00:00:02 Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your home for deer hunting news, stories and strategies, and now your host, Mark Kenyon. Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. I'm your host, Mark Kenyan in this episode number three sixty five, and today I'm joined by Mark Drury to run through a series of hypothetical deer hunting scenarios, ranging from small property habitat improvements, to dealing with hunting competition from neighbors, all the way to patterning specific bucks during the run. All right, welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, brought to you by Onyx to In the show, we have got another what would you do? Podcast? This is the last of a series of four that I'm gonna start with. Uh, if you haven't listened to the prior three, here's the basic gist. I will be presenting our guests today with a bunch of different scenarios, specific scenarios that I'm going to ask him to, you know, explain what he would do, why he would do it, how he would do it. And the hope and the thought and the goal here is that this allows us to learn something new from somebody that we've heard from the past, but now we get to get a deeper look into how their brain works, how they're hunting strategy works with very specific situations. So that's the game plan. We've got Mark Jury on the show. If you've listened to the podcast over the years, you know he's one of the very best out there. He's one of the very best deer hunters out there. He's one of the very best guests we've ever had in the show. He's very analytical. He has a very deep and thorough thought process behind everything he does, which I just love. I geek out on this kind of stuff with him, So to have him for this type of episode makes me particularly excited. UM, if you haven't heard his past episodes, definitely into episode number sixty three and episode number two nine. Both of those go really deep into understanding how different weather and moon and different factors at that time of year, factors influenced deer movement. They are some of the very best episodes we've ever done, some of the most influential on hunters across the country. Episode six to twenty nine. Don't forget those, Um, once you've listened to those, then come back and listen to this one, because I think that will help you better understand the context of what Mark says here. Today, we cover a whole bunch of different types of topics. Like I mentioned at the top, we do spend a little bit of time in the beginning on some habitat improvement stuff, a little bit on, you know, trying to find a new farm, a little bit on what Mark would do if he lost his farms. Uh, then we dive into a bunch of hunting scenarios, kind of starting early season. Moving on through we cover everything from scouting to trail cameras, to dealing with hunting competition, to trying to pattern a specific buck, to dealing with lousy warm weather, and then all sorts of rut related topics too. But before we get into this, you know, I just want to to give you a couple of suggestions on this one, a couple of things to think about, because, like I said, it's our fourth of this series. Um, we've got a lot of great feedback on it. Seems like people are really enjoying this what would you do type format. It's been helpful, so I want to do more in the future. But for now, we're gonna We're gonna do a four episode run of these and this completes it. So today we've got Mark Drury and he is one of two guys we've had on for this bit that are a little bit more private land focused, a little bit more management, hands on focus. This is Mark Jury and Steve Bartilla, and they had that kind of perspective. And then we also heard earlier from John Eberhart and Dan Infalt, who have a little bit more of the public land or heavily pressured private land perspective. And I did this on purpose. I want to people from these two different situations so that we can have a very full look at things from all parts of the deer hunting world. And as we're going through this last one, I want to make sure you're thinking about that. And I answered this often right when we listen to all these different people, whether they hunt just like you do or in a totally different place or in a totally different way, don't discount the things they're saying, because we can often take little bits and pieces and find ways to apply them to our specific scenario. So when you hear these questions that I'm asking, Mark, one thing I would recommend you do. You could even pause the podcast and do this or at least do it quickly in your own mind. When I ask one of these questions, I would recommend you ask that question to yourself to think about what you would do or the things you would be thinking about. I think just simply the practice of doing that, the practice of considering a certain scenario and what you would do, that's helpful on its own, even if you don't have the whole answer. At least it forces you to consider some of these things that who knows, maybe come October, come November, you actually will be faced with a scenario like this and having at least given it a little bit of thought now here in August or September or whenever you're listening to this, that might help you. And then number two, you're gonna hear Mark Jury's answer that might help you as well. But I think just as important, if not maybe more important, than the specific answer you get from Mark or from one of the past three guests that did this, the thought process and reasoning behind those answers, that is just just as important. Really, really try to pay attention to that. So not just exactly what Mark would do, but listen to how he explains his rationale for that. Listen to the different factors that are motivating him to do something. When you listen to Mark, you might hear that he's mostly motivated. Let's say, I'm just hypothetically saying stuff here, but maybe it's he's mostly motivated by what the deer telling him to do based on scouting and cameras, while maybe a Dan Infalt or John Eberhart might have been mostly motivated by what other hunters are doing and what the pressure is telling them to do. Um, those are just random examples. But listen in and try to pick apart the behind the scenes why, because that's the kind of thing that even if you don't encounter the exact same scenario that we're talking about here with Mark, if you can understand his why, if you can understand how he gets to these answers, you can definitely apply that to your own thinking and to your own situation, regardless of how different it might be from these. So so try to try to do that a little bit as we go through this, and maybe go back and listen to those last three if you get some more time and do that too. Ask yourself the same questions and then think about the why, think about the thought process behind how they answer. If you can do that, I think you're gonna get the very most possible out of these what would you do episodes? So that is That's the last thing I want to leave you with here. Uh. If you're not familiar with Mark Drewy, he is the host of a bunch of different shows. He's one of the co founders of Drewy Outdoors. They have the Drewy Outdoors deer Cast app now, which is a great tool. You can see their stuff on YouTube on the Outdoor channel all over the place. Uh, there's some of the you know, the leaders in the outdoor media industry. It's hard to avoid what they got going on out there because it's everywhere. So hopefully Mark someone you know and you're interested to hear from. If that's the case, we should probably just get into it. So I'll just stay here in the front end. Thanks for listening. I hope you guys really enjoy this one. And let's get to my chat with Mark Drewy. Al Right, we are back for another episode with Mr Mark Drewy. Mark, thank you so much for coming back on the show man. I love it. Mark, Thanks for having me. I really appreciate you having me on. It's It's become an annual treat that I look forward to every year, knowing or hoping that we can have this chat. Um So, pressures pressures on because people have high expectations whenever they see your name on the show. Well, surely we can disappoint them. This we'll see. Um But, like I was telling you just before we started recording for this episode, different than some of our past ones where we've drilled into specific topics, I more so want to throw a bunch of different hypothetical scenarios at you and then kind of have you explained what you think you would do, or what your thought process would be, or what other information you would need to know to make the right decision, and just kind of see if we can learn through your thought process. Um So, I don't know. I found this to become a fun thing. I've been trying this with some folks and it seems to be interesting and in a little different So if your game to take on the Wired to Hunt, what would you do? Gauntlet? I say we just jump into it. I'm happy to do it. You know how analytical I am a lot. It will spend the entire time on the first scenario if if we do that answer as many as I can, but I get deep the weeds pretty easily when you do things so far away, because I'm anxious to see what you're gonna ask. All Right, Well, I've got stuff that ranges from kind of land management stuff to pure hunting stuff too, various specific scenarios on your farm all the way to what if I took away your farm everything from early season to late season, everything between. So we'll kind of see what we can get through. But here's the first one, and I kind of dropped a hint. Let's say God forbid, something happened and and you you lost your job, you lost your hunting properties, you lost your leases, funds are tight. Uh, you can't get your hands on a new farmer place, but you still want to kill a nice pers mature buck this year. What would be like your your gut reaction and your thought process to how to start a new Would it be public land, would it be going back to door knocking? Um? If you were in that situation today, it's it's August a tenth or something like that. What would be your next steps if if everything you had is gone now and you've got to start from square one. I think it would be fun. And I've actually thought about doing this for turkeys, but not for deer. But I think it'd be fun given my current situation. Right everything else is gone, but I still put feelers out there on social media and go, hey, I'm looking for a place to hunt. Where can we go? You know? That would be one thing I would do. Now if Mark Drewy, the personality and the shows and all that didn't exist, and I was just starting over a new and I have no contacts anywhere, then my butts going to public for sure. Um, And that would probably be uh. That would also mirror efforts to where I'm also knocking on doors because I'm a networker and I'm a people guy. So I'd probably spent some time in some bars and get to know some people and say, uh, you know, start talking deer and talking to Lingo and seeing where I might be able to get some permission. If I didn't get that permission, man, I know some public areas that are just dynamite, I mean just dynamite there in Iowa. Um, So I'd start scouting and probably enjoy the challenge of trying to get on a mature buck on on a fairly decent sized public area there in southern Iowa, perhaps northern Missouri. Now, early on in your hunting kind of journey, you had to do some of that stuff, right, I mean, I know that you didn't just hop out of the womb and have all this great hunting land. Did you have any little tricks or any specific things he used to do that helps you get that permission? I know you mentioned networking at bars and stuff, but were there any specific ways or examples of things that helped you get over that. It's a tough hump for a lot of people to to get that permission to talk to new people. Anything from the old days you could bring back up. Yeah, we we would always go and talk to people not with intent of asking, but rather the intent of getting to know them, who they are, what they do, how they feel about it prior to asking, and once we got a feeling that they may be open to it, then we would would ask the question. So you can kind of get that feeling just by getting to know somebody, and that's you're doing two things. You're accomplishing, you know, getting inside their head and learning more about them, and then they're also getting a comfort level with you. So I think you have to first create a comfort level prior to asking for permission. You know, That's the way we always did it. I'm going back into the nine through range. Uh. Those were the years that we were hunting, both public and and um either a lease or permission or with an outfit or something like that. A lot of it was permission, especially there in southern Iowa. Everything we were doing on our early videos was all permission, our our public. Okay, so let's let's improve your situation just a little bit. Then. Let's say you managed to hold onto a little bit of of a nest egg. I don't know exactly how much this is, but it's enough money to maybe buy a small, small starter farm. And you've got you know, your whole state of of ile ar Miers or your those couple of states there to pick from, and you've got just enough to get something small. Let's say somewhere in that range. Could you just describe for me your ideal hypothetical farm if you had this this just enough money gets something like that, and you're gonna start all anew and this is gonna be that thing that begins your whole process of trying to build from there and try to get on some decent deer hunting. Um, would you be looking to get like that spot that you're gonna keep on hunting forever, or would you be going into this immediately thinking, Okay, I'm gonna buy this twenty but I'm gonna flip it in two years. So you're thinking about that from the get go. What's your thought process? And then what's that first farm gonna look like? In as much detail as you can hypothetically think of? Sure, so I would look for any time I buy a farm or Lisa farm, I'm looking into one that's a long term play. I never I never go into a uh situation and go, I'm gonna flip this in a year, you know, because if it's not something that I'm willing to hunt the rest of my life, then how would I ever have the ability to flip it to someone and say you're gonna want to hunt this for the rest of your life. So that upfront, I'm always looking for that long term play and that that is to find me to me as especially if it's a small farm, it is it will be of the utmost importance that it is in an area that's surrounded by great white tail habitat if you will. So if I can't provide it on the property, then it has to already exist right to you. You won't have control over what your neighbors are doing. If they manage, all the better if they don't. A lot of southern Iowa has incredible whitetail habitat. So I'd be looking at programs like on X or any of the mapping programs, looking at all the neighbors. The larger the bordering property owners, the better if you can find that. And then on that piece, I would want to have great access UM. I'd want to have some seclusion from road front inge so that you don't get bothered by um passing vehicles and whatnot. I'd wanted off the road UM. I talked to a lot of realtors, and they often talk about how difficult it is to sell a piece of property that's at the end of the dead end road or is landlocked, or only has access through a mud road. But those are things I like because it minimizes other traffic in and around the area. So I'd want it secluded, and i'd want some form of water close or at least the ability to put water on it, and I would want decent cover where I'd have some morning hunting, but I would most depend on the cover that surrounds it. And then I'd load it with food. Man. I mean, at the end of the day, food wins the day for me when it comes to white to hunting. Even if I have to sacrifice some morning hunting, I still want to have the ability to lure dear to my property every single day of this season. I do that through food sources and a variety of different food sources. So I'm gonna load it with clovers, brass because and hopefully at least one destination field of beans or corn, and uh probably take advantage of bedding and cover on neighbors. So I would probably lean on the side of the ability to plant food provided that there was cover surrounding it. How much food do you think you need. Let's sound like a percentage basis of the property to to make a real significant impact. If we're in like farm country where you've got neighboring farms that got hundred acre bean fields and everything that, but you only have a forty acre property, you know as an acre two acre is gonna make enough difference in your mind, um, or do you feel like you really need to have something significant to really change things. It really depends on the makeup of the farm. If you've got, say a travel corridor that's leading from big cover out to um tillable big tillable, then you can have some staging plots that are phenomenal. Uh If, however, you don't have that and you want to create cover, then you want more opportunity to plant perhaps corn or sregum or something like that. So it really would depend on the makeup of that farm. Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. Something you mentioned a second ago UM about the neighborhood kind of triggered something that I often debate myself, which is, would you rather have a bunch of neighbors that are eight managers with similar goals as either passed on young bucks, but they're also really good hunters, so they're they're serious competition to kill the big buck you're after two? Or do you want neighbors who are not such great managers. They might shoot younger bucks, but they're lousy hunters, like you don't need to worry about them getting the big one. Uh I. I have scenarios that are both of those and we we uh we do quite well in both scenarios, so either would be great. Um. Either the scenarios would work provided that the habitats there. It goes back to my initial answer to the question, like, you gotta have an overall deer population in the area that's sustainable and healthy and good. And whether the neighboring uh um landowners hunt and aren't good at hunting to your term, or whether they all manage. I don't think it matters as long as you're dirt is in the right little neighborhood. I mean it. It's You're only as good as your spot, and if you've got a little spot, it needs to be a really, really good spot. Yeah do you so it sounds like the answer is no. But do you ever change your specific habitat improvements or hunting strategy based off of the skill level or strategies that you know your neighbors are going to use? Does that ever influence what you do? Oh? For sure? Absolutely? Yeah, absolutely yeah. So UM. I can't think of an exact example, but because I don't want to give away let a neighbor know something careful here, you got to be very careful. But absolutely I change per form per neighbor, you know, and more specifically because and I keep talking about, you know, different forms. And I've gotten the point where I have my main farm there in Iowa, and then I have a few at lights around same in Missouri, um and there are certain farms that I know I need to get in there and get serious about it earlier in the season because uh, neighbor X is probably gonna be here during this part of the season, you know. Our great example in Missouri, I have a have a farm that borders a neighbor that really only comes during rifles season, and but they come gangbusters multiples, and my piece is not very good once rifle season starts and it stays poor all the way through the end of the season. So in terms of daylight activity, so I make sure that I do my do my due diligence from a camera survey standpoint, and then you know, really hunted wisely as often as I can prior to their arrival. I plant it accordingly, because I'm planting stuff that's gonna be appealing during the early part of the season, and I'm not so much worried about the latter part of the seasons. So in a form like that that's gonna go you know dark anyway in mid November. For the most part, I'm gonna rely heavily on either clover clover or radishes. However, I have other forms that really don't get good to the late season, so therefore I'm not gonna plant clover and radishes there. I'm gonna plant you know, soybeans or corn because I know that it's a timing issue. So you can plant according to the time of the year that you're going to hunt, and you can learn when it's best based on your neighbor's activity, and just you know, hunt around that. Interesting. No, okay, what about the really good hunter scenario where you've got several neighbors that are primo like they they're they really know what they're doing. They also are improving their properties in certain ways that you know are smart. In that situation, would you and let's say there's a target buck that you're all after. There's this there's this one buck that obviously every and is interested in. Would you hunt more aggressively because you know that every day that passes there's a better chance that the other guys are going to get him, or would you hunt more conservatively because you just don't want to bump him onto the neighbors where he's got a chance of getting killed. What's what's what would you do or what's your thought process on balancing that. I'm conservative and in all situations, Um, I live by the trail camera surveys and and the results that I'm getting, So you know, I'm very calculated and when I will go in and hunt a particular buck, so regardless of the situation around me, I'm gonna be very very conservative on my approach. And I'm disciplined to the point that even if I had a small piece of property, and you know, I'm not gonna be hunting that property very often at all. Most likely I'm gonna wait till there's a good buck there and then go in and go after him, and not go during the bad times, you know, like i'd be watching deer cast and of avoiding the bad days. I'd be watching my trail cameras, whether they're cellular or ones that I pulled a card off of, and you know, I'm gonna go when when the opportunity is greatest to kill a deer, as opposed to worrying about the neighbors. I think when you get into that scenario and you start worrying about everybody else, you're really hurting yourself. You can only do what you can do, and one things for sure in that scenario, the first thing I'm gonna do when somebody else kills the deer is be the first guy to text them and congratulate him, you know, because you want the same feeling afforded to you if you're the one that kills the deer. So if you're in the neighborhood of management, then everybody should be on the same page and just as happy for the neighbor to kill it as yourself, because in due time, everybody, everybody ends up winning in that scenario. Yeah, okay, one more question. Within this kind of general scenario, we're on this small property. I'm gonna give you a little more details now about the property because it's not gonna quite what you wanted. Instead, you got stuck with. The property's mostly kind of open farm fields, um and a few fingers of cover that extend out out of a bigger chunk of timber and cover that's on the neighbors. Most of the betting you come to find is on your neighbors, What would you what are some of the things you would try to do in this kind of scenario to get a mature buck to spend more daylight hours in your place. When your cover minimal, um, it's it's open fields, So you can't all of a sudden magically have a huge forest there a bunch of really thick cover and unless you plant certain things, and uh, it's it's mostly maybe an attraction game trying to pull them off. The neighbors. Well, what's your thought process and what would you do in the short term versus a long term? Well, short term, I'm gonna plan as much food on it as I possibly can. Uh say, you come across this property and right now, you know, late summer, and then I'm gonna plan it heavily Tabraska's as many good places as I can, with the preparation that I'm also preparing soil for the following spring, when I'm going to transfer every single acre of that farm to the tallest, nastiest switch grass and in big blue and Indian grass that I can find and sideoats gamma. So eventually the long play is to transfer every open acre into warm season grasses. But in the short term, I would just load it with food and be very careful when I approached it. Um, you know, I think it's as long as you've got to cover to one side or or two sides, and you could add food, you can still expect some success. Uh, because you're only going to stay in the cover for so long. Now, If there's enough pressure around that they're just not coming there during daylight, then you know that the following year you've got to add that cover, regardless of costs. Really, otherwise you're you're gonna be spending your reels for years and years and years to come. There's certain farms that deer will walk under a daylight and others that they want, and you have to get it to where they're comfortable being there during daylight hours. Is there anything that you would do in that kind of scenario when you mentioned you want to add a lot of food out there, right, But when I hear a lot of food, one of the first things that I start worrying about is, or at least that I worry about my own personal life, is how big of a food source I plant In my worries of how mature buck probably doesn't want to walk out into a great, big, white open field around here. He's going to be more likely to be comfortable in a small area versus big and wide open. So then I find myself kind of decreasing the size of my food plots to try to keep them safe from like a mature bucks perspective. What are your thoughts on the sizes it? Would you do a bunch of little ones because of that, or you're not worried about that and you would be okay putting the big ones in. I I have no trouble putting big ones in provided that the land allows it. So often on small farms you just don't have the correct ridge top or the correct bottom field in order to put a large plot on. So more often than not, I find that, you know, because I just hate erosion, So I have a tendency to only plant the egg grade soils up on tops of bridges are in the bottom. So that's that's what I was talking about, Like I put as much on it as the land would allow, and I'd also be prepping those side hills to plant switch grasses and tall grasses the following spring. Okay, I love the switchgrass thing. That's definitely something that I've I've always dreamed of doing if I ever owned a farm myself. And and actually this far we're working on for our back forty project. I did that plant a bunch of our old fields with switchgrass. This spring frosty to him, So I'm excited to see what kind of impact that has. Are they are they coming on? And so often it's so hard to get switchgrass to establish in year one. Well, I don't know, because I actually haven't gone back to the farm since I left for my western trip two months ago, so i've switched. I did see in May just before I left that they were germinating. I was seeing stuff up and out, but I don't know how it looks now, So I'll tell you in a day or two exactly what it looks like. I could just about tell you it's full of weeds. That much I can tell you because switch grass is slow growers, like they have to grow like a foot route before they start going up. So they gotta go down before they can go up. And uh, you got a moa, moha, moha moa until it almost makes you sick the first year or two. But you have to do that in order to end up with a good stand at the end of the end of the two or three years period. It's a process. Huh, there's a process because those roots got a bury man. They have to in order to support that grass figures crossed the long run. Yeah. The other thing you can do is burn it even right now. You can burn it in August and it's gonna look like horrible, but it will help them long term. Switch grass is a long term play. It's not it's not a media graducation thing. It takes a while. Yeah. Well, that's a good reminder. I'm gonna feel slightly less bad when I go see it now. Yeah, I don't feel bad. Just mow or to burn it and it they'll come on there. They're still there, but you got a treat him, right, Yeah, that makes sense. All right, Let's let's change what we're talking about here a little bit shift away from more of the habitat stuff to hunting stuff. Um, I'm thinking this is something a lot of people are probably going to be working through, maybe over the coming weeks as we're leading into hunting season. Let's say you've got your summer trail cameras out there, you pull it and you get this giant buck, biggest buck ever maybe on your cameras and you look at this deer and you realize, Okay, I've got several this is a buck that I have several years of history with. I recognize him. He made a huge jump. Uh, you're very, very excited. Can you walk me through specifically how you would go about analyzing past pictures and observations to develop that game plan? Um, I'm wondering if you would. We we've talked about this in the past in different little pieces and parts, but I'd like to hear the whole thought process. And then secondly, I'd like to hear specifically how you would approach the dates of daylight activity from last year, Let's say, and if you had a daylight movement on October fifteenth last year, what would you do in October fifteenth this year? Um? So sorry, that's a long winded, several part question, but but that's what I'm curious to hear about. Absolutely, and believe it or not, I just did this yesterday on the flight from Salt Lake City to to St. Louis. Um, exactly what you're talking about. We have trail pictures this summer of a really, really, really big dear like you know, approaching that B October caliber, which was a giant for me, and this is the first year that I've seen that's been in that frame. He doesn't have the multi times like that. This one's a clean tent, but boys, he wear it well. I mean, he's a mega giant. So it's one of the reasons I'm so anal about trail photos each and every year of every rack buck I get. And I think sometimes as you talk to guys, and it really mystifies me how many people don't keep files of their deer pictures from season to season. And I keep every rack buck on every camera, and I'm talking across Texas, Iowa, Missouri, you know, over a hundred cameras, so it's it's probably two million plus photos a year that we look at, and I keep them all in files based on location because you get into situation now where this deer has blown up. And I've gone back three years and accumulated every single photo into a file for this year with his name on it, and I moved him all forward into my two thousand and twenty within within Buckview, which is the file system I use from their conics and and answer to your question, I'm gonna look through those files probably other times this season and try to pick out something from direction of travel to you know, where might be betting, you know, because I had this deer on. Let me take here four different camera locations across the farm across three years, and some of them were repetitive from year to year and some weren't. So I'm going back now and making notes as to what crop rotation was in the area surrounding not only right where I'm getting in, but also in this surrounding areas. I'm also trying to remember when there were cattle next door and when there weren't, and I make notes to that each and every year because I think that does affect dear movement. And I'm gonna just break him down, you know, like figure out, Okay, if he was going here on the morning of October and he's heading here, where do you think he betted? Or where do I think he betted? And then I'll start in creating maps that will eventually be one map that shows every single movement I have of that buck, and also an interpretation of what I think he was doing and where he was betting, because if I can figure out where he's betting, then I can interpret where I think he might go feed that evening and actually catching during daylight hours. Or I might be able to get on the outskirts of the bedroom that he's using habitually and catch him of the morning coming back. So it's it's really all about bead and food, and I'm trying to figure out where he's betting at certain times a year and where he's feeding at certain times a year. And did that change based on a the cattle rotation next door and be the crop rotation in the general area. How much do you discount the data from last year as compared to two years ago because of a different crap in the rotation? So to say, in a different way, if if two years ago as corn, last year as beans, this year's corn, and now I might normally think, Okay, what he did last year is a five year old or a four year old is probably a little bit more valuable altho when he did the year prior as a three year old, But maybe not if it's a different crap. How How how's the influences I know it influences things, but how significantly in your mind I think it does? Influence it, because it just depends whether this dear. You know, I've seen deer have preferences in tastes that differ, if that makes sense, believe it or not. I've seen deer that call them carn hogs down in Texas. Well, you see the same thing up here. I think they have a sweet tooth. They love those carbs. And I've seen other deer that really don't come to a cut corn field that often, or even a corn pole when you put him out in the summer and get pictures and stuff. So it can be a little bit dear dependent. Um. This particular dear seems to like corn um as it pertains to that rotation when it was cut corn. I mean that's when I was getting in the most, certainly when he was when he was three. So you have to take that. It's a great point that you make. You have to take that into consideration as well. You have to interpret what you've experienced with three year olds in the past, and they're movement during daylight activity versus a five year old this year. Excuse me, Can I expect that same daylight activity during that exact same phase. And the answer to that is probably not as much might expect something, but probably not as much. Those three year olds they walk, man, they get out, and they travel and they go. So it's gonna be very, very important that I figure out exactly where he was betting at certain times a year, as opposed to depending on a daylight fly by right when he was three. You really have to figure out where he's betting and get right next to that bed. That's where it all comes down to, not get in it, but next to it. Now, similar question, but how much do you discount nighttime pictures? Because as I've been trying to, I'm doing something very similar with a buck right now. I'm in my third year with him, and to try to make it more manageable, I've really focused my deep analysis on just daylight pictures or observations. So I've got my spreadsheet that lists every one of those daylight pictures or sightings and then all the data. Um, but am I missing I'm sure I'm missing something. It's just a matter of how much time can I afford to to put to it. But when it comes to those nighttime picks, am I missing them? Boat not trying to derive some information from them too? Or is it okay, because that nighttime stuff could be you know, obviously these deer could be betted along ways away and still showing my cameras at night, um, etcetera, etcetera. What are your thoughts there? I think they're worth a lot personally. So I look at the uh nighttime photo, I look at the time of the photo, and then I go backwards to whatever year it was and find out what the moon phase was the day of that photo. So just because he's moving during night, if that occurred during dark of the moon, probably isn't very surprising. And likewise, if I look at my daylight photos and see how that correlates to the food moon and see whether it's a morning photo or an evening photo, is he following the trend that I see so often with so many deer in that as you approach that full moon as it's rising in the afternoon, is he moving a little bit more during daylight of an afternoon or right after that full moon? Is he moving during daylight right after it of a morning? So I look at every photo morning or day and go back to the moon phase and then look at where he's at. And all I'm trying to do is figure out where that deer's betting when he is walking past this camera on this portion of the farm. You know, is he head in the bed? Is he coming out of bed at this time? Uh? You know, because I have daylight photos of him. So sometimes camera you know of camera pictures a moment in time, Well that's just a moment. You don't know what he did the other you know, the rest of the day. Um, but he's still on your farm, right, That means he's there. And a lot of these deers just don't travel all that far. So uh, you know, I think every photo is worth a lot, and I almost look at them as I ignore daylight versus versus daytime, if that makes sense, because I know he was there that day. Um, just because he walked by it at you know, four thirty am, doesn't mean he didn't bed down thirty seconds later and then and then permanently bed and walk during daylight, you know, right at daybreak and going up to this bed that I think he's betting in, if that makes sense. You know. So nighttime photos I think are still very valuable, you know, because say you get one at nine pm, you know, just after darker eight pm, you know, during the season. It might be seven PM and it's dark. Well, he was close, right, He might have been feeding for an hour and then walked by your camera. So camera surveys are camera on cameras only give you a moment in time. But he's still there. If you've got a picture of a mature dear, that's a huge deal. Man, he's walking on your property. So I don't I like both nighttime and daytime photos when you're when you're getting both, that just means that's where your camera was when he walked by that particular day. Yeah, that's that's a great point. Um. Now on the daylight note though, I know that in the past we've talked about this kind of annual pattern that we can often see where bucks will do something relatively similar from year to year, tied to certain parts of the year. Um So, how specifically are you what am I trying to stay here? Where we are? You've been following this for years and years? Now, how closely, how aggressively will you take a crack at a buck like that? Now, if, for example, this buck that you've rediscovered, if it does show if we do go back and look at pictures from last year and he daylighted. He was in daylight on one of your food plots on October um and then October. How seriously are you about trying to get in there and say he was daylight on this date last year. I'm gonna be in there. Is it have to be the same exact can editions, doesn't have to be backed up by additional new intel from this year? Uh? What are you? How how much emphasy putting that? Are you looking at my photos? First of all, because you're just about hit his two daylight ranges, Mark, I really do my research for these podcasts, you do. I'm telling you he was actually daylight through the sixteenth when he was three and four, and then he daylighted again, um at October. The was it twenty nine through November four when he was three and four, and then he daylighted again November, like tiers in a row. So this tear has been pretty predictable in terms of that, So you bet you I'm gonna absolutely zone in on that, and I'm going to correlate and cross reference all of my assumptions based on where I think he's betting from the stuff I was painting out earlier. And then trying to make a good approach and get in there, and we're planting with this in mind right now, right you know, like we're planning green fields to try to attract this year sometime in October, and then of course the mid November was rud activity. He's just walking when I got in there. But both of the October daylights that I was getting he was heading to are from a food source. So I'm planting accordingly with my radishes right now for that dear. Now, what if what if the conditions that you get when we arrived to that time period this year are bad? What if they're off? They're very different from what they were last year, in the year prior, and they're not great, you know, just given the fact that it's warm temperatures or funky wind or something. Do you brush that aside and still go because of the previous year's intel or do you say, okay, then no, I'm not gonna I'm not gonna hunt this three day window because of that. If my access is button down and I can get in and out without anything letting, without anything knowing I'm coming and going, I'll still hunt it, um, But my access isn't that way. In this particular instance. So therefore I will I will hold off rather than than risk it unless it's I mean, unless it's borderline. But if it's terrible, terrible weather twenty degrees above, you know, normal, and you know the pressure sucks. I'm just not going to burn a day on a on a maturity or this caliber um. But once it's you know, once you get into the rut, that's a different answer. You know, once you get into the rut and there's rut activity going with it, that's a different answer. October food activity. You've got to have the weather on your side to kill one. During the rut you rather important, but it's not as important because you've got other variables in there that are influencing movement. All right, So you're building this this kind of internal map. Do you do you actually make a physical map or just kind of in your head. It's in my head. Okay, So you've got this internal map in your head, You've you've analyzed all these photos, You've planted things specifically for specific bucks in certain spots. It's the night before opening day and I don't know which state this is. You know, you can tell us you don't need Okay, so it's Iowa. It's October or September or whatever it is. The day before October one, Now, um, what do you do the night before opening day this year? Are you spending with your wife and your family? Are you glassing? What's the best way to spend that last evening before the opener? Well, I'll problem it's like the adversary because it's so I'll be hunting down there, all tagged out. I'll be at uh the Mexican restaurant in No Silla, having a margarita with salt time. Honestly, answer, I'll be getting ready for a very long Iowa season ahead and having a having a good time. And it's it's one of those joyous occasions that the night before Iowa season, everybody's in a good mood. We cannot wait to start hunting these bucks that you know, the plans in place, the food plots are up hopefully and growing, and the stands are all ready to go. And now it's just about going out there. And you know that we've planned the execution. Now we've got to go execute the plans. Is the answer any different? On September fourteenth in Missouri, No, not really, we're we're anxious for both of them to start. Although often September fourteenth of Missouri is tempered by really really warm temperatures, the last few years it's just been miserable the first week of the Missouri season. Taylor and I were just talking about that this weekend in Utah. She was like, Man, I'm limited on when I'm going to come in because they're in the middle of a new house build, you know. And I said, well, I would air towards the latter part of September rather than the first few first few days of the season, because you've got a rising moon in late September, and traditionally the temperatures are cooling off somewhat, so that first week of the Missouri season can be tricky. Beans are still green, temperatures are warm. This year, we don't have a rising moon yet, so I look very forward for the last seven days of September this year. Now, now, my the next scenario I was going to throw at you, it's it's a slight variation on on what we talked about with the daylight past activity from past years, and it's it's directly related what you just mentioned, which is those warm early season temperatures. So let's say leading into opening day, We'll say it's leading into opening day, Missouri, you've been getting daylight trail camera pictures of a mature buck that you want to target. Maybe it's not the two days prior, but let's say over the over the ten days prior, you've got three four daylight sightings of him coming out to a spot you could hunt. That's pretty exciting stuff. I would be feeling good about my opening day sit but when you look at your weather conditions, you've got lousy, warm, hot days on those first three days. So in my head, I'd be thinking, man, that first night of the season is such a great opportunity because there hasn't been prior hunting pressure, and I know that's going to change each day afterwards, but it's lousy conditions. Would you go in there and hunt opening data matter what because of that, or would you still, as you mentioned, wait to have the right weather, be conservative and wait till three days in the season. Disregarding hunting pressure impacts from other people, I'd wait. Yep. I'm always a waiter. I mean only because through history I've seen the nights that they'll move during earlier season, and I've seen the nights they won't and they just don't move nearly as well, or worst case scenario, they finally come out, it's too late. Then you got to get out of there right. And he walked onto the field at a hundred yards, he's not within bow range and he's out there feeding, and then you've got to get out of there right because he came out at the last five minutes of life. I hate that scenario. I want to get in there where I have enough time to let that deer get onto the field, feed for a little bit, and then walk past because oftentimes my my setups aren't exactly right where they walk out, and it requires them to get full where they come out and then walk past because I'm so crazy about my access in and out, so I'm often not close enough. But they have to do some walking. And you'll find that those big bucks, especially early in the season, soon as they hit that plot, they're gonna they're gonna feed for thirty minutes before they'll make a move. So, um, I want that weather on my side, the weather end of the moon. What about that exact scenario then where you ended up going in there and it was a little bit too late of movement because it was a little warm. Maybe it was me and uh I somehow convinced you with my over eagerness to go in there anyways, and you listen to me foolishly and you did it, and you went in and you're sitting there in that buck comes out right towards the end of the night. But it's it's early season, so you know, at least where I'm honeying in Michigan, I don't like to get aggressive with calling too earlier. But here he is the buck I want. He's a hundred yards away or ninety yards away or something. I've got a few minutes left. Do you just let it slide and watch him walk away, because as you just know, it's gonna be too much to ask for him to come all that way over? Or will you try to get aggressive in that last five minutes and do some calling something to try to make something happen on nothing? No, what I wouldn't call um. I'd watch him and try to learn something from it, and then I'd sit there a very long time in the dark before. So you know, I'm just I just hate that scenario. But when it happens my butts parked there for at least an hour after dark before I'll attempt getting down and I'll continue to glass him. Now, if he walks off the field, I'll get down quick and scurry out of there. But if he's still on that field, which oftentimes they do, they come out and they stand there and feed and don't move very far, or they'll come and spar with other bucks, or they'll just be feeding there. I've had him bed down. I mean, it's just a nightmare. Um. At worst case scenario, I will al hoot our coyote, how in order to try and get some of the deer off the field, and that that has worked pretty good. Actually, once it's dark and you clear the field, it's almost as if it really didn't bother them, because they don't clear very far. But if you clear them while it's still any lightness guy at all, they seem to clear farther and harder, and it affects them a little bit more. But once you have the cover of darkness, do you ever notice how much more calm they are? Even when you bump one on the way into the stand and the free dawn, there's just a lot more calm when they're under the cover of darkness, so I wait for complete cover of darkness, and if I have to clear myself, I'm gonna ol, hoot or are potentially you know, kyo hall at them? What about you who? Or you howl? And you spook some of them off, But like you mentioned, you know, they're not gone gone. They're somewhere with an earshot probably or at least a lot of them are. Do you try to sneak out of the stand still or do you just like rip the band aid off and just say, I'm gonna get out of here as fast as I can. I'm gonna make a ruckus because you know, I'm just gonna just get out of here. What approach you take? Sneak yep, yep um. I just even when I'm tracking, and you know, even on heroes and stuff, when we're sitting there with the deer, I want out of there as much as like, I just hate being in their world and letting them pattern me. So I'm gonna sneak out and try not to affect them. Okay, Now this is another scenario, totally different part of the year, but imagine it's November. We're heading in for a morning hunt. It's November four, and you've got one of those super duper quiet, perfectly still, very crunchy, frosty mornings. I know, you know those days where every step you take seemingly, you know, reverberates two miles out in every direction, and like every step just makes me just cringe with how much noise I'm making. In that situation, I often debate the same thing. Do I still do I try to sneak and take like an hour to get there, or do I just make a ruckiss getting there? But it only takes me five minutes and then I've got fifty five minutes that no dear is gonna hear me at all? What would you do? I go slow and quiet, but I will go a little bit earlier on those days because frost is gonna bet them hard. And if I can get by those deer, you know you're gonna you know, you're gonna affect dear, because they're gonna hear you. Right, you go as slow as you can, you go as early as you can, and you get in there and you let everything settle down. Because those frosty mornings, even if you almost walk into one and bump them and they and they run, they don't go very far. I mean, it puts them into a very lethargic mood on those heavy, frosty mornings. So I give myself plenty of time to go slow. But I also know in the back of my head if I do bump one, they're probably not gonna go very far because they're pretty lethargic until that that sun comes up and burns a lot of that frost off. Those are those days where you gotta expect that movement to be delayed by at least hour, hour and fifteen minutes, hour and thirty minutes. It's it's well into the day oftentimes before that big move happens. Let's stick a little bit with the weather thing. I know we've beaten this horse to death maybe over past episodes, but um, I want to just get a little bit more detail on the execution of of how you use weather and moon factors. You guys have done a great job of talking about this in your dear Cast app and providing that two of the people. Um, but let's say now we're into October. It's mid October October and a big cold front is rolling through, so it's kind of that mid October quote unquote lull of sorts. But you have this great front and it's probably the first big front of the year. It's gonna drop temperatures twenty degrees from the prior highs. It's hitting overnight, so your first like daylight cold temperature is gonna happen that morning, that coming morning, and that it's gonna stay cool for about three days. Let's say, walk me through exactly how you would think about hunting that period, Let's say, from the day prior to the front hitting to the three cool days afterwards. Um. In specifically, I mean like what quality of stands are you hunting at what point during that four day period? What are some of the things you're thinking about? Um? Would you hunted differently because mid October than you would have laid October? Or does the first cold front of October mean big things? No matter what it means, it means big things. However, it's hitting in the dead middle of the month. And if you take this year scenario, you're also dark of the moon, so you've got two strikes against you right out of the right out of the bat man. It's it's mid October, which is the level I mean we're all in the right mood, they're not quite there yet, um And it's dark of the moon, which I really just don't have nearly as much success on dark in the moon as I do in and around the full But if you've got a cold front, we had a chapter in our book Hunting John white Tails called the cold October Wind, And you can't ever miss that first first major cold in October. It can be magical been during the law. Even on the dark of the mood, you may not see the activity that you want to see because it is dark of the moon, but that first thirty to forty five minutes in the last thirty are still going to be quite good. So the night before the front hits, I'm gonna be on a green food source, on an animal that I've patterned or have pictures of, and the hopes of seeing him ahead of the front. The first morning of it, I'm gonna be in a stand somewhere on a hardwood ridge that's probably got some make corns dropping are certainly on next to a bedroom. And then I'm gonna hunt every evening in the front, and i won't hunt any more mornings. Most likely that first north wind, the morning is very very important, and they're going to move on that morning. The subsequent ones not as much. Mid October probably a little fraid of bumping some deer route. So I'm gonna use the cover of the afternoon bed to get into the food source that I'm hunting that deer on. And I'm not going to expect much activity until the last light because of that dark of the moon. And I won't be disappointed because I'm not seeing dear. It's it's amazing. Even those major cold fronts on dark in the moon during the October law, they could be pretty frustrating. Those big bucks still may not move during daylight. It's uh, it's amazing. Even with the weather, that moon has has some mighty powerful influence over dear in the middle of October. So given that moon impact, you've got the great weather, but the questionable moon and the questionable time of year. You're telling your your standing is gonna be pretty damn good. But you know there's a little bit of negativity here. Does this demand in a grade stand site or are you thinking I'm not gonna go to my very best green field for that night? I might This might be B B plus type spots. You know what I mean, I'll probably because the front is so good, I'll probably still go try it. And if it doesn't produce that first day or first night, then then I'm gonna pivot to be you know, those coal fronts, you just never know when you have one bedded within hundred yards or where you're sitting, you know, and maybe you've got a picture, maybe you've got a cell camera that that leads you to a certain spot, or maybe you've got history with a big buck that leads you to a certain spot. I'm still gonna try it. Okay, I like I like that. I like that. Um, it's that same time here. Let's say it's October. Um, but I'm gonna give you a little bit of wiggle room. It could be similar between October fourteenth and October twenty fourth. Let's say we're gonna give you that ten day window. Somewhere within that area, you're out there hunting. Maybe that front came through, and you're out there in one of these good spots and you see a dough getting chased hard, and there's several bucks. Um, maybe one of them's mature, on the edge of mature. Maybe there's like a three four year old type buck running around, and then a bunch of young deer and they're they're chasing this dough down like crazy, and you would seemingly think by seeing this like, okay, that's probably or it's possibly a doll that's coming to heat early. Um, how would you respond to that? Would you stick with just your normal mid October hunting strategy or would you shift for a couple of days into Uh, okay, we've got like a rut type situation for a couple of days here. What would you do? What's your thought process with that happening? Well, it's a very realistic scenario because every year in October, like man, there's always some giants that get shot, and to me, it's always that those first really big alpha dose, those big old gals. I think some of those start putting off semester signals or perhaps full heat, full on heat in the month of October, and you see the slight little flurry every year, those are those mornings, especially if they're companied with a cold front, that you could probably get out and have some success with some light calling, some light sparring hunting. Uh an acorn flat or possibly a bedroom of the morning, as opposed to just an afternoon approach during the month of outer over, which historically I'm more afternoons, you know, of my hunts in October. In the afternoons, I'll preserve a morning hunt for the first you know, cold north wind. But if I start to see that flurry that you're describing, I'm probably going to try and take advantage of that by getting in closer to where they either came from or where they're going or where I assume that does betting are are feeding, whether it be a morning hunt or an evening hunt. So I'm gonna get pretty aggressive because it's a short window. It doesn't last long, and sometimes you can kept some bucks really with their eyes rolled back in and around that first little flurry of estres. And I've I've had decent luck calling Bucks during this period as well. But I do more of a starring type of sound than I do an all out fight type of sound, if that makes sense. I try to make the sound similar to what they would be doing during that time of the year. How long is that time window that you think you have to to approaches that a day is a two days? What is that a couple of days? A couple of days in eighteen, right, and there is generally the best too in October four for that crazy flurry. Some years you see it, some years you don't. I think it's just a matter whether you're lucky enough to have to have been close to one of those those older matriarchal does and and actually see it happen. Most years you don't see it, but I do think it occurs. Watch there's always some giant shot all across the country those few days in October. If if let's say we get a little bit later, we're that last ten days or so of the month, we're kind of working our way through the season here, and it's it's October twentie to TWI somewhere in that, and you're out there getting after it, and you see a buck do something out of range of your your tree stand, of your blind two days in a couple of day window, let's say, over three hunts, you happen to hunt within sight of the same area. Maybe we're in the same stand both times, but you could see this same fellow field of from the distance, and a buck moved there there two or three days. But you don't have a tree stand over there. You don't have a blind over there, and it's a relatively intrusive spot to get to. It's right in the edge of a betting area. Let's say, um, historically it seems like you're pretty conservative with your stands. You tend to have a lot of them up preseason. In that case, after seeing two moves and three days like that, would you go in there and set a new stand midday on octobery or something? Or what what would you do? I would if if I thought it was approachable with the right wind and the right windy conditions to do it without without blowing him out of there, so you know where he went to bed, and you think, oh, he could come back out this evening and go right through that same spot. Absolutely, I'll go in there and hanging hunt, you bet you if it's if it's if you've got the right conditions to do so. Windy days, middle of the day or ideal times, provided your winds blowing to a safe direction, you have the luxury of the high winds really hampering their ability to hear you. So if the conditions are right, I'll go do it. If it's a dead calm one, now I'm not doing it, you know, because they're they're gonna hear you trying to do it. I would assume unless you're really really stealthy and you can get it up without making a single peeper. But I'm too clumsy for that. So, uh, those those calm days, I'm I'm generally holding holding off. Have you ever done or thought about the old farmer trick where you want to do something like that put a stand up, so you go in there as if it's just like a farm day kind of thing, rolling there with a big trailer and make a bunch of noise and run the chainsaw or whatever it is. But you're putting up a blinder tree stand and the hope being that the deer used to this kind of obvious activity around harvest season and they're not bothered by that. Is that something you've ever kind of used. Absolutely, we do it off attractors, you know, like if there's a camera I want to check, I'll go check it off the tractor, or sometimes I'll wait till the middle of the night to go check stuff off the tractor, and they it doesn't other them hardly at all. So yes, it's a great point, but I don't make extra noise trying to act like I don't care. I just simply use the noise of a tractor to cover it. You just raised the question when it comes to checking trail cameras, and you could go into a spot and check them on a tractor or in your truck. Let's say you've got some field edge cameras, is it would you say it's better and less intrusive to drive your vehicle in and make that check in the middle of the day or in the middle of the night. The middle of the night interesting, Sure there is a calmness, but it depends exactly where it's at. If it's on a food source, you know that you can get too during the middle of the day and have zero zero point zero percent chance of a deer seeing or hearing you or smelling you. Then I'll do that which I often put my cameras in those locations, right. I put them in areas where I can get in and get out of it without bothering deer. But if it's one, then I just have to get to and I don't want to bother anything. Man. You wait till the cover of darkness. Drive that tractor and they're real slow, and check it, and then you're not going to affect a thing. In my opinion, they just you know, you could. I've driven right past big Bucks at night and they'll walk thirty forty yards and they go back to doing whatever they're doing. Those tractors just do not bother them that much. It's it's pretty amazing, especially during the middle of the night. And would you say that would still be the truth even if it's like a a food source that you know there's gonna be a bunch of deer on Are you okay with clear in a field like that given the vehicle? Well, he I wouldn't want to. Um, That's why I say it. If it's a food source and I know I can get in and out of the food source during the middle of the day, I would opt for that. If it would cover and I had to go check it, you know, middle of the night, they're probably not in there anyway, They're probably out on the food source. So um, you know, so I guess and answer your question, food source, I'm trum probably checking middle of the day, betting I'm probably checking more at night. And so whenever I feel like they're there, And do you feel like the type of vehicle makes the difference, like as attractor a better option than a pickup truck or U TV or something. I think, so, yeah, yeah, I just haven't seen them react much to attractor hardly at all. I mean they really for whatever reason that that sound of that diesel just almost like a sleep machine for him. That just doesn't affect him that bad. And I think they've grown up around farmers and and but I'm hunting in farm country right northern Missouri and southern Ireland. Tractors just don't pose much of a threat to them. I guess, uh, I guess I need to just pony up and buy myself a tractor one of these years. Then I need a good trail camera, check and tool exactly. We'll talk to talk to a combiner. They see more giant bucks than anybody, you know, during the hardest part of the season. I mean, they can see the same buck on every round in some of those fields. It's amazing how those those gear just don't get bothered by combines. Are are tractors speaking to that? In a in a since wation where you're hunting the edge of or very near to a field that's getting harvested, are you in in the case where your shots would be, you know, to the edge of that field. Would you stay hunting a spot like that. Let's say you went in in the afternoon and then for the last couple of hours of the day, all of a sudden, here comes the farmer. He's gonna be combining the standing cornfield right next to you. Would you stick it out because those deer relatively used to those comments coming through, or you know, would you say, well, yeah, they're used to it, but they're not so used to it that they're gonna let it go. Driving by and still stand ten yards out in this cut corn field let me shoot them. Well, I have stuck it out in many occasions, and some of that depends on what type of stand you're in. If you're in a transitional stand a little bit off the field, I've had really good luck with deer coming both ways, once out of curiosity coming from bed to look out in the field, and others coming out of the field back into security cover. And if you're just off of it's pretty good sich wation. If you're right on the edge of the field, you're you're asking for a lot of luck to go your way to just succeed in that situation. So I'm probably gonna you know, I may stick it out, depending on how late they start, but if it's early in the afternoon and I can go get into another stand, I'm probably going to do that. I'm hoping this next scenario won't be what you're dealing with, but it could. It could happen. It's late October. It's October somewhere in that ballpark, and this mega giant you've gotten Iowa. You still have not gotten any daylight pictures from him. He's not gone daylight. You haven't seen him, but you know he's still alive and he's still around, just not moving in daylight where you have your cameras or where you've been hunting. The rut is approaching very quickly. Any day now is going to break loose. And there's this there's always this risk that once the rut hits, these bucks just go willie nelly all over the place and they become much more difficult to pattern. They could get killed by the neighbors, et cetera. Some people would worry about those kinds of things. So in that situation, how would you proceed? Would you change up things dramatically to try to get your last abbot and pre rut or would you just wait until he finally does get going and the rut gets going? What would you do? And you know, I love those last four days of October, five days, I guess really through thirty one. I mean, that's that's the time. So I'm just gonna assume that that phase is going to kick in, and I'm gonna keep hunting my my plan, the one that I set forth early in the year based on where I think I can intercept this guy. I'm still gonna make sure I've got good access in and out. I'm gonna hunt the weather the best I can, and I'm gonna hunt more and more as I approached the latter part of October, because in an instant it can all change. You know, you're only looking for that five minute period where he daylights for you, and the later in October you get, the greater your odds are that it's about to happen. So yeah, I get excited in and around late October, especially if he hasn't daylighted, because he's about to. You know, if you know you're on him and he's in the area and he hasn't daylighted yet. He's about to, so keep after him. Is there any kind of location and I'm assuming you know late October those evenings sits. It's it's food related, of course. Um, how would a food related evening hunt in late October be different than a food related hunt in early October? It is the same. Is that same great green food source? Have you shifted to one that's even closer to the bedding area now or something? Or uh? Is it just so dependent on intel? Generally all of our green sources are pretty close to the bedroom, so that almost wipes that scenario out because what's happening in early octobers often happening in late October. However, I might shift a little bit to a place that has a few more does to add to that overall appeal, because that's all of a sudden, The order of the day is not necessarily clover, but rather the doughs that are on the clover, and you can see their demeanor switch, especially old mature dear. We do a phase that's called prelock right there, and that is one of the best times late October to kill an absolute mega giant, really mature buck and more often than not, we're doing it on a food source, whether that be a green field of an afternoon or evening, or perhaps if it's the first north wind of a cold front, we might be on an acorn flatter somewhere in a bedroom where they're coming in the brows of a morning. But uh yeah, I mean that's those are the days we live far right late October on a green cource with a cold front. I mean, especially this year, look out, I mean that rising mood is hitting late October. Everybody get ready because it's gonna be in October to remember if we have de whether it is gonna be unbelievable. They are gonna be some mega giants killed. They're going to be incredible this year. Now, how would you set up on a little food source or don't if it's little or big, but you've got a food source that's tight to that betting area, how would you typically in how do you typically set up your blinds or tree stands in relation to that? With wind direction? So I guess what I'm trying to say is, would you sit right on the edge of the betting area with a wind blowing out of it into the field, or would you hunt on the opposite side of the field and hope those deer will come out and cross it. How do you typically try to be set up there so that the winds in your favor and and or possibly in the deer's favor in some way so that they'll come out to that area. You know that varies based on the plot and the deer for that matter. Um. Oftentimes our stand positions are based on historical deer moment within that piece of topography, are on that food plot. So we've already watched it either with a trail camera that's on time lapse or through our own observations through the years, and then we position our blind where we have probably a ninety degree wind coming off of the field into our face and then somewhere safe and the deer are crossing perpendicular to that, going past us out to another food source, if you will. Um, that's the ideal scenario in in my estimation. But that only comes through you know, lots about observation and I we just wait now we're just talking about this. We've got a new um food plot that we carved out this spring on a new lease, and we've got a really nice buck on on this particular piece. Very pleased to see the quality of deer that we got on cameras on this new lease. And we're going to position to Reconics camera is now on this bean field that we carved in and ninety degrees to each other, so that we can get a true time elapse of the entire field. And then we're gonna watch where these deer entering the field. We have an assumption of where they're coming and going from, but we don't know for sure. So we're gonna let Reconics prove it to us on this bean field and watch the deer flow for the next month and a half and um, and then you know, we'll have a better idea of where to watch and where to anticipate the deer movement once we're sitting there hunting it now. I can't remember in our past conversations if I've ever asked you about how you think these deer use the wind to determine where they go feed. Do you think they typically have got like, hey, these bucks, and are gonna want to go and hit this food source regardless of wind, or do you think that on on Monday, it's more likely the buck's going to go to that bean field because of the northwest wind. But on Tuesday it switches out to an east wind, so he's probably gonna go to the corn field the other side. Have you seen either one of those scenarios. I do see those scenarios unfold, and I personally think it's where the wind forced him to bed, as opposed to him trying to use the wind to his advantage. Of course they do that because they live by their nose. But what I noticed most about bed switching is when the wind switches or the speed switches, the bedroom switches, and therefore their entry into the field will differ based on wind direction and speed. Gotcha, now, can you just for folks that haven't heard you talked about in the past, can you talk about how you see that wind direction impacting where they bed? Are they betting? You know? I've heard I often think that they're gonna bed somewhere with the wind to their back and then watching out front. Um, can you elaborate on your thoughts there? And again, it varies based on topography, whether you're talking about a ridge or a bottom area. It varies based on situation by situations, So the only way you kind of learned that is by sitting there on different conditions and finding out how affected them, or perhaps noting the conditions and then also looking at how they approached the field. In your time elapses that you're doing, you your food plots. Time elapses on food food plots will tell you a whole a whole bunch about access to and from not only the deers, but also where you could be safe coming and going. They'll also tell you whether wind direction and speed will change where they're betting and where they're coming out at. What I find is that the stronger the wind, the lower and the topography that they bed and then feed out that evening and then lighter wind days, sometimes they're down low, sometimes they're up high. They'll bed wherever they want to on lighter one days. But one thing's for sure, when that wind is really really high, oftentimes it puts them lower intopography to get protection from that wind. Interesting. Interesting, Um, all right, we had a scenario like that class ball um Wade was up in Alberta and Kyle, his wife, was up to bat she was hunting and coon Dog and I were going to film her that night and we had thirty mile in our winds out of the northwest, and the pictures of the previous seven days said we needed to be over on this ridge top field, and I told Kyle, I was like, I know you want to go there, but my gut tells me we really really need to be down in this bottom field based on these wind speeds. So we decided to head down into this deep bottom. It was good for a northwest wind, and we probably saw forty deer that night, and previous to that, the most that had been on that field, based on the camera surveys or anyone sitting there, was ten to fifteen. But that wind literally had everything down in that valley and everything coming through. And she ended up taking a beautiful, big, giant wide five and a half yearld eight point and it worked out great. And I eventually went and checked the camera that night of the of the ridge top field and it sucked. Nothing was out there that night. So it's it's amazing how you can interpret what they might do based on wind speed and wind directions. One of those things that I've learned through the years, when it's really windy, just don't don't go sit a ridge. It's generally not a particularly it's a northwest wind, southerly winds, it's not quite as bad, they're not quite as threatened. But a big coal print blowing in with heavy wind speed, they seem to go down on those days. What's what it has to be heavy enough to make that impact that we're talking like fifteen miles an hour? What's that, I'd say, Plus, that's where it starts. You know, when it starts getting uncomfortable to you, it's uncomfortable to them as well. You know, like if you're standing there, it's like, wow, it's really it feels worse than I thought it was going to. But I find that range somewhere roight. Plus you start gusting thirty and forty, man, you better get low. Yeah. Do you ever have challenges getting in those low spots though? And having swirling winds when you're down in the valley and that heavy winds coming over top and doing funky things? Does that something you struggle with it all or give a plan for that? Oh? Absolutely? But I knew this area was safe because I've hunted it on the same conditions before and wind scouted it and knew what it did down. Of course, you're gonna have those situations if it's real heavy and it's curling back. You're not gonna kill on anyway, so don't don't sit there. So I knew this particular spot. Let's say, when you say wind scout, what would you say the average person sugar could do when it comes to trying to understand something like that. Are you saying simply like you've hunted there in the past and you've taken note of how wind effects it, or do you actually go in there in the off season or other parts of the year and somehow specifically look and see, Okay, today's got this wind. I'm going to see what the milk weed does today here or something like that. Yeah, both, and answer your question. So I'm learning it as I'm hunting them, and that's probably what most people are going to do and learn areas when it's bad, you're like, you note that, oh, this speed was you know, I was in there on A fifteen eighteen and it was curling back. However, on A eight to twelve it was fine, and you note that, or maybe in your notes or your mind you understand that. Now you can also do that when you're not hunting, but you have to pay attention whether there's leaves on the trees or not, So you'd want to scout that, you know, perhaps in March before the leaves come out on a variety of different wind speeds at in the evening, so you match the thermal's in with it and see what it's what it's all doing together. And then you also want to do that, you know, this time of the year July August, go check what that wind speeds doing because it's it's gonna curl back. Uh. It's interesting. We were putting some cameras out the other day and we had all split up put cameras out in different positions, and Austin was over working on one part of the farm and he went in there to check a camera farm and he goes, he goes that that field looks like and this is on the new farm and the lease. He said, that field looks like it should be a northwest. He goes that wind was really curling back on me today on on a west northwest and going right back into the bedroom, he goes, I got out of there quickly, and I said, man, I appreciate that. And I immediately told Wade and told Perry. I was like, we gotta go in there on a north northwest and a northwest under the same conditions and find out what those winds are doing because west northwest isn't going to work there. It's a great point, and that's something that requires a different flip to be switched to just be trying to pay attention to something that even when you're not hunting, but could really pay off. Obviously, that's uh good thing to be some of that instincts. Well. Austin's a tremendous hunter, tremendous guide. He's been guiding since he was a team you know. But he also knows how how anal I am over the wind speeds and wind directions on every spot. I mean, it's it's a big deal. And you and I've talked about it, I think two or three different times, and I really don't hear a lot of people talking about wind scouting and wind speed and direction, but it's it can make or break your whole season, you know, by knowing exactly what a wind direction and speed does on every spot. I mean, that's that's that's a big time man making sure that you got a safe wind to go in there. But if you're curling and swirling around forget it, and you're not gonna You're not gonna fool him. Now, I know that you do a lot when it comes to the same control. Right, you're utilizing various ozone methods and you're following a very careful process. But you're saying, even when all those things, we still have got to pay extreme attention to even that kind of situation. Right, You've got to. And why you see me in a blind so often anymore? Um, we set crush everything down on everyday basis, camera's bows, ourselves, clothing, take a shower, get out there. You also see us hunt with the windows clothes more often than not, so that if you do get those swap slight twists and turns. I want that added protection of a muddy bowl or a muddy penthouse holding my scent in versus sitting in a tree stand and and letting it curl out over the over the field. I've got certain tree stands that work on a variety of different wind speeds. But if I'm down in an area and it's curling around at all, or I'm on a ridge and it's curling back over over the tree tops, i want some added protection in addition to my scent crush or ozone application, and for me, that's a blind with the windows closed. Yeah, yeah, that makes that makes sense, all right. We I think I need to shift to a little more rapid fire. I keep on asking you all these foll up questions, and I'm sinking our time down the drain and we're running out of it. So I'm gonna try to run us through a bunch of things relatively quickly so we can cover as much ground as possible. Um in this last like, I don't know, twenty thirty minutes before I've got to shut it down. Um, So we're just gonna run through it. Mark, It's November one second, we're into the rut. That chaos is ensuing now, But you're still after this target deer. We keep on referring back to once that calendar switches. Are you still trying to pattern him based off the historical intel and and that kind of thing? Or are you gonna switch to your basic rut locations when it's a single target deer? Still, but Cass is ensuing, what's what's that first week in November? Look for you now, I'm still right on his tail. I still think until they actually get with an estrus dough, which oftentimes occurs after the seeking phase or the buck parade like seventh, eighth, and ninth. Until that occurs, I'm right on his home core, at least my interpretation of what his home core is. I'm staying right on his tail all the way up through about the ninth or tenth of November. Then might start switching a little bit, and then at that point it's just generic bill betting are as, funnels, whatever might be that we fund the doughs them probably right, Yeah, it is. Yeah, just once they locked down, man, it's as much as as much luck as anything. You know, you still got a hunt. You gotta hot hunt, longer, hunt the betting areas. And you know we always say they're in stupid spots, right, you can catch them out in the middle of the field at that noon or it's crazy where they go once they start chasing and get off of their patterns. You know, they're very patentable up there about the tenth or eleventh, and then all of a sudden you throw all the patterns out the window. So I always say it's expectation of through about the tenth and then it's hope after the tenth. Yeah, that sounds right. Um, how about this one right in that same window, maybe November five. It's supposed to be a great time of year, right, it's it's the deer Parade or whatever we're calling it, right in that window where good things should be happening. But you've got lousy conditions. We've got that dreaded November heat wave that pushes through. How would you hunt on November five on a cruddy warm day differently than you would on a great cold front day. You know, it depends what just occurred or what's about to occur. If the conditions get warm and stay warm, I'm gonna hunt through them and do the best I can. If, however, it's an isolated day or two that's warm, I may actually set those out, give myself a break, give the deer break, and jump back in there once the weather turns in my favor again. So it really depends on what the rest of the forecast looks like. However, if it's just crappy and stage crappy, I'm gonna hunt through it. Okay, Well, because you've got the other influencer, which is the rut occurring, right, It only comes once, you know, and granted you're probably not going to see as great activity, you're not going to see as much, but you might. You know, there's always that fight when it comes to hunting, the rut. It might happen today, and I never never overlooked that that aspect of it. Yeah, anything's possible anytime, any time, it can be, you know, so you can't tell them if you're not hunting. However, if it's an isolated day, I might take a little break, you know, I've started to I used to think that I had to be out there every single day, every single hour, and if I didn't, I really hated myself for it. But I'm starting to get to the point where you know, it might be okay to take that day for a little bit of mental health or family health. Uh, And you're probably better for it the rest of your time after that. You know you really are, because it sharpens you back up right too. You know, you can go these hot, seven, eight, nine days in a row, you start to wear down just a little bit, you get a little mental fatigued, and you know, maybe that day is taken to check some cameras or do some other activity. Shoot your bow again, get back in shape and give yourself a break from the hunt so that when you go back hunting, you're sharp again and that energy level still is high. You never want to let yourself were out, especially during the rut. It's one of the tactics we talked about, especially in the middle of November, is stay sharp, stay focused. And you know, you look at it and you go, well, it's not that hard to be focused. We'll go sit there ten great days in a row. It's easy to wear yourself out and fatigue too much of anyone things too much. So never be afraid on those poor days that's putting our bad days, putting it in deer cast terms, to take a little break and give the deer break as well. Yeah, because you're probably miss a whole heck of a lot in all honesty, and you know, I've sat through enough poor predictive days and bad predictive days. It's generally not that far off. It's like, you know, what, what are you gonna miss? If they're not moving anyway? Now now, speaking of though, the unpredictability of things, anything can sometimes happen. So let's let's uh move to November. It's November ten and you are hunting and a big buck comes through following a dough. He's obviously locked onto her, and they settle in about a hundred yards away from you in some thick cover, but you can see him and they're just hanging out. He's just kind of pushing around, they're just standing. Um. In that scenario, will you just wait him out or do you try to somehow attract him away from the dough? Um? And what if this goes on for hours? If it's is this is your answer to this question different if it's a half hour versus six hours. I generally have a sentence that if it's a target buck and I've got my eyes on him and he's locked on the dough, I'm gonna stay exactly where I'm at and i won't take my eye off of him. I'm not gonna try and get down. I'm not gonna try and go closer, unless, by chance, it was really gusty, gaily wind to where I felt like I could get by with the movement. From a visual and audible standpoint, I might make a move on him, try and get a little bit closer if I can, you know, go over there and call a little bit. Because if he's a hundred yards and you try to call to him, Chances are he's not going to come to you. However, if you can get close to him and call, he might if he gets if he gets really edgy, because other bucks are approaching a hot dough. When you're close, you mean one thing. When you're distance, you don't mean a whole heck of a lot to him. And I've seen that work. But you gotta be able to get there. You gotta be able to have a shot once he comes in. And it's it's not an overly likely scenario that you're going to succeed in. That sounds exciting, though, Oh it's exciding, right, it's exciting, but you're you know, I've also seen situations where buckets on the dough and three days later he's still in that little home core and he's still on the same dough. So that's the other way to look at it is, Okay, he's locked down. Now. I not only have today, I've probably got the next few days to to dance around this scenario here, and I'm going to continue to see these two deer. Okay, well, how close do you think you need to get in that case? For the call to work in that scenario laid out there, you're talking like or yeah, within within sixty, within fifty something like that. You've gotta have the cover and the topography to do it. Like I said, it's not an overly likely scenario, but it could work. It really could. Watch him watch a deer that's better with a dough watch other little bucks approach. He won't. He won't go get rid of him until the bucks literally right on top of him are a threat. But if you go do a fight really close, get ready, because he's lava about run you over. Man. He does not like other bucks getting close to his hot doll. So the situations gotta be right. The weather's gotta be right, the wind's gotta be right. You can succeed. It's just not a high likelihood of success. Here's an opposite scenario from that. That's that's an exciting fund scenario November. What about a not so fun scenario, which is you're hunting at that same time period and you get picked off by you get busted by a buck in the stand. Um, maybe he sees you. Maybe it's a sea and a smell, But one way or another, there's a mature buck within shooting range and he busts you before you can get a shot. How long is that spot toast? Or or because the rut, Do not worry. You're gonna go right back in there, you know, the next day or two, because another buck might come through that you want to get a shot at. Um. That's Part A, and then Part B is tell me how your answer is different if I asked you this in October versus November. Well, you're back to the margarite is at the Mexican restaurant. I think I hate getting busted, But if it's October, that's one scenario. Chances are you might have just messed your whole season out that they catch you in October. I don't like getting caught in October because they're they're not going very far from their bed. They're they're feeding in the same general area. And if they catch you within that home range, chances are you could put him nocturnal, or you could put him out of there altogether. Uh, in November not quite as bad. They have a much shorter memory in November than they do in October, especially once they're all round up at chasing does And I mean they're just their demeanor is just so different November than it is October. So you know, in October, I'm probably gonna stay out of there for a little while, and you know, let my cameras kind of dictate when I should go back in there. I'm gonna assume that I've mucked it up pretty bad, right, and I'm going to stay out of there until he proves to me that I should go back in there and hunt him again, that I didn't muck it up as bad as I thought I did in November. I'm probably going in back in that afternoon or the next day, because any hot dog could walk in front of that buck and he could literally follow her right back down the same trail that he caught you on. So two different demeanors there and two different outcomes. I think, Well, you mentioned how you'd let your trail cameras help you in that scenario. What would you do if you had to hunt without trail cameras for a year, like, what would be the most notable difference in how you'd approach this season? Be Um, I'm curious how your scout, how you would scout different or if you would simply hunt differently because of that lack of intel. Um, what would be some of your first things you can think of that you would have to do differently with zero cameras? Um. You know, then it's back to probably scouting a little bit more visually, uh, from the distance, looking for deer, looking for patterns, those types of things. I'm also what I used to key in on before we had trail cameras. It wasn't rubs or scrapes. It was either the visual uh confirmation that a buck was there. But I always scouted for tracks, and if there wasn't a big, giant track in the area, I just wouldn't hunt there. If I could find that big track by scouting. I was always used to walk the creek by atoms, you know those ditches in the Midwest that you get that layout, that sandy soil, And I'd walk and walk and walk till I cut a big track, and then I knew I was somewhere in that deer's home range, and I would hunt that way based off either seeing them or finding big tracks. Big tracks don't lie, uh, they ever have and they never will. You know, a little young deer just don't have a big foot. And for you, what do you consider a big track, Well, I've never really measured one. I mean, I know what it looks like, generally, the size you know, generally the size of my hand, you know, from tip to do klaw um. But you know, as you know, you know what a dough track looks like and what a young buck truck track looks like. And then when you see that big fat track some down in the mud and clearly an imprint, I mean you just you just know, hey, this is a big mature buck right here. So we killed a lot of big deal based on just finding their tracks back in the day, you know, before trail care, and that's how we were killing right And I think a lot of people probably could you know, improve some of their hunting by getting some of that into their repertoire. Probably still today, no question. I mean, I think we can depend a little bit too much on trail cameras at times. And I still I'm looking at the ground when I'm out in the woods, I'm looking down. I'm generally not looking up. I'm looking for tracks because it's the way we you know, started uh hunting. Even during Turkey season, if I see a big buck track in an area, I never forget it and weighs the same way. We're constantly looking for big tracks. All right, let's go back to our season chasing your magic I talked about. I talked about the creeks. I would also walk the edges of of tillable farms, you know, like big corn fields, big bean fields. I'd walk the edges, look at every entry and exit trail and look in and in and around the roads and around the outer edge. And you'd find big tracks that way too, because oftentimes, you know, those tillable fields will mud a little bit longer than anywhere else, and you can find some big tracks coming and going out at a big table fields. Yeah, I've seen that too. I was gonna say, let's hop back to our hypothetical season, and we're still after this great big buck. We weren't able to capitalize. In October. A lot of the rut has passed by. And I'm not sure what the opening day of firearm season is in Iowa, but let's say it's the day before the opener. For me here in Michigan, the day before the opening day guns season is like my last hurrah because there's a significant chance he you could get killed on opening day because so many more hunters come out there. So I always look at that last day as like a swing for the fence, this kind of day. What's that look like for you on the day before gun season. Well, in Iowa, that's generally sometime the first week of December, so the ruts already come and gone, and we've we've got to hunt the full rut picture. So I'm generally off of him, been waiting for food source movement in Iowa. In Missouri, which I think is closer to the scenario painting is generally happens sometime in mid November somewhere in there. So yeah, I'm gonna hunt hard all the way up up until that point. I'm gonna do all day sits at the weather, you know, is permitting, and I'm gonna, you know, if it's that time of the year where I'm in their bedroom and trying to find something on a dough somewhere, it's a tougher time of the year, not just because rifle seasons approaching, but because they're all doughed up. Especially in Missouri, are are bucket dough ratios and pretty rough shape. I mean, there's a lot of doughs and and not as many bucks for them, so we're trying to work on that and get it closer to one to one. But I'm gonna be somewhere in a bedroom hunting all day more than likely. Okay, all right, Mark, I I wish that we could keep doing this, because I've got a whole bunch of other random ones I thought I could throw at you up. But I'm gonna miss my dinner with the kids and my wife would be happy about that. So we're gonna have to We're gonna have to wrap this up with one last question. M Here's the here's the situation. I am hypothetically all powerful, and I control your hunting privileges, and I'm going to take away your privileges for the next ten years. You cannot hunt deer at all for the next ten years, unless unless you kill a five and a half year old buck this year. But I'm only gonna give you one day to do it, and you have one single stand location that you have to hunt that whole day. I'd like to tell me what day you're going to choose and describe this single best stand that you can think of in as much detail as possible for this very very high stakes hunt. Mmmm, that's a tough one. I probably pick November eight, and I would be somewhere in a rut funnel that historically has been quite good to me in the past. Um, So I'm gonna be somewhere in cover. I'm gonna get in there an hour before daylight, and I'm gonna sit, you know, until after the sun sets, hopefully killing a deer. But I if I had to gamble on one day, I would gamble on Nomban day as if I had to pick it right now, And I'm gonna be somewhere in fairly heavy security cover. Can you describe your ideal heavy security cover funnel and a little bit more detail. Is this like typically a timber kind of funnel or do you really like a brushy draw Um, just paint that picture a little more if you can. Oh a brushy drawer, I can see quite a ways and and be able to manipulate a deer coming to me through a call. So you know, I want to be somewhere where I can see as well, because if you're trying to kill a five year old, you want the ability to call that deer just in case he's not dote up just yet. So I'm somewhere in heavy security that I can still see if that makes sense? It does? It does? It sounds like a good spot. Would it be on one of your Iowa farms or your Missouri farms? Um, it'd be and I will certainly, Yeah, for sure, it would be an Iowa. And it's going to be somewhere somewhere really good that historically I've I've had great luck in Okay, and I'm gonna I'm just gonna keep on adding a little more here. Let's say you can either have a grunt tube or rattling antlers, but not both. Which one are you choosing? Okay? Yeah, because louder, you know, just get a little bit further with him and I can grow up with my mouth if I have to. Okay, that's a great point, all right, Um, I think that's I think that's gonna do it. Mark, you've passed the gauntlet. Um, we now know what Mark jury would do. I don't know if I passed or not, but we we did our best that we could hopefully wouldn't bore anybody to tears. I really I've never done that before. That was enjoyable. I appreciate you running me through it. Hey, you know, it's kind of fun for me just to think through these different types of situations to see how people would approach them. And I sometimes try to throw in situations I'm dealing with so I can sell officially get something out of it too in that regard. So you helped me out in a couple of things they're marketing. Uh why not? Yeah? Why not? Um? For folks that want to follow along with all the cool stuff you guys have got going, do you want to mention a few highlights of what people should do in the coming weeks and months to see what you got going? Absolutely. We talked a little bit about Deercast and our our app continues to grow and we continue to add features to it. This year, Um, you know there's deer Cast Track, Deercast custom We're gonna have an advanced social platform within the app this particular this coming fall. That's gonna be fun for everybody to get in there and enjoy and check it out at deercast dot com or you can go to uh Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, check it out at at Drew Outdoors and you'll find us on any of those three including YouTube and check out all the content we've got, whether it be at deer Cast or any of those social platforms. I mean, we are loaded for bear with with uh content this year, probably more than we've ever had. It's it's really you know, I never dreamed when we first started this that we would ever see a day where we're touching the amount of eyeballs or ears in this case as we do right now. But it's it's a fun time in our space, and it's it's fun to try and be in that that lane where we educate because we're always trying to help other people become better hunters. That's one of the reasons we did deer Cast, and it's been very well received across the hunting nation out there, so we're we appreciate anybody that's ever downloaded it. You have, if you haven't, give it a look and give it a try. There's a free version, a version for ten bucks a year, in a version of twenty bucks a year, and they're they're loaded loaded with lots of features. Yeah, I'll just personally attest to it as well. It's it's a lot of really cool stuff and I'm certainly enjoying it. And I'll tell you what Mark I'll be logging on there on November eight to see if you tag that buck Well. I'm not gonna actually do only one day, I told us the only day. I'm hoping to have that dear Dad in the month of October. And be honest with you, he's daylighted a few times, so I think the opportunity could be there if he's if he's still alive and still around and something hasn't have goofed goofed us up, I think we got a shot adding in October. I really do, really I hope it happens for your Mark in history would point to that dear being in serious trouble based off your track record. So good luck out there. I appreciate it. Good luck to you, man, I appreciate the time. Hey, thanks Mark, and that's a rap. Thank you all for listening. Hope you enjoyed this one. I definitely got a lot from it. Best of luck to all of you guys. If you're out there scouting or preparing for the upcoming season, or maybe you're listening to this during the season and you're out there hunting. If that's the case, good luck, shoot straight, have fun, and until next time, stay wired. To hunt,