The Archery Project

Are You Hoping or Are You Hunting? Early Season Bow Tactics

• Zakk Plocica • Season 1 • Episode 7

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What separates the consistently successful bow hunters from those who struggle season after season? The answer might surprise you. It's not about having the latest gear or hunting the most days - it's about strategic thinking and methodical preparation that happens long before opening day.

Levi Marshall, a dedicated whitetail hunter, reveals his systematic approach to scouting and hunting that has helped him harvest mature bucks on pressured properties. The conversation opens with a critical but often overlooked foundation - ensuring your home life is balanced before attempting to focus in the field. As Levi explains, "If your home life isn't in order, I'm not going to be a hundred percent involved or focused on the tasks at hand."

From there, we explore the counterintuitive strategies that drive his success. While many hunters wait until summer to begin scouting, Levi believes your next hunting season begins as soon as the current one ends. His approach to trail cameras challenges conventional wisdom - using fewer cameras strategically placed and rarely checked to minimize pressure. Most surprisingly, he refuses to hunt unless he's confirmed deer movement through observation first: "I don't sit in a tree stand unless I physically see something that I can action on."

The most valuable insights come when discussing bedding area identification, access strategies, and the critical importance of wind and weather patterns. Levi's military background informs his tactical approach, treating every hunt like a mission with no detail too small. Through stories of success and failure, he paints a picture of whitetail hunting as a process of continuous learning and adaptation rather than random luck.

Whether you're struggling to consistently tag mature bucks or looking to refine your approach, this conversation offers actionable strategies to transform your hunting experience. The question hunters should ask themselves isn't "Where should I hunt?" but rather "Am I hoping or am I hunting?"

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Zakk Plocica:

It's already starting.

Levi Marshall:

Broken Good. All right, we are live, Levi. Thanks for joining me, man all the way from Indiana.

Zakk Plocica:

Yep.

Levi Marshall:

How was the trip down?

Zakk Plocica:

Did it really Well. I was concerned because we just had a baby. It's been a month and a week and so that was obviously at the forefront of my concerns but it really wasn't bad. She slept literally the whole time pretty much, but it was monsoon rains the whole way down here and that was just awful for 14 hours.

Levi Marshall:

Congratulations, by the way. Oh, thank you, I haven't seen you since you guys had her. Yep, that's awesome. That's a huge change.

Zakk Plocica:

Oh yeah.

Levi Marshall:

Everything good so far.

Zakk Plocica:

Oh dude, I love it.

Levi Marshall:

I want 12, do you? Oh yeah, dude, let me send william over to your house. I'll take him, dude. He's cool, he is, he's a little instagram page.

Zakk Plocica:

You got going for him, dude with his lizards and oh dude.

Levi Marshall:

He lives the life man he is. He lives for the outdoors yeah but yeah, that's awesome man, so has that with having the new baby? Has it changed anything for you guys? Or, as far as like, what's your ability, capability, because I know you do a lot of things. You're involved in a lot of yes and no.

Zakk Plocica:

Yeah, yes and no with that, and I was definitely going to. That was going to be one of my main topics of discussion today when it comes to like preseason scouting and hunting and stuff. So, uh, my home life and everybody's home life with that, when it comes to my preseason prep, that is the first thing that needs to be in order before you even leave your house or get out of your truck. Because if your home life isn't in order I at least know this for me personally if I knew I had like a leaking roof and my wife was upset or sick or something and I left to go do something, I'm not going to be a hundred percent involved or a hundred percent focused on the tasks at hand. And if and if you, if you can't do that, then you're not. I personally, I'm not going to reach my level of success. I get it, everybody's hunting journey is different and they got different goals, but my specific bar I try to set as high as I can personally, and I know I couldn't be effective if my home life wasn't in order.

Zakk Plocica:

And you said I do a lot of things, maybe from the out, I don't see it that way, to be honest. So I primary number one thing when I think about me personally things I like to do. It's bow hunting, white-tailed deer, and secondary to that, in the off season in the summer months I compete in precision rifle competitions in the PRS and stuff like that. So those are my two things, so I gear my family and wife up for that. Then what's cool about hunting and the precision rifle game is their annual they're. They happen at the same time pretty much every year. So it's like, uh, my wife hopefully knows she might have a different perspective when she sees this.

Zakk Plocica:

But like during the month, like that October 1st till January or February 5th, like I could potentially be in the woods and that's my time, and during the summer I have one day a month. Basically I'm shooting a precision rifle match. But other than that, I give, I give. At least I like to think that I give my wife quality time, my new daughter quality time and, uh, I really try to build up those brownie points. So when that day comes, it's like she's like cool, yeah, I work from home now. So I'm home every single day, I'm right there to do house projects and stuff and I let her buy random stuff all the time, you know, just to like.

Zakk Plocica:

But I really, I really think that's a that's a contributing factor for a lot of people's success or non-successes. They have their iron and a lot of fires. Like I don't fish, I don't hunt turkeys, I don't go out at night, I don't. I don't do anything but hunt, focus on what it takes to kill the biggest deer I can find, and then, just as a hobby in the off season, to keep my mind off of hunting deer, I shoot precision rifle. So that's my mindset towards it.

Levi Marshall:

Yeah, I mean, I mean clear and you've clearly been very successful with the way you uh, not only so the hunting side of things is you've been wildly successful, but your home life, your career and everything. It seems like you've really got it, your system figured out, uh, and in place to make things happen and capitalize and make the most out of everything, Right, Um, I know, when it comes to especially the bow hunting side of things, especially when you're new to it, it's easy to get wrapped up and just hunt, hunt, hunt, hunt, hunt and not really have any priorities.

Levi Marshall:

Right and that's what we're talking about today. You know the two things that leading into the season, your preseason scouting and then your early season tactics. And one of the things I wanted to start off with is when do you even start getting in the woods for your scouting?

Zakk Plocica:

Okay. So this might be a little bit of different perspective and people have different definitions of preseason as well, but for me personally, and what I think would help a lot of people, is the day that your season closes, you need to be in the woods scouting for that next season within a few weeks, because you can still see sign from, especially down here. I think it's like January, early January, the season closes, correct? So you can still see some of that November rut timeframe sign. You can see your post-season sign and you're not hurting anything.

Zakk Plocica:

Your physical presence in the woods is way more critical than what people realize. So the sooner after the season is over and you can get in there and you can start putting some pins down and refining what you did that whole season, because it's still fresh in your mind You're like oh yeah, I sat here but I didn't get the results I wanted. Why Go in there, figure it out, change your tactics a little bit. Maybe you need new access, maybe you should have been set up somewhere different. But that post-season scouting for me is critical. Um, but that's not always the case. Some people are traveling, you know, like they go out of state. They want to do some summer season scouting and stuff, but that is the most. That information is the most applicable to change before the season comes, if that makes sense.

Levi Marshall:

Yeah, absolutely.

Zakk Plocica:

I understand that some people get pigeonholed and they got to work with what they have. And I've been there. I'm still like that every single season. But just to line out the ideal situation scouting in the January, february, march timeframe, especially like around here, that's what I would be doing up North in Ohio. I can hunt till February 5th, so before green up I want to be out in the woods and I want to refine some of the positions that I have already found and then maybe looking for some new stuff. And then, if you want to get into how I, when you're ready to get into how I find those positions, I'm ready for that too.

Levi Marshall:

How I when you're ready to get into how I find those positions. I'm ready for that too. Yeah, so with so, does that mean that you don't get in or in the heat just to scout, or you've you've already pre-planned at the end of the season where you're going to be next year?

Zakk Plocica:

Yep, like, just so everybody knows. Like my primary home ground is Ohio, I have everything set up in that state already ready to go. The next time I go in there, I'm going to have a bow in hand and I'm going to be ready to kill something.

Levi Marshall:

So you're not stomping around. When it's warm, whenever it's green, it's growing up, trying to pinpoint where the deer are.

Zakk Plocica:

No, and that also springboards off of. Another point of patience Like this stuff takes time. Every property that I've killed a big buck off of, or a mature buck, it's been minimum of three years I've hunted that place before I killed an animal.

Levi Marshall:

Ah, okay. So everybody likes to think that they're going to jump in there right away. Get on some fresh sign and, you know, kill giants.

Zakk Plocica:

Yeah, and it's like and you can look at my social media history I don't kill a deer every year and I'm completely okay with that because it's part of the process. I don't, honestly, man, I don't want to go to a new area and kill a giant day one you didn't like to me. I didn't earn that, I didn't figure that out. I didn't kill him on purpose. I want that history. I want to know the land and know what's going on. I want it to feel purposeful and and not be lucky, even though a large portion of hunting involves luck. But just in my mind, that's my personal thought process on that too.

Levi Marshall:

So you killed a good deer in November of 2023, this past year, yep Um, and that was in Ohio.

Zakk Plocica:

Yes.

Levi Marshall:

So and I was going back actually a little bit and looking at your social media today and reading to just to get a little bit of insight so you didn't kill a deer in 2022 like you were talking about. So you had been. You'd had eyes on this particular deer that you were chasing for three years three years and you've continuously pursued that one particular deer.

Zakk Plocica:

So, yeah, going into the season and going into my preseason scouting and stuff, so I have my boots on, like ideally, this doesn't always happen. I make my excursions in the summer months to pick out some new spots. I'm always looking for that next property too. You can't if you're relying on one or two properties. Your success rate's going to show. So every year I'm trying to tack on more acreage. So I I'm only really putting boots on the ground in the post season when I'm really heavily like really grid searching properties and stuff, and then I stay out and then, once I get closer to season, everything I do is from the truck with a spotting scope and binoculars or I'm like as far away as I can be but still be able to see, and that is in, especially when we're talking about early season tactics.

Zakk Plocica:

I don't sit in a tree stand unless I physically see something that I can action on. I don't guess I don't waste my time and sitting in a stand hoping that that deer comes by me. I want the odds to be 50% or greater that I think I'm going to see that deer, that you're on top of them. Yeah, and that's what took me. It took me three years to get that one deer figured out. But I don't want people to think that I'm only after one animal.

Zakk Plocica:

Every single year I usually go into the season with a hit list, but between my post-season scouting, trail camera history and glassing July till opening day, I try to come up with a list of the best deer I can find on the properties I have access to and I put them in a ranking structure and, based on the weather and wind direction and where I'm at, I'll pick a location and then I'll be like okay, this is my portfolio of deer in this location that I'm willing to harvest and on that particular property and a couple more that I have, including public land. The buck that I killed this year uh, that's. That was absolutely the case. I used three years of of logged history on that animal and I picked a specific location to kill him. The first time I sat in that stand I killed him at 8 AM.

Levi Marshall:

And that was the one. You sent me screenshot of the property.

Zakk Plocica:

Yep, right, yep. So you better not tell anybody I'm going to release it on here and show everybody.

Levi Marshall:

No, it was just. It was a really good visual on your approach and your thought process, cause I consider you a very critical thinker when I think about you. With everything that we've ever talked about or interacted with, you just really break things down, which is uh very cool to see how your mind works, because you're not just going out there and winging it, which which I love. I love the idea of strategy and tactics, no matter what it is. We do too, from the business side of things marketing, uh, hunting, um and you can just see the difference in the caliber of the individual who really puts in the effort, and I think that takes time to develop too right, as a new hunter, you're not going to have all of that to go off of. You really need to, and we just put a post out on this. Just the best way to learn to be a better hunter is reality Get out there and hunt.

Zakk Plocica:

Yeah, and it's like I think you could see my my bio that I sent you yesterday, that I hunted my whole life but I never really got serious about it until like 2018, 2019. And because, like, you need that growing experience, you need to go out with a bow, especially, and you need to fill tags, whatever it takes for you to fill tags legally, obviously, but you need those experiences because when, if your goal is to get, if your goals are like comparable with mine, where you're trying to kill the biggest deer, you can find you're going to be staring through your peep site at a big deer and you got to be composed and be willing to do that. And if you've only got one or two bow kills, with a doe or two, you're going to crumble in that situation and probably end up wounding that deer and then nobody gets to enjoy him. Right, you know so. So, yeah, continue. I had a couple of points I need to refresh there for a second.

Levi Marshall:

It's all good, so you stay. You stay out of the woods majority of the summer, right, which is awesome, cause I mean being I'll be honest around here it's, it's terrible.

Zakk Plocica:

You'll get Lyme's disease.

Levi Marshall:

You will like it's almost guaranteed, right? So how does so? And you're talking about whenever you don't just hop in the woods and hang a stand and hang from it and hope something walks by you. Is that was your approach? The same way here, because it's so thick here in Eastern North Carolina. Right, it's very hard unless you're really in. It's hard to see what's going on. Are you still just hanging on field edges and big open areas looking for something?

Zakk Plocica:

No, because you're not going to. If you're in this part of the country and you're looking for a mature animal to be in an open field in a daylight, you are wrong. You need to look at what I said before, as close or as far away as I can be, and still see if that's 20 yards. Man, it's 20 yards and you got to burn a sit. You got to burn a sit, yeah, but I since moved and I have a different landscape to deal with.

Zakk Plocica:

But uh, and that is because you, when you go into the woods and like an evening before and I see this buck coming into a bean field and then I go to set up on him that next evening, like your confidence going into that sit, like you're invincible you know what I mean. You're not stepping on sticks, you're not making any noise, you're taking your time to hang your set and be in the right position and you're not moving in your stand because you truly believe that you have an opportunity. So it's like that stuff right there plays with me and and and really helps my success level. And it's like if I, if you're not seeing what's going on in the woods, you're just guessing and hoping, right, you're, you're hoping and not hunting, and that's like my personal slogan. I keep saying to myself like are you hoping, are you hunting right now? And if you're hoping, get down and scout.

Levi Marshall:

So you spend. So would you say that it's important? I mean, if you have no idea what's going down, it's you should just be on the ground.

Zakk Plocica:

Yes, I would be. So like going into, like how meticulous I am and and and um, how to the nth degree I take this like that goes into my preseason scouting, that goes into my hanging cameras or hanging my sets. Every time I'm I, I, like you said, you got to make sure your home life is in order. So you have the time to do this correctly. And it doesn't matter if I'm going into glass, if I'm hanging a camera, if I'm going into kill.

Zakk Plocica:

I have the same mentality for every single one of those things. I make sure my access in and out of that property is perfect. I know my wind, wind direction is perfect. I know I'm not making any noise and I'm doing everything that I feel like I can possibly do to to maximize that thing, cause if you're just barging through the woods and you're looking for tracks, you're not going to get anything out of that, and it takes a lot of time. When I find a location that I think that has merit for me to hunt, in the fall, I'm spending 20, 30, 40 minutes in that location, wind mapping it. You know like I'm like thinking about which way the wind. How am I going to get in and out of this place without him seeing me Right, you know. So it's like that kind of thought process goes into everything that I do.

Levi Marshall:

If, for example, if you know a deer is in an area, so you know he's there and you don't have a great access to it, will you not hunt it?

Zakk Plocica:

Absolutely not. It's not worth it. Yep, You're going to. You're going to end up busting them, educating that deer. You're going to push them onto the neighbors and some kid's going to kill them with a crossbow. That's what's going to happen.

Levi Marshall:

Do we hear about that every year too?

Zakk Plocica:

People. People blow up their own properties like they don't even realize, especially touching on this early season thing. If I don't know what's going on, like I'm not in there, I'm not disrupting the deer. You have a whole season to go at these things. People put too much pressure on themselves to get it done as soon as they possibly can and I think people really need to take a step back, enjoy the process, and some of my best hunts have come in late december, january. I even kill. I'm like 2022. I didn't kill last year. I almost killed a slob in february like, so those? There's huge potential in the later season.

Zakk Plocica:

So really take your time when you're doing this stuff and absorb it and figure out the reasons why, and not just going out there and like, oh, here's a rub, I'm gonna put my tree stand right here. You don't know anything about that, especially going in the mornings in the early season. And if you're hunting september, october, and you're hunting the morning and like if I have a friend call me and he's like, hey, I'm thinking about going october first, early morning, I'm gonna sit in this stand. I'll tell them. You better have specific information and intel that tells you that that's exactly where you need to be, because you most people that hunt in the mornings and don't know specific intel and have definitive answers they're messing up their hunting locations and then that only hurts you in november, december, january, because once those deer get tipped off, especially the mature ones, you don't get a second chance. Hence why it took me three years to kill this deer, trial and error, trial and error man, and that's part of the process.

Levi Marshall:

It's part of the fun too, and I think one of the things that really takes away from hunting and the experience and going out and actually enjoy it is the social media side of things, right, because people it's kind of you get discouraged a little bit when you see somebody kill something and you're like, oh man, I need, I need to push the pace now and instead of realizing that it is a process and it does take time and you know maybe that, especially as a new hunter, that first year isn't going to be that monster that you see on some of these, or, if it is, did you really earn that, Did you deserve that?

Zakk Plocica:

You know what I mean. And it's like I've killed some great deer. I have higher expectations still moving forward, as everybody I think should but like I felt like I really deserved that deer that I shot last year and in my section of the area that's not really. I mean, it's a great, mature, big deer, but like there's plenty of other people shooting way bigger deer than that, but I would me personally. I was like this is exactly what I deserved, for what I put into it.

Levi Marshall:

So I think that needs to be an aspect people need to apply as well. Yeah, I agree, I think that's very important. Be realistic with yourself and you know I mean cause, you know you go out and you kill a deer and you know whatever. But when you really work for something I think it's with with anything you do right. The more effort you put into it, um, the more the challenge, the greater the reward and you feel much better about it. And again, it depends on the individual and what their goals are, um. But yeah, I think that's a big part of it. And the thing that really kind of makes it um tough for some people is maybe you need to get off social media and just get out in the woods and and and give it a shot.

Zakk Plocica:

Yeah, I mean like this kind of redirects our conversation a little bit, but that was something that I struggled with. I mean, I feel like everybody has a portion of that. You see, somebody kill a big buck. Man, I want to kill a big buck, I want to, I want to do that thing. So what I started to do on this, but I still I go into every season and I write down what my goals are and I can. I really encourage everybody to do that. If your goal is to fill five tags, okay, write that down and don't compromise those goals. Like don't, don't settle for less. So I still would write down my goals. If I want to kill a 140, I want to kill a 150, I want to kill a 160. But I started filming my hunts a little bit and being like here, dear, I had opportunities at that, I didn't shoot, you know, and then that kind of like fills that void a little bit. I don't have to kill something to prove myself on social media.

Levi Marshall:

Yeah, we see it quite a bit. I mean everybody, and I honestly think that's one of the downfalls within the actual industry, or whatever you call it is everybody wants to record something and be oh man, look at what I did, instead of just really going out and enjoying it. You know I mean getting back to why you started it's you enjoy being in the woods, you enjoy being outside, you know studying the land, learning the way the animals move, versus, you know, putting the pressure on yourself to just man, I got to go out and kill.

Zakk Plocica:

Yep, a hundred percent. And that comes into, like springboards, right into the preseason scouting and stuff, and, like we get, I want to get into the weeds on on that as well, like. So, if my home life is in order and I'm picking an area, I got a new piece of property, it's post-season and I'm going to go check that place out. The very first thing that I'm doing is I'm checking the lay of that land and this is where you need to have an understanding of the animals behaviors that you get from woodsmanship and being present in the moment when you're out in the woods. And right off the bat, what I'm looking for through these different mapping softwares is I focus most of my time on buck beds Like I, am I going too far?

Levi Marshall:

So no, no, no. So. So back up a little bit. So when? So, if you have a new property, so we got, and that's that's going to be. A question is, you know, a lot of guys get access to a new piece of property, right, so maybe they get access to it right now. Right there you start with maps. You start from the e-scouting side of things before you even step on the property.

Zakk Plocica:

Absolutely. And whether this be a public piece or a knock on door permission or a family member just bought a new property and, depending on the size like if it's a huge piece of public property you obviously can't absorb that in all of one day. So I look at terrain features and I pick my best spots and then I grid those spots out and I'm like, okay, these 40 acres are what I'm focusing on today.

Levi Marshall:

What are? What are the features you're looking for as far as terrain goes?

Zakk Plocica:

So I don't. I don't subscribe to any one product and I'm not pushing anybody at all but I use a lot of different mapping softwares, whether it be Google earth, on X, spartan forage and I. I this is probably my own education I know there's a lot of big name hunters that like Spartan forage mappings or software, I really only use that because they have a wind rose compass and it you can scroll through the months of the year for a specific location and it'll tell you the the most prevalent wind direction in that area, like at that time of the year. And then from there I determine okay, where are these leeward hillsides, meaning downwind of that, uh, so like if a buck was bedded on that hill, it's on the downwind side of that, so the wind's coming over the top and pushing down on him from there right and that way he can smell everything coming over the hill and then he can look down that hill and see everything coming up at him.

Zakk Plocica:

And I know it's super flat here. So you're looking for micro terrain, you're looking for ditches, hills, thick vegetation and stuff like that. So that'll be the first thing that I do, and sometimes I'll even take the property lines off of a map. You know how, like you got like the grids of, like property owners and stuff, because the deer don't know property lines when, where are the specific locations that this deer wants to live, where he feels like he's safe, and that's where you need to go. And if you don't have permission on that property, you need to figure out how to get on that property.

Zakk Plocica:

And so I look for those specific features like downwind edges, hillsides, ridges, valleys, and you want a terrain feature that naturally funnels these deer as well as giving them the necessities for life. Number one is security and cover, and then next would be like food and stuff like that and besides, like hard land terrain features. Big bucks have wet feet and believe that. So in and around swamps, water sources, lakes, ponds, rivers, all that kind of stuff, how to use, utilize that stuff so is that?

Levi Marshall:

would you year round with them?

Zakk Plocica:

yeah, absolutely, if a deer feels the deer that I killed this year. I knew the ridge that he was living on for three years and it was always very within a few hundred yards not every single day, obviously that's not realistic, but given certain weather patterns and wind directions and stuff, I knew where that deer felt safe because of the history that I have physically seen him with my own eyes and trail camera data. So if you are doing your due diligence and you're not stomping through a property every single day, you're getting in there one time, getting your information and getting out, the likelihood of him still being there is extremely high. And if you're only getting nighttime pictures of that deer, that's because your presence in that area is forcing him. He still wants to be there. This is his location, this is his core range and he wants to live there, but you are only putting him there at night.

Levi Marshall:

That is some great information. Yeah, and that's hard. I think it's really hard to accept that for some people too, especially guys that have smaller properties. Yes, right, it's like I'm not in there that much. It's like you you are. You don't realize it, but you're in there more than you should be, absolutely, and it's very, very easy. I've seen it with some buddies who only have access to smaller areas. And you know, you, you want to hunt man. I mean, dude, I got a whole week off, I want to be in the woods. Yeah, that might be detrimental to what you're actually trying to accomplish.

Zakk Plocica:

Absolutely, and it's the year that I didn't kill. It was one of the best seasons I ever had. Like I was in the game on a lot of different deer. I was after literally one of my dream bucks that I finally found. I've always wanted a Magnum eight pointer, just something outrageous, but only like a just a standard eight pointer really, but he was frame on. This thing was huge. He's dead now. I can show you pictures. It wasn't from me, but I didn't kill that whole year and I hunted a lot Like I'm talking out like 80, 90 probably sits between three, four different states all over the place and I had a great season but I didn't kill anything.

Zakk Plocica:

And 2023, I killed. I should have been done October 11th and then I didn't get things refigured out again until November the 5th and that's when I sealed the deal and I probably only had a handful of sits not probably not even double digits and very predictable season. And I got it done, waited for a specific condition and it's like and that comes into preparation too Like I get people have different lifestyles and different jobs and stuff like that, but like I'm in a position with my like cause. I made my life like this, but like I'm in a position now oh man, I got a cold front and a good wind direction next week I'm not working, I'm going to be in the woods, you know. So I'll get everything that I need to get done to be there at that specific time, and that's why I killed that deer on that first set.

Levi Marshall:

Yeah, that's that's the move right there, man, when you have the ability and set yourself up for that. And I think that's what it all comes down to is pre-planning, like we absolutely talked about going back to it. So, when it comes to collecting Intel and data on animals, obviously you run cameras. Yeah, how early do you hang your cameras? Is it during the season? Is it that post season is when you go in and you start hanging cameras? Like what determines when you go and put them out?

Zakk Plocica:

It depends on the time of year and the knowledge that I have on that property. So there are definitely. I grew up in Ohio so I have a lot of leads and ties to that place and a lot of availability. It's harder to get private ground these days. So I've been hunting some of those properties for a long time, some of them for only a handful of years. But I run significantly less cameras in Ohio because I feel like I have the information I need for those areas. I don't need to be in there.

Zakk Plocica:

People mess up things more often than not with cameras going in there, changing batteries, changing SD cards. A deer on North and North here on base fed me that hard that they just figure you out and then you're. They're untouchable at that point Once they know you and your personality and your your um demeanors and how you do things. Dude, if you don't think they can figure that out, you're dumb and they will. And how you do things, dude, if you don't think they can figure that out, you're dumb and they will, and then you'll never see them. You'll get plenty of pictures of them, but you'll never see them. So, as far as, when do I put my cameras out is as soon as I, possibly as soon as I have access to that property. I'm, I trust, my initial judgment in an area and be like this looks really good. I'm going to set a camera up there, but I'm not touching it ever again, not until the bat, not until the following season. Sometimes I have cameras out right now that I haven't seen in a year and a half.

Levi Marshall:

So you, you won't go in and pull them and stuff until.

Zakk Plocica:

Unless I'm hunting right over that camera and I'm right next to it, then I'll pull the SD card, then I'll change the batteries. But other than that, like my spots in Ohio, like I've hunted those properties for three years some of them at least three years now I know how to get in there, I know where I need to be set up to give me the opportunity and it's just, if the deer's there, he's there, and if I don't see him, I don't see him. It's the way it is. But it doesn't do me any good to hike all up and down those properties anymore. To be honest with you, I don't. I don't feel that way, and maybe that's just me speaking right now, and in the future I have a different perspective.

Zakk Plocica:

But I don't need to go in there more often and check. I don't need a visual of these deer. I know they're in the area. I'm going to see him glassing in the summer. I'm going to know who's living in there. I don't need a picture of them to prove now. I need to find one. Been in that situation plenty of times. Then I'm scattering cameras. I'm I'm checking them frequently, but then once I'm triangulated on one, like I'm backing way off, and then I rely on my scouting in my eyes.

Levi Marshall:

So do you. You're talking about pulling SD cards and stuff so you don't run the cellular cameras.

Zakk Plocica:

I do on some private properties in Ohio, because that's a four hour drive for me and whether, as long as they're illegal, I'm going to use them. Yeah, like you know what I mean it it because it comes back to that whole family thing too. Like they helped me maximize my time at home, right, so it's important. Absolutely. If mom is happy you get to kill bigger bucks, that's it you got more time, yep.

Levi Marshall:

So how many cameras were you typically run on a property, if you're, if it's a new property, as many as dude.

Zakk Plocica:

If I know there's a big one on there and I want to know who I want to know, I'll put every camera I own on one property if I had to. But usually, like the camera, the properties I still run cameras on these things are a couple hundreds of acres, you know, some of them 80, 90, 120s, public piece of property, seven, eight hundred acres. I got one, maybe two cameras on them. Some of them are still there right now soaking and stuff. But like when, when you take the time and you understand that this is a process and you're not going to get instant gratification, you understand these properties and you'd be like, okay, I have the most likelihood of getting a picture of a shooter buck right here, and then I put a lot of eggs in that basket and I take my other assets, my other cameras, and I'd go to another property and I look for that other one.

Zakk Plocica:

Because if you're going into a season, like if your expectations are anywhere, like my own, trying to kill the high caliber deer that you are that are available to you, you got to constantly be looking. You can't be on one property year in and year out. You're not going to be successful or you're going to be going having long dry spells. So I'm using the minimum amount of cameras I need on an area and then I'm taking the other ones elsewhere. And another thing that I do that I've never heard anybody else say is I put my cameras in places that I can't see with my own eyes, like if I can see a property from like a tractor path or like an oil well or something and I can see down there, I'm not going to put a camera there, but if there's like a little ridge top or a ditch that I want to see a crossing and I can't get in a good position without the deer knowing I'm there that's the places I'll hang a cell camera.

Zakk Plocica:

Ah, okay, that makes sense. Yep, kind of maximize what you're doing, yep. And then I hang those things seven, eight feet in the air. I get them completely out of the deer's vision. I would rather not get a picture than spook a deer with a trail camera.

Levi Marshall:

Yeah, no, that's, that's a real thing. Um, I was listening to some other guys talk about that is getting them out of their, their line of sight.

Zakk Plocica:

Yes, and another quick caveat on trail cameras If you hunt a property with a lot of other people and they hunt the same locations hang a camera downwind of their tree stand and then hit me up on social media the bucks you get pictures of. Really they know they've been taught since they were a fawn where those ladder stands are and that's why I've never hunted out of one for years. Now they know they're not stupid, right, it's? Yeah, it's you. You can watch them and you hang a camera down there and educate yourself. You'll see them and you'll look up there. They'll go downwind, scent, check that tree stand, be like oh he's not here today, I have the whole woods to myself you know that's funny because guys are.

Levi Marshall:

Oh man, I see the deer on camera when I'm not there, but whenever I'm there I don't see anything like well they're either watching you come in or they're circling you way downwind before you have any idea.

Zakk Plocica:

They know, they know.

Levi Marshall:

So moving on. So we actually had a question from somebody from Instagram. Um, it's, their question was what's the best way to locate bedding areas? And so you were talking about, you prioritize there's buck and then doe bedding areas. You're focusing on buck bedding that can be the same location.

Zakk Plocica:

Wherever a mature animal feels safe, that's where he's going to be. If he has to be bedded with 15, 20 does, that's where he's going to be. If he needs to be secluded and by himself in a bowl in the middle of a field, that's where he's going to be. And that's where it comes down to the visual of being able to.

Zakk Plocica:

When I'm scouting and walking in, that's why your access and your wind direction are so critical, even when you're scouting, because if you go in there, if you're walking into a potential spot, a good kill area and the at your back and they can smell you coming from hundreds of yards away, you're not going to see anything. You're going to see a bed and people will tell you oh, this is a big buck bed. I don't know if I subscribe to that because you don't know they change beds. There are does that sleep in buck beds, bucks sleep in doe beds, depending on what's going on. But if you go in there with the wind at your face and you're sneaking in there and you're going quiet and you bump him, when you're 20 yards away and you see him get out of that bed, you're like boom, and that's an early season tactic.

Levi Marshall:

So whenever you're looking for bedding area, are you hunting bedding areas? Yes, like as close as you can get.

Zakk Plocica:

Yes, Depending on terrain features and wind speed. Wind speed is how close I get to that animal.

Levi Marshall:

So, whenever you're locating these bedding areas, what are the primary? Obviously, you said you're looking for. Water is a big one, you is a priority, but what other key features are you looking for? Is it ridges? Is it? Is it vegetation? Is it food source? Is it a combination of everything of?

Zakk Plocica:

everything. Yeah, so one thing that you can do on onyx maps if you're in an area with a bunch of other people, you can put a point on a tree stand and then you can put a threat ring around it 100 yards. So I go on a public piece of property and I see a tree stand. I put a pin on that and I put it out 100, 200 yards and then, once you have a bunch of these plotted points, you can see parts of the map that don't have any that aren't encompassing a threat ring, and you're like, if I was a buck, that's where I would be.

Zakk Plocica:

And then when I walk to that area, or if I see a ridge, a down, a leeward, a downwind side of a hill or a ridge or a ditch or something like that that I think has potential, and I walked to that area and I don't kick anything up, I don't see anything, something that I'll I heard somebody say this and I don't know.

Zakk Plocica:

I don't know where I got it, so I'll probably somebody will probably put that in the comments somewhere but like, if you can throw a softball, and you can like picture this in your mind I got a big yellow softball and I throw it. If I can still see that softball from as far as I can throw, throw it. If I can still see that softball from as far as I can throw. He ain't there. I'm looking for the densest, thickest, nastiest stuff Cat tails, high stem count like shrub trees, autumn olive, overgrown cattle, pastures, overgrown apple orchards, stuff like that, like clear cuts that have started, the undergrowth is starting to come up. Because if he ain't going to be in the middle of an Oak flat, I'm telling you that right now.

Levi Marshall:

So you're looking to be anywhere that he's going to be, where you don't want to be, essentially A hundred percent.

Zakk Plocica:

Or he is going to easily hear you coming through that thick brush right before you have a chance to get on Yep I can absolutely see that that makes sense and that was, like I said.

Levi Marshall:

that was one of the questions that we had. Um, another thing that I was curious with you is what are your priorities or key factors when that determine where you actually hang your stand right? So like when you're getting up to go hang a stand and you know you've located what deer are what, what are you looking at?

Zakk Plocica:

so this is, this is very touch and go, this is gas and break right here. Because, like I really highlighted wind speed earlier I said it twice because I feel like they're, as you get your education in hunting and you understand how critical the wind is, you start out with, just okay, what's the wind direction? And the next thing you're like, oh, there's this thing called thermals that go up and down hills and over water is different. But then the next level for me for that was actual wind speed. Like I might have a great northeast wind, but it might be one to two miles an hour and you're not going to be walking through the woods and those crunchy leaves and get to your stand location and hang your set without him being able to hear you. So something that you need to consider when you're in the woods is is really considering that wind speed, and that tells me. So I I don't.

Zakk Plocica:

I also don't subscribe the fact that a bed, a buck, beds in one spot either. You know, like I had that huge ridge line and if we get into the kill story later, I can tell you this too Like so I had a hill that I knew he liked to bet on. I got. I sat up on the side that I knew I could access with the right wind and the best access, but he wasn't within 100 yards of me. He was bedded on the furthest point on that ridge and then I rattled him, called him over. He came over to see what's up and I killed him so that.

Zakk Plocica:

So my access determines where I set up. I know the area that I need to be in and I set up where I know I'm safe. But I have the highest likelihood to kill him, because if I'm setting up somewhere where I'm not safe, he's going to bust me. Or if I set up somewhere where I can't shoot him with a bow, it doesn't matter either. So you have to flirt with that line, but your access and him knowing you're there is number one. That line but your access and him knowing you're there is is number one. That trumps all, because if he sees you or hears you or smells you on your way in the gigs up, so you need to get as close as you can without those things happening and then set up there. And if it doesn't happen, it is what it is it's hunting man.

Levi Marshall:

Yeah. You know, so, with that information and, like I said, going into it, do you, do you keep or do you have pre hung sets, or are you constantly mobile Like you?

Zakk Plocica:

I won't have the same tree twice, or is it a mix? I mean I so this year is the first year that I have any type of a of a permanent set, and probably five, six years, and that's because these properties are in Ohio, set in probably five, six years, and that's because these properties are in Ohio. I have permission on these properties and I feel like the way that I, the way that I feel inside about those properties, now I can get to this spot and in this tree without any deer knowing that I'm here. So what I did was I put in, screw in peg steps. I bought a bulk of them, like a couple hundred of them, and I just screwed in the pegs. I bought a bulk of them, like a couple hundred of them, and I just screwed in the pegs.

Zakk Plocica:

I'm still taking in my hang-on stand and my sticks, but that is going to be my primary spot and if I need to flex I can. I have the equipment to do so, but that just helps me speed up a little bit, a little bit quieter, getting in and out of there. But those are only on properties that I feel like I really intimately know and that I know I can get in and out without a deer seeing me and I have a high likelihood of getting a big buck and bow range from those locations, and that's from years of being on those properties. This is the first year I've done that on one property and I've hunt there for over 10 years.

Zakk Plocica:

Oh wow, yep, and I've only killed one buck off that property. Jesus, maybe that means I'm shitty hunter and I'll take them. This is another huge point to the buck that I killed this year is the first mature animal over 140 inches that I've killed from a tree stand. Every other one has been off the ground.

Levi Marshall:

Really Yep With the bow. So what? What's the difference? Why? What happened?

Zakk Plocica:

So the 2021 buck that I killed.

Zakk Plocica:

I, driving down the road, I spotted him in a CRP field bedded with a doe, and he was like pinning her down, not letting her leave this grass, and it was like a little Valley and there was a shooter on one side of the Valley and there was a shooter on the other one and I ran around, went through this cul-de-sac, I knocked on a door, went through somebody's uh, I thought that was my phone, it was your guys but I I knocked on a door to go through this cul-de-sac, got this guy had like 0.1 acres and I was like I need to walk through your backyard to get to this property that I hunt back here.

Zakk Plocica:

That was a couple hundred acres of farm and he's like, yeah, sure man, do you want? So I went back there and I set up on my tree stand and then I watched this deer in binoculars with this doe for like an hour and a half. I'm like he ain't coming over here. I'm grunting at him, I've tried rattling, he's not going anywhere. So then I got down onto my stand from there and killed him on the ground.

Zakk Plocica:

Put a stalk on him and moved in Low, crawled in, circled him, got downwind, got close within 20 yards. Snort, wheezed at him. He stood up, came right at me basically shot him in self-defense Like he was coming at me. Dude, it was nuts. If there's any moment in my life I wish was on film, it was that.

Levi Marshall:

Oh, I basically shot him in self-defense.

Zakk Plocica:

That's amazing. It was badass. And then the other ones were were, because another part of the story too, that, or another part of my history, is I haven't killed a deer in the morning or the evening, big buck. It's all been between 10 and 2 o'clock, those known hours that you hear people talk about but nobody really cares because that's kind of the crappy times. They think to be in the woods. So usually I'm either getting out of my stand in the morning and getting ready to change locations or head back to the truck. I mean, my biggest deer date. I got down at 11 o'clock and I ended up shooting him at 1210 on the ground as he jumped over a stream the stream sort of downwind of this overgrown apple orchard just circling it downwind looking for a doe, and he was right there, popped over broadside and nailed him Did you have eyes on him before he.

Zakk Plocica:

I had no idea that specific deer existed. To be honest, really, yeah, just so did you hear him coming? I seen him coming down this hill like I wasn't even there. Wow, yeah, so it's, that was one what time of year was?

Zakk Plocica:

that that was december the 10th late season, wow yep, yep, so kind of like a what some people say pre-rut, second rut, whatever like post-rut or second. Well, I don't even know anymore, but he was definitely looking for does in that area. Maybe they didn't get bred the first cycle and they came back into estrus on a second cycle. He was out looking, maybe on a mission. Yep, yeah, and that deer was eight and a half years old, nine years old.

Levi Marshall:

Wow, yeah, jesus all right, so moving into it, like, let's, let's talk about some early season tactics, do you, will you hunt opening day?

Zakk Plocica:

if I absolutely you will 100, because I have. This might be me dependent, but I have some areas that I can glass pretty well. Yeah, and I moved, I was, I was in. So ohio opens up I think it was like september 28th or 26, 27th or something like that and I was on a field edge sitting on the ground waiting for this deer to come out into a bean field. He didn't, but I was watching him for the last couple of days.

Zakk Plocica:

I got permission to come over the backside through another property, came over this hill and I knew it was a big buck bedding location with prior history, the magnum eight that I wanted to kill. He was living in there. This deer wasn't as big but he was still a mature animal that I would have loved to kill, especially on opening day. If I have the intel, I will do it. If I have the intel, I'll hunt a morning in october, even though how critically detrimental that could be to your whole entire season. If I have the most recent information that I could get on in on something and it makes sense, absolutely. But if I'm not 100% confident, don't do it.

Levi Marshall:

You'll just sit back and just kind of observe.

Zakk Plocica:

Don't. If you have the days off and the time off, you need to be observing or scouting somewhere else. I have a lot of really good areas that I hunt. Often, if the weather's not right and the wind isn't right for that specific location and I have the time off and I still want to be in the woods, go scout somewhere else right for that specific location and I have the time off and I still want to be in the woods, go scout somewhere else. Find the enjoyment in the process versus just launching an arrow at a deer Right.

Levi Marshall:

So whenever it comes to like early season and I know you hit on a little bit like we're talking September it's hot Right. Are you only hunting evenings, unless you absolutely know?

Zakk Plocica:

Absolutely I want. In the mornings I'm sitting in my truck glassing, just just sitting back waiting, yeah, and I'm looking cause you. A lot of times you'll see a deer bed down. You'll see him go into this area and you're like, oh shit, there he is. He's bedded right there, and then you know exactly what you're supposed to do. But even if I was in a tree stand in that location, I probably wouldn't have been able to see them, right you know. So you need to really get in a good position of observation or, if you have the capabilities, run some trail cameras in areas that you can't see and see if you can catch them coming back into that bed and yeah, and.

Zakk Plocica:

I'm definitely. If I'm winging it per se like I don't have good information, I'm scouting my way into a known potential area. Either I know there's a deer in the area or maybe I just want information on a property. I'll scout my way in and sit in the evening and then sometimes, if something pops off and it looks really cool, sometimes I'll leave my stand up and come back in there in the morning and try it, especially if it's a. It's a new property that I haven't been on and stuff. But if I'm on a giant, I'm not going in there unless I know that he's not going to know. I'm going in and out of there and when you're walking in in the dark you don't know, right? Yeah, you, you could be, you couldn't be, and you have no way of proving that, and that's what doesn't sit well with me so so your prior, so your your priority with everything is is going in with as much data as you possibly can.

Levi Marshall:

So the season doesn't start September for you, the season starts when last season ended essentially Every aspect of your life should be that way.

Zakk Plocica:

Whatever you take interest in, whether that be a basketball game, as soon as that buzzer goes off you're already preparing for the next game, Reflecting Yep, Writing notes, taking data down, saving trail cam pictures, saving videos that you took through your spotting scope and analyzing the things that you see. So I have an app on my phone I don't remember what it's called, Maybe like picture this or something it's for like plants, Like if I'm in my tree stand and a doe walks by me and I see her grazing on some stuff, I'll go down after I get down and take a picture of that plant and figure out what it was. Why did she want that? And then, if I go into another area, I'm like shit, dude, there's that leaf that one does. You know what I mean? Just trying to catalog all this information. But even even when it comes into November and December, and especially late season and stuff like I, I have to see it with my own eyes. Or a trail cam picture of something that I can action before I'm in there screwing around.

Levi Marshall:

I mean, I think that's probably one of the bigger takeaways from for me especially is you know, you can't just go in there without a plan. I mean for literally anything that you do in life requires some kind of plan or strategy. If you're going to do it and do it, do it well, yep, and hunting is no exception and I want to bring up the fact.

Zakk Plocica:

Then you'll have the person that'll be like oh, I hunt 40 acres and my family hunts it. There's 10 other people on there. I got to get in there as soon as I can and try to get it done. It's like no, if there's 10 people already hunting there, you're the 11th. You're putting pressure on that. Property is too, and the only person that you can control is yourself.

Zakk Plocica:

So if you sit back and you watch, you'll probably see these deer, go downwind to your buddies and figure out how they're. Because if when a deer, especially a buck, once it becomes a certain age, its mother kicks them out and it's like you can't live here anymore because I need the food in this area, the resources in this area for my next year's fawns, you got to go out and you got to find your own path and I guess this is deer dependent as well, like. I guess, like some of them, travel really far. But he's going to stick to his known location and he's going to utilize the same property for the majority of his life. He's going to be here in the summer, he's going to shift here in the fall and he's going to look at this place in the late season and then these are his routes to check. Does in these known areas that he's been in? He's not like travel. I mean, there are obviously documented cases of deer traveling forever right but they're also hard deer to pin down, locate and kill.

Zakk Plocica:

You need to look for those deer that have a home range and you need to to determine how they're utilizing it, because they're going to be in the same general area once they. Once they get kicked away from their mom and they find they establish their home range. They're utilizing it because they're going to be in the same general area Once they. Once they get kicked away from their mom and they find they established their home range, they're probably going to stick to it and as long as you don't infringe on that, even if there's 10 other people, you're going to learn how that deer is utilizing your property and then you're going to determine do I have an opportunity at this or do I not? What can I do to kill them? Or do I need to start knocking on doors and get to the neighbors and kill them in their backyard instead of mine?

Levi Marshall:

Right. So when it comes to getting in for your early season two, is there a specific sign that you focus?

Zakk Plocica:

on, yeah. So, uh, I have great footage of that target eight pointer that I was off of rubbing trees in his bedding area right in front of me. I just didn't have a clear shot. It was too thick, so I'm looking for fresh rubs, hair and beds. You know, like if I, if I'm looking for a new spot, but like really it just comes to that thick veg that I know is a known bedding area and I just need to be in a position where he can't see me and I can still get a shot and that's my limit of advance. And so that's what I'm looking for, because if you push like everybody's done it, probably Most people do it, probably without even knowing it.

Zakk Plocica:

You push too far, you get found out and he's going to do one of two things he's going to blow out of there, but probably not the big ones. If they know you're close, they're going to sit there till dark and they're going to wait till they hear you climb out and leave, and then that's it. Then they'll get up and they'll be like, okay, I'm gonna go eat, I'm going to go eat now, yeah, and they won't. And then you have no idea. You know, and it's like sometimes these deer don't leave a lot of sign in their bedding areas, so you need so it's hard, man.

Levi Marshall:

It's part about it is with a bow, how much it really takes to capitalize on something, and let me hit this before I forget.

Zakk Plocica:

That's why I do not shy away from nighttime trail cameras. I understand that I hunt public land, knock on door property, high pressured areas. These deer are on their feet majority of the time at night. But that is a key piece of the puzzle where you can start triangulating his daytime movement and you need to be within a couple hundred yards or you're not going to see him in daylight. Right, and that's what? If you keep seeing him at night or you get trail cam pictures of him at night in your location, you're wasting your time. He might swing by there in the rut during the daylight, but think how many hours that's going to take, and I'm not comfortable with that either. I'll sit all day if I have to. I've done it multiple, multiple times, but that doesn't sit easy with me. I hate waiting till November for them to be like love drunk or whatever like doing their own thing.

Zakk Plocica:

I cannot stand that.

Levi Marshall:

Yeah, I, I'm the same way. I liked the idea that I was able to move in, capitalize and then succeed. Um, not just get lucky, lucky, you know, with it, happen to walk by you, you end up winning. You know, outsmarting, and in their own environment or their, their bedroom, yep.

Zakk Plocica:

Essentially, and that's like I focus on the bed just because, like I don't have food plots, I don't plant and I hunt in northeastern and indiana and Ohio and stuff. There's cornfields everywhere, bean fields, oak flats, like there's literally food everywhere. If I focus on food, I'd be chasing my tail around. So, knowing where these deer bed and figuring out with experience where they feel safe and sometimes it's in the weirdest spots ever, like in the backyard of an abandoned house you know, it's like weird stuff, dude Wherever they feel like they can be safe, that's where they're going to be. That's why you can't leave no stone unturned and you got to be observant.

Levi Marshall:

I think everybody gets excited and you just want to get in the woods. It's easy to forget that beginning phase I have spots that I hunt on.

Zakk Plocica:

when I feel like I want to hunt, but I know my good spots aren't ready, I'll go trash public land. I know it kind of sounds weird, but, dude, I'll drive a long way just to be in the woods, and you never know what can happen out there and then I'm just enjoying the moment.

Zakk Plocica:

Dude, I'm out there, like this is another huge thing is into access and stuff too. Like I primarily use the water. I use an e-bike and it's like I love like that. To me it's fun getting my kayak in the water and just be bopping up and down these, these little creeks and stuff like that. That's when I go have my fun days and I'm still super serious about it. But man, no, don't fret when I'm getting in on a big one, like and I'll get out of my truck or leave my door, like that's a full mission profile recce operation that I'm on and I'm not. I I'm not taking anything for granted. Light, discipline, noise none of it's tolerated.

Levi Marshall:

That's, that's why I wanted to talk to you about it, man, because you take an aspect of your previous career and you implement it into your hobby which I mean you've obviously have a extensive background in there that really carried over and is pretty useful.

Zakk Plocica:

And these are critical skills.

Zakk Plocica:

This is why I don't this is why I don't golf, this is why I don't do a lot of things that other people don't do. It's not a critical skill to me, right Like, first off, I love it obviously, but like it has purpose in your life and it means something and it can be very useful. Might not be in our generation, might not be in our kids generation, but if you don't teach them these skills when it is critical for them to know these things, they're not going to know how to do it if you didn't teach them absolutely. So that's something I really take.

Zakk Plocica:

I do not take for granted in the hunting realm either is like this is a critical skill and dude, it's like I wear moccasins. Dude, I don't make noise. I like, whatever I'm, skin is covered, I wear a, I wear a. This is like I do a lot of weird stuff sometimes, but like I believe so predators, like if you look at a wolf, a coyote, a bear, their eyes are in the front of their head. If you look at a prey, like a prey animal, a deer, a rabbit, a squirrel their eyes are on the side of their head. So when a deer looks at you, it immediately sees both your eyes and be like. That's not good.

Levi Marshall:

So I cover my eyes with a screen when you're in the stand, yep.

Zakk Plocica:

So okay, I mean, are you running like a Viper hood? No, it just like a bug net that I cut off to just literally, and then I can. It's on a little bungee cord that I can pull down when I go to shoot. So is it attached to your hat? No, it's just like a little. It's like you know those bug nets you put over your head. Yeah, it's a full, yeah, but I cut it off and it's, there's a hole in the top and so I can pull it down over my neck. So I don't lose it.

Levi Marshall:

So you for you. What's your, what's your take on it?

Zakk Plocica:

I mean, if you look at the pictures of that deer I killed this year, I was in a brown t-shirt and a green pants so you're a believer in earth tones?

Zakk Plocica:

oh yeah, that's how I because if you get like somebody like early in my career somebody painted me this picture and it really stuck with me if you have two 55 gallon drums and one's whatever camo pattern you want and one's like OD green, and you put them 200 yards away and you spin those barrels, you can't really you know what I mean. Like you can tell one of them's moving but the other one you can't tell is moving.

Levi Marshall:

Oh, dude, that's, good.

Zakk Plocica:

And it's. It also comes down to your veg level. So if there's different levels of screening and the layers that you put in between you and something else so like if you see a lot of elk hunters out West, they I think camouflage is definitely warranted because you're standing in front of something calling an animal to you. But if you have cover in front of you, then a solid color, a solid pattern is going to be better off than than a, than a broken up camouflage. In my opinion, that makes sense and I wear whatever I want. To be honest with you.

Levi Marshall:

Um, what about? So? I remember you were doing some observing.

Zakk Plocica:

Um, I think it was, I don't know it was some guys who were stalking. Oh yeah, so you were doing some observing trying to spot these guys.

Levi Marshall:

I love doing that Right. And one of the things that sticks in my head was you put, you spotted a dude who was in the process of stalking um, and you picked him up because he had black. It was an optic or something like that. Right, do you?

Zakk Plocica:

tape, wrap, paint. Do you want me to go get my bow? I figured you were there is. I don't like. I said I like. Can a deer see that? Probably not, but could a person see that? Absolutely Right, and I don't want to be seen by anybody. I do.

Levi Marshall:

That's how I love the idea of going in the woods and disappearing dude and it's like you cannot compromise.

Zakk Plocica:

I've seen a lot of dudes that aren't with us anymore because they had a black rifle.

Levi Marshall:

you know, a black linear object in the bush sticks out like a sore thumb anything deep black because, yeah, because you were telling you saw this dude that was fully ghillied up from I don't remember what distance you told me, I can't remember you picked it out, yeah it was far and it was just that little bit of black that made a spot.

Levi Marshall:

So that means you know, as an animal that lives in that environment every single day, I mean how critical movement is and anything I would assume, with a little bit of shine or reflection or something like that.

Zakk Plocica:

And it even comes if you're doing any veg vegetation manipulation, like if you're trimming branches to get in and out of a place or trimming branches in a tree staying location and stuff. I mean, maybe I'm deep into the wood like getting the weeds on this, but man, I would know if you move stuff around in my house, you know, and why, why? Why take that chance? I'm not willing to take that chance. Let me just put it that way, like whether you believe that in or not, me personally I'm not risking it, yeah.

Levi Marshall:

What about scent control?

Zakk Plocica:

So I go both. I remember.

Levi Marshall:

So a few years back, you were like dude in the weeds when it came to scent control. Yes, how has that changed?

Zakk Plocica:

So I'm. I still ride that train a little bit and I'll admit that openly. But let me put it, put you on my twist, that I don't know of anybody else talking about this either. So I I'm a hundred percent on board with if I'm in a tree and a deer is downwind of me, he's going to smell me based on wind, direction and thermals, whatever, nothing you can do to your person. I feel like, especially if you're sitting there for hours, a long time, all day, you're going to be emitting some, some scents and stuff and they're going to find you out.

Zakk Plocica:

So if I am going into a new location or like, say, it's really warm out, i'm'm not going to mess with it, like I have a Ziploc bat or not, like a suitcase, one of those scent crusher suitcases that I have hunting specific clothes in there that never come out unless I'm going hunting, which I think is important. You know, I think you can definitely lessen your presence in the woods and that's where I use scent control for for my access and my exit. So I wear clean clothes that I try not to touch with my bare hands on the outside. So when I'm walking in and hitting brushes, I have gloves on. I have clean. Well, it depends, but like, especially if it's colder and I'm like, no, I'm sitting for a long time, like I have clean boots on and stuff like that. So when I touch branches on the way in, I'm trying to minimize my trail on the way.

Levi Marshall:

Your impact and how you get there Exactly.

Zakk Plocica:

I know if a deer gets downwind of me he's going to smell me. But if I sit in that stand and I don't see anything and I don't like I'm just in my mind I'm bettering my odds of a deer not knowing that I was there. If he does swing through after hours, right, is that me? That was me. Sorry, okay, sorry guys.

Zakk Plocica:

I thought my phone was on silent, but apparently not so that's like I have sent lock clothes and if I know I'm going into an area and I know I'm going to, I have an opportunity. I'm probably wearing that stuff. Does it help me or not? No, it makes me feel better, Right.

Levi Marshall:

And that's part of it too right.

Zakk Plocica:

I mean confidence in the woods, but that does not make or break whether I'm going in or not, especially if I don't know where I'm going and I know I'm going to be hiking around and sweating and looking and scouting it. You're wasting your time wearing that stuff Cause you're just ruining that clothes for those clothes for the seasons. Anyway, we got to think about your bow matters, the string on your boat, the release that you're using, like the backpack that you carry everything in, and the straps on your tree stand, or your harnesses and your ropes. All that stuff matters and they know.

Levi Marshall:

Yeah, I mean, but and you, you're never going to beat them, though. That's why when we we've harped on it before with some of the other guys is you know how critical access and wind are.

Zakk Plocica:

Yep, and let me. Let's go on down this trail, because this is critical need to use that tool against them. They live and die by their nose. You have to learn how to use it against them or you'll never consistently kill them. So I know that this that this train feature in this wind direction could potentially house a giant buck, but how is he going to move around in there right and still feel safe? Rarely are they ever going to be with the wind fully at their back. The deer that I killed this year was not. He was at a crosswind scent check in the bedding area that he wanted to be in, and that's when I killed him and I was just off of that.

Levi Marshall:

So you're, you're giving them the advantage essentially just where you're walking that fine line essentially.

Zakk Plocica:

Yeah, if you're going, if you're sitting in your tree stand and the wind's at your face, they're coming from behind you. Yeah, like there's. There's no reason. Especially north carolina, man, these deer are wired dude different than anything I've ever experienced.

Levi Marshall:

Alert on edge creatures in the world and they are not going there.

Zakk Plocica:

The deer that are alive and you're seeing know that. The deer that don't know that are already dead.

Levi Marshall:

Right, yeah, they're gone.

Zakk Plocica:

You know. So they are, they know man, and they're going to, they're going to figure you out as soon as you, before you even know it.

Levi Marshall:

Yeah, did you notice a big change going from North Carolina to Indiana?

Zakk Plocica:

Oh yeah, I mean, it's just like one you can see Right. You know that's huge man and the weather is a lot different, so it's more comfortable to be in the woods in general and you're not getting blitzed by mosquitoes, brother no way, and it's just. It's definitely more difficult here, 100% Like there's no question about it, and I encourage people that live here step outside your comfort zone and travel somewhere else.

Levi Marshall:

I encourage people who have never been here to come try, come to North Carolina and try, because been here to come. Try, come to north carolina and try, because every I mean it is so difficult here, man, and everyone I've ever talked to and anytime I've ever ventured out, like every time year I go to kentucky, I go there and it's like a relief, man, because I mean it may not kill something, but I see deer every single time I sit and it's like, well, and it's not necessarily the environment specifically that really hurts this place, it's also your season and regulations that don't do you any justice Absolutely.

Zakk Plocica:

And that's where it comes circles back to. You need to write down your goals at the beginning of every season and if you live here and you want to kill a 140, sorry bud, you're gonna have to travel, right You're. If you kill one here. I mean not that they're not here, right, but I mean it's so much harder because your rifle season opens up so much earlier. In Ohio our gun season doesn't start until December some years. Oh man, so you have all of October, all of November, without any gun pressure in the woods. Wow, and it's a one buck state.

Zakk Plocica:

So people are like I can only kill one buck, I'm not going to kill that spike. Well, people still do, obviously, but you know what I mean. Like the probability, yeah. So it's like you need to go to places that have laws and stuff, and it's like dude. Next year I've already booked an Iowa trip. I got five years worth of points to go to Iowa and I was talking to this dude trying to lock on some properties and I told him where I'm coming from and he's like dude, this is going to be like anything you've ever experienced before for me, even coming from Ohio and Indiana and stuff, and I'm like dang, I've heard that before. This is going to be. I'm so. I'm already so excited just going out there.

Levi Marshall:

Oh, dude, that's awesome man. So what about the moon phases? Is that a thing for you? Are you, is that something you consider? Much Does that have much impact on whether you're going to go hunt.

Zakk Plocica:

I mean this is a proven tool. I mean maybe not scientifically proven, like cause you'll have a Dr Bronson Strickland out of Mississippi state university. He'll tell you that it doesn't really have that much of an effect. But if you talk to these big buck killers knocking down big ones, there'll be like I'm going out on red moon days or I'm scouting field edges on these days because it's like to think that it doesn't have any effect. Based off of the history of people that are doing the job. I definitely consider I'm a subscriber to the Red Moon Guide and I will judge my out-of-state trips based off of that. It'll be a factor. Maybe it's not the only factor, but that's something I'll think about. Like, if I want to go to Ohio and glass a bean field, I'm going on a Red Moon day.

Levi Marshall:

I got you, and then that goes into weather, weather, weather patterns that trumps everything so weather pattern is your priority one weather, wind direction, weather pattern, stuff like that hand in hand, yeah so if you had to have like pick the two most important things to consider before you're going to go out wind direction and weather patterns yeah, probably.

Zakk Plocica:

I mean, I've killed deer on really hot days. Yeah, I don't like it and it's low probability, but cold fronts and good wind directions that's, that's what you're looking for especially like man the the most.

Zakk Plocica:

The most dangerous thing is when the wind direction switches midday, like if you got a south wind and midday it switches to a south. Like that deer doesn't have an app, he doesn't know when the wind's going to switch, so he beds in a specific area for a south wind and then it switches on him a complete 180 or maybe 90 degrees. Then you go up there and set up on him because he's going to be moving quick, because he doesn't feel comfortable. So that's a good one. He does not feel comfortable where he is, he's going to be moving quick and you just got to guess the right direction that he takes.

Levi Marshall:

Right, so that's one of the things you're looking for too. That's a prime day to get out.

Zakk Plocica:

Oh yeah, and rain, yes, oh yeah.

Levi Marshall:

So when we're talking rain, are we talking about a light, consistent rain? Are you looking for a storm to roll in and then you set up and then it moves out?

Zakk Plocica:

So I'm not going to be sitting in a monsoon. Okay, I'm not. I mean I will. I'll move in if a heavy rain, if I know it's going to taper off that last one, two hours of light. Especially in the early season when scrapes are more prevalent and they're starting to have the pecking order and figuring out their territories and stuff like that, when they're hitting their rubs and scrapes a lot harder After that rain pulls through. That rain moistens the dirt, it opens up their scent glands. It's in their benefit to mark their territory at that time because it really puts their scent on things. Um, and especially if it's been raining all day and they're not moving and they're like damn, I'm hungry, I need to get up and eat as soon as that rain quits and they're on their feet, and it's when a lot of other people are not in the woods.

Levi Marshall:

So you'll go in, move in during the rain, set up and then wait for it to clear out, yep, yep.

Zakk Plocica:

Or if a big, huge thunderstorm is going in all night, I'll be out. I might not be sitting in the morning, but I'll be glassing. Or if I got a really good spot that I know I can get in clean, I'll sit a morning If a big thunderstorm is rolling through, or post that. Yeah, man, because it's like you got to think if you lived out in the woods and it's thunder and lightning and stuff, you know what are you going to be doing. You're going to be hunkered down, laying down, but these things need to eat every so often or they're going to die. That's even during daylight hours, any time of the year. That deer that you're getting nighttime pictures of is on his feet during the day. You just need to figure out where.

Levi Marshall:

Yeah, he might not be moving far.

Zakk Plocica:

No, sometimes they bed in that natural browse thick stuff where they can just pick at leaves all day, sustain them, and then, as soon as the sun goes down, they're hitting those fields Right.

Levi Marshall:

Yeah. So I noticed one thing whenever I was in Kentucky with my cousin, we were watching. I think it was three really good bucks, but then there was one that was just an absolute monster and they were just traveling this ridge. It was about 50 yards from us, it was just out of range that we I think it was like the final day or final two days we finally moved in on these guys and you just didn't have enough time, right. Yep, um, but we got good data now, right, so I'm looking forward to this year, this next year hopefully I can get up there around the same time.

Levi Marshall:

But we were watching them and during the day and it was it was super, super windy, super windy, right, but they were on the downside of a ridge or a hill hiding, they were out of the wind and they would get up and move a couple hundred yards along this and it was just like clockwork, just back and forth, not venturing far, until the sun was about to go down. Then they would get ready, get out of that bowl and come out and go into the fields. But it was just interesting to watch him because, you know, typically you're like there's nothing moving, it's too windy, but we got in the woods there and got, you know, on the um, the downside of this Ridge where it was blowing over, and they were moved. They just weren't moving far. It was just enough for them to kind of graze, move around, stretch their legs, and then they would come back and they would bed down literally right down from us.

Zakk Plocica:

Yep, and that proves my point of what I said earlier of where am I setting up? And you got to realize that they do that. So if you're getting too close, man, you're going to get bit right. So you, you just got to trust the process and just sit on those fringes. You're, you're close, like you're in the game, but you're still on the fringe of where they're still feeling safe and you just got to hope that they make cause. You're, you're in reality, you're wanting that deer to make a mistake and he's six and a half years old for a reason, because he doesn't make many Right. So you got to realize that and that's just part of it, yeah.

Levi Marshall:

Which makes it fun, no-transcript, very interesting to watch them just live their life man.

Zakk Plocica:

Yep, and that's why the 2022 season where I didn't kill was so important. Like I could have went out and killed that buck October one, and then what would I have done? I probably wouldn't have been in the woods at all. I'd have been on in another state, you know, trying my, trying my metal out there. But sitting in those woods and being involved in one specific area for a full season man, it just taught me so much, and one one major thing was not to fear the late season.

Levi Marshall:

Yeah.

Zakk Plocica:

Because it's like dude, like there's a lot of stuff that goes on in the late season that people don't even know that happens, Cause they're either their tags already filled or they gave up for the year.

Levi Marshall:

Right. Yeah, that's where good clothing comes in, though Dude tech, the quality, technical apparel. So that was one of my big focuses Whenever I went out to Kentucky was I tried something completely different versus going just like camo which there obviously is some really great brands out there, um but just having a really good base layer and then outer layer. That was still quiet but it was developed for like the outdoors. That was, it was just earth tones, but, dude, not getting cold. Sitting in a stand was like I was able to sit longer, you know, and just actually enjoy it more than just being out there miserable and counting down the minutes so I could go home.

Zakk Plocica:

And think of how less effective you are in those situations.

Levi Marshall:

Absolutely.

Zakk Plocica:

And with that, depending on your environment and stuff like that. Obviously, down here is a completely different story. But I pack in a lot of clothes and I do a lot of things a little bit different too when I'm setting up in a location like I'm walking in. So I have a I have a code of silence backpack and it has a bow holder on my backpack and it's completely like, silent, like you have to look at the material online if you really want to know what it is. But I pack my bow and I carry my stand and in my backpack I have all my warming layers and I'm going in it's. I don't care how cold it is, I'm going in as slick as I can.

Zakk Plocica:

I know if I'm hanging a stand and bulky clothes, I'm going to make noise, I'm going to sweat, it's going to be miserable. So I pack my bow and carry my stand. As of recent, this may change, like I said, but that way, as soon as I get to my tree, I'm starting to hang the process. I'm not putting my bow down, putting a bow rope on it. I hate bow ropes. I will for the rest of my life. And then I'm climbing my tree and then I'm up in my tree and I'm like, boom, my bow's already on my back, my backpack with all my clothes and it's already on. I just got to turn around and put it on.

Levi Marshall:

Someone's going to get mad at you for that. You're climbing with a pack on and your your bow.

Zakk Plocica:

Well, I have a lineman's belt on, no risk, no reward man and it's like and to be honest with you, this is another thing I don't hang high sometimes that's what I was gonna ask you.

Levi Marshall:

Yes, you're, when you hang your set dude.

Zakk Plocica:

It's like because if you're close to these things, man, you don't have the ability to make mistakes, and the more sticks you bring, the more noise, the more the longer it is that. So when I told you I should have killed oct the 11th, I so this is like. This is like at the level that I I I'm trying to maintain because this was really cool. I had these. I had this one deer figured out and it wasn't the one that I killed, even though I knew he was in the area. This other deer was on my list and I knew I. I seen the weather pattern change that I needed and I knew how to get in there for this weather pattern and I knew exactly where to be. And I got everything done with work.

Zakk Plocica:

The next day I'm driving to Ohio. I haven't even told my parents, because my parents live in Ohio and I stay at their house when I'm there. I called my mom. I'm like, hey, I'm going out tomorrow evening, I'm going to kill this buck, and then Saturday morning, I, saturday morning, I'm going to kill a doe and I'm coming home, just so you know what's going on hung up the phone and like that's how confident I was rolling over there into this place and I got. I stepped outside of my my ways and I tried hanging three sticks, and it was three, 30 in the afternoon, october the 11th, and that deer came down the trail I was supposed to kill him on while I was halfway up this tree.

Levi Marshall:

So you run two sticks.

Zakk Plocica:

About 99% of the time Okay.

Levi Marshall:

So you're hanging anywhere from 10 to 15 feet max.

Zakk Plocica:

That's a lot, is it Because it's like man? I think it's better off hanging, getting in your stands quicker and quieter, than it is being super high. But you got to sit still, you got to find good veg to cover you and you got to pick your locations a little bit better. But man, sneaking in and sneaking out to me is the priority, and the higher I hang, the less, the less effective I am at that.

Levi Marshall:

I love the thought of that, Cause I'm I'm big on. Less is more.

Zakk Plocica:

I like to go.

Levi Marshall:

I like a minimalist approach when it comes to hunting Cause because I feel like when you have more pockets, more pouches, the more stuff you're going to carry that you don't end up needing. It's not like you're going out on like a three-day venture, you're going to hang for a couple hours. Absolutely you don't need all the water supplies. Fire starter. Water purification system no.

Zakk Plocica:

You know no, and I'm definitely a subscriber into that camp. Yeah, and that's the way 99% of my if I'm going in all day, that's a different story right, but still it's just. It's a couple hours yep, but I get out as early as I can like. That was october the 11th. Some people tell you're crazy even being out there at three in the afternoon. It doesn't get dark till like 7, 30 or something like that.

Zakk Plocica:

Right, but man, I wish I was there earlier yeah, no kidding it would have been a lot different season for me, because I was halfway up the tree and, uh, he came right to me, dude eight yards, then, looked up at me, scared the life out of him and he ran away. And then I'm up there cussing at myself, like is it worth sitting here now, like is there? And then, while I'm up there, indecisive, another shooter, 10 pointer, with a drop time, came in from a different direction, came in right at me and I could have been set up by this time, but since had just screwed the moment up and didn't make a decisive decision. So make a decision as soon as you possibly can and live with it, because it messed me up twice in one day.

Levi Marshall:

Yeah Well, good learning, good learning experiences right.

Zakk Plocica:

Yeah, but I could. I messed that situation up and I'd never seen those two deer again.

Levi Marshall:

Hard lessons, best lessons. Now you know, though, yep, part of the game, Yep, so we'll kind of start to wrap things up. What about I mean as far in going back to early season? Do you use calls? Yeah?

Zakk Plocica:

not until I let the. I take a pulse of the my environment and I do what I'm seeing. If I'm seeing grunting activity and I'm seeing deer fight, okay, then I'm going to match their level. But if I'm not seeing anything, I'm not doing anything, because that's that can hurt you just as fast and I really only like to call when I can see the deer that I want to kill. If you're blind calling, the chances of him circling you are really high and then he's going to figure you out and then that stand location is burned. That's it.

Levi Marshall:

Yep.

Zakk Plocica:

All right.

Levi Marshall:

What about? How does your mid season tactics differ from your early season?

Zakk Plocica:

So, as we start to, is there any difference or honestly, man, maybe this is, uh, my own naiveness, but honestly, really, no, yeah, I still focus on buck bedding areas Cause, even though it was November the 5th, the rut is just kicking off and things are heating up. That deer I killed still wanted to be in a specific area, in a specific wind direction. This is a mature animal. Now, if you're, if you're just out there trying to get a good buck on the ground, maybe that's not a really good tactic. I would be in rut funnels and stuff like that, or if I don't know what's going on, I'll probably find a good funnel pinch point and set up there and then, as it changes in the late season, I just go right back to my early season tactics I'm glassing from the truck, I'm looking for a primary food source and I'm looking where these deer want to be, especially when it's brutally cold right because they're not going to be sitting around.

Zakk Plocica:

they're going to be and that's why I found so much success. The other, like I almost killed the deer I killed this year in 2022 because of that. Like I seen him on a Ridge. He came off this Ridge with a bunch of other does, going out to a specific field, in a specific location, and I sat up there. The next day, a different deer showed up and I missed him. So, whatever, that's another thing too. So I told you I got busted by two shooters. I missed one the day before I killed my buck.

Levi Marshall:

Like I'm launching arrows all over the place, man, I'm getting busted, I'm messing it up, which is funny because if anybody knows, you're a good shooter.

Zakk Plocica:

Yeah, dude, and it's like cause you get into these situations where these bucks like to live? You're in a weird spot, yep, and it was from the ground. I was in a dead fall and I came to full draw the day before I killed my buck. This is at three in the afternoon. This deer's cruising coming right at me, a beautiful nine pointer. Definitely doesn't have the a good age. He's probably only three years old, three and a half years old, but he was. He was still a solid buck and I'm like I'm waxing this guy, it's cool from the ground. And I broke a stick in the deadfall when I drew my bow and he knew something was up and then I tried to like fish it through there and did not make it. It looked like it went right through him, but I misjudged the yardage, shot over top of them, slammed my arrow in a tree and it's gone forever.

Zakk Plocica:

But yeah, but you got to get your put yourself out. There is basically what I'm getting at, and understand that you're going to mess this up more often than not and that's why you need to have if, if, if, you're anything like me. This is why I have a list of deer that I want to go after that way, when, when I mess one and two up, I go on to three and four, and then there's the list carries on, you know, because it's just like you got to have probability in your favor. I'm nowhere near the level of these guys that go after one deer specifically, like I can't do that. Yeah.

Levi Marshall:

Not yet. Not yet, no, that's coming. I mean as much effort as you put into everything. I mean that's why one of the reasons I wanted to talk to you just the the depth that you go into all these different things. Um, especially bow hunting is very interesting and it's it's very cool to see how your mind works because there's so much information. You've got so much good experience and information that you're able to relay to everybody. I mean it's, it's pretty eyeopening the different approaches that you take, utilizing your background and implementing it into bow hunting. Um, it's, it's very cool to see and just how critically you think about all of these little things that a lot of people really overlook or don't even consider.

Zakk Plocica:

Yeah, and honestly, that's why I don't hunt with people.

Levi Marshall:

I was going to bring that up too. How's your, your hunting buddies go?

Zakk Plocica:

Dude, I don't, I don't have any. Gonna bring that up too. How's your your hunting buddies? Go dude, I don't, I don't have any. Yeah, I don't because one for two reasons. One, I've yet to find somebody.

Zakk Plocica:

Not that they're not out there, not that I haven't found somebody that's on the same level as me that's the wrong thing to say.

Zakk Plocica:

But mainly, honestly, the one reason I don't take people hunting with me is because you're gonna hate it, you're not gonna have any fun and we're probably not gonna see any deer and you're gonna be wet, wet, you know. And it's like I don't want to ruin hunting for somebody that might not be where I'm at Like for me to maybe like this I hope this evolves one day because I don't like not helping people. That's why I've really wanted to do this and if we hit a topic that you want to expound on, please hit me up. But like, as far as like actions on and being in the woods, because I've had plenty of people especially when I was in the military still like people wanted to get involved and get into hunting and stuff and I would I'm still not at the point where I'm willing to like. I mean, it would take a very special individual because it's going to be. It's going to be bad, right Like we're not. I'm not going to let you get away with anything, yeah, and but that's what it takes.

Levi Marshall:

Well, I mean those good lessons, man, I mean yeah.

Zakk Plocica:

Yeah, I don't know, and it's like you'll see, cause my bows in the truck, dude, I got tape over everything that could potentially make a noise and that's what every piece of gear that I have the, the. I hate the limb pockets on my bow because they're black and shiny and the limb bolt is titanium and it shines, so I have it covered up with a bandana like the, the, the hamski rest, the post that your thing covered. You know, like I don't. That's the detail that I go with, cause I don't. When I make a mistake, I want to know it was my fault and my equipment wasn't at fault. Right?

Levi Marshall:

Yeah, and we, we preach that a lot. I mean, if you're going to go in and spend time in the woods or spend money on a hunt, to go out of state, the last thing you want is equipment failure or because of something that you could have prevented.

Zakk Plocica:

Yeah, and maybe this is this. You're probably not going to like this, but, like, once you get your equipment set up and you trust it, leave it alone.

Levi Marshall:

Uh no, I'm a hundred percent on board with that. I mean, I'm the same. So one thing for me like right being in this industry, and you know with what we do, obviously our goal is to sell stuff, right.

Zakk Plocica:

That's what I do, yeah.

Levi Marshall:

But um, I um, we also don't aim to oversell things, people that don't need it. Right, I'm big on. I don't like setting my bows up. When I have a bow set up, that's the bow I want to shoot. I don't like tinkering with it. When I build an arrow for a bow, that is the arrow that that bow shoot. I don't go and I'm going to build something different. I know that arrows tuned set up for that bow, that's what I run.

Zakk Plocica:

Yep, and as soon as you have confidence in it, that's your thing, yes. And all that time you were spending on buying a new bow and tinkering, you should be on the wood scouting. If that's your goal, right. If your goal is to buy new bows and tinker with them, I'm all about it. Do your thing, man.

Levi Marshall:

But that for me, no, get the job done and it needs to work and you need to be comfortable and confident with your equipment. And jumping from boat to boat necessarily, isn't necessarily the best thing for you to improve your you know, your, your confidence.

Zakk Plocica:

If you get any modern boat like, you're not going to get a a crazy like performance jump from year to year and stuff like that. I don't believe it and regardless it's going to be plenty enough to kill a deer you know, guys are killing them with sticks and strings.

Zakk Plocica:

Yeah, like it's like. I mean, I was I. When I was here I had a great time, obviously, buying bows and tune them at the shop and it was our social thing, for us for sure. But dude, now my bow pulled 68 pounds. It shoots 280 feet per second and kill a 300 pound deer. It's plenty. You know what.

Levi Marshall:

I mean, I mean dude, that's honestly like the sweet spot for for tuning.

Zakk Plocica:

Yeah, man, because if that's another thing, I got tired of fighting.

Zakk Plocica:

I don't want to tune a bow and like it's just like I don't want it because I had a bow in the past that I loved. But if you were not locked on with your form, it's finicky, man, yeah. And especially when you're trying to fly a broadhead, like that's something I wasn't willing to compromise on. Fly a broadhead I got something I wasn't willing to compromise on, so I just started dialing things back and the bow shot. Great, nothing wrong with it, but it wasn't as forgiving.

Levi Marshall:

Yes.

Zakk Plocica:

Is that what I wanted it to be, and that's basically changed my whole theory on setups and stuff.

Levi Marshall:

That's it, man. You got to shoot what you're comfortable with. But the only way to learn is the try. Yep, you know you got to go out there and put your time in and experiment with stuff and figure out what actually does work with you.

Zakk Plocica:

Yep, and it's like it doesn't cost a lot of money to kill a deer Right. So it's like you don't need the latest. I mean not like there's so many products out there. You can be successful with any of it. It's not really hard to put one of these things down.

Levi Marshall:

The gear doesn't make the hunter right.

Zakk Plocica:

A hundred percent.

Levi Marshall:

Yeah, absolutely it. But I mean it's, it is fun, and if you do enjoy your hobby. I've always been one to say if you enjoy something, sink your time, your money and your energy into it.

Zakk Plocica:

It's like me. We talked about before we got on the podcast. My vision has changed.

Levi Marshall:

I got glasses now.

Zakk Plocica:

Maybe some people are finding that out for the first time, but I went and bought one of those ultra view housings because it's huge. Yes, it is huge, and I don't know if I like it or not yet. I mean, it looks cool, it works, but I don't know.

Zakk Plocica:

I hate reviewing a product before I've actually used it for a period of time, but I mean I can see better with it. So I mean it's definitely a big thing Because it's like we dabbled and probably you still do the target aspect of getting like those small peeps and small housings and stuff when you're in the world JR does.

Levi Marshall:

Him and Sam and all my guys do. I don't do that anymore at all. I want big.

Zakk Plocica:

I want to be able to see. I need light Because most of those times is deer are traveling in low light conditions, especially in the thick veg where they live. So you got to be able to see. So I'm really hoping that works out for me. I'm a little skeptical on the lighting system. I'm really hoping that works out for me. I'm a little skeptical on the lighting system. Like his light works great, but I feel like I almost need the light on all the time, right? So I don't know. Just see the pins. Yeah, we'll see what happens. Yeah.

Levi Marshall:

That's a good system. We talked to Colby the other day. They make a. They make a good product, man. Their new site is actually really the whole system. I got mine on like a black gold or something like that their system is legit, so it's nice, but so let's wrap this up. Um, if you had to have one thing, one takeaway, or you know one or two takeaways, what is the most important thing when it comes to being a successful bow hunter in the?

Zakk Plocica:

early season in your eyes. You need to see something before you action it.

Levi Marshall:

That makes sense. It's simple.

Zakk Plocica:

That's what I would do. That's what I still. I still do that throughout the whole season, but especially early season. That's critical because if you're going in and out of a place, cause your foot traffic in and out of your tree, stand they're. They're going to figure, they're going to know you were there.

Zakk Plocica:

Your scent stays in that area for up to 30 days sometimes, depending on the environmentals. So they can, they know who's in there and like well, this is different. Yeah, this guy hasn't. You know what I mean? No person has been here for a long time. This is kind of weird. And now they're on edge and they're going to be looking in that direction every time they walk by and stuff. So stay out of the woods until you know what's going on. If you don't know what's going on, figure it out. Just because you don't have a bow in your hand doesn't mean you're not actively hunting. You know, and it starts as soon as you leave your house or as soon as you get out of your truck. That's when it starts. Whether you have binoculars or a trail camera in your pocket, you need to be effectively using the tools that you have at hand.

Levi Marshall:

Use them to their full capacity.

Zakk Plocica:

Yeah, man Hunt the fringes. Hunt the fringes, Unless you know what I mean. Sometimes you got a deer that's not coming out of there and you need to take your shot. Sometimes it comes down to that Take the gloves off and go in there after them and mess it up or kill them either way.

Levi Marshall:

But probably shouldn't start that way If you have no idea.

Zakk Plocica:

I'm, I'm, I'm either. This is this. I'm either all the way out or I'm all the way in.

Levi Marshall:

There's no middle.

Zakk Plocica:

No, if you're, if you're flirting with it, if you're on the fence, you're done. Yeah, that makes sense.

Levi Marshall:

Well cool man. Well, levi, I appreciate it, man Making the trip down here, coming by the shop to sit down and talk with me a little bit. It's always great to talk with you. With all your experience and your background and everything I mean, you're a wealth of knowledge and just somebody that really sits down and critically thinks and looks at things before you put them into action. So I know this is going to be. There's tons of good points for here. There's a lot of information I think you know is really going to help some, some people out there. I know you don't want to help them in the woods, but this is the best place to do it you can reach out anytime, but unless I'm in the woods and don't but unless you're in the woods.

Levi Marshall:

So where's the best place If anybody wants to get ahold of you and kind of see your, your hunting success and path, and it's definitely tapered off and I uh, but I Instagram.

Zakk Plocica:

Instagram is definitely where I'm probably most prevalent. If you want to contact me, we can definitely start there, and it's Levi Marshall search that you can find it.

Levi Marshall:

I'll put.

Zakk Plocica:

I'll put it in the um like Marshall law two, seven or something like that.

Levi Marshall:

I'll put it. I'll put a link in our um description down below, so if you're interested in please, reach out check out Levi. He's got a really cool. Cool, uh, I mean obviously into some very neat things, very, very uh, efficient and good bow hunter and then the precision rifle stuff.

Zakk Plocica:

Uh, lots of good stuff. Yeah, like having something to keep you sane in the off season, because if you focus on deer 365, it's probably not a good thing. A little bit of burnout coming on.

Levi Marshall:

Oh yeah, buddy, that's it cool well as always, man, I appreciate it and you know, appreciate everybody for joining us and listen. Uh, this is episode eight. This is with levi. You know you need anything archery. Head over the website extreme outfitterscom. You want to check out what levi's doing? Check out his link in the description box below and we will see you guys in the next episode. Appreciate it, levi. Peace. Dude, I didn't want to end.