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Whitetail Realm
Whitetail Realm is all about the passion and chase behind bowhunting for whitetails. Everything from camp stories, seasonal updates, strategies, and everything in between. Come join us for a listen in the Whitetail Realm.
Whitetail Realm
Trey Naylor
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Trey and Mason talk all things deer hunting from trail cams strategies, work/hunt balance, and more!
Video. Well, welcome back, everybody. It's Mason with the Whitale Realm. Today we got a special guest. Second time on the show, Trey Naylor. Yeah, thanks for having me. I'm glad to be here. Um, it feels like just the other day we were doing this. Uh and that was my first podcast I was ever on. So uh yeah, I'm looking forward to getting back into it. Kind of felt like fall today a little bit. Yeah, like it was a little bit of a cool front and had a little rain, and I was like, it just had that smell about it. I spent the we're getting ready here. Yeah. I spent the whole day out in the woods putting cameras, mock scrapes out. So thanks for coming down to the farm. Yeah, yeah, not a problem. Yep, we're gearing up here. Um got kind of uh I guess I'm in a I'd say a similar place to last year. Um we're just kind of um easing into it here and don't I in a similar place to last year. We're just I'm just in a spot where I have so much history with the spot I'm at that in in the in the way that that some of the properties I hunt set up, like I'm not overly concerned with not having a mature deer right there in front of me like daily because I have so much confidence in the spot that um we're kind of kind of just at the waiting period now, like there's not much you can do, and so I'm just getting more itchy by the day. And nothing big has changed from you know from what you've hunted in the past to you know new properties or anything like that. No, I would say the only big thing for me that has changed is that I lost the ability um this year to uh keep a little more food on our property um due to some landowner uh how CRP agreements essentially. Um and the uh I can't remember the uh exact name, but the Pheasants Forever guys that they're starting to do some stuff out there as well, so they're a little more strict. Yeah. Uh we used to have a I mean, we still do have a good relationship with the guy that we we talked to at uh USTA. Yeah, there's some deer running across the yard now. Georgia, quite a few of them come by. And uh so yeah, we weren't able able to put some food uh where we wanted it, but I have a like I said, I have a lot of confidence in this spot. So other than that, no, uh it's very similar uh setup. Um nothing drastic's really changed. So good.
SPEAKER_00And any big plans, or is there a buck right there? Sorry.
SPEAKER_02Oh, there's like three does or sitting out in the yard at the far. I told him there'll be quite a few deer running around. But uh, so any big plans for this year, any deer you're chasing specifically, or just kind of waiting on one to show up that gets you excited? Yeah, so no surprises this year as far as deer go. Um looking uh back to last year, we're kind of in a spot where um, although I killed my deer early last year, I kept very close tabs on that property because I think um I tagged out in Indiana on the 19th of October, it was so wasn't able to hunt a lot more, which is kind of a blessing and a curse, I guess. Um but the the the the deer that I was able to keep tabs on, um they're still here. Um very excited to see that. Um that tells me that we're doing something right. Um, they feel comfortable, and the property sets up in a way where I don't have to intrude um very much um at all. So so yeah, I'm I'm I'm very excited. Uh we got some young deer and we talked about this plenty on the last on on this the last time. Uh the way the property sets up that I hunt the majority of the time I would say is that there's just an influx of deer movement in early November. So obviously I have my sights set there um in late October. I guess that's kind of my if I had a hunting style, I would say the last 10 days of October. Yeah. Like that's how I would describe my hunting style. And and and obviously that has a lot to do with where I have permission, where I'm where I'm able to spend my time and the work that I'm able to do. If I had endless possibilities everywhere, that changes for me, definitely. Um but that that farm that I have to spend most of my time on, it sets up as a route funnel. So there's always options, which I like, but but definitely a good start. We have we have deer that uh historically have been there uh toward the last 10 days of October. So I'm ready to get after them because I have more confidence. This is my this will be my fourth fall on that farm. Right. So just like the confidence of seeing things over and over, there's something about confidence when you go into hunt a spot, especially if it's your first set, which we've talked about before multiple times, how that's your most important one. Yeah. Especially if you get the right front. It's it's uh that your confidence makes a big difference because if you make a mistake or something doesn't go your way, it's so much easier when you're already half-hearted about it to say to start almost making excuses for yourself or to start to get the negative mindset. But when you have confidence in a spot, it definitely helps you out, especially as the season drags on. Being able to see things in multiple phases of the fall um has helped me tremendously in just taking it day by day, understanding um not obviously what the weather's doing, but what the deer do there. Yeah. You can listen to so many guys talk about the last 10 days of November, the first week of or sorry, the last 10 days of October, the first week of November, and then the end of November, post-ru, and they and they kind of like put stuff in a box.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Very often they're correct.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Like that's there are tendencies with deer that are proven. There's no doubt about it. I'm not arguing that. But from property to property, if you don't know how they move around you, um, they're that whether it's, you know, it it was logged five years ago, or there's a certain amount of cover, or their food is early or late. You know, there's a lot of things. So just staying in tune to that. And um, yeah, that's helped me a bunch uh with his thing being prepared. And even on the farm, could be like here is a big enough chunk, like the south end is really great for early season. Bean filled, plenty of food for him out there, right? And then I was just showing on the map, there's plenty of you know, hardwoods around here. You know, we get deeper and deeper as we get into the route funnels on top of ridges, pinch points, all that. And just I think this is also my fourth year since I've been, you know, home out of school, hunting this place. And you learn more and more each year about where you need to be at certain points of the year. And Lane talks about all the time, like he won't have a a shooter buck on his place until November. You uh you gotta know your farms like your same. Yeah. Have you uh for for the timber that you're on here, what's your acorn crop or not necessarily this year, but I mean, is there is there an influx of oaks or uh I last year it looked better at this point. There's there's a bunch down, but last year last year there was a ton of influence. Like last year you had to wear a helmet about it. It was crazy. Yeah. Today I I spent four hours out there today, and I heard a you know, a couple hit the side-by-side roof, but like last year, like I said, you had to wear a damn helmet while you're out there. Right. Which today is the what the 10th? Middle of September sometime, yeah. Yeah, the 10th. So we're getting there. We're getting there for sure. Yeah. Um what uh you got trail cameras out yet, or what are you thinking there? I I know you do it a little different than everybody else, so what are you you doing now with trail cameras, or what what's your plan? Yeah, tell me this ain't just me, but dude, the mosquitoes the past month. They're bad. I mean, I was that that the fastest I've ever put out cameras in the least methodical way was this year, and that's because of freaking mosquitoes. Yeah. I got destroyed. This is all the rain, they they're scattered everywhere. Yeah, we had so much rain and then it stopped, and stagnant water, of course. I if I had to guess, I don't make bugs, but I know today when I was out there, I had these little white moths everywhere too. I'm I've seen the same thing over any little, I want to not like standing water, just wet soil, there's these w white grayish moths all over there. I was mowing the other day and they just came like all over the crazy. What's going on? Uh yeah, I put uh a good amount of cameras out. Let's see, that would have been two weeks ago. So from kind of my I don't want to say routine, but from year to year, obviously, although I do still run cameras in July, uh late June through July, early August, that that helps me gather a lot of information on my property, more so from deer densities, if there's been any changes. Um, obviously deer returning, um overall health, things like that. That really helps me a bunch. But honestly, from a huntability standpoint, that gives me the least like my personal hunting style. I guess it gives me the least amount of confidence or or intel. It gives me the least amount of intel, the least amount of confidence. Meaning photos in the summer does correct, yeah. And that's in the velvet time frame. I just don't use that information to affect my hunting decisions near as much. No, I agree. Um, I guess I take more and and I'm not saying that I don't like I don't love them. I love going through velvet photos in the summer when it's hot and there's nothing else to do. Don't get me wrong on that at all. Um and so so yeah, it is useful. And then uh kind of from there, so I like I said, yeah, it's probably eight or nine days ago I put a number of cameras out. Yeah. Um and obviously in Indiana, there's no more mineral, there's no more the you can't do any of that right now directly on the ground. Um, and so I'm putting them in natural areas where there is a high concentration of deer traffic. Yeah. Um that's not in a and sometimes and coincidentally, sometimes it does happen by stand location. Um, but like a fence gap. Um a big overlooked one, in my opinion, is waterways in an ag field right now because crops are still tall, they're not out, and they're so secure. Yeah. If you've ever been just in a a mode off or even you know, need to waste high water weight in an ag field, a buck is never they'll lay in there all day in the middle of the day because they're fade, it's it sits lower than the rest of the field, and that's another spot. That's definitely a spot I have overlooked it. Yeah, until uh I I and that's recent to me. I but it's something that I've found to be grinders video on Midwest by Till. It was a buck he killed. I don't think I have a giant. He killed him in like seven steps, stocked him in a field. But the whole lead up to a video is finding bucks on small properties, like big ag fields with waterways and like five trees on them. Yeah, and he's finding these giants out in these waterways in Iowa that everyone's overlooking, not knocking on doors. And I it's something I overlooked until I don't know, two, three years ago when that video came out. Right, right. Yeah. And uh so so through this frame of September, I'm kind of gathering. Um, and I run all SD card cameras, they don't have any cell cams. Um kind of a kind of an old man with that regard. Um I don't people have asked me before, I don't have a reason for that, really. I don't have a reason that I start because I have owned cell camps, I ran cell cams. There's not a reason that I just did it. I'm well, one, I'm kind of a tight ass. That's one of them. Yeah. Um and as we were just talking about buying a new boat, but as we're just starting. Yeah, exactly. I'm uh like like I'll I'm gonna go lease a farm for overpriced way before everybody sell camera. Well, we'll let you shoot, but uh we'll let you shoot my boat before you leave, and you might be buying a new boat before it's deep turn. We won't tell my wife about it. Yeah, hopefully she doesn't listen. Um so yeah, I I guess through so like I put cameras out eight to nine days ago. Yeah, we're gonna go forward here. Um it would probably be I'd say, I'd say give or take. No, I have not checked her. They've been out there nine days. So I rarely will ever put a camera out on an SD card camera. I don't think I'll ever check it less than two weeks later. That's easy. Unless it's mid-fall and it's in a spot and say it's pouring rain or something, which is when I check them anyway. But if I'm going to a stand on a culture and it's gonna quit raining in 20 minutes and it's pouring, check them. If if I especially if it's just pretty well on my way, I'll grab one. But almost always two weeks. Yeah. Um, and that's when I'll really start to be to to to hone in on, I guess, what I'm doing and really start to study patterns of those deer. Um, because as we get into a point, if that deer's there, food becomes just a little less important once you get into later October. Um, you start to you start to see some trends, you start to find, in my experience, if you're able to keep pressure off of them, those deer from year to year love to be in the same spot in the fall. And if he was there last year, that helps camera placement also. Yep. See, I've moved cameras from liter from just physically, physically observing deer out of a stand, whether that be 150 yards away or 90 yards on the on down the ridge. If I see him more than once, like that tells me something that changes my camera placement too. And I did that two years ago. The big white antlered eight-pointer I shot uh had it. Camera, that was awesome. Always had bucks on it, probably 10 yards from the stand I was hunting. And uh I watched the one night I just watched, I missed probably half the deer that came by. They went on the back side of this tree. So I said, screw it, turned it around, went and checked it. A week later, this buck was on it almost every other day. And all it was was, and I know he was on it before that. He was just I missed him going around the tree. Especially when you're hunting big timber like this, you can make it you're just on the wrong tree sometimes. You're I was ten feet away from having this buck on camera.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's uh I guess that's kind of the the great blessing we have with the mobile hunting now. Like yeah.
SPEAKER_02It's so easy. And you watch guys like and someone who has really helped me a ton just with with what he's best at is in setups and and understanding setups is Aaron Warburton. I I never I've I've sat I've stood we've all done it. We've all stood there and we've looked around at trees for 20 minutes and looked at five different trees and then don't like any of them by the time we're done thinking about it. Yep. We've all done that. And I still do that to a degree, but I have far more confidence in spending more time thinking about that now than just saying, like, screw it, I'm ready to be up there, I'm ready to get up there and get on my phone or something, you know.
SPEAKER_00And Aaron, just listening to them and watching some of the things they do, and back to your point, being able to like moving the tree 20 feet beside you is light years different.
SPEAKER_02It like the buck I killed last year, there's a pre-hung set 30 yards for me. Yeah, I did not sit it because that was not gonna work. Uh I had the confidence in that. And it takes an extra I've hunted enough with a saddle now and almost entirely. I think I've hunted out of a pre-hung set twice in like in three falls.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Um I just have enough confidence in my ability to get up a tree quietly and in quick fashion. Yep. Um that uh especially especially in November. Yeah. I love being able to sit all day. But if I'm walking to my stand and there is a hot dough on our ridge, I'm getting up a tree. Yep. Otherwise, now you can kill it from the ground, absolutely. Actually, that's a goal of mine too. Yeah. But on the on the topic of that, I mean, mobile hunting wise, there's I like to be open. I don't want to be strapped to something. That's where I'm at. And I'm also not very patient. Yeah. I I want that that's why I'm the longer the older I that I get, the less I care about seeing deer, and the more I care about hunting a deer.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02That's just kind of where I go. Um, I guess that's the way I've I've continued to grow. Um, and that's not how everyone is, and that's completely fine. That's just my personal um thing that I've grown into is starting to move towards certain deer and and kind of go down that road. So and I I've definitely in the last four probably four years ago, I was not mobile at all. Three home sets was all I own in each year. I get more and more mobile. And I like I I like call it my semi-mobile now because I'll put it in a spot and I'm like, man, that's that killer setup. I won't tear it down. I'll come down, get on Amazon, order a new mobile setup. That's what I do right now. It's not really good, but being single, you can do that still. Yep. Yep, that's exactly right. Lane is just like you, he's hanging a set 99% of the time he's going in the woods. And I do like the my best three sets last year were um I hung the stand that night. Um, now I did leave it in there and bought one on Amazon when I got home. Yeah, they were awesome sets. I'm like, that's a great tree. And I hunted all those trees afterwards. But uh definitely, like you said, the first set and being mobile, just not being stuck to that was a lazy way to hunt, and just like I'd rather go sit in a stand than hang one. It's getting so easy to hang a stand. Like, I don't use a saddle, and it's getting so light. Yeah, I don't saddle hunt, but even a walk-on you can have hung in five, ten minutes max. Yeah, I remember I remember growing up, and when I was probably 15 or 16, my parents bought me a a summit viper. Yep. For my I think it was for Christmas. A climber. Yep. And it wasn't the heaviest one they ever made. I mean, I was this was that would have been right about right at 10 years ago. And I remember being young and dragging that thing through the woods. And dude, I sounded like a freaking freight train. Like what was and and it was so heavy, you're soaking wet by the time you get up there. And the they have they have their benefits, but the I've I've big begun going to the saddle now, and I just I think I've talked about it on a side. I think I'm almost more comfortable. I'm more I think I'm more comfortable in a saddle than I am than I would be in a climber. Right. Yeah. Yeah. I don't I have I've hunted in a climber one time, and I think I've told the story on here. I got up about 10 feet, it slipped maybe an inch, scared the shit out of me, and I said never again, not gonna do it again. Yep. There was one tree, um, and I had put the climber up plenty of trees. I uh went up a tree, and uh for some reason I thought a sycamore was a good idea. Sycamores don't have any burnt. No, really, and uh awful idea. Yeah, um it slipped out twice. Luckily, my feet were in the stirrups, but yeah, that was that was the first and the last one I tried to uh go up. I haven't uh we're talking about this after the season, he's gonna come ride the farm with me and just see everyone, and you'll see. Uh we have a shit ton of sycamores around here, and I hang a lot of them in sycamores and skinny ones too. Yeah. And my cousins that hunt with me, they're like, you're gonna kill yourself. But you just you keep that rat's strap a little tighter and you're gonna be just fine. Yeah, don't hunt it on a windy day if you get car sick. I mentioned it on the last podcast, but um, my uncle is one who like really started to you know educate me on like on wind and access and and really getting close to understanding yeah buckbetting and all of that. And uh he always hunted my grandpa always hunted at double stands, which yeah. I've killed ducks with a bow and a double stand there's nothing. No, I'm not saying anything like that, but I I thought it was cool when I was younger. Like, I'm gonna be in a hang on. The guys on the guy Lee Lakoske is, you know, and and uh Bill Winky is and all them guys. And this was so this was like early 2000s. And so on. And the back in that decade, that was the cool thing to put your hang-ons about 35 feet in the air. Everyone did it. Yep. Like shot angle wasn't a thought to those guys. And he wasn't the only one doing it. My uncle did that. And I remember the first time I ever went up with it. And he actually came with me and hung another hang on and he and he filmed me. And a a doe came in, and that and I was not very old at the time. And the first time that came through, he was gonna let me shoot it. I didn't shoot. I froze. I was like, I'm not moving. I'm not getting up off this seat. I'm not turning around.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Had a harness on and everything, but I was like, nope. And now I'm I'm not like that anymore. But there's they're they they used to put them high. We have a couple sets still. So all my cousins, I think I've talked about it before, are from Alabama. Big tall pine trees they hunt out down there. So 35 foot is a is a a dead stand for that. People down south like to see out. So we have a couple of them here that you don't you damn near kill yourself getting into them. Uh-huh. Um, so I've gotten gotten used to them. But I mean, they're the stand I I shot the buck out of last year. He at it's 15 feet off the ground. I mean, I got saying 15 to 40 feet off the ground. And it just depends too. Like in the timber. We got some old trees, and to get cover behind you, sometimes you gotta get that high up. But field edges, a lot of mine are 15 to 20 feet off the ground. Right. Yeah, I've and obviously growing up like seeing your uncle with the wallful of deer have stands at high. It was like, that's the way to do it. Um, the older I got, the more I realized like that's and obviously, and depending on your timber stand, and depending on where you live in the country, a lot of your cover is like 12 to 16 feet. Yeah, and you have a lot of cover, and you your shot angle, your possibility of getting a two lungs or heart lung or whatever is so much higher. Yeah, just because your angle. So I've become less and less worried about that. If if I get up into a batch of cover and it helps my line of sight, yeah. If I'm eight foot off the ground, I'm I'm eight feet off the ground. Yeah. Um, I've I've become far less worried about that. In some spots, you gotta get way up there to see, and you worry about the shot angle later. Like that's part of it. Um, but yeah, that's just a little um I'm not gonna lie, it's still uncomfortable. There's times where I'm like, uh, they're like they're gonna pick me off. Yeah. But if you just get in the cover, like they're not. No, they're not they're not going through there looking for you. You just have to find a spot. Sit still. And look at that. I always try to look at far before I even go to the tree, like, where is where can I disappear? Yeah, I'm looking, and I don't care how high off the ground it is. If I can crawl in, I'm always just looking at as many things as I can. What's behind you is most important. Yeah, that's the other thing. When you're lower, there's nothing but vegetation behind you. That's what I was doing today. When I was outlooking cameras, just checking straps and stands and everything. And heck, there's two stands. I thought some someone stole. I couldn't find them. And then I went to the tree, I'm like, oh, they're there. There it is. I'm like, hey, that's a pretty good spot out there. Yep, yep. For sure. Yeah, and this time of year, it's it can be a little deceiving. Yeah. For sure. And that first, especially I've even went to stands like that first or second week of October, and you're like, Yeah. And then you go back November 1st and you're like, There's nothing here. They're gonna pick me off. 20 foot iron, yeah. We gotta go lower ir or something. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Cats in here messing around if you hear anything. We don't know what that is. Um so yeah, like you said, you're right now, and I think the same thing.
SPEAKER_02We're going kind of backtracking. Yeah, we've been we've been rabbit holes. We started with trail cams, and that's what I use them right now just to see what's around. You know, we're not nothing about what I'm getting info on is gonna change what I'm doing October 1st or October 10th. It's just a inventory. And right, uh some this isn't my I've never I didn't come up with this. Someone said on a podcast, and apologies, I don't remember who, they'd use it as a roll call, just you know, like your teacher, who who's still here, who's alive, who made it through, who grew up. Yep. And I I think that's a good thing to think of anything before even the season starts. I I don't think you can do much until you I I do a lot of early season hunt, so until that last week of September, no camera data is going to help you at all. Yeah. Yes. That's kind of that's kind of where I'm at too. Um, like I said, I love the last week of October. I tend to find that if and and again, I I don't want to put this in the generality. I I tend to find in the properties that I'm able to access that if that buck is there on the first week of October, he's usually there the third and the fourth.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Now I now once you get the last five days to Halloween, yeah, and then your doors are busted off. I'm not saying that, but absolutely they're just if he's there on September 1st, he might not be there on September 20th. Yep. That's a shift pattern that I notice. Yep. Again, in in and I've seen deer that don't do that, and that deer's there in July, and he's there in August, September, October, November, and he's there all the way through. Yep. I'm just saying, from a generality standpoint of that, from what I see, that most of the mature bucks, if they're comfortable to be there in October, and this is private ground I'm talking about, a lot of times they they tend to work it out until they go to bouncing dough bedding areas. And that's when if if he stops showing, if that if I don't get a picture of that deer from the 22nd to the 30th, I'm not writing him off at all. He'll be back in November. Yeah but he's doing his thing, and that's just a part of it. I never try to put a date on it. Mine seem to be if they're there October 1st, they're gonna be here until the beans really turn. That's when I always see the biggest difference of when things start shifting here. And not even just green to yellow leaves, just you mean just dropping leaves. Just dropping leaves. When when they still got leaves on it, my deer are always here. As soon as the leaves are, you know, dry and we got it should be harvested, that's when things start moving straight around for me. There's obviously hardly any nutritional value as soon as the beans start turning yellow to those deer. Yeah. Do you think that's because of another factor? Or do you think that's because of hunting pressure elsewhere? What do you think is the I think then push the acorns then after that? We got this is October 1st, you're saying? Yeah, anytime from October 1st, if the deer's there October 1st, I'm comfortable with him being here through until the beans turn. See what I'm saying? And then once they start turning yellow and getting gross and nothing for him to eat out there in September 1st or October 1st. Not October 1st. Usually they're still green here, October 1st. Okay. I can help beans. Okay, okay. Beans here October 1st to it. It looks like September most places. No, that makes sense. Yeah, that makes sense. And then once they turn a bottom here, too, so that makes sense. Yeah. The last thing the guy plants every year. Yep, last thing he always harvests. Nope, that makes sense.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_02And then once they start turning, and I I always say I never try to put a date on it because obviously the beans turning is not the same day every year. So whenever that is, is when I see the shift that you're saying you see October 20th, yeah, 25th. Until things ramp up. That's one generality a lot of people make, and I just wish I could kind of talk to them is that they think some people think uh and believe that every deer goes through uh a summer to fall shift and every deer goes through that big spring shift that you see a lot of times then go in this big long spring. Like deer are very similar to humans in the fact that they are all different. Yeah. And I'm not saying that there isn't a winter category or winter section of month, yeah, and the way that they travel. But to put your money down on the fact that a deer's gonna do something, yeah, you might as well go throw it on black because unless you have history from them in the past. Unless you have history from them in the past, yeah. But to but to say that that every year is going to shift from July to October is is kind of ignorant. Um, and the fact that they're individual, yep they have they're they're all wired differently. Yeah. Depending on where their ranges are, they experience different human pressure that they might not figure out till five years old. Yeah, some of it can be generational. Like there's so many factors to where it's almost impossible to say unless you have previous history with that deer. Yep. That can be like you can't you can't put your your finger on it. It's not it's not gonna happen. If that was the case, everybody'd be shooting one career. I don't think we would uh like I'm sitting here talking about it because it wouldn't really be uh to mute too much, yeah. Last year we had two mature bucks that were lived on the farm their whole life. Like never left, they're here the whole season. Yeah, and then you have those bucks, but one mentioned which it's a big enough piece. One was from north to south. I had him on 13, 14, 15 cameras. I mean, he was all over the farm. A mover. And then there's one that lived in one that's on a good amount of acres. Yep. So he he lived here, but it's because his center of his home range was in the farm. You know what I mean? Most farms he's leaving, going elsewhere, you'd lose him. Right. But then there's the other mature buck that was here the whole time, was on one ridge and one egg field his whole life. He they never left that, I don't know what it is, 40 acres. And obviously, we had four or five other mature bucks that were here in the spring, others here and right. You know, they move around, right? But I just think it's cool, like you were saying, every deer's different. We had two that were their home range were here, yeah, but they still had a very different home range.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And I'll kind of go down a rabbit hole with this, is that everybody this goes right along with what we're saying, and I think about this more times than not. It's kind of one of the mystery of the woods types things. There some people can overestimate and some people can underestimate. I think what deer what was mature bucks, what's the narrow to that? What mature bucks are capable of?
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00I think so many people claim because they stopped getting pictures of a deer, that he's gone. Yep.
SPEAKER_02And if we if you were to sit down and do the math of the square footage that that camera captures of your property, he could be four feet from that camera behind that tree. Yep. And you'd never know it. And that's not because of a luck thing. Yep. I have a theory on that. I absolutely, my personal opinion believe that mature bucks and I'm not gonna say every mature buck, but mature bucks in areas that receive human pressure, they see a camera, yeah, or they smell the camera, or they smell the ground scent going to it. I'm not saying that they know the camera means that someone's hunting them. Yeah, I'm not saying that at all. I'm saying that they recognize that. That's not supposed to be there. Yep. Those deer go behind cameras, in my opinion. So that's why and I'm not saying they're hugging that tree, but if you have here's an example. If you have a property that's a hundred acres, and the back 40 or the back 20 acres never gets hunted because there's a giant holler and it's just not worth going to. Yeah, if you flood the front with cameras and you're going in there every three two to three weeks, those bucks will handle each other on a twenty acre.
SPEAKER_00And so many people think well, they're they're just gone. They know the whole thing. I think mature bucks will be honest. Well, we had a little technical difficulties, but uh we're back rolling now.
SPEAKER_02And uh you're talking about deer avoidance. Holy shit, there's a door like ten yards away. Fifteen yards, yeah. Sorry. I told him there's a big deer. Yeah. Um talk about bucks avoiding trail cameras. Lane and I just talked about the buckle last year. I was after um Ye that we called him. He left October 10th is the last photo I had of him on a cell cam for a long time. Thought he was gone, thought he was gone, thought he was gone. Um we it was dry last October, right?
SPEAKER_01Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_02So I never went like you. I always go check SIM cards or ST cards in the rain. Never had a rain to go check. Because that's the day I hunted. And um I go check cameras. I think it was like the 20th, so maybe maybe it was the 18th that I'm thinking of. Something like that. Nope, I remember it was like November 1st, was the last when I go check them. So I think I probably checked them the 18th and then didn't check them until November. I had that buck on every SD card camera I ever had. So he was just avoiding all the sale cameras, and then he started getting back on them when the rut was on and he wasn't thinking, you know what I mean. But yeah, he was avoiding them. Preoccupied. And I don't know if it's frequencies and I, you know, you see some bucks just look at them, like they tell her theirs, so some have different tolerance to them, too. You know what I mean? Yeah, and obviously these new cameras are far better, like in terms of a red light or a flash or something. But in my opinion, more than anything, is like that that's that's their home. Yep. If there's something on a tree that they don't recognize, that it's not like something they see normally that they can get used to. Yep. And another thing is when they see that camera, they're walking down a trail, they look over and they're fighting. Sorry. But there's burritos pointing. They're like, going down. Oh, they blew at us. That was pretty cool. I I hope we got that on audio. That was pretty nice to hear that sound knot in a tree stand. Yeah. But they get they they're pretty calm here. They watch me feed sales every night. Yeah, they look like pet deer.
SPEAKER_00I bet you I'm gonna look at this other window. Probably be a bunch of deer. Probably plenty of them. They're running away, so they heard a blow. Yeah, they know something. They know something's up.
SPEAKER_02See, so here's here's my thought. I don't think that they see a trail camera and think that's danger, a human put that there. They've they've seen trail cameras and they've smelled human scent at the same time. Yeah, and they they know it's just like you that's it's danger. They just it's not supposed to be there. It's just like you, and you come home and the doors open, and you go, Yes, I'm pretty cracked be there. I close the door. Yep. So I tried something different this year. I haven't done. I left, um, we have a it's like 25 acres. We call it the island. It's you gotta cross the street to get there. We don't ever go there in the summer or fall. It's only there for deer hunting. Usually I take tree stands down, left tree stands up, left five cameras over there.
SPEAKER_00So they've been there for they'll be over a year.
SPEAKER_02Obviously, I'm gonna change batteries. And these are cell cams? Obviously, I'm gonna have to change batteries at some point, but the cameras are physically staying there. See, three of them are still on, actually. That's pretty cool. Shout out Dura's hell batteries. Yeah, that's um so they've been running, dear are used to them. I'm gonna see if that changes anything. And I'm I'm hoping it does, because you know, after a year of something being there, they should get used to it. You know what I mean? Yeah, and you could you can put an old car right beside a buck bed here in there.
unknownYep.
SPEAKER_02In two years, there's gonna be a mature buff lane box. Like we said, and it's not it's not cameras, it's something being different. Yes, it's not, it's something being different. Yep.
SPEAKER_00And which I might have promoted a bad example there.
SPEAKER_02It's humans are going back to that camera. Yep. And they start to figure out that human scent and that camera are related somehow. I don't know how their brain works, but I know that they mature buck can put that together. And that's why today, like mature does too. I mean, a lot people obviously do scent control hunting, but I do it. Trail cameras, I got boots that were ozoned, all that stuff. You know, I'm already washing my clothes before I go out there. I wore gloves every licking branch I touched, cameras I put up, changed them between the licking branch and the camera. I mean you're way different than me. We got we got I've never done that before. We got serious stuff. Levi Morgan does it. Nothing wrong with that. I just don't. Levi Morgan does it. Last year I did this too. I even got I put them out of view. I took a climbing stick with me. Yeah. These things eight, nine, ten feet in the air. This year I put them above eye level. Like I'm I got my my hands up there putting them, but I didn't so you're probably what? Eight, nine feet in the air? I'm pretty sure we'll we'll call it seven feet. On a climbing stick, though. No, no, I will do that. Last year I did eight, nine foot pointing them down. Because I know there's a guy, uh uh Troy Pottinger. Have you ever listened to him? I don't think I have. You have to listen to him. That guy, he's a madman. He kills Midwest sized whitetails in mountains in Idaho. If he I'll tell you two guys that I've become really fond of and listened to quite a bit, just from Woodsman and a habitat standpoint, deer behavior standpoint, Thomas Milsma and Steve Shirk. I don't know, Steve. If if either of you guys if anyone knows those two guys, I would highly suggest Thomas Milsner's more of a Wisconsin habitat manager. I don't want to put a label like just for Wisconsin, but um that's where he's from and and and promotes some really, really cool stuff. Um and Steve Shirk is a Pennsylvania Big Woods guy. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And I'm not even gonna sugarcoat it.
SPEAKER_02Those guys out in Pennsylvania hunting Allegheny and stuff, them guys are flat stunned. Yeah. I mean, if you if you can go, if you can kill a mature deer every year out there, you can kill one anywhere. But um those guys are absolute, absolutely awesome. You need a you need a listener to Troy. He's usually on the fall, Aaron Bleinsby's podcast. Okay, yep. But he's the one out in those mountain deer, they they never see anybody, right? No, they he's putting his he's one of the other ones. I mean, them guys are taking a two-day trip just to go hang it, like to get to their set. Dude, you should listen to this guy. It's crazy what he does. But uh Troy Potting Pottinger, I think is his name. Okay. Um he's done podcasts on other shows, but look at the ones in the fall. Okay. Um, yeah, I will absolutely do that. But he he puts them 10, 12 feet up in the air if the box to think. I enjoy listening to people on other from other parts of the country. And not because I really want to hear tips and tactics on going up in Pennsylvania Mountains. Not saying I never will. It's just what they do too. But it's like I want to see how those deer act compared to what they do here because I have proof, or not, I don't want to say proof, but I have some evidence on what they do here. And there's a lot of similarities, but they're also at the same time, those deer in the Allegheny Mountains, for example, or the West Virginia Mountains, yes, completely different animals. Yeah, they're not even the same.
SPEAKER_01No.
SPEAKER_02If you go try to hunt them in the any of the same fashion, yeah, you're you're totally off track. But at the same time, they're the same animal. It's they're they're also whitetails. So it's kind of a double-edged sword there where you really have to balance uh different parts of the country. And that they are whitetails, they have to have food, water, and they don't like humans. Yep. I always think of it as like Merriams and Easterns when you're comparing turkeys. Yeah, but they're all turkeys. They are completely different. They're totally different. Yep, yep. Go out west and he'll fly a river for you, and here he won't crop he won't cross a down tree. And there's a there's a book I have, can't it's it's called Whitetails or something. I grew up reading. And they split them up like Merriams and Whitetails. Yep. They had really they had I think it was seven. Yeah, and there's a bunch, there's a bunch more. I think there's a white tail slam you can even do in these regions, like Yeah. It's a thing, I think, with QDMA, but whatever. The people who split 'em up before. And I was just listening to uh who was Raised Hunting, I think, and they're talking to Mark Drew. They're trying to come up, they want someone to come up with an algorithm of a Midwest, 170-inch booning correct whitetail. What the comparison is in Pennsylvania. What's 170 inches, you know? A hundred and seventy-inch whitetail, say in Pennsylvania is 120-inch, you know what I mean? Like to get to that. Compared to where? The Midwest? Yeah. Compared to Iowa. Illinois, Iowa. Illinois, Iowa, Indiana. Yep. Missouri. Yeah. Just comparing them to east parts of Missouri. Like we just said, they're not the same deer. They don't grow them as big out there. So I would say So what's the 110-inch deer? Yeah. So what's the the level? Are they doing that based off of the state's harvest records? That's what they suggest. No one's doing it. Or tax advertisements. They want someone to do it. That's interesting. You'd have to do the whole thing. I'd like to because that would essentially get I mean, that's essentially going to give you an average of what of how big the bucks are. The problem is you can't do tax drivers because there's guys that shoot 90-inch deer that just cut the skull cap off, put in their garage. Yeah. So true too. The only way I saw to do it correctly is to do you'd have to bring in check-in stations again. So every buck is going there and you have to measure it and do it. If I'm not mistaken, I feel like it's starting to become a thing. I saw something that you could do that again. Yeah, down at Vetersburg. Yep, I saw that. Yep, they're starting to do it. And uh you don't have to do it. Oh yeah. So they're starting to do it though. And a Vetersburg guy, or not Vetersburg, um, a guy down in Vermillion County is starting to do it. What I'm gonna bring back. I would love it. I would I I think it'd be awesome. I think it'd be awesome. And I don't gun hunt anymore. Um, not saying I never will, but I don't gun hunt anymore. But just even like that first day of gun season, like just having people be able to guess kids and placing the chies or drinking coffee or drinking beer. Yeah, I remember uh that's what keeps people in hunting. It's become isolated. The thing I wouldn't bring back is the metal tags. Yeah. Yeah. We so that shed right there is where we clean all of our deer. That was your pole. Yeah. Well, there's a pole, but that shed is you know, the butcher shop, essentially. Uh-huh. And there's an arrow sitting in there, just all these metal tags. I wish we'd bring them back. I I think my first deer ever shop is the only one I have one for. Really? I think. Uh-huh. I don't remember when they went away, but that's the only one I remember taking to a check-in station and getting a metal clip-on, snap tag, whatever you want to call them. Right. Right. I don't even know if I'm I I remember them, but I I never personally saw one. I'm not that I'm not old enough. I think I was in I felt the first year, I think fourth or fifth grade. And that's when I remember taking a go and I took her to check-in station. Yep. And actually I know it's the I think it's the last one on that era, so that might have been the last year they did them. I'd have been how early in fourth, fifth grade.
SPEAKER_00How old were you? Or how what's a fifth grade? How old are they? Twelve? Uh 12 and 13.
SPEAKER_0212, yeah. 12 and 13. That was 2012, 2013, so I don't know when they went away.
SPEAKER_00That would have been about I would think about that time. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. So uh let's change the topic. Uh you started a new job.
SPEAKER_02Did to me, looking on the outside, you you went to still a farmer, but a different business also added on to it. Right. But I would think timeline-wise, that probably helps you more time after harvest and everything. Harvest should be shorter for it. You go ahead and tell, but just me, yeah, I would think you'd have more time to hunt this year, changing jobs. Maybe not in the ideal time, but just tot the totality of it, you know what I mean?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Yeah. So um I just started I hope so. I guess that's my answer.
SPEAKER_02I think it's a though. Uh no, so I started my job where I'm at now in February.
SPEAKER_00Um I couldn't find one out there. No, you're good. A little flashback. Oh, okay. You're good.
SPEAKER_02Keep talking. So yeah, I started my job in February. Um, we farm about 20% of the acres uh compared to my uh the previous employer I was with. Um, so I'm kind of in a bigger role now. I'm more in like the farm operations management role, uh, a little bit of a bigger role, a little bit more responsibility, um, which is absolutely a blessing. Um, but uh we he also, my boss also owns um a Bex dealership, so he's selling seed. Um so that so that sooks up some time through the other parts of the year. You know, we're getting seed orders in the winter and stuff, which isn't a big part. Uh, so I hope that I'm able to have more time. Like I said, you know, we're on 20% of the acres. Now, that doesn't mean we're only spending the 20% of the time necessarily because of lesser equipment, obviously, and things like that. Uh, but we're absolutely um have a shorter time frame of what we expect to be uh for harvest. Um and that this is uh Trey's kind of conflict of his life, is what I'm gonna call it for myself. Because I love to farm. Um that's what I love. Uh, but I love deer hunting just a little bit more, um, and turkey hunting, and those both conflict with planting and harvest. So it's just something that I have to kind of manage. Um my wife gets really tired of me in uh the fall and the spring because I have two things that I definitely want to do, and also realize that I'm married, and sometimes you just gotta make a little time every once in a while for a date night. So in the fall, I mean today's September 10th. We'll be starting harvest here, probably around the 20th to the 25th. So you're almost right on top of October 1st at that point when we're starting. And uh I'm not I'm not a huge October, early October guy. Um, unless I have just a killer food source and killer access and a killer cold front. Um, I absolutely will hunt. Uh, the older I've gotten, the less I hunt. So it's honestly made it a little bit better. Um, part of that could also be Mason just laid down one of these metal tags for me.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. I think that was the first alien last fish for Godlock.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_00That is cool. That is super cool. That shut the door too. Don't ever, don't ever give that away.
SPEAKER_02No, you can hold on to that thing. I'm I there's gonna be. I believe there's an arrow in there. I have this tendency of like, I don't know if I'm like maturing into my age or something, but when I like see that, I'm like, imagine how that's how cool that's gonna be a fifty year. Yeah, like I think ahead on things and I'm like, actually start like that. There's hard copy of your license. Yeah, I'm so pumped about that because you can get like my my grandpa has a bunch of his old, like the first ones when they they did it back in the days, but I'm excited. That's my new thing I'm collecting. Oh, drop like drop or hunting license, bigger hunting license, physical ones the physical ones. Yeah, I've been buying all of those. Yeah, I'll spend an extra ten dollars to have that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. Um, what was I saying? Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_02So so they're in October. Like I said, I don't hunt a ton early October. It's gotta be just perfect. But here's the other benefit, and something and and last year I I mean I I killed a great deer because of the advantages I don't want to say advantages of my job, but my job allowed me because we are very weather dependent. Yeah. Weather dependent for us means rain. Yeah. Rain in October, November typically means cold front. Yeah. And so I get to hunt some of the best days. And I was just explaining this to my wife, not like I think it was a week ago. She's like, Trey, you're like you have this passion and you're and and you're talented, and you like you're a woodsman and she knows all this. And she said, You have been doing this your whole life. You kill a great deer like every year. And I said, Yeah, but I like to be in the woods. Yeah. So the way that she framed that made me feel like super ungrateful about it when she's right, but at the same time, it's like I know, but I want to hunt more.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Like, or I want to go on a trip somewhere else. And I'm like, so she kind of did take me a step back in the fact of like, yeah, you you you are doing both things you love and succeeding at both. And I'm like, yeah, that's that's that's a great point. And uh your wife's always right. Yeah, the first that's the first part. Um so so yeah, that's it's always been a balance for me. That's that when you were out there getting that tag, I I said it's I mean, it's kind of a blessing and a curse. Like there, I I do two things. Yeah I can't I'm able to do two things that I love, and that's farm and and and chase white tails. And it's uh but the advantage to where I'm at now is that we're not gonna show corn until December 1st. Yep. You know, we're our target is November 5th. October 1st. What'd I say? December 1st. No, like our harvest won't last until December 1st now. Sorry, gotcha. Yeah. And so now we're looking at our harvest, hopefully, it would have to be a catastrophic weather event or equipment problem for it to last past November the 5th or 10th. Yeah. And I'm like, that so, so I think I'm able to relieve some of that pressure off me in October. That's I don't get that cold front or it goes dry. And I I might, I mean, it's technically possible. I might not get a tree stand day in October. Yep. But I also know that means we're getting a lot done. Yeah. And so November, and that's what I'm and that's not to say I can hunt through the week, but like I can get out of work at three o'clock and I can go hunt. Yeah, but I can I can hunt all weekend and I can sit there.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02There's there's so there's a give and take with it. Um then something I haven't even touched on yet is just family obligations. Yeah. And uh that's another thing. Um, and I know I'm not the only person who has to deal with this. Um, like Mason's in a very different situation than me just in terms of work obligations um and seasonality of it. Um, but there's absolutely a lot of people who are in my shoes um because of the role setting and they farm and they want to hunt, and I've those people. Yeah, there's a lot of great land managers and people who manage whitales and they farm for a living. Um, so I like to think that we're having nine to five in town too. Yeah, yeah. I I'm pretty blessed with my situation and like said to see how I'm an ag too. Yeah, but when you guys are in the field, we're pretty slow selling equipment. That's exactly right. It works out pretty well. But they're in the field during turkey season, yeah. In the field during deer season, it works out pretty good. Yeah, my book. Yep, yep. And I wouldn't I sit here today and I sit and Mason and I were talking before we before we recorded. Like, I was like, dude, I want your job. But if I ever got to the point where I was in your job, yeah, like would I really actually like it as much as I think I would?
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02That's the thing. It's uh there's always a give and take with everything. And and I try to remind myself of that. You're always giving something up. Yep. You're either giving up time in the woods, time with your family, or you're giving up the something that you love to do every day as your profession. It doesn't matter. I don't care who you are, you're giving something up. Exactly. These guys that are managing habitat every day, and then their falls are also dead, and they're hunting for 45, 50 cits a year. Yeah, they're not with their family. No. And so I always try to kind of reflect on that. Um, and I also have a hard time. My wife beats on me all the time about this is that I'm only 25 years old.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Like you got a long way to go, you know. And uh, I look back on like my grandpa, and he hunts not as much now just because of physical ability. Um, but he when he was he got up in his 60s and stuff, I mean he hunted all the time.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And I'm like, I'll be one day, like I'll be able to. Yeah. And so it's just reminders like that. I think it's important. Um, and the reason I kind of wanted to talk about it is like because there's so many people that deal with the same thing. It sounds insane to say that. It sounds like I'm talking about a health issue or disease or something. Yeah. But dude, when you get obsessed with something like it, and Mason knows just as well as I do, like it'll make you sick. It actually sucks in a way. And this is gonna sound I don't know how to say it. It makes you feel really ungrateful for things, and you start to talk about hunting this. This is gonna sound ungrateful. I I said 57 times last year. 57? 57 cents last year. You're a psychopath. But I'll tell you. I would do it though. When we got what I'm getting at though, when when you're shooting every time you get killed hunt, you are pumped, ready to go to wood sit. When I got sit 30 or 40, it got pretty hard to get up in the morning. Yeah, you know, I know that's the thing too. You know, sit one through 20, it was hey, as soon as I could, absolutely let me sit 30. Hey, we might stop by McDonald's a little bit. Right. We might get there right at sunrise. You know, it you started I started getting less grateful for it. Yes, which is not a great thing. So I'm saying in your shoes, obviously, I'm grateful I get to hunt as much as I do. Right. But you were still the little kid when you every chance you get to go out there, you know what I mean? Yeah. And I'm in the spot now, and this is I think I don't know if it directly made me a better hunter, but it made me think about it in a different way. It made me approach those animals in a different way, and it offered up certain perspectives on hunting and ways to hunt that otherwise if I could hunt three or four days a week, yeah, I wasn't thinking about. Yeah. I am a little more willing to take risks now because there's longer time between human and vision. Um that's the big thing.
SPEAKER_00I'm more willing to take risks, which can pay and can hurt. Yeah. Um but also like you're not killing yourself before you get the chance.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. I'm not I'm not I don't have to fight the urge when it's 80 degrees on October the 10th to go hunt and eating. I can't go. I need it. And it's and it's and it's I should I shouldn't in my opinion on the properties that I hunt and my style, I shouldn't be there. I don't have to worry about fighting that anymore. I don't have to worry about going in there and I just want to observe deer, but what if I bump that bunk on? I don't have to worry about that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02On my days when I'm able to go, here's what I think it's taught me the most. In a sense, as far as the work schedule goes, I don't have a choice on when I hunt. That has taught me more about woodsmanship in the past four or five years or since I've been out of college than I've learned in my entire life. And the reason for that is that you're hunting different scenarios. Because if I'm off work, if I get a day off, I don't care what temperature it is, I'm probably gonna go.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02It's just rare that that happens.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02I don't like, I don't care what the scenario is. Now I might be more cautious if it's not a great weather day and I happen to have it off work in the fall. But I'm gonna approach that and I'm gonna hunt the scenario and the situation and that wind in a way that is accessible that and there and there has to be a deer I'm willing to hunt. Yeah, and I and I'm gonna go hunt it. And you learn a lot about deer that way because you're not just hunting the spots that you can because you don't have the options to do so. You know what I mean? Yeah, and so I've learned a lot about deer. Um, and especially I've learned more about deer in the past three years on that last 10 days, the two weeks of November than I have previously, because we're usually getting out of the field, Thanksgiving. You have more days off. Yeah, I've noticed so many things and tendencies of not just bucks but does hunting scrapes in late November. Yeah, is a big tactic I've learned a a lot about.
SPEAKER_00Um does are pregnant. Yeah, here's a tip that I learned from uh Olympic archer, Todd White. Is that his name? Oh no, I believe so.
SPEAKER_02Great hunter as well. Um I hope I got his name. Isn't that cool? I think hunting world's small. Yeah, there's still it's still I don't know. No idea. Like Lend and I watch hunting YouTube all day long. Uh-huh. I listened to I put 60,000 miles on a car this year. I listened to plenty of freaking podcasts, and you you said two people today have no idea, and I'm gonna go watch podcasts they're on. Yeah, exactly. It's crazy. Yeah, yeah. And you've said names I don't know. Yeah, but like Todd White talked on a podcast and swore by it, and it's like, well, okay, well, let's pay attention now. It's something to think about. In late November, especially those early does they're pr that they're already pregnant, they know they're pregnant, their body's telling them they're pregnant. They will stay on agreed a green food source in now, late November to keep their body healthy enough to begin their body to produce milk and feed that and feed that fawn in their belly. Do you think that those bucks know that does tend to go to green food at that time of year? Oh, yeah. Or at least keeps does there for oh, I'm gonna go check her. Yeah. Absolutely it is. So I started to pay attention. Well, what's green in November is what everyone's thinking right now, is listening. Well, not much. Maybe a food plot, turnips, rat those are still holding. There's another one, and it's an invasive and it sucks. But honeysuckle holds green. Yeah. Those deer will munch a honeysuckle bush from top to bottom in an hour. And I've stood there and watched them, and it's always those. And it's just little things like that that I wouldn't have probably ever noticed or employed a tactic on had I not been in the workplace with it. I was like, I went last year, middle of a snowstorm. Only thing I could I hunted, I don't know. I think it was Thanksgiving when we had nasty snow last year. I was out there. Deer still get up and eat. I can't really learn about the locust pods. You know what I'm talking about? They kill them. Oh my god. They kill locust pods. I'm sitting there, I hunted on the ground on a day we at, yep, we had seven inches of snow that morning. He'll kill them, dude. He'll dig them up. No, I sat there and it wasn't that's not why I sat there, but man, they were smoking all day. It was cool asleep. Yeah. I've kind of I don't want to say I've become a naturalist, but I've 100% tried to become a better hunter if the world ended tomorrow.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02I want to be able to know to find native browse, identify it, read sign, sit up, and say, this is where the deer are gonna be. Yeah, this is what they need right now.
SPEAKER_00Locust pods.
SPEAKER_02Um I notice a lot of deer, and I don't know if there's any true data to this. I notice deer a lot eating leaves off of hedge trees. There must be a nutritional value to that, but I don't know. Um honeysuckle leaves in late season. Yeah. Um I w I I'm trying to get better at understanding acorn types and times of year. Yeah. Um, and there is a nutritional value of those that I don't know about that I'm sure the deer are subsequently aware of. I think it was Lane that was with me last year. Dude, there's so much to learn about. You can never learn all the uh specimens. I'm good at trees with leaves. Yes, like I I I don't know. You can't give me five acorns and me telling you which one. Oh, I couldn't either. I have to look at the tree. I have to look at the tree. Well, we got some tall freaking trees here that don't have leaves because I think it was Lane last year. I was getting binoculars out looking at this tree. Yeah, you look at any kind of telling us too. I was just trying to tell what leaf was on it. Yeah. So I can tell if it was a red or a white oak. There's all kinds of things like that. On the nutritional value aspect, I was listening to a podcast today with Caleb Reiner. Yep. Um he had a client of his on a on a property. And they noticed that at year three, obviously the deer fell off the alfalfa. Because it's perennial. Yep. Way less nutritional value. And that's no secret. Is it each year it goes down, or is it just the third year? I think it goes down. I think the first to second year drop is minuscule. Yeah, true. I think third year reads out. I obviously the third year. I just didn't know if it's a you know bell curve or what it is. No, I don't think I don't think your deer numbers are really, I don't think the deer are gonna pay much mind to it on the second year. Yeah. I think the third year, obviously browse pressure pays the fact too, which you're mowing it off, so that probably doesn't necessarily matter. Um but they fertilized, they noticed it on cattle. Yeah. That guy ran out of fertilizer on half the field and they turned cows loose on the pasture, and they only know the one side was fertilized. They went to the fertilized too. The fertilized side. Now, not the day of. Yeah, but no, I know what you mean. So then they he's like, I'm gonna try this on my deer plot. This was a guy who owned a bunch of land and cattle, but managed part of it for hunting and had a little had some food plots and stuff. And Alpha was a very underrated food plot, by the way. They fertilized half of that, and the deer pictures were almost triple on the fertilized on year three?
SPEAKER_00Yes. Gotcha.
SPEAKER_02They s gave it another year. Yeah. And it's, I don't know, things like that to think about. That's a rabbit hole. Yeah. Nutrition and foods and carrying capacity of a property, and that's a whole different podcast. That's why there's 10,000 whitetail podcasts because there's so many topics you can go down. You can never stop. Yeah. You can never stop. Yeah. Like you're you're talking about Lane listens to white tail killers. Guys that just shoot white tails no matter what. You know, Michael Odell is everybody. You listen to Cale Griner, nutritionist. I know you always talk about Mississippi State Studies. Yep. I listen to archery nuts that are bowl hunters. Your crisp bees and your like I was telling about podium archery. Levi, yeah, Levi Morgan. Morgan.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02There's just so many, I don't want to call them eat types of hunters that are in our awesome thing about our sport. Is that and don't think I'm comparing myself to crisp. But if you're in a lull of a season, yeah, you can find a podcast that they talk about a certain phase of the rut for four hours. Yep. And maybe give yourself a little like what else can you? You know what I mean? There's so many guys out there that just I mean, it's it's quite like that Todd White episode I was telling you about, and I can't remember what podcast he was on when he talked about it. They talked about the last week of post Thanksgiving November time frame. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00For two hours. Yeah. And deer behavior. Yeah. It's it's it's crazy. There's but if I could say anything you can get going on that and get going on that.
SPEAKER_02Here's and and I am very, very guilty of getting information overload, overthinking, staring at a tree for four hours trying to figure out where I'm gonna hang a set, or hunt doing habitat designs for ten times on one piece to figure out how I want it.
SPEAKER_00That's awesome. We could all be doing much worse things at once. But hunt confidently is what I would say.
SPEAKER_02I would say to hunt confidently, I would say regardless of hunting, just spend as much time out there as you can. Yeah. Hunt confidently, spend time with your family, create good relationships through hunting. And the hunting under the I'll I'm kind of I'll close it out here, I guess. The hunting industry, we've seen other stuff get taken away from us, yeah, in in in this in America. They could very easily take it away from us. And I see so much negative shit in the hunting industry now. It just drives me up a wall. The more that we can just like band together as like an army of this, and because we're a small percentage of the world or the country. Yeah, we're a very small percentage. Um so I'd say just like support other hunters, like as long as they're doing they're doing it legally and you know they're being ethical, support them. There's a post going around Instagram right now. It says it doesn't take much to tell a guy congrats on his buck post every year. Like it, tell him, hell yeah, nice shot. No, yeah, it doesn't take anything. It doesn't take anything. And you're right, yeah. And I'm guilty of it. Uh I I'm the same way at times. It's like, you know, you just get to a point where it's like a million buck posts. Yeah, it's like, no, I get it. But but yeah, I'd say, man, we need to stick we need to stand in there with with hunters. We need to support each other, spend time with your family, hunt to the best of your ability and keep it simple on the hunting side. That's where everyone gets confused. It's like deer need food, water, and they don't like people.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, do everything to give them food and water. Try not to be there too much. But at the same time, if you want to go hunting, go hunting. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Like there's guys that uh that go out for the first shit of the year with a room 10870 and they kill a 200-inch deer. Yep. It's like, do do what you like. Like then there's idiots like they go October 1st, 90 degrees. You don't need to do five thousands. You don't have to spend you don't have to do $5,000 in TSI work and plant these food plots and own a tractor and a tiller and sit in a blind that's you don't have to have a $3,000 boat. You don't have to have a $3,000 boat. I have a $400 boat. Yep. I've killed a bunch of deer with that food. I killed two Pokemon young whitells with $300 on it. Yep. Now I have a expensive boat. I didn't shoot a single one. Don't compare yourself, is what I would say. And just enjoy what you do. Try to do things the way you have, uh the the way that works for you. Because the second they if if I try to start hunting like you, yeah, I I'm screwed. Yeah. The second you start trying to hunt like me, I'm screwed. Yeah. Uh if I start if I start trying to hunt like Don Higgins, yeah, I'm screwed. We're broke. It doesn't work. And we're broke. Yeah. We're broker rich, one too. And uh if I start up, you know, you can't do that. It's just a bad place to be. So if I could close with anything, I would I would I would say that. That's that's what I would would have to give to someone. Well, we appreciate it, Trey. Definitely be back on after you shoot another stud this year. And even so. Uh well, definitely have you back on no matter what. So appreciate you coming down. Appreciate everyone listening. And uh like we've said in the last couple, be sure to like and uh follow us on Instagram. That's about the best place. Follow, subscribe to the podcast on Spotify. And uh, we appreciate you all. Thank you for listening. Bye, guys.