December 8, 2025 • 38 mins
Ever passed a buck on the first morning and felt it echo all week? We did, and the story unpacks more than a near miss. We break down a Kansas whitetail hunt that swung from single-digit wind chill to warm afternoons, then connect each lesson to blacktail realities in the Pacific Northwest. Along the way, we dig into why food doesn’t force daylight, how wind and terrain shape movement, and what guided hunts can teach you if you ask the right questions.
We compare whitetail aggression and responsiveness to rattling and snort-wheeze with the quieter, tighter game of blacktail in thick timber. You’ll hear how travel corridors and pinch points trump bait in ag country, why 20-plus mph gusts can relax deer on open hills, and how entry and exit routes decide whether mature bucks ever show in shooting light. We also tackle the context most hunters miss: regional genetics, habitat density, and rainfall all skew body size, antler growth, and what a “good” buck really means.
If you’re building a smarter plan this season, use our three-part framework: e-scout for habitat edges, put boots on the ground to find the bedroom door, and pressure-test your access until it’s silent and scent-safe. For whitetail, layer in biologist intel on buck-to-doe ratios and rainfall to boost daylight odds. Whether you hunt pop-up blinds on greenbelts or hang-ons above finger ridges, the core holds: habitat first, wind always, corridors over hype. Your tag, your memory. Subscribe, share with a buddy who needs a wind check, and leave a review with your biggest “I should’ve shot” story.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_02 (00:19):
Welcome back to the Blacktail Coach Podcast.
I'm Aaron.
SPEAKER_00 (00:22):
And I'm Dave.
SPEAKER_02 (00:23):
Okay, this week we're gonna talk Whittail versus
Blacktail.
So you just got back.
Well, actually, it's is it closeto a month now, or has it just
been a couple weeks?
A couple weeks.
A couple weeks from your yearlyKansas Whitetail trip.
And so just wanted a recap ofthe trip.
What you saw, how many the good,the bad, the ugly.
SPEAKER_00 (00:44):
The first two days really cold.
Really, really cold.
Like underdressed, cold.
And then the last three days ofthe hunt were really warm.
And so, yeah, it was still fun.
We still had a great time andeverything.
But you, you know, that's thething about guided hunts, you
never know what you're gonna getas far as weather.
So you're kind of at the mercyof Mother Nature, so to speak.
(01:06):
But we saw a lot of rutactivity.
We both had opportunities.
My son and I both hadopportunities at shooters, and
neither of us could uh seal thedeal.
SPEAKER_02 (01:16):
So the first couple of days it was in the 20s, and
then it went up to it was lessthan twenty.
Oh, less than twenty.
SPEAKER_00 (01:22):
Less than twenty.
SPEAKER_02 (01:23):
And then it went up to seventies.
Did you say it?
SPEAKER_00 (01:26):
We went from two days being down less than
twenty, and then you throwingwind chill on top of that too.
SPEAKER_02 (01:32):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (01:32):
And then from there we went up to 50s to 60s.
SPEAKER_02 (01:36):
Okay.
And this is this particularguide that you use, they have
ground blinds and tree stands?
Yes.
Okay.
And so the regular, like thetree stands that you would use,
not those permanent, they'realmost like actually, I wouldn't
even say that they're a treestand, but they're almost like
(01:56):
an elevated blind.
SPEAKER_00 (01:58):
These are hang-ons.
SPEAKER_02 (01:59):
Okay.
SPEAKER_00 (01:59):
That we're going in.
And uh the ground blindsobviously are they're not a a
blind house of any co kind.
It's the pop-up blinds.
SPEAKER_01 (02:08):
Pop-up.
SPEAKER_00 (02:09):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (02:09):
Okay.
SPEAKER_00 (02:10):
And so, yeah, it's an adventure.
SPEAKER_02 (02:12):
So did you have your heaviest winter gear when you
went?
SPEAKER_00 (02:16):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (02:16):
It was still cold.
SPEAKER_00 (02:17):
It was 19 degrees without the wind chill factor on
the first morning.
So it was single digits.
Because we had 30 mile an hourgusts.
SPEAKER_01 (02:25):
Oof.
SPEAKER_00 (02:26):
And it was in our face the whole time.
And so yeah, we got we bothlittle David and I both got sun
windburned.
And uh at one point, it was socold.
I had a shooter in on the set,but I I I mean my hands hurt so
bad.
I don't know if I could havepulled my bow back had I been
get given the shot opportunity.
(02:47):
It was just so cold that it hurtto have my hands outside and
holding on to the riser of thebow.
I mean, it actually like stung.
SPEAKER_02 (02:58):
Are there any gloves?
I and we're kind of getting offgloves.
Oh, and that's with gloves.
Oh, okay.
Because I was wondering iftypically do you have to, when
you're bow hunting, do you haveto do it without gloves?
SPEAKER_00 (03:12):
No, you can do it with gloves.
And the thing is that you wantto practice with those gloves
because it's gonna come out ofthe riser a little different
because you you can't feel likeyou normally would.
Yeah, it's the differencebetween wearing soft sole tenor
shoes and a hard sole, stiffankle hiking boot.
You're gonna feel the ground alot more with the soft sole.
You're gonna feel what's underyour feet, twigs and whatnot.
(03:34):
But with a boot, you're justgonna you're gonna put your foot
down, you're not gonna feel athing.
Yeah, you're just gonna hear thelimbs snapping under your feet.
SPEAKER_02 (03:41):
So how many deer did you see this year?
SPEAKER_00 (03:43):
So it wasn't the year before, not this year, but
the year before I went and I sawI had 143 deer walk in front of
me.
SPEAKER_02 (03:54):
Yeah.
And uh I remember that.
SPEAKER_00 (03:56):
And that was probably the best time uh as far
as deer numbers in Kansas thatI've experienced, and I still
didn't have a shooter walk infront of me.
This year I had a shooter walkin front of me.
It was the very first buck thatI saw on the very first morning,
and I let him walk thinking it'sKansas.
That's a big buck, but uh it'sfirst morning, I could see
(04:19):
something bigger, and it was theold if it's gonna happen, it's
gonna happen to me kind ofscenario.
Yeah, and I didn't see a biggerbuck the rest of the week.
The rest of the week.
And so I wish I would have shothim, but you know, I still had a
great time, and I had about I'dsay 50 to 60 deer.
SPEAKER_02 (04:34):
Okay.
Walking up.
And it's a 140 minimum, right?
SPEAKER_00 (04:37):
It is a 140 minimum.
Both little David and myself,like I said, we both had
shooters in front of us.
SPEAKER_02 (04:43):
We just didn't didn't pan out.
SPEAKER_00 (04:45):
Didn't pan out, or we just didn't take the
opportunity.
Okay, and that's fine.
Uh we had a great time and weenjoy going down there.
We shared deer camp with Ralphfrom Ralph and Vicky, Archer's
Choice.
SPEAKER_02 (04:58):
And uh TV personalities.
SPEAKER_00 (05:01):
Great guy, got to know him.
Usually they're in camp the weekbefore us.
SPEAKER_01 (05:06):
Okay.
SPEAKER_00 (05:07):
But this year he was in camp with us, and so we got
to spend some evenings togetherand so they do archery earlier.
Yeah.
Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (05:17):
Is that pretty common in the Midwest to do
archery earlier?
SPEAKER_00 (05:20):
Yeah, the rut is sooner down there than it is
here.
SPEAKER_02 (05:24):
Okay, and I was gonna ask that later on when we
get to talking more about thedifferences, whether there's a
difference in the timing of therut.
SPEAKER_00 (05:31):
Absolutely.
And typically the second week ofNovember is when we're going.
And uh usually the first andsecond week is when you want to
go in the Midwest.
You get down farther south, andsome of them they don't rut till
January.
SPEAKER_02 (05:44):
Really?
SPEAKER_00 (05:45):
Yeah, like you know, Florida and getting a little
Bible belt area down there, likea really late rut.
I wonder Texas can and Mexico.
SPEAKER_02 (05:56):
Yeah.
I wonder if that has to do, likeif you were to go to the upper
Midwest, maybe the UpperPeninsula in Michigan or
Minnesota, Wisconsin, andhunting whitetail, if they're
rutting earlier.
Because if it has to do with theamount of light hitting the
retina, right, there's not a lotof variance.
SPEAKER_00 (06:17):
And ours is a little later because we're so close to
the ocean.
So we get some light refractionoff the ocean, it bounces off
the clouds, and so Oh, okay.
We get it a little later than weprobably would have.
But as far as you know, dayslasting longer, yeah, it's fun.
SPEAKER_02 (06:33):
Yeah, yeah.
So let me ask you that.
And me not being one who's everI've never done a guided hunt or
anything like that.
Or and technically, the only wayyou could say I've hunted out of
state is when I went grousehunting when you were out
cutting.
Oh, that's the closest I'vehunted out of state.
So as far as and I think aboutthis because a large a big
(06:58):
selling point of the black tailcoach with taking our classes
being your own guide.
Right, right.
So then the where you kind ofgive that up to go on a guided
hunt, as far as the personalsatisfaction, where does that
factor in it?
SPEAKER_00 (07:14):
Well, I think you have to go into this with eyes
wide open.
And there's pros and cons toboth.
There are people that are like,well, it's a canned hunt, or you
know, they view it like that,and because they're not doing
all the work, but it seems lessto them.
SPEAKER_03 (07:27):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (07:27):
I, on the other hand, do not feel that way at
all.
And it's funny because beingdown there in Kansas, and like I
said, I spent a lot of eveningswith Ralph and talking with him
at supper and whatnot, we bothkind of agreed on the fact that
hunting has taken on a new facetthat I don't know is good.
I'm not saying it's bad, but Ijust don't know that it's good
(07:49):
anymore.
Because when we were kidsgrowing up, hunting was about
making memories.
SPEAKER_03 (07:54):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (07:54):
Hunting was about spending time with family and
friends and getting out thereand making memories.
And the hunting industry haskind of shifted to less of that
and more about record book.
SPEAKER_02 (08:09):
And the tr the trophy and the antlers and
right, right.
SPEAKER_00 (08:12):
And I'm not saying that's bad.
I hear me when I say this.
I don't think it's bad to anextent.
Like we just had somebody onFacebook the other day say,
Well, I wouldn't be postinganything that's 110 or less, 110
inches or less.
And I just thought that is justabout the dumbest, most ignorant
thing I've heard people say.
(08:33):
Because it's not your tag.
SPEAKER_03 (08:35):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (08:36):
If you're happy putting your tag on that, by all
means, shoot it.
It's the memories you're making.
If you want to hold out forsomething bigger, by all means,
hold out for something bigger.
It's your tag.
SPEAKER_02 (08:46):
Yeah.
It's that there's been created acompetitiveness.
SPEAKER_00 (08:51):
Oh, absolutely.
SPEAKER_02 (08:53):
Where it and it's I would say, you know, there's
friendly competition, which youmight experience like if you
were to have gone out when youwere younger with your brothers
and your dad, and you have afriendly competition between the
four of you.
Now it's a competition withstrangers on the internet.
SPEAKER_00 (09:10):
Right.
SPEAKER_02 (09:10):
And that probably a social media and a lot of that
has to play into that of thecompetition of it.
SPEAKER_00 (09:16):
And it's I think it's the alpha male in many of
us that says I want to be thebest.
SPEAKER_03 (09:22):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (09:22):
And so, yeah, the ego steps in and whatnot.
So when I do guided hunt, I haveto go into it with keeping
things in perspective in thesense that this is not your
regular hunt.
Okay.
What's the difficult side of it?
The difficult side of it is thisis I've got five days to make it
happen.
SPEAKER_03 (09:38):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (09:39):
I don't have an entire season.
I've got five days to make ithappen.
I've also got a lot of faith inthat outfitter that he's done
everything he can to locate andget, you know, whatever it is
I'm hunting, whether it's elk,whether it's bear, or whether
it's bucks, to daylight in frontof me.
SPEAKER_03 (09:58):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (09:58):
So that I can get a shot opportunity.
What I do with that opportunityis entirely up to me.
SPEAKER_02 (10:03):
And whether it's because there's a lot of food
plots there, so making sure thatthose are uh baiting,
absolutely.
SPEAKER_00 (10:10):
If it's a pinch point or a travel corridor, you
know, it it's gotta be, andthat's the thing.
You still have to realize it'shunting, but guys will go and
they'll sit there for a week andthey don't see very much and
they get upset.
Yeah, that's hunting.
SPEAKER_03 (10:24):
That yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (10:25):
And I understand that I understand that they put
down a lot of money.
I get that, I get thatfrustration, but you have to
recognize when you put down thatmoney, hey, this is hunting.
Yeah, you could hit it.
We could have gone down thereand it could have been 70s the
entire time.
Deer activity, rud activitywould have been just minimal.
It would have been all at night,you know.
(10:47):
Well, that doesn't do me anygood.
No, you know what I mean?
So you take that chance when yousign up for it.
And it's like, I don't care ifit's November, I don't care if
it's December, you know?
It happens.
There's seasons, it's just it'slike, boy, it just stunk this
year.
Yeah.
But, you know, for me, I'm goingwith my son or I'm going with a
buddy, I'm gonna have fun.
SPEAKER_03 (11:07):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (11:08):
So that's kind of how I view it.
Some guys are like, well, I'mgoing to a place, and this place
had a minimum, 140 minimum, andit's like, well, no, that's
awesome.
Uh they give you that minimumbecause they have bucks that
reach that minimum.
So you're gonna do it.
SPEAKER_02 (11:21):
And plenty of them, yeah.
Not just one or two, and you'vegot 50 guys fighting over them.
SPEAKER_00 (11:27):
Yeah, you're hoping that one of those walks in front
of you and everything.
But in the sense that, you know,it it's it is hunting and stuff.
And if hunting is slow, I don'twaste any opportunity.
I want to talk to the outfitter.
I want to figure out, and thisis what guys need to do.
If you're going and the huntingisn't that good, whether it's
weather, because weather trumpsall, or the rut just, you know,
(11:49):
seems to be all at night andyou're not getting any daylight
picks or anything like that.
Take that opportunity to sitdown with that outfitter and
talk to him, get to know him,find out why he's doing what
he's doing, in the sense thatwhy did you put that set there?
How are you keeping him comingback?
What do you do to get him todaylight?
And honestly, that's how youlearn, you know.
(12:12):
He doesn't owe you anythingoutside of the trespass fee that
you paid access to that set.
But if you can befriend him andyou can glean information off of
him, it's always applicable toanother hunt.
SPEAKER_02 (12:26):
Now, how far apart are the sets that you're
hunting?
SPEAKER_00 (12:31):
So this particular outfitter that we go to down
there, he has over like 13,000acres.
SPEAKER_01 (12:39):
Okay.
SPEAKER_00 (12:40):
So we're gonna hunt this ranch, and this ranch may
be 2,000 acres.
SPEAKER_01 (12:45):
Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_00 (12:45):
And there's three of us that are gonna hunt this
ranch.
Well, the ranch may be 45minutes from where the
outfitter's cabin is.
SPEAKER_01 (12:52):
Okay.
SPEAKER_00 (12:53):
And then, you know, you're not all sitting in the
same blind or over the samefield or anything like that.
He's on that side, he's gonna beover here.
Okay, and that's it.
SPEAKER_02 (13:02):
Like at least are they at least like a mile apart?
Oh, yeah, easily.
Okay, easily.
Because I think about it, andthis is a difference between
potentially whitetail and blacktail.
In the class, we talk about yourset should be at least a mile
apart, so you're not competingagainst yourself.
And once you learn nuance, youthat's a a workable number, but
(13:24):
to begin with, it's a mileapart.
Right now, but black tail havesmall ranges, and whitetail
having a bigger range, yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (13:33):
So that becomes a little bit trickier, so you
you're not so dependent.
Food sources are gonna beeverywhere in the Midwest.
That's the thing that peopledon't understand.
And when I say that, I meanpeople from the Northwest,
because on our side, you know,we're not an egg society over
here.
We do have farms and we dopeople grow corn and stuff, but
(13:53):
you go to the Midwest and it'severywhere.
That's all you see.
So food sources, you know, andI've said this during my
seminars that food does not makebig bucks daylight.
It just doesn't.
If you think that's the thetrick to it, you know, putting
out food and big bucks are gonnacome running in and all this,
(14:13):
you're sadly mistaken.
And I encourage you to go and dojust that put out food and see
how many come at the day duringthe daylight.
Because it is so e-oriented outthere.
I mean, it's just miles andmiles and miles of egg fields,
corn, sunflower, soybean, allthese other crops that they're
growing out there and whatnot.
(14:33):
You focus more on pinch pointsand travel corridors.
SPEAKER_01 (14:38):
Okay.
SPEAKER_00 (14:39):
And this is I recommend anybody that wants to
figure out blacktail, go on aguided whitale hunt in the
Midwest and talk to your guideand see how he again ask him why
he put that stand there.
It's easier to read the terrainbecause of the way that they
have green belts and egg fields,and green belt and the egg, the
(15:01):
way that it is out there andstuff.
You start reading the contourand just how the land is laid
out, and you understand why thedeer are using this ridge or
that ridge, and then it'll openyour eyes to that.
Then you come back here andyou're able to look at it
differently.
Oh, I see why they're using thatridge to get here.
(15:22):
Granted, it's not ag, butthey're still moving to a food
source.
SPEAKER_02 (15:26):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (15:26):
Or a bedding area.
SPEAKER_02 (15:28):
Now, would it be more of a shrunken down version
with black tail?
SPEAKER_00 (15:32):
With black tail, yes.
And it would be more of a ruggedterrain.
SPEAKER_01 (15:37):
Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (15:38):
You know, Oklahoma, Kansas, from North Dakota all
the way down into Texas, it'smore rolling hills and whatnot,
except for the black hills up inSouth Dakota.
But most of it is rolling hillsand ravines and little drainages
and whatnot, at least from ourpoint of view, that's what it
would be.
And so when you look at outthere and you're looking at it,
it seems to be on a smallerscale, and you learn how to read
(16:01):
it.
It seems a lot easier to read.
Once you figure that out, and itdon't take long, you can look at
the terrain and oh my gosh,okay, I see all this, I see the
habitat.
And you're watching, okay, so heput it here because this is the
green belt here, and this is theridge here.
Oh, okay, that makes totalsense.
And then you come back, like Isaid, here, even though
(16:21):
evergreen trees hide a lot offinger raises, you're still able
to look at it and go, okay, thisis where the deer want to run.
It's the path of leastresistance, and you can see how
they want to move.
It makes it a lot easier outhere to decipher hunting areas
and figure out where the deertravel.
SPEAKER_02 (16:39):
So would it be, and this is making this pop into my
head, is it so wind is importantto know the wind because you're
absolutely you're gonna get theythey busted.
SPEAKER_00 (16:52):
Yeah, they want the wind religiously.
If the wind is bad, they don'tput you on that set.
SPEAKER_02 (16:56):
Okay.
But there, the wind being bad,there's not it seems like it
wouldn't get broken up quite asmuch as it does.
Like here, walking to my setthat I hunted this year, when
I'm first walking up the firstskitter road, it's and I mean
(17:18):
this is winding and it's blowingin my face because it creates
that wind tunnel.
Because I have I'm walking in40, 50 foot tall first in
between on this skitter road.
So it's always blowing in myface.
Then I drop down through adrainage, it creates a vacuum,
and it blows down into thatdrainage.
Pop up on another skitter roadthat's 90 degree angle from the
(17:41):
first skitter road, the lastpart, and it's blowing in my
face again.
SPEAKER_01 (17:46):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (17:47):
So it's blowing from the west to east, and then it's
blowing north to south, and thenI go sit in my set, and it's
back blowing from west to eastagain.
Or yeah, it so our toptopography and being taller
ridges, things like that.
Right.
(18:07):
Is that making black tail?
Is that one of the things thatcan make black tail a little
more difficult or lessdifficult?
SPEAKER_00 (18:12):
Absolutely.
I mean, everybody has gone.
So there are obstacles here inthe northwest are much larger.
And so they direct the wind orblock the wind or divert the
wind a lot easier than it doesout there.
With the rolling hills, it'sjust gonna blow over, you know.
SPEAKER_02 (18:28):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (18:29):
And I mean, their trees are smaller, you know,
their cedar trees, they onlyaverage about 20 feet.
Okay.
Yeah, and they it's not as youknow, what they call thick is is
what we would call a park.
SPEAKER_02 (18:39):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (18:40):
And that's okay.
SPEAKER_02 (18:41):
I mean Well, it's just different.
SPEAKER_00 (18:42):
That's all it is.
But you know, over there, you'remore apt to get the 20 to 30
mile an hour gusts on days, anddeer don't hunker down when the
wind blows out there in theMidwest.
They're up and moving, and theyseem more relaxed on a very
strong windy day than they do ondays when it's like a five mile
an hour, seven mile an hourconstant breeze.
(19:05):
They come in on pins andneedles, and you get that that
those windy days where it's 20plus, they just seem relaxed.
And I think it's becauseeverything is moving, they can't
decipher what's danger and whatisn't.
And so they just kind of likethrow up their hands and like,
okay, yeah, it's gonna happen,it's gonna happen.
SPEAKER_02 (19:25):
Now, are the predators much of an issue?
White tail?
SPEAKER_00 (19:28):
Coyotes and bobcats are huge in the Midwest.
Huge.
And you'll, you know, you talkto a lot of guys, they get an
arrow in a deer or whatnot, andit's like they really want to go
out and get it that nightbecause coyotes find it and eat
the whole thing.
You'll only get the antlers.
SPEAKER_02 (19:44):
Oh wow.
SPEAKER_00 (19:44):
They'll polish off a whole deer in in a night.
It's incredible.
SPEAKER_02 (19:48):
Okay, but there's not the big predators that
there's well and I imaginethere's bears and cougars.
SPEAKER_00 (19:54):
Yeah, but not the numbers like we have up here.
Yeah.
Not at not even close.
And most of those are a drawanyway.
Uh because there's so few.
SPEAKER_02 (20:04):
Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_00 (20:04):
Yeah.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (20:05):
So it's uh Oh, so draw for a bear hunt or draw for
cougar hunt.
Yep.
Okay.
So which, although Texas, Idon't think there is.
SPEAKER_00 (20:14):
I don't believe there is.
SPEAKER_02 (20:15):
So I remember because we were looking into
doing, and we're still lookingto do a Pig hunt down in Texas,
and the one of the guideservices was just like just head
out there and kill some stuff,and they gave you a limit of
like five pigs each or whatever.
But they said, if you see acougar, shoot it.
So it sounded like it was justkind of fair game, but they just
(20:37):
wanted the cougars all gone.
SPEAKER_00 (20:39):
So they were talking that they did have a cougar
sighting there in Kansas, butit's almost like a Bigfoot
sighting.
It's such a rarity.
You know what I mean?
SPEAKER_03 (20:46):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (20:47):
You're gonna see a lot of bobcats and and coyotes
and armadillos, you know, butyou're not gonna see the chance
that you've seen a cougar islike winning the lottery.
SPEAKER_02 (20:57):
Now, can you take a fling an arrow at an armadillo
if he's walking by?
Or is that bad etiquette?
SPEAKER_00 (21:04):
You can if you want.
Yeah, they're like our possumsup there.
SPEAKER_02 (21:07):
Yes, with armor.
SPEAKER_00 (21:08):
Yeah.
Well, I mean the numbers.
Oh, they're everywhere downthere.
SPEAKER_02 (21:13):
Okay.
So we kind of talked a bit abouthabitat and climate affecting.
Oh, that was something before wemove on, like with the wind.
Are you because I know when I'veread articles and studied
articles about, and I thinkScott Halligan talked about it
too, about wind traveling inlayers.
Uh-huh.
So you want to get up above thatlayer.
SPEAKER_00 (21:33):
So is it when you're there, are you hunting up pretty
high in in tree stands or well,I mean, because the trees don't
get very tall, you're probablyaveraging 15, okay, uh, 12, 15
feet.
SPEAKER_02 (21:47):
So not real.
SPEAKER_00 (21:50):
Yeah, just because, like I said, we were in seat,
their cedars average about 20feet.
They and their our cedars go up75 foot cedars, nothing around
here.
Yeah.
It's got just this massive baseand everything.
Theirs are just kind of shortand stubby.
SPEAKER_03 (22:03):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (22:03):
You know what I mean?
And the boughs go out real wide,but the tree doesn't go up very
high at all in comparison toours.
And here they deal with droughtjust every year, though.
SPEAKER_02 (22:15):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (22:16):
So I mean, that's gotta have something to do with
it.
SPEAKER_02 (22:18):
So and here you're more like 25 feet up or oh yeah.
Yeah.
But but then again, terrainplays a lot into that, how high
up you're going, because ifyou're on the hillside, you want
to be higher.
You need to be up even higher.
SPEAKER_00 (22:31):
If the deer is approaching from uphill, yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (22:33):
Okay, so thinking about the difference between
white tail and black tail, thesigns that you're seeing, if you
were to go out on your own, notnecessarily relying on the guide
to do this, but what are you sohere?
We're looking for rubs.
That's kind of a bigger thing.
But here, and you talk aboutthat in the class, we look for
habitat.
We don't actually look for thedeer.
(22:55):
Are they with white tail?
Are you looking for deer?
You're looking for habitat firstor certain types of sign first?
SPEAKER_00 (23:02):
I'm looking for I'm looking for habitat.
When I find the habitat, thesign will be there with white
tails.
Okay.
Especially with white tails withbecause I mean you're looking,
there's scrapes all over.
There's rubs all over.
There are just a much moreaggressive species of deer than
black tail and mule deer.
And what I mean by that is thatthey fight more, they respond to
(23:24):
vocals more, you're rattling andgrunts, and they're just really
an aggressive deer.
And because they're soplentiful, finding their travel
corridors isn't that hard.
As far as when you hit a gametrail that's well used, it's
obvious.
SPEAKER_03 (23:39):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (23:39):
Because they just reproduce so much and there's so
much deer traffic that when theytravel those game trails, it
just gets beat down becausethere's so much activity on it.
SPEAKER_02 (23:49):
And if they're herding up.
SPEAKER_00 (23:51):
In the wintertime, they'll move out to the open and
herd up.
SPEAKER_02 (23:56):
But even moving through those corridors, there
might be maybe what uh say thereif there's a hundred deer w
working a certain trail orcorridor in the Midwest, here
there might be a lot of people.
It just the Oh yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (24:13):
When I was in North Dakota, I spent three winters
there.
And uh, it was nothing in thewintertime to drive down the
highway, look over, and there'dbe a herd of 200 whitetail out
in the middle of a field allhuddled together.
SPEAKER_03 (24:25):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (24:25):
And that's the deer from that area.
They'd come in there and they'rejust doing it to stay warm, you
know.
I mean, because North Dakota, itgets negative 20, 40 degrees.
SPEAKER_03 (24:33):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (24:34):
But yeah, you would see that quite common.
And like you said, we go aroundhere and they're maybe in a
deer's range 12 to 24.
SPEAKER_02 (24:44):
Yeah.
So as I drove down forThanksgiving, I drove down to
California and I was in theSiskiws driving along I-5, and I
looked off to the right, andthere were six, seven does all
standing together in a 20 by 40yard patch of open grass.
And I was like, oh my gosh,yeah, it's one of the biggest
(25:05):
herds of blacktail I've everseen.
And it literally was.
I think there's been twice whereI've seen more than like five
together.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It just doesn't really happen.
SPEAKER_00 (25:15):
We don't get the extreme winters like they do, so
there's no reason for them tohang out close.
SPEAKER_02 (25:19):
So is there what are the differences or similarities
in their rut behavior betweenblack tail and white tail?
SPEAKER_00 (25:26):
Like I said, white tail are much more vocal,
they're more aggressive.
That's not to say that blacktail aren't aggressive, but on
average, white tail are gonna bemore aggressive, they're gonna
respond to calls moreaggressively, whereas a black
you're rattling.
Sometimes the black tail willrun in and sometimes they'll
sneak in.
(25:47):
Yeah, you rattle for white tail,and more often than not, you're
gonna hear him coming.
Or if you rattle, you're you'relooking out there and you see
him and you rattle, he's justgonna come.
I don't know how many times I'vedone this.
Let's let's use this as anexample.
I've done the snort wheeze, I'veseen a buck walking without a
dough, and I've done the snortwheeze, and 99% of the time
(26:11):
he'll stop, he'll look back atme, and once he does that, I
know he's coming in.
He may go left or right, get inthe cover, and I don't see him,
and then the next thing I know,he's popped out next to either
my left or right, like within 10yards of where I'm sitting.
SPEAKER_02 (26:28):
Yeah, he's sneaking in.
SPEAKER_00 (26:30):
He's coming around to get the win and stuff, but if
they stop and look back, 99% ofthe time they're coming in.
And they're just a reallyaggressive deer, and they're
fun, they're fun to hunt, theyget bigger quicker than
blacktail do.
So it's nothing to see a yearand a half old buck, and he's a
three-point.
(26:50):
Okay, you know what I mean?
And you're just like going, ohmy gosh, that's as big as a fork
and horn as far as high andwhatnot.
Yeah, but he's a three-point andhe's only a year and a half, and
or maybe he's three and a halfand he is a ten-point, and he's
just heavy and great mass, andhe's running 130s to 140s, and
(27:14):
you're just like, oh my gosh,and that's a three and a
half-year-old buck.
And we're looking at for a blacktail in our part of the
northwest.
Now, this is southwestWashington.
This is not southwest Oregon,but in our part, because the
habitat is thicker, there's moreunderbrush and whatnot, for a
(27:34):
buck to get to the 120s, that'sthe equivalent of a buck in the
140s down south.
SPEAKER_01 (27:42):
Okay.
SPEAKER_00 (27:43):
Okay.
And that's the thing.
A lot of guys they make amistake on on thinking, well,
it's this way where I live, itshould be that way everywhere.
You look at you look at uh deerin Kansas and Oklahoma, uh-huh.
Giants, body-wise giants,absolute monsters.
SPEAKER_03 (28:00):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (28:01):
Go down to Texas.
They're tiny, they're half thesize.
SPEAKER_02 (28:05):
Do they have bigger racks?
SPEAKER_00 (28:06):
They got the racks equivalent.
The racks look big because thebody is but so you're looking at
them going, okay, they're gonnashoot the 130s and 140s, and
that's gonna look that's gonnabe a great buck there.
Yeah, but Kansas, Oklahoma,Illinois, I mean, you're gonna
get 150s, 60s, 170s, 180s.
Yeah, you know, and they'regonna be big bodied.
SPEAKER_02 (28:29):
DJ a few years ago on that trip got fat Elvis,
which was a 300-plus pound whitetail.
SPEAKER_00 (28:36):
That was the biggest bodied white tail ever taken off
that ranch.
And then you go up north intoSaskatchewan and whatnot, and is
it varies as you go intodifferent types of habitat.
SPEAKER_02 (28:48):
Well, it was interesting because I just
interviewed some guys down inNorthern California, Mendocino
County, and they were huge.
I was talking to a guy who had a172 black tail with a 30-inch
spread.
So they have these monsterracks.
SPEAKER_03 (29:10):
Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_02 (29:10):
But then they were talking about, yeah, we can get
some big bucks down here, bigbody bucks.
They'll go like 150, 170 pounds.
SPEAKER_00 (29:17):
And I'm thinking that's not a bad buck.
SPEAKER_02 (29:20):
That's not a bad buck, but it's that's not a huge
you know, for them, that's ahuge bodied buck in down in
California.
But for up here, that's not.
SPEAKER_00 (29:31):
Okay, but we have to clarify, because the average guy
shoots up a fork horn or a spikearound here, and like a spike
will be a good spike is 90pounds.
SPEAKER_03 (29:40):
Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (29:41):
And there are some fork and horns that'll go 130 to
140, and guys think, well,that's a huge buck if 150, 175.
But when you see a mature buck,a mature black tail up here,
yeah, you realize that they'repushing 200.
SPEAKER_02 (29:53):
Yeah.
And so, and that was the thing.
That's their big mature blacktail down there, they max out
like a big maxed out body is 150to 170.
Up here, it's 200 to 250,potentially.
SPEAKER_00 (30:09):
Potentially.
And our racks typically will besmaller.
They take why they take longerto get to the size that you like
Southern Oregon.
You can go on Facebook this timeof year and you look at that
buck, and I see these big as I Ican almost before I even read
anything about that's a middleto southern Oregon buck, you
know, looking at it and seeinghow big that the rack is and
(30:30):
whatnot.
And then versus a big one uphere, you know, like six and a
half, seven and a half, eightand a half years old.
You're looking at him going,okay, now he's getting the
bigger rack.
Yeah, where he's pushing the140s and whatnot.
And and it just takes it'sdifferent, it takes a while.
(30:50):
That's why that comment theother day, well, it was 110 and
whatnot.
A 110 up here is probably a fiveand a half year old.
SPEAKER_02 (30:58):
Well, I mean Lucky was 111.
SPEAKER_00 (31:02):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (31:03):
And he's uh he was a five and a half year old.
SPEAKER_00 (31:05):
Five and a half, six and a half years old.
Yeah.
I watched him for for fouryears.
Three years.
I didn't hunt him until thefourth year.
SPEAKER_02 (31:12):
Okay, fourth year.
Okay.
SPEAKER_00 (31:13):
Yeah.
He'd always been really wide andeverything.
And so you're looking at it'sjust it's different location.
That's not to say that we don'tget big rack bucks.
We do.
SPEAKER_02 (31:22):
And we do, like uh thinking of an outlier is
Charlie that Bud got, won itafter 129 and some change.
Net and then or gross.
SPEAKER_00 (31:34):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (31:35):
And then net was 122.
Yeah.
But it was a three and a halfyear old buck.
SPEAKER_00 (31:39):
Yeah, a three and a half for a round here that's
unheard of.
SPEAKER_02 (31:43):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (31:44):
Unheard of.
SPEAKER_02 (31:45):
So always definitely an outlier.
Right, right.
Thinking of that little one thatI've got Anakin, and like you
said, the one and a half yearold that's a three-point.
SPEAKER_00 (31:56):
Yeah, yeah.
And guys jump the gun too muchand think, well, because it's
that way where I live, it shouldbe that way all the way away.
And it just isn't, you know.
Valley Bucks versus CascadeBucks versus Southern Oregon
Bucks versus British ColumbiaBucks.
I mean, they're all gonna beSitka black tail.
It's all gonna be different.
It just it's gonna be what thatgene strain in that area.
SPEAKER_02 (32:20):
And whitetail are just the same as far as the
exact same.
Different areas have differentjust different genetics, and
they're gonna look and bedifferent.
SPEAKER_00 (32:29):
Their genetics have adapted to the area in which
they live.
SPEAKER_02 (32:32):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (32:32):
You know, we get a lot of what we call brush buck
racks, where there might a lotmore basket rack.
And it takes a long time.
unknown (32:41):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (32:41):
Eight and a half, nine and a half.
And by then they're almostthey're almost impossible to
kill because they're just notinterested in the rut.
SPEAKER_02 (32:48):
How old was Bambino, do you think?
SPEAKER_00 (32:51):
Oh my gosh.
Bambino was probably an eightand a half to a nine and a half
year old buck.
SPEAKER_02 (32:56):
Yeah, he was an old guy.
SPEAKER_00 (32:58):
He was really old.
The fact that Chris got him is Imean, it just that's the hand of
God because I don't think thatbuck was interested, like I
said, in the rut anymore.
You know, they just they losethat drive after a while.
It's like bulls.
They just want to eat and yeah,they don't, they're just not
driven by the rut anymore, andso they just don't make many
mistakes, they don't screw up.
SPEAKER_02 (33:20):
So going back to thinking about the differences
between whitale and black tail,are there differences in the way
you scout for those?
SPEAKER_00 (33:29):
So for me, no.
SPEAKER_02 (33:31):
Okay.
Again, you're always lookinghabitat first.
SPEAKER_00 (33:34):
That's exactly it.
You know, I'm always looking forhabitat.
If you find the habitat, thebucks are gonna be there.
It just it I've just found thatto be true.
SPEAKER_02 (33:45):
But is it different habitat?
SPEAKER_00 (33:46):
It's different habitat in the sense that it's
not so much the conifers theyhave there.
We're looking at cedars, andthat's pretty much it.
Maybe a few pines, but mostlycedars and pines.
But those aren't common.
Yeah.
They're not uncommon, butthey're it's not like here where
everywhere you look, it's allhardwood.
(34:07):
It's some kind of evergreen or ahardwood, period.
SPEAKER_02 (34:10):
There it's um almost all hardwoods.
SPEAKER_00 (34:12):
Yeah, it's gonna be a lot of scrub oak, a lot of a
lot of oak, period.
Yeah, a lot of acorns andwhatnot, and which can make it
really difficult as far aspatterning because that food
source is so plentifuleverywhere.
It would be the equivalent ofblackberries up here.
SPEAKER_01 (34:27):
Okay.
SPEAKER_00 (34:28):
You know what I mean?
Where there's oak runningeverywhere.
Every draw, there's gonna be abunch of oak in there, and so it
makes it really it can be reallydifficult to pattern a deer at
times.
SPEAKER_02 (34:40):
Okay.
So if you're thinking aboutblacktail, what are like the top
three things to consider, Iwould say, for black tail?
SPEAKER_00 (34:48):
As far as locating them?
SPEAKER_02 (34:50):
As far as just hunting them.
If you're going to hunt, andlike it's very different because
a lot of guys will glass orsomething like that, but just
thinking from your point of viewand the way you hunt.
SPEAKER_00 (35:03):
Oh, okay.
The first thing I I uh I do is Iget on either onyx or hunt stand
or whatever, and I start lookingfor edges.
That's the very first thing Ido, is I look for edges created
by habitat changes.
Once I find those edges, then Iwant to put boots on the ground.
And it usually doesn't take verylong after that to decide.
(35:25):
And it sounds easy.
And once you start doing it andyou realize what you're looking
for, it really isn't that hard.
You you just wash, rinse,repeat.
So the first thing I want tolook for is edges, and I'm
solely going to concentrate onedges.
SPEAKER_02 (35:39):
So it's first you're doing e-scouting, second is
boots on the ground, lookingfor, as you would say, maybe the
bedroom door, finding that todialing it in.
So e-scouting, dialing it in,and then the third thing.
SPEAKER_00 (35:53):
Yeah, the edges of thick stuff.
SPEAKER_02 (35:54):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (35:55):
To locate that bedroom door, and then the third
thing is accessibility.
And that's gonna be differentfor everybody.
SPEAKER_02 (36:02):
So how easy you can get in and out?
SPEAKER_00 (36:04):
Right.
Entrances and exits are everybit as important as the hunt
itself.
SPEAKER_02 (36:08):
Okay.
SPEAKER_00 (36:09):
If I can't get in and out without being seen and
heard or smelled, then I'm gonnareally have a hard time getting
that big buck to daylight.
SPEAKER_02 (36:18):
Yeah.
Okay, so if you were gonna dowhitetail, would it be the same
three?
Or would you be consideringsomething else?
SPEAKER_00 (36:26):
I might with whitetail, I would throw in
there uh talking to my gamebiologist and finding out where
the highest concentration ofdough and rainfall.
SPEAKER_01 (36:36):
Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_00 (36:37):
Would be the two because dose would determine
what the buck to dough ratio isand where I can find that where
it seems to be one to two or oneto one.
When it gets to be too big, thenthe bucks spend so much time
breeding does that they're notvisible near as much.
I mean, they just don't movevery much, they don't have to.
SPEAKER_03 (36:57):
No.
SPEAKER_00 (36:57):
And if the ratio is closer to one to two or one to
one, then I'm gonna see moredaylighting, I'm gonna see more
deer or more buck activitybecause those are gonna get
gobbled up fast in that sense.
Rain always equals antlergrowth.
If there is a poor county whereit had very poor rain
(37:19):
seasonally, it's gonna be verypoor antler growth because
without rain, stuff doesn'tgrow, they don't get the
nutrients they need, theminerals they need to reach
their maximum potential.
If there is a high or highcounties with higher rain
amounts, those are the countiesI want to stick to, or or that's
where I want to be concentratingmy efforts as far as locating
(37:40):
travel corridors and checkingfor the game biologists as far
as the deer population.
SPEAKER_02 (37:46):
Okay.
So I think this could be anexhaustive.
We could probably go on talkingabout those differences, yeah,
on this.
So, kind of a brief overview,but we're at our time limit.
I'm sure everybody's commute isalmost done.
So, and that's what we're aimingfor.
So that you can listen to thison one way of your commute,
maybe two.
(38:07):
So, anyway, thanks for joiningus, and we'll talk to you all
next week.
Welcome back to the Blacktail Coach Podcast.
I'm Aaron.
SPEAKER_00 (00:22):
And I'm Dave.
SPEAKER_02 (00:23):
Okay, this week we're gonna talk Whittail versus
Blacktail.
So you just got back.
Well, actually, it's is it closeto a month now, or has it just
been a couple weeks?
A couple weeks.
A couple weeks from your yearlyKansas Whitetail trip.
And so just wanted a recap ofthe trip.
What you saw, how many the good,the bad, the ugly.
SPEAKER_00 (00:44):
The first two days really cold.
Really, really cold.
Like underdressed, cold.
And then the last three days ofthe hunt were really warm.
And so, yeah, it was still fun.
We still had a great time andeverything.
But you, you know, that's thething about guided hunts, you
never know what you're gonna getas far as weather.
So you're kind of at the mercyof Mother Nature, so to speak.
(01:06):
But we saw a lot of rutactivity.
We both had opportunities.
My son and I both hadopportunities at shooters, and
neither of us could uh seal thedeal.
SPEAKER_02 (01:16):
So the first couple of days it was in the 20s, and
then it went up to it was lessthan twenty.
Oh, less than twenty.
SPEAKER_00 (01:22):
Less than twenty.
SPEAKER_02 (01:23):
And then it went up to seventies.
Did you say it?
SPEAKER_00 (01:26):
We went from two days being down less than
twenty, and then you throwingwind chill on top of that too.
SPEAKER_02 (01:32):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (01:32):
And then from there we went up to 50s to 60s.
SPEAKER_02 (01:36):
Okay.
And this is this particularguide that you use, they have
ground blinds and tree stands?
Yes.
Okay.
And so the regular, like thetree stands that you would use,
not those permanent, they'realmost like actually, I wouldn't
even say that they're a treestand, but they're almost like
(01:56):
an elevated blind.
SPEAKER_00 (01:58):
These are hang-ons.
SPEAKER_02 (01:59):
Okay.
SPEAKER_00 (01:59):
That we're going in.
And uh the ground blindsobviously are they're not a a
blind house of any co kind.
It's the pop-up blinds.
SPEAKER_01 (02:08):
Pop-up.
SPEAKER_00 (02:09):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (02:09):
Okay.
SPEAKER_00 (02:10):
And so, yeah, it's an adventure.
SPEAKER_02 (02:12):
So did you have your heaviest winter gear when you
went?
SPEAKER_00 (02:16):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (02:16):
It was still cold.
SPEAKER_00 (02:17):
It was 19 degrees without the wind chill factor on
the first morning.
So it was single digits.
Because we had 30 mile an hourgusts.
SPEAKER_01 (02:25):
Oof.
SPEAKER_00 (02:26):
And it was in our face the whole time.
And so yeah, we got we bothlittle David and I both got sun
windburned.
And uh at one point, it was socold.
I had a shooter in on the set,but I I I mean my hands hurt so
bad.
I don't know if I could havepulled my bow back had I been
get given the shot opportunity.
(02:47):
It was just so cold that it hurtto have my hands outside and
holding on to the riser of thebow.
I mean, it actually like stung.
SPEAKER_02 (02:58):
Are there any gloves?
I and we're kind of getting offgloves.
Oh, and that's with gloves.
Oh, okay.
Because I was wondering iftypically do you have to, when
you're bow hunting, do you haveto do it without gloves?
SPEAKER_00 (03:12):
No, you can do it with gloves.
And the thing is that you wantto practice with those gloves
because it's gonna come out ofthe riser a little different
because you you can't feel likeyou normally would.
Yeah, it's the differencebetween wearing soft sole tenor
shoes and a hard sole, stiffankle hiking boot.
You're gonna feel the ground alot more with the soft sole.
You're gonna feel what's underyour feet, twigs and whatnot.
(03:34):
But with a boot, you're justgonna you're gonna put your foot
down, you're not gonna feel athing.
Yeah, you're just gonna hear thelimbs snapping under your feet.
SPEAKER_02 (03:41):
So how many deer did you see this year?
SPEAKER_00 (03:43):
So it wasn't the year before, not this year, but
the year before I went and I sawI had 143 deer walk in front of
me.
SPEAKER_02 (03:54):
Yeah.
And uh I remember that.
SPEAKER_00 (03:56):
And that was probably the best time uh as far
as deer numbers in Kansas thatI've experienced, and I still
didn't have a shooter walk infront of me.
This year I had a shooter walkin front of me.
It was the very first buck thatI saw on the very first morning,
and I let him walk thinking it'sKansas.
That's a big buck, but uh it'sfirst morning, I could see
(04:19):
something bigger, and it was theold if it's gonna happen, it's
gonna happen to me kind ofscenario.
Yeah, and I didn't see a biggerbuck the rest of the week.
The rest of the week.
And so I wish I would have shothim, but you know, I still had a
great time, and I had about I'dsay 50 to 60 deer.
SPEAKER_02 (04:34):
Okay.
Walking up.
And it's a 140 minimum, right?
SPEAKER_00 (04:37):
It is a 140 minimum.
Both little David and myself,like I said, we both had
shooters in front of us.
SPEAKER_02 (04:43):
We just didn't didn't pan out.
SPEAKER_00 (04:45):
Didn't pan out, or we just didn't take the
opportunity.
Okay, and that's fine.
Uh we had a great time and weenjoy going down there.
We shared deer camp with Ralphfrom Ralph and Vicky, Archer's
Choice.
SPEAKER_02 (04:58):
And uh TV personalities.
SPEAKER_00 (05:01):
Great guy, got to know him.
Usually they're in camp the weekbefore us.
SPEAKER_01 (05:06):
Okay.
SPEAKER_00 (05:07):
But this year he was in camp with us, and so we got
to spend some evenings togetherand so they do archery earlier.
Yeah.
Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (05:17):
Is that pretty common in the Midwest to do
archery earlier?
SPEAKER_00 (05:20):
Yeah, the rut is sooner down there than it is
here.
SPEAKER_02 (05:24):
Okay, and I was gonna ask that later on when we
get to talking more about thedifferences, whether there's a
difference in the timing of therut.
SPEAKER_00 (05:31):
Absolutely.
And typically the second week ofNovember is when we're going.
And uh usually the first andsecond week is when you want to
go in the Midwest.
You get down farther south, andsome of them they don't rut till
January.
SPEAKER_02 (05:44):
Really?
SPEAKER_00 (05:45):
Yeah, like you know, Florida and getting a little
Bible belt area down there, likea really late rut.
I wonder Texas can and Mexico.
SPEAKER_02 (05:56):
Yeah.
I wonder if that has to do, likeif you were to go to the upper
Midwest, maybe the UpperPeninsula in Michigan or
Minnesota, Wisconsin, andhunting whitetail, if they're
rutting earlier.
Because if it has to do with theamount of light hitting the
retina, right, there's not a lotof variance.
SPEAKER_00 (06:17):
And ours is a little later because we're so close to
the ocean.
So we get some light refractionoff the ocean, it bounces off
the clouds, and so Oh, okay.
We get it a little later than weprobably would have.
But as far as you know, dayslasting longer, yeah, it's fun.
SPEAKER_02 (06:33):
Yeah, yeah.
So let me ask you that.
And me not being one who's everI've never done a guided hunt or
anything like that.
Or and technically, the only wayyou could say I've hunted out of
state is when I went grousehunting when you were out
cutting.
Oh, that's the closest I'vehunted out of state.
So as far as and I think aboutthis because a large a big
(06:58):
selling point of the black tailcoach with taking our classes
being your own guide.
Right, right.
So then the where you kind ofgive that up to go on a guided
hunt, as far as the personalsatisfaction, where does that
factor in it?
SPEAKER_00 (07:14):
Well, I think you have to go into this with eyes
wide open.
And there's pros and cons toboth.
There are people that are like,well, it's a canned hunt, or you
know, they view it like that,and because they're not doing
all the work, but it seems lessto them.
SPEAKER_03 (07:27):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (07:27):
I, on the other hand, do not feel that way at
all.
And it's funny because beingdown there in Kansas, and like I
said, I spent a lot of eveningswith Ralph and talking with him
at supper and whatnot, we bothkind of agreed on the fact that
hunting has taken on a new facetthat I don't know is good.
I'm not saying it's bad, but Ijust don't know that it's good
(07:49):
anymore.
Because when we were kidsgrowing up, hunting was about
making memories.
SPEAKER_03 (07:54):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (07:54):
Hunting was about spending time with family and
friends and getting out thereand making memories.
And the hunting industry haskind of shifted to less of that
and more about record book.
SPEAKER_02 (08:09):
And the tr the trophy and the antlers and
right, right.
SPEAKER_00 (08:12):
And I'm not saying that's bad.
I hear me when I say this.
I don't think it's bad to anextent.
Like we just had somebody onFacebook the other day say,
Well, I wouldn't be postinganything that's 110 or less, 110
inches or less.
And I just thought that is justabout the dumbest, most ignorant
thing I've heard people say.
(08:33):
Because it's not your tag.
SPEAKER_03 (08:35):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (08:36):
If you're happy putting your tag on that, by all
means, shoot it.
It's the memories you're making.
If you want to hold out forsomething bigger, by all means,
hold out for something bigger.
It's your tag.
SPEAKER_02 (08:46):
Yeah.
It's that there's been created acompetitiveness.
SPEAKER_00 (08:51):
Oh, absolutely.
SPEAKER_02 (08:53):
Where it and it's I would say, you know, there's
friendly competition, which youmight experience like if you
were to have gone out when youwere younger with your brothers
and your dad, and you have afriendly competition between the
four of you.
Now it's a competition withstrangers on the internet.
SPEAKER_00 (09:10):
Right.
SPEAKER_02 (09:10):
And that probably a social media and a lot of that
has to play into that of thecompetition of it.
SPEAKER_00 (09:16):
And it's I think it's the alpha male in many of
us that says I want to be thebest.
SPEAKER_03 (09:22):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (09:22):
And so, yeah, the ego steps in and whatnot.
So when I do guided hunt, I haveto go into it with keeping
things in perspective in thesense that this is not your
regular hunt.
Okay.
What's the difficult side of it?
The difficult side of it is thisis I've got five days to make it
happen.
SPEAKER_03 (09:38):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (09:39):
I don't have an entire season.
I've got five days to make ithappen.
I've also got a lot of faith inthat outfitter that he's done
everything he can to locate andget, you know, whatever it is
I'm hunting, whether it's elk,whether it's bear, or whether
it's bucks, to daylight in frontof me.
SPEAKER_03 (09:58):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (09:58):
So that I can get a shot opportunity.
What I do with that opportunityis entirely up to me.
SPEAKER_02 (10:03):
And whether it's because there's a lot of food
plots there, so making sure thatthose are uh baiting,
absolutely.
SPEAKER_00 (10:10):
If it's a pinch point or a travel corridor, you
know, it it's gotta be, andthat's the thing.
You still have to realize it'shunting, but guys will go and
they'll sit there for a week andthey don't see very much and
they get upset.
Yeah, that's hunting.
SPEAKER_03 (10:24):
That yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (10:25):
And I understand that I understand that they put
down a lot of money.
I get that, I get thatfrustration, but you have to
recognize when you put down thatmoney, hey, this is hunting.
Yeah, you could hit it.
We could have gone down thereand it could have been 70s the
entire time.
Deer activity, rud activitywould have been just minimal.
It would have been all at night,you know.
(10:47):
Well, that doesn't do me anygood.
No, you know what I mean?
So you take that chance when yousign up for it.
And it's like, I don't care ifit's November, I don't care if
it's December, you know?
It happens.
There's seasons, it's just it'slike, boy, it just stunk this
year.
Yeah.
But, you know, for me, I'm goingwith my son or I'm going with a
buddy, I'm gonna have fun.
SPEAKER_03 (11:07):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (11:08):
So that's kind of how I view it.
Some guys are like, well, I'mgoing to a place, and this place
had a minimum, 140 minimum, andit's like, well, no, that's
awesome.
Uh they give you that minimumbecause they have bucks that
reach that minimum.
So you're gonna do it.
SPEAKER_02 (11:21):
And plenty of them, yeah.
Not just one or two, and you'vegot 50 guys fighting over them.
SPEAKER_00 (11:27):
Yeah, you're hoping that one of those walks in front
of you and everything.
But in the sense that, you know,it it's it is hunting and stuff.
And if hunting is slow, I don'twaste any opportunity.
I want to talk to the outfitter.
I want to figure out, and thisis what guys need to do.
If you're going and the huntingisn't that good, whether it's
weather, because weather trumpsall, or the rut just, you know,
(11:49):
seems to be all at night andyou're not getting any daylight
picks or anything like that.
Take that opportunity to sitdown with that outfitter and
talk to him, get to know him,find out why he's doing what
he's doing, in the sense thatwhy did you put that set there?
How are you keeping him comingback?
What do you do to get him todaylight?
And honestly, that's how youlearn, you know.
(12:12):
He doesn't owe you anythingoutside of the trespass fee that
you paid access to that set.
But if you can befriend him andyou can glean information off of
him, it's always applicable toanother hunt.
SPEAKER_02 (12:26):
Now, how far apart are the sets that you're
hunting?
SPEAKER_00 (12:31):
So this particular outfitter that we go to down
there, he has over like 13,000acres.
SPEAKER_01 (12:39):
Okay.
SPEAKER_00 (12:40):
So we're gonna hunt this ranch, and this ranch may
be 2,000 acres.
SPEAKER_01 (12:45):
Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_00 (12:45):
And there's three of us that are gonna hunt this
ranch.
Well, the ranch may be 45minutes from where the
outfitter's cabin is.
SPEAKER_01 (12:52):
Okay.
SPEAKER_00 (12:53):
And then, you know, you're not all sitting in the
same blind or over the samefield or anything like that.
He's on that side, he's gonna beover here.
Okay, and that's it.
SPEAKER_02 (13:02):
Like at least are they at least like a mile apart?
Oh, yeah, easily.
Okay, easily.
Because I think about it, andthis is a difference between
potentially whitetail and blacktail.
In the class, we talk about yourset should be at least a mile
apart, so you're not competingagainst yourself.
And once you learn nuance, youthat's a a workable number, but
(13:24):
to begin with, it's a mileapart.
Right now, but black tail havesmall ranges, and whitetail
having a bigger range, yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (13:33):
So that becomes a little bit trickier, so you
you're not so dependent.
Food sources are gonna beeverywhere in the Midwest.
That's the thing that peopledon't understand.
And when I say that, I meanpeople from the Northwest,
because on our side, you know,we're not an egg society over
here.
We do have farms and we dopeople grow corn and stuff, but
(13:53):
you go to the Midwest and it'severywhere.
That's all you see.
So food sources, you know, andI've said this during my
seminars that food does not makebig bucks daylight.
It just doesn't.
If you think that's the thetrick to it, you know, putting
out food and big bucks are gonnacome running in and all this,
(14:13):
you're sadly mistaken.
And I encourage you to go and dojust that put out food and see
how many come at the day duringthe daylight.
Because it is so e-oriented outthere.
I mean, it's just miles andmiles and miles of egg fields,
corn, sunflower, soybean, allthese other crops that they're
growing out there and whatnot.
(14:33):
You focus more on pinch pointsand travel corridors.
SPEAKER_01 (14:38):
Okay.
SPEAKER_00 (14:39):
And this is I recommend anybody that wants to
figure out blacktail, go on aguided whitale hunt in the
Midwest and talk to your guideand see how he again ask him why
he put that stand there.
It's easier to read the terrainbecause of the way that they
have green belts and egg fields,and green belt and the egg, the
(15:01):
way that it is out there andstuff.
You start reading the contourand just how the land is laid
out, and you understand why thedeer are using this ridge or
that ridge, and then it'll openyour eyes to that.
Then you come back here andyou're able to look at it
differently.
Oh, I see why they're using thatridge to get here.
(15:22):
Granted, it's not ag, butthey're still moving to a food
source.
SPEAKER_02 (15:26):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (15:26):
Or a bedding area.
SPEAKER_02 (15:28):
Now, would it be more of a shrunken down version
with black tail?
SPEAKER_00 (15:32):
With black tail, yes.
And it would be more of a ruggedterrain.
SPEAKER_01 (15:37):
Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (15:38):
You know, Oklahoma, Kansas, from North Dakota all
the way down into Texas, it'smore rolling hills and whatnot,
except for the black hills up inSouth Dakota.
But most of it is rolling hillsand ravines and little drainages
and whatnot, at least from ourpoint of view, that's what it
would be.
And so when you look at outthere and you're looking at it,
it seems to be on a smallerscale, and you learn how to read
(16:01):
it.
It seems a lot easier to read.
Once you figure that out, and itdon't take long, you can look at
the terrain and oh my gosh,okay, I see all this, I see the
habitat.
And you're watching, okay, so heput it here because this is the
green belt here, and this is theridge here.
Oh, okay, that makes totalsense.
And then you come back, like Isaid, here, even though
(16:21):
evergreen trees hide a lot offinger raises, you're still able
to look at it and go, okay, thisis where the deer want to run.
It's the path of leastresistance, and you can see how
they want to move.
It makes it a lot easier outhere to decipher hunting areas
and figure out where the deertravel.
SPEAKER_02 (16:39):
So would it be, and this is making this pop into my
head, is it so wind is importantto know the wind because you're
absolutely you're gonna get theythey busted.
SPEAKER_00 (16:52):
Yeah, they want the wind religiously.
If the wind is bad, they don'tput you on that set.
SPEAKER_02 (16:56):
Okay.
But there, the wind being bad,there's not it seems like it
wouldn't get broken up quite asmuch as it does.
Like here, walking to my setthat I hunted this year, when
I'm first walking up the firstskitter road, it's and I mean
(17:18):
this is winding and it's blowingin my face because it creates
that wind tunnel.
Because I have I'm walking in40, 50 foot tall first in
between on this skitter road.
So it's always blowing in myface.
Then I drop down through adrainage, it creates a vacuum,
and it blows down into thatdrainage.
Pop up on another skitter roadthat's 90 degree angle from the
(17:41):
first skitter road, the lastpart, and it's blowing in my
face again.
SPEAKER_01 (17:46):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (17:47):
So it's blowing from the west to east, and then it's
blowing north to south, and thenI go sit in my set, and it's
back blowing from west to eastagain.
Or yeah, it so our toptopography and being taller
ridges, things like that.
Right.
(18:07):
Is that making black tail?
Is that one of the things thatcan make black tail a little
more difficult or lessdifficult?
SPEAKER_00 (18:12):
Absolutely.
I mean, everybody has gone.
So there are obstacles here inthe northwest are much larger.
And so they direct the wind orblock the wind or divert the
wind a lot easier than it doesout there.
With the rolling hills, it'sjust gonna blow over, you know.
SPEAKER_02 (18:28):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (18:29):
And I mean, their trees are smaller, you know,
their cedar trees, they onlyaverage about 20 feet.
Okay.
Yeah, and they it's not as youknow, what they call thick is is
what we would call a park.
SPEAKER_02 (18:39):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (18:40):
And that's okay.
SPEAKER_02 (18:41):
I mean Well, it's just different.
SPEAKER_00 (18:42):
That's all it is.
But you know, over there, you'remore apt to get the 20 to 30
mile an hour gusts on days, anddeer don't hunker down when the
wind blows out there in theMidwest.
They're up and moving, and theyseem more relaxed on a very
strong windy day than they do ondays when it's like a five mile
an hour, seven mile an hourconstant breeze.
(19:05):
They come in on pins andneedles, and you get that that
those windy days where it's 20plus, they just seem relaxed.
And I think it's becauseeverything is moving, they can't
decipher what's danger and whatisn't.
And so they just kind of likethrow up their hands and like,
okay, yeah, it's gonna happen,it's gonna happen.
SPEAKER_02 (19:25):
Now, are the predators much of an issue?
White tail?
SPEAKER_00 (19:28):
Coyotes and bobcats are huge in the Midwest.
Huge.
And you'll, you know, you talkto a lot of guys, they get an
arrow in a deer or whatnot, andit's like they really want to go
out and get it that nightbecause coyotes find it and eat
the whole thing.
You'll only get the antlers.
SPEAKER_02 (19:44):
Oh wow.
SPEAKER_00 (19:44):
They'll polish off a whole deer in in a night.
It's incredible.
SPEAKER_02 (19:48):
Okay, but there's not the big predators that
there's well and I imaginethere's bears and cougars.
SPEAKER_00 (19:54):
Yeah, but not the numbers like we have up here.
Yeah.
Not at not even close.
And most of those are a drawanyway.
Uh because there's so few.
SPEAKER_02 (20:04):
Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_00 (20:04):
Yeah.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (20:05):
So it's uh Oh, so draw for a bear hunt or draw for
cougar hunt.
Yep.
Okay.
So which, although Texas, Idon't think there is.
SPEAKER_00 (20:14):
I don't believe there is.
SPEAKER_02 (20:15):
So I remember because we were looking into
doing, and we're still lookingto do a Pig hunt down in Texas,
and the one of the guideservices was just like just head
out there and kill some stuff,and they gave you a limit of
like five pigs each or whatever.
But they said, if you see acougar, shoot it.
So it sounded like it was justkind of fair game, but they just
(20:37):
wanted the cougars all gone.
SPEAKER_00 (20:39):
So they were talking that they did have a cougar
sighting there in Kansas, butit's almost like a Bigfoot
sighting.
It's such a rarity.
You know what I mean?
SPEAKER_03 (20:46):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (20:47):
You're gonna see a lot of bobcats and and coyotes
and armadillos, you know, butyou're not gonna see the chance
that you've seen a cougar islike winning the lottery.
SPEAKER_02 (20:57):
Now, can you take a fling an arrow at an armadillo
if he's walking by?
Or is that bad etiquette?
SPEAKER_00 (21:04):
You can if you want.
Yeah, they're like our possumsup there.
SPEAKER_02 (21:07):
Yes, with armor.
SPEAKER_00 (21:08):
Yeah.
Well, I mean the numbers.
Oh, they're everywhere downthere.
SPEAKER_02 (21:13):
Okay.
So we kind of talked a bit abouthabitat and climate affecting.
Oh, that was something before wemove on, like with the wind.
Are you because I know when I'veread articles and studied
articles about, and I thinkScott Halligan talked about it
too, about wind traveling inlayers.
Uh-huh.
So you want to get up above thatlayer.
SPEAKER_00 (21:33):
So is it when you're there, are you hunting up pretty
high in in tree stands or well,I mean, because the trees don't
get very tall, you're probablyaveraging 15, okay, uh, 12, 15
feet.
SPEAKER_02 (21:47):
So not real.
SPEAKER_00 (21:50):
Yeah, just because, like I said, we were in seat,
their cedars average about 20feet.
They and their our cedars go up75 foot cedars, nothing around
here.
Yeah.
It's got just this massive baseand everything.
Theirs are just kind of shortand stubby.
SPEAKER_03 (22:03):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (22:03):
You know what I mean?
And the boughs go out real wide,but the tree doesn't go up very
high at all in comparison toours.
And here they deal with droughtjust every year, though.
SPEAKER_02 (22:15):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (22:16):
So I mean, that's gotta have something to do with
it.
SPEAKER_02 (22:18):
So and here you're more like 25 feet up or oh yeah.
Yeah.
But but then again, terrainplays a lot into that, how high
up you're going, because ifyou're on the hillside, you want
to be higher.
You need to be up even higher.
SPEAKER_00 (22:31):
If the deer is approaching from uphill, yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (22:33):
Okay, so thinking about the difference between
white tail and black tail, thesigns that you're seeing, if you
were to go out on your own, notnecessarily relying on the guide
to do this, but what are you sohere?
We're looking for rubs.
That's kind of a bigger thing.
But here, and you talk aboutthat in the class, we look for
habitat.
We don't actually look for thedeer.
(22:55):
Are they with white tail?
Are you looking for deer?
You're looking for habitat firstor certain types of sign first?
SPEAKER_00 (23:02):
I'm looking for I'm looking for habitat.
When I find the habitat, thesign will be there with white
tails.
Okay.
Especially with white tails withbecause I mean you're looking,
there's scrapes all over.
There's rubs all over.
There are just a much moreaggressive species of deer than
black tail and mule deer.
And what I mean by that is thatthey fight more, they respond to
(23:24):
vocals more, you're rattling andgrunts, and they're just really
an aggressive deer.
And because they're soplentiful, finding their travel
corridors isn't that hard.
As far as when you hit a gametrail that's well used, it's
obvious.
SPEAKER_03 (23:39):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (23:39):
Because they just reproduce so much and there's so
much deer traffic that when theytravel those game trails, it
just gets beat down becausethere's so much activity on it.
SPEAKER_02 (23:49):
And if they're herding up.
SPEAKER_00 (23:51):
In the wintertime, they'll move out to the open and
herd up.
SPEAKER_02 (23:56):
But even moving through those corridors, there
might be maybe what uh say thereif there's a hundred deer w
working a certain trail orcorridor in the Midwest, here
there might be a lot of people.
It just the Oh yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (24:13):
When I was in North Dakota, I spent three winters
there.
And uh, it was nothing in thewintertime to drive down the
highway, look over, and there'dbe a herd of 200 whitetail out
in the middle of a field allhuddled together.
SPEAKER_03 (24:25):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (24:25):
And that's the deer from that area.
They'd come in there and they'rejust doing it to stay warm, you
know.
I mean, because North Dakota, itgets negative 20, 40 degrees.
SPEAKER_03 (24:33):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (24:34):
But yeah, you would see that quite common.
And like you said, we go aroundhere and they're maybe in a
deer's range 12 to 24.
SPEAKER_02 (24:44):
Yeah.
So as I drove down forThanksgiving, I drove down to
California and I was in theSiskiws driving along I-5, and I
looked off to the right, andthere were six, seven does all
standing together in a 20 by 40yard patch of open grass.
And I was like, oh my gosh,yeah, it's one of the biggest
(25:05):
herds of blacktail I've everseen.
And it literally was.
I think there's been twice whereI've seen more than like five
together.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It just doesn't really happen.
SPEAKER_00 (25:15):
We don't get the extreme winters like they do, so
there's no reason for them tohang out close.
SPEAKER_02 (25:19):
So is there what are the differences or similarities
in their rut behavior betweenblack tail and white tail?
SPEAKER_00 (25:26):
Like I said, white tail are much more vocal,
they're more aggressive.
That's not to say that blacktail aren't aggressive, but on
average, white tail are gonna bemore aggressive, they're gonna
respond to calls moreaggressively, whereas a black
you're rattling.
Sometimes the black tail willrun in and sometimes they'll
sneak in.
(25:47):
Yeah, you rattle for white tail,and more often than not, you're
gonna hear him coming.
Or if you rattle, you're you'relooking out there and you see
him and you rattle, he's justgonna come.
I don't know how many times I'vedone this.
Let's let's use this as anexample.
I've done the snort wheeze, I'veseen a buck walking without a
dough, and I've done the snortwheeze, and 99% of the time
(26:11):
he'll stop, he'll look back atme, and once he does that, I
know he's coming in.
He may go left or right, get inthe cover, and I don't see him,
and then the next thing I know,he's popped out next to either
my left or right, like within 10yards of where I'm sitting.
SPEAKER_02 (26:28):
Yeah, he's sneaking in.
SPEAKER_00 (26:30):
He's coming around to get the win and stuff, but if
they stop and look back, 99% ofthe time they're coming in.
And they're just a reallyaggressive deer, and they're
fun, they're fun to hunt, theyget bigger quicker than
blacktail do.
So it's nothing to see a yearand a half old buck, and he's a
three-point.
(26:50):
Okay, you know what I mean?
And you're just like going, ohmy gosh, that's as big as a fork
and horn as far as high andwhatnot.
Yeah, but he's a three-point andhe's only a year and a half, and
or maybe he's three and a halfand he is a ten-point, and he's
just heavy and great mass, andhe's running 130s to 140s, and
(27:14):
you're just like, oh my gosh,and that's a three and a
half-year-old buck.
And we're looking at for a blacktail in our part of the
northwest.
Now, this is southwestWashington.
This is not southwest Oregon,but in our part, because the
habitat is thicker, there's moreunderbrush and whatnot, for a
(27:34):
buck to get to the 120s, that'sthe equivalent of a buck in the
140s down south.
SPEAKER_01 (27:42):
Okay.
SPEAKER_00 (27:43):
Okay.
And that's the thing.
A lot of guys they make amistake on on thinking, well,
it's this way where I live, itshould be that way everywhere.
You look at you look at uh deerin Kansas and Oklahoma, uh-huh.
Giants, body-wise giants,absolute monsters.
SPEAKER_03 (28:00):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (28:01):
Go down to Texas.
They're tiny, they're half thesize.
SPEAKER_02 (28:05):
Do they have bigger racks?
SPEAKER_00 (28:06):
They got the racks equivalent.
The racks look big because thebody is but so you're looking at
them going, okay, they're gonnashoot the 130s and 140s, and
that's gonna look that's gonnabe a great buck there.
Yeah, but Kansas, Oklahoma,Illinois, I mean, you're gonna
get 150s, 60s, 170s, 180s.
Yeah, you know, and they'regonna be big bodied.
SPEAKER_02 (28:29):
DJ a few years ago on that trip got fat Elvis,
which was a 300-plus pound whitetail.
SPEAKER_00 (28:36):
That was the biggest bodied white tail ever taken off
that ranch.
And then you go up north intoSaskatchewan and whatnot, and is
it varies as you go intodifferent types of habitat.
SPEAKER_02 (28:48):
Well, it was interesting because I just
interviewed some guys down inNorthern California, Mendocino
County, and they were huge.
I was talking to a guy who had a172 black tail with a 30-inch
spread.
So they have these monsterracks.
SPEAKER_03 (29:10):
Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_02 (29:10):
But then they were talking about, yeah, we can get
some big bucks down here, bigbody bucks.
They'll go like 150, 170 pounds.
SPEAKER_00 (29:17):
And I'm thinking that's not a bad buck.
SPEAKER_02 (29:20):
That's not a bad buck, but it's that's not a huge
you know, for them, that's ahuge bodied buck in down in
California.
But for up here, that's not.
SPEAKER_00 (29:31):
Okay, but we have to clarify, because the average guy
shoots up a fork horn or a spikearound here, and like a spike
will be a good spike is 90pounds.
SPEAKER_03 (29:40):
Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (29:41):
And there are some fork and horns that'll go 130 to
140, and guys think, well,that's a huge buck if 150, 175.
But when you see a mature buck,a mature black tail up here,
yeah, you realize that they'repushing 200.
SPEAKER_02 (29:53):
Yeah.
And so, and that was the thing.
That's their big mature blacktail down there, they max out
like a big maxed out body is 150to 170.
Up here, it's 200 to 250,potentially.
SPEAKER_00 (30:09):
Potentially.
And our racks typically will besmaller.
They take why they take longerto get to the size that you like
Southern Oregon.
You can go on Facebook this timeof year and you look at that
buck, and I see these big as I Ican almost before I even read
anything about that's a middleto southern Oregon buck, you
know, looking at it and seeinghow big that the rack is and
(30:30):
whatnot.
And then versus a big one uphere, you know, like six and a
half, seven and a half, eightand a half years old.
You're looking at him going,okay, now he's getting the
bigger rack.
Yeah, where he's pushing the140s and whatnot.
And and it just takes it'sdifferent, it takes a while.
(30:50):
That's why that comment theother day, well, it was 110 and
whatnot.
A 110 up here is probably a fiveand a half year old.
SPEAKER_02 (30:58):
Well, I mean Lucky was 111.
SPEAKER_00 (31:02):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (31:03):
And he's uh he was a five and a half year old.
SPEAKER_00 (31:05):
Five and a half, six and a half years old.
Yeah.
I watched him for for fouryears.
Three years.
I didn't hunt him until thefourth year.
SPEAKER_02 (31:12):
Okay, fourth year.
Okay.
SPEAKER_00 (31:13):
Yeah.
He'd always been really wide andeverything.
And so you're looking at it'sjust it's different location.
That's not to say that we don'tget big rack bucks.
We do.
SPEAKER_02 (31:22):
And we do, like uh thinking of an outlier is
Charlie that Bud got, won itafter 129 and some change.
Net and then or gross.
SPEAKER_00 (31:34):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (31:35):
And then net was 122.
Yeah.
But it was a three and a halfyear old buck.
SPEAKER_00 (31:39):
Yeah, a three and a half for a round here that's
unheard of.
SPEAKER_02 (31:43):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (31:44):
Unheard of.
SPEAKER_02 (31:45):
So always definitely an outlier.
Right, right.
Thinking of that little one thatI've got Anakin, and like you
said, the one and a half yearold that's a three-point.
SPEAKER_00 (31:56):
Yeah, yeah.
And guys jump the gun too muchand think, well, because it's
that way where I live, it shouldbe that way all the way away.
And it just isn't, you know.
Valley Bucks versus CascadeBucks versus Southern Oregon
Bucks versus British ColumbiaBucks.
I mean, they're all gonna beSitka black tail.
It's all gonna be different.
It just it's gonna be what thatgene strain in that area.
SPEAKER_02 (32:20):
And whitetail are just the same as far as the
exact same.
Different areas have differentjust different genetics, and
they're gonna look and bedifferent.
SPEAKER_00 (32:29):
Their genetics have adapted to the area in which
they live.
SPEAKER_02 (32:32):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (32:32):
You know, we get a lot of what we call brush buck
racks, where there might a lotmore basket rack.
And it takes a long time.
unknown (32:41):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (32:41):
Eight and a half, nine and a half.
And by then they're almostthey're almost impossible to
kill because they're just notinterested in the rut.
SPEAKER_02 (32:48):
How old was Bambino, do you think?
SPEAKER_00 (32:51):
Oh my gosh.
Bambino was probably an eightand a half to a nine and a half
year old buck.
SPEAKER_02 (32:56):
Yeah, he was an old guy.
SPEAKER_00 (32:58):
He was really old.
The fact that Chris got him is Imean, it just that's the hand of
God because I don't think thatbuck was interested, like I
said, in the rut anymore.
You know, they just they losethat drive after a while.
It's like bulls.
They just want to eat and yeah,they don't, they're just not
driven by the rut anymore, andso they just don't make many
mistakes, they don't screw up.
SPEAKER_02 (33:20):
So going back to thinking about the differences
between whitale and black tail,are there differences in the way
you scout for those?
SPEAKER_00 (33:29):
So for me, no.
SPEAKER_02 (33:31):
Okay.
Again, you're always lookinghabitat first.
SPEAKER_00 (33:34):
That's exactly it.
You know, I'm always looking forhabitat.
If you find the habitat, thebucks are gonna be there.
It just it I've just found thatto be true.
SPEAKER_02 (33:45):
But is it different habitat?
SPEAKER_00 (33:46):
It's different habitat in the sense that it's
not so much the conifers theyhave there.
We're looking at cedars, andthat's pretty much it.
Maybe a few pines, but mostlycedars and pines.
But those aren't common.
Yeah.
They're not uncommon, butthey're it's not like here where
everywhere you look, it's allhardwood.
(34:07):
It's some kind of evergreen or ahardwood, period.
SPEAKER_02 (34:10):
There it's um almost all hardwoods.
SPEAKER_00 (34:12):
Yeah, it's gonna be a lot of scrub oak, a lot of a
lot of oak, period.
Yeah, a lot of acorns andwhatnot, and which can make it
really difficult as far aspatterning because that food
source is so plentifuleverywhere.
It would be the equivalent ofblackberries up here.
SPEAKER_01 (34:27):
Okay.
SPEAKER_00 (34:28):
You know what I mean?
Where there's oak runningeverywhere.
Every draw, there's gonna be abunch of oak in there, and so it
makes it really it can be reallydifficult to pattern a deer at
times.
SPEAKER_02 (34:40):
Okay.
So if you're thinking aboutblacktail, what are like the top
three things to consider, Iwould say, for black tail?
SPEAKER_00 (34:48):
As far as locating them?
SPEAKER_02 (34:50):
As far as just hunting them.
If you're going to hunt, andlike it's very different because
a lot of guys will glass orsomething like that, but just
thinking from your point of viewand the way you hunt.
SPEAKER_00 (35:03):
Oh, okay.
The first thing I I uh I do is Iget on either onyx or hunt stand
or whatever, and I start lookingfor edges.
That's the very first thing Ido, is I look for edges created
by habitat changes.
Once I find those edges, then Iwant to put boots on the ground.
And it usually doesn't take verylong after that to decide.
(35:25):
And it sounds easy.
And once you start doing it andyou realize what you're looking
for, it really isn't that hard.
You you just wash, rinse,repeat.
So the first thing I want tolook for is edges, and I'm
solely going to concentrate onedges.
SPEAKER_02 (35:39):
So it's first you're doing e-scouting, second is
boots on the ground, lookingfor, as you would say, maybe the
bedroom door, finding that todialing it in.
So e-scouting, dialing it in,and then the third thing.
SPEAKER_00 (35:53):
Yeah, the edges of thick stuff.
SPEAKER_02 (35:54):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (35:55):
To locate that bedroom door, and then the third
thing is accessibility.
And that's gonna be differentfor everybody.
SPEAKER_02 (36:02):
So how easy you can get in and out?
SPEAKER_00 (36:04):
Right.
Entrances and exits are everybit as important as the hunt
itself.
SPEAKER_02 (36:08):
Okay.
SPEAKER_00 (36:09):
If I can't get in and out without being seen and
heard or smelled, then I'm gonnareally have a hard time getting
that big buck to daylight.
SPEAKER_02 (36:18):
Yeah.
Okay, so if you were gonna dowhitetail, would it be the same
three?
Or would you be consideringsomething else?
SPEAKER_00 (36:26):
I might with whitetail, I would throw in
there uh talking to my gamebiologist and finding out where
the highest concentration ofdough and rainfall.
SPEAKER_01 (36:36):
Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_00 (36:37):
Would be the two because dose would determine
what the buck to dough ratio isand where I can find that where
it seems to be one to two or oneto one.
When it gets to be too big, thenthe bucks spend so much time
breeding does that they're notvisible near as much.
I mean, they just don't movevery much, they don't have to.
SPEAKER_03 (36:57):
No.
SPEAKER_00 (36:57):
And if the ratio is closer to one to two or one to
one, then I'm gonna see moredaylighting, I'm gonna see more
deer or more buck activitybecause those are gonna get
gobbled up fast in that sense.
Rain always equals antlergrowth.
If there is a poor county whereit had very poor rain
(37:19):
seasonally, it's gonna be verypoor antler growth because
without rain, stuff doesn'tgrow, they don't get the
nutrients they need, theminerals they need to reach
their maximum potential.
If there is a high or highcounties with higher rain
amounts, those are the countiesI want to stick to, or or that's
where I want to be concentratingmy efforts as far as locating
(37:40):
travel corridors and checkingfor the game biologists as far
as the deer population.
SPEAKER_02 (37:46):
Okay.
So I think this could be anexhaustive.
We could probably go on talkingabout those differences, yeah,
on this.
So, kind of a brief overview,but we're at our time limit.
I'm sure everybody's commute isalmost done.
So, and that's what we're aimingfor.
So that you can listen to thison one way of your commute,
maybe two.
(38:07):
So, anyway, thanks for joiningus, and we'll talk to you all
next week.
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