolutely for me. I love big giant bucks with
big antlers. I think they're the coolest animal on the planet,
or one of them. Right, So if if there's a

(01:05:35):
world class deer on the other camera, I'm probably changing
my plan, but otherwise stick with your answer.

Speaker 2 (01:05:42):
So then that brings up though another follow up kind
of as Tyler was describing his thought process there, I
do wonder like, what would get you, guys, other than
it being a mega giant, what would get you to
change that answer? So, same exact scenario. But now if
I told you that there were two different mature Bucks
that showed up in daily that evening, is that enough

(01:06:02):
or would it take three? So if you saw three
different mature Bucks come through the same place in the
same evening, would that be enough to be like, oh,
there's something like, what would that be? Is there a number?
Is there a threshold for both of you?

Speaker 5 (01:06:13):
Two is two is definitely something to kind of raise
your eyebrow about. I mean it's like two, you're starting
to make some considerations. Especially man, if you if you
do get the truck camera picture that is a scrape
over a scrape, and it's it's you know, like if
it's just uh, if you just got this thing on
a fence post in like a low spot that.

Speaker 3 (01:06:35):
Goes uh, you know, by the road or whatever.

Speaker 5 (01:06:39):
I may not do that, but if you're in a
spot that like you could hang pretty close to that
camera and potentially kill them, uh, you know, over a
scrape or something like that, that just kind of gives
you a few more signals as to what's going on.

Speaker 3 (01:06:53):
Then that that makes a difference for sure.

Speaker 5 (01:06:55):
And I think I think definitely I would start thinking
about it if two did that in one night, Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:07:00):
I would want to know how closely were time wise too,
I think that would make a difference. Yeah, yeah, And
if they were hitting the same direction, if there was
a dough on camera right before that, because in my mind,
the first scenari that pops up is like, oh, hot
Dough went through because this actually happened in Oklahoma. There
was like three bucks that were all shooters within like

(01:07:23):
a forty five minute period on a camera. I don't
even think we were in state at the time when
that happened, but it was like, Wow, something happened that
day that was wild.

Speaker 3 (01:07:32):
And so I think that if you.

Speaker 4 (01:07:35):
Want to capitalize on like that concentration of bucks, you
absolutely have to go in there because they're not going
to do that. They're they're aggressive, right, They're not territorial,
but like they're gonna work out that pecking order within
the first couple of days that all three bucks happened
to be in the same core area, So it might
be a time when you're like, Okay, these guys are

(01:07:57):
feeling frisky, let's go in there and do some aggressive
calling and kill one of them.

Speaker 2 (01:08:01):
Yep, yep. Yeah, that would definitely make it more interesting
when you've got multiple bucks doing the same thing. Yeah,
all right, so rapid fire here. I'm going to ask
you guys a series of questions and you can only
answer like the one word answer. I'm going to give
you no explanation, and I want you to say the
answers at the exact same time, so it'll be like playing.

(01:08:23):
It'll be like, you know, paper scissors rock kind of,
but you'll both say the answer at the same time.

Speaker 3 (01:08:26):
Okay, is that really worded?

Speaker 2 (01:08:32):
How do you say it? You know that sounds that
does some better? That sounds right. I think I'm just
I think I'm just I'm thrown off here.

Speaker 4 (01:08:40):
Hey dude, I'm like thankful to no guy that can
like reorder the words on the make.

Speaker 3 (01:08:45):
It work like.

Speaker 2 (01:08:48):
I'm a little different. All right, all right, So are
you guys ready? Yep, all right, And I know the
answers to some of these for you guys, but for
the sake of the audience, give me your your your answer,
same time. One word. Here we go. Would you take
a fifty yard shot at a white tail with your bow?

(01:09:08):
Yes or no? Yes? If you could only it's pretty
funny here and you guys synchronized like that. If you
could only have one of these, one of these tools
for the rest of your hunts, for the rest of
your days. You have to pick rattling antlers or grunt
tube which she picks hm hm expandable or fixed blade

(01:09:36):
expandable or fixed blade broadheads, A hard time, not just
like envisioning you two goofballs in the truck looking at
each other and last to do this. Should you stop

(01:09:56):
a buck with some kind of sound before shooting with
a bow? Yes or no.

Speaker 4 (01:10:03):
Question?

Speaker 2 (01:10:05):
You gotta yes or no.

Speaker 3 (01:10:06):
It's not answer no question, but I just gotta give
just you know, just thank the questions that.

Speaker 2 (01:10:16):
Yes, all right? Does the moon matter to deer movement? Yes?

Speaker 4 (01:10:20):
Or no?

Speaker 2 (01:10:21):
No?

Speaker 3 (01:10:21):
No?

Speaker 2 (01:10:22):
If you could, if you could only hunt mornings or
evenings for this entire coming season, so you got to
you can only get one of the other take mornings
or evenings.

Speaker 3 (01:10:34):
Mornings? Can you even tell who's answering? Kind of okay,
I'm a heating guy.

Speaker 2 (01:10:41):
Okay, all right, now this is less of a rapid
fire question. You guys can explain yourselves a little bit
on this, but but keep it kind of short. I
rule the world. I'm in control of your hunting fate.
Maybe you guys know this one. I'm gonna take away
your hunting rights and privileges for the rest of your
life unless you kill a mature buck this year. So

(01:11:02):
you gotta kill a mature buck this year.

Speaker 3 (01:11:04):
Well about Michigan mature because you said that and a half.

Speaker 2 (01:11:12):
You gotta you gotta kill. I'm gonna tell you a
four and a half year old buck or older.

Speaker 3 (01:11:15):
Okay, all right.

Speaker 2 (01:11:17):
And here's the trick though, is you only get one
day to do it, and you only have one stand site,
like one location. So what I need you each to
tell me is pick the date on the calendar you're
gonna select for this one hunt, and then describe to
me the setup you would choose for this very high
stakes hunt. I have my I'm gonna throw it, and

(01:11:40):
you got a minute or so to give me your explanation.

Speaker 3 (01:11:43):
Okay, all right?

Speaker 5 (01:11:46):
So I would I would go head to shoot a
mature buck four and a half, right, four and a half?

Speaker 3 (01:11:52):
Man, If I if you were gonna take my privileges,
I need to guarantee, so.

Speaker 5 (01:11:56):
I I would go probably some more south of Correzo Springs, Texas,
and I would hunt. I would hunt some sort of corn,
whether it's uh. They have feeders that go on trucks
and they'll feed in entire cindaro, like a thousand yards

(01:12:18):
or whatever, and then they'll turn around.

Speaker 3 (01:12:20):
There will be some deer that come out, you know,
depending on if they're used.

Speaker 5 (01:12:23):
To that, which a lot of those ranches down their
feet a lot, but either that or a feeder, and
I would shoot a I'd probably shoot like maybe like
a two seventy or something like a like a deer rifle,
you know what I mean. I would shoot them with
a riffle, and I would shoot the most popability dear

(01:12:45):
I could find near the corn.

Speaker 3 (01:12:47):
And that that's how I do. It's it's freaking oh
they December, uh, December Colley. That's a tough one. Twentieth
I've never gotten that answer before.

Speaker 2 (01:13:03):
That is a brand new one. So you guys, you
texta guys, give a new perspective. What about you?

Speaker 3 (01:13:08):
Kis? I mean that is about My answer is to
hunt us. Uh.

Speaker 4 (01:13:12):
You know one of those tower blinds in South Texas
that you get to look at five scenarios and I
probably would shoot seven mag because that's what I have.
But you I would want a powerful deer offle so
that you know you're going to kill them, good range,
flat trajectory. And I would pick December fourteenth because it's

(01:13:34):
my birthday. That's the only that's the only other difference
I think that I would have in there. But I mean, uh,
you want to talk about mature deer per square miles.
There's probably not a better place in the country, and
you're giving us budget to have private.

Speaker 2 (01:13:48):
So yeah, yeah, you filled in the blanks. The are
to help yourself out, which is fair. All right, guys,
Well you you made it to the gauntlet. I think
you guys would have would have kept your privileges. I
believe in your in your strategy.

Speaker 5 (01:14:02):
So well then you know, and i'd say that like
if it was it was for hunting privileges. I mean,
it's been like an entire year's salary on that thing.

Speaker 3 (01:14:10):
Yeah, so you do what you got to do. Definitely,
it's yeah, it's within the budget for that kind of.

Speaker 2 (01:14:17):
H Well, this is fun. I especially enjoy the rapid
fire imagining what it looked like in the truck with
you guys. Yeah, if only if only we had the
video for that part. But real quick, real quick, guys.
Uh for folks listen at home, when can they see
the final couple episodes of Buck Truck. Where can they

(01:14:39):
see that? And is there anything particular we've got to
look forward to the Restless Fall As far as content
coming out from the Element in your team.

Speaker 3 (01:14:46):
Oh, the for sure.

Speaker 4 (01:14:48):
The episode with Mark Kenyon and Texas is going to
be uh you know, fan favorite for the Wired US too.

Speaker 3 (01:14:55):
It was a lot of fun and so I'm excited.
I don't remember those dates for sure, but I've got
the dates now.

Speaker 5 (01:15:00):
As Mark knows, this could change, right yes, September seventh
is a buck Truck episode with old Clay Nukelem and
our episode with you Mark where we decided against putting
Chili's in your sweet teeth.

Speaker 3 (01:15:16):
Uh, just on that One's good. Oh yeah, we gotta
we gotta tell that story before. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:15:22):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (01:15:23):
October twenty sixth looks like sweet.

Speaker 5 (01:15:27):
Uh yeah, that's gonna those are two episodes will be
on the med Eater YouTube channel, and then we will
be putting out Element stuff on the Element YouTube channel,
just kind of as we go and fill in.

Speaker 3 (01:15:40):
I mean, I think we're out hunting right now.

Speaker 5 (01:15:43):
So uh, you'll probably be seeing some videos from this
season on the Element channel in August, starting in August,
so yeah, that's I mean, you find us on Instagram
and all the all the good places. Uh, Mark, I
just want to say, man, it's uh, I know you
get told this a lot and it probably like doesn't
really strike you, but like, uh it is an honor

(01:16:05):
to be on your podcast, to be interviewed and to
be able to just kind of give our insights man,
because there's so many people that have listened to your
podcast over years, man, and uh, it is the premiere
whitetail hunting podcast.

Speaker 3 (01:16:17):
Man. I appreciate what you do and I appreciate your
friendship a lot. Man.

Speaker 2 (01:16:21):
Well, thank you for saying that right back at you. Guys.
It's uh if we're if we're blowing smoke off talons,
I'll keep it going. And to say, it's been really
fun to see your guys' journey and evolution too. And
I'm very very glad that you chose to team up
with us at Wired Hunting Mediator and it's been great
to have you part of the crew. And uh hey,
speaking of which, just to tease, coming up very very

(01:16:44):
soon after this episode airs, will be the kickoff of
another season of ret Fresh Radio, which is our weekly
Dear Activity Report that you two started hosting for us
last year and we'll continue this year. So yeah that
when this one airs, it'll only be like a week
or two out from that kicking off, So get ready
for ret Fresh coming soon.

Speaker 3 (01:17:05):
All right, Man, I am ready to be real fresh. Hey,
when's the when does the one week stuff come out?

Speaker 2 (01:17:10):
Man?

Speaker 3 (01:17:10):
Can we talk about that?

Speaker 2 (01:17:12):
Yeah, that's supposed to kick off really soon too. I
think August twenty ninth is what I heard about the
first episode, so as you mentioned, who knows, but last
I heard that's when it's supposed to kick off. So
we'll be getting into one week in November here shortly.

Speaker 3 (01:17:26):
All right, all right, mark rapid fire for you.

Speaker 2 (01:17:30):
You got, you got one question. Then I got to
run another meeting.

Speaker 4 (01:17:34):
Who has a better chance of making the college football playoffs?
Sparti or Michigan?

Speaker 2 (01:17:40):
Ah Man, I hate to say this because I love
Michigan State and I hate University of Michigan, but Michigan
State's football situation does not look good right now. We
had our starting quarterback the last two years, transferred out,
our number one wide receiver, transferred out, a lot of
question marks across the line. So I'm gonna say University
of Michigan has a much better chance as much as

(01:18:02):
I help them.

Speaker 4 (01:18:03):
Out with the Manilo deals or something. Who gets some
recruits in there, bro, that's it.

Speaker 2 (01:18:11):
If you guys, if you guys can help us make
these podcasts go viral or something. Maybe we'll finally get
the payday we've been asking for and we could do that.

Speaker 4 (01:18:19):
They would just start hitting the record button before we act,
They tell us, then that's true.

Speaker 2 (01:18:24):
That would have done it today. All right, guys, thank
you again. Hey, yeah, thanks Mark, all right, and that'll
do it for us today. Thank you for tuning in.
I appreciate it. A couple of quick updates for you
if you're not already signed up for our Wired to
Hunt weekly newsletter, heading over to the Meat Eater dot
com and sign up there. You'll also see there's a

(01:18:45):
Wired Hunt section on the website there where we've got
a whole bunch of new deer hunting articles every week
that this time of year are particularly important to get
primed and ready for the hunting season coming up. They've
got a lot of new ideas there for you. And
then finally, make sure you follow Wired to Hunt on Instagram.
That's where you're going to see some of my more
personal stories, updates from my hunts, things along those lines.

(01:19:07):
So check it all out. Appreciate you, good luck in
these final days leading into hunting season, and until next time,
stay Wired to Hunt.