Southeastern Bowhunter - Hunting the Edge with Dan Infalt

0:00This episode of the sportsman's empire is brought to you by interstate batteries. Since 1952, interstate batteries has been evoking compassion and a trustworthy spirit into the surrounding communities. Interstate batteries is a mission driven company fueled by purpose and guided by their values. If you need help locating a specific battery, stop into your local interstate batteries retail store and speak with a battery specialist. They even offer cell phone repairs. Interstate batteries outrageously dependable. All right. What is going on, guys? Welcome to another episode of Southeast and bow-hunter podcast. I'm going to run through this kind of quick, but we have a legend in the hunting industry on the podcast today. We got Mr. Dan in fault coming on here to tell us all about. I mean, really, I'm going to ask him a lot about Wisconsin. You know, Wisconsin hunting. That is the thing. That is my car. I'm still trying to figure it out. That's something I'll be doing later this year, so I figure who better to get out here and talk about it. So before we do that, we're going to run through the partners podcast brought to you by

1:03sportsman's empire. If you haven't checked out that podcast network yet, please go do that and go see all the other shows that they have. I am, what is it like, maybe month and a half in, and it's been great. It really has been great. You've seen a lot of growth and very thankful to be part of that podcast network, so please go support them. Let's see. Next up. Brand that I used. They have a new turkey vest that just came out. So are you turkey nuts? That's for you. J Max was a part of making that so I know that it's going to be a high quality product. And who knows, maybe I'll be using one this year. Next up is the fatigue. I got my new aero wraps that have Jesus on them. They're actually really sick. I'll be doing a video with it probably next month. And you know, the boutique wraps are absolutely best on the market. Best quality. Easiest to put on is stay on. There's no, there's no issues with them. So please, if you're building your aero's, every minute of the boutique can get them. Let's see. G five outdoors. They got the new dirty bird.

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3:04Just put new batteries in them today. Got the edge three pro, the edge three, and then also the edge solar. So head over to mulchery.com and check out all the stuff that have the offer. You're going to need them this summer. So why not go with mulchery? Let's see. I'll keep that one kind of short if, because it's really not much going on. You know, with dear season being over. But if you want to be a state sponsor like me and have a ton of perks with it, head over to bowhuntingleague.com. Go get signed up. Tell them we sent you, especially if you're in Georgia, tell them that you heard about it from us. All right. It helps us out. It helps them out too. Let's see. Next up. Boning archery. Runnin' alphas this year. Again. Scrape doctor. Always using that scrape magic. Victory archery. I'm runnin' the HLR. Still. Catalyst archery. I've got my, I'll actually say this, you know, Catalyst, they've got the, it's a stabilizer company. They've also got this little like side quiver thing that you can use for just shooting in the yard. You don't feel like, shooting one air going to pull it, you want to be able to shoot too and all that stuff. It's actually pretty sick. Apparently, it's selling a lot.

4:05But Catalyst is a great company. They've got high quality stabilizers at an affordable price and that's very important to me. And last but not least, the new partner of the podcast is Unbound Archery. So when Nick came on last week, he and I talked afterwards and I was like, I love the stuff you've got. I have the, I call it Totten Candy, but if you're watching the video, you can see I've got the new strings on my wife's bow and, you know, hey, I've compared those strings with other bow strings and I see Unbound on a completely different level. I think they make the apps best strings that are out there and you can get them in any color. He offers this thing called like Crayola or something and it's just a mix match of a bunch of colors. It's pretty sick. So please go support him, use the code in the description, all the codes for all these partners are in the description below with all the websites, too, directly to it, get what you need. And you know, we try to take care of you here. So before we get into it, Dan, I have to talk to you guys a little bit about our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I mean, I had a conversation this morning that completely humbled me.

5:06I tend to, I didn't really realize this up until I was actually, it was pointed out and it was from a good body of mine that I tend to go really negative about a lot of things and I don't like that. I'll complain about a lot of stuff and really I have nothing to complain about, right? I'm alive. My wife, beautiful daughter, this podcast, awesome job, I root over my head, a bunch of animals I love and there's tons of reasons for me to be thankful and there's times that I'm not. And you know, we're human, we all fall short, but when it's a constant thing or it gets pretty consistent, I think that's what it becomes. So I had some time at the Lord this morning and I start forgiveness and I can solve everything I needed to and you know, I'm honestly, I'm happy that it happened. I need people to point out stuff to me. So you know, I really have to just give all glory to God that everything that happens with this podcast, everything in my life, that's so eternally thankful for it's for me because I am. So if you guys want that too, look, just give Jesus a chance, okay, I really, really think

6:11that people that hear his voice and have a relationship with him are so much better off than just anything. Jesus loves you, right? He does, no matter what you've done, he still loves you and he still wants you to come home to him and have a relationship. That's the most important thing, you know, just because I know this, I don't have time to get into it, but I know that, you know, yes, a lot of places have traditions and traditions that are important, but what Jesus really wants is us. So yeah, that's my preacher moment. Hopefully the audio on this is good with the new microphone right here, it's kind of weird having it in my face, but I'll show it used to it. But look, Dan's waiting on us, let's get into it with Mr. Dan Involve. All right, guys, we got a legend in the industry, a man that I have listened to for

7:17a while and who knows the stuff, right? I've seen videos you posted about a potential world record typical which I'd like to talk about. I know that was probably a few years ago, but man, we got Mr. Dan Involve on the podcast today. Dan, what is going on, dude? Not a lot, man. How are you doing? Good, good. Try not, you know, playing with technology right here, so it's, I'm really hoping this audio comes through, okay, because it's been a grind lately, just switching back and forth from different things we've used to record. But dude, so like I said, you are very well established in the industry. Nobody knows who you are, but for the people who maybe live under a rock and don't know who you are, don't know your name or what you've been able to do, why don't you give us a little background on who Dan Involve is? I'm pushing 60 years old now. I've been killing big bucks, mobile styles since I was about nine. So I've been doing it for quite a while and you know, I grew up and lived my whole life

8:24from Wisconsin. Wisconsin is unique where you got, you know, a blend, like you got swamps, you got hill country, you got big woods, you got farmland, you got just about everything. So I got a really good mix, learned a lot about hunting. My forte is I've always, you know, tried to hunt them right at their beds because I just feel like deer or nocturnal and if you don't get close, you're not getting the mature ones, you know. Yeah. I mean, I feel like that tactic works for you knowing what I know because you really, you want to talk about big bucks, man, you're up there. I whenever somebody asked me like, who do you think would be like top three, I always have you, Andre de Cuisto and then like, I don't know, probably one of the big names like Lee Ellis or something, you know, like there's a whole, there's a whole group of guys that just seem to know what these deer are doing and I have, have really learned a lot with, with how they act, you know, and me being only seven years into hunting,

9:25I listen to guys like you and it helps a lot. So I mentioned something earlier and I just want to touch on this now. You made a video a while ago talking about a deer you saw that you thought was a world, potential world record typical. Can you kind of dive into that and explain like what happened with that? Yeah, that was a deer I saw while I was shining deer, which is legal here. You can shine them in season till 10 o'clock and any time you want during the summer. So a lot of people will go out and locate deer, find deer on a property so they know where there's a big one to hunt and I was driving around with my son and he was filming while I was glassing and we hit a deer and I couldn't see the antlers and you know, 90% of the time it's a doe or some really small, you know, and I couldn't see it and I was like just getting frustrated and was just going to keep going and he said wait that it's

10:29a buck I think it's a good one and it turned out to be just an absolute monster in a very high pressured area. It was a typical 10 with, you know, all the ingredients to be, you know, probably over 200 inches, world class. I think I can only find deep in my Jordan buck. Sure there's others. This crazy, this Jordan buck was taking off Wisconsin was, yes, so what is it about Wisconsin? It's like a hook, because you say that, oh, I want to do that, what is it about Wisconsin that you think creates an environment for these deer to grow that thing? I'm having a hard time hearing you, every time you move your head, your audio goes in and

11:30out. Are you? Is that better? That's a lot better. Okay. Like I said, it's this new, this new mic, man, I got to play with it. The listeners will probably appreciate that. I did, I did the intro with it. It sounded all right and I just figured we'd try it, but anyway, in the camera, you bumped the camera and now it's like really bright light at the top, just aim it down a little bit. What is going on? All right, is that? Is that better? Yeah. Yeah. Geez, man, I tried to be professional on these things and you know, it just sometimes devils like, you know what, man, we're going to throw some things your way, but anyway, yeah, what I was asking was Wisconsin, you guys have, I mean, I looked at the Boone and Crockett records and it's like so much more than pretty much everybody else. I mean, what is it about Wisconsin that, I guess, creates an environment like that?

12:30Well, I think we got better genetics and better genetics than just about anywhere. And that's going to sound crazy to a lot of people, but I think that we would, way out produce places like I.O.N. stuff if we just had better management. We have poor management, but great genetics, that makes sense. I mean, we're way over haunted. We kill way too many deer, so you have a hard time growing them up. When they get growing up, they get big. I mean, for instance, I've got a two-year-old buck that's a bonafide two-year-old and we had 150 pounds dressed, scored 140, you know. So we get some pretty big bucks. I mean, a lot of two-year-olds have make open-young here. A lot of Boone and Crockett are only three years old, you know. So I don't know. Genetically, we've got some good, we've got some good bucks. It's not everywhere in the state though. It's kind of spotty, you know what I mean?

13:31I think the south-eastern Wisconsin area has really good genetics, especially little pockets around certain counties and stuff, but it's just hard to grow them, especially on public land. When you look at the record books, it's kind of like a wild factor because the numbers of open-young and Boone and Crockett's come out of Wisconsin is much higher than any of the state. Yeah. So people, when they see that, they're like, when is this a sleeper? Overalls are here, but it's Iowa and stuff, you know. But what it is is that the majority of those deer are coming off of private, highly-managed private, like Buffalo County and, you know. Okay. So I'm going to throw a scenario at you that is basically just going to be what I'll be dealing with this November. My stepdad has a friend who lives northern Wisconsin, the property is even farther north. It's 30 miles south of Lake Superior. I forget what, I think it's like Washburn County or something like that. And it's 100 acres, hasn't been hunted in like 15 years.

14:35The dude says he sees a ton of deer up there all the time. In that area, what would you say would be a reasonable thing for somebody to expect? You know, it's hard to say that's a spotty area. That area has some good hunting and some areas that are decimated from wolves. But I've hunted up at Washburn a little bit and there are some pretty big bucks up there. If you're on a property that hasn't been hunted, if nobody's been trespassing or anything, it should be good. Is it a farm or is it big woods? I'm pretty sure it's big woods from what I've been told, because I haven't been to it yet, but from what I've been told, it's just big woods. The guy's got a cabin out there and like he would go up there and hunt, you know, like I said, 15 years ago or so and what's funny is he's got trail cameras up there.

15:36I keep bugging my dad about him, like, hey, can you call him and just tell him to send you pictures of whatever he's got out there? Because if he's not hunting it anymore, I kind of would like to know what's around or at least what he's seeing, but, you know, because it's in November and all that, there's no rush on their end. And for me, I'm like, well, I'll just keep bugging him until they send it. Oh, I, I don't know. I mean, I, because I'm originally from Illinois, right? Like I live in Georgia now, but I came from Illinois and seeing, you know, me and my dad used to go to this little game reserve by the house that you could literally watch deer in the field and you want to talk about giants. I mean, there was nothing to see 150, 160 inch deer just, you know, playing around in the field. And we would watch them fight. I mean, we had a buck fight 10 yards behind us in the thicket on the other side of the road. And you could see them standing up and you could hear him clash and you could see him stand up again and like they kind of potted each other. It was the weirdest thing, dude, but, um, so I know like up that way, obviously, you know, the Midwest and stuff, it's definitely got bigger deer than down here.

16:40What would you say, like, so have you, you've hunted Georgia before, right? Uh, I'm not Georgian, no, I thought you came out here to, uh, Fort Gordon in hunting. Uh, not. Huh. I might have, I might have just been a rumor that somebody told me then. I did. Um, Fort and didn't say which four does that something might have just thought that's Rosa. That's probably it. Yeah. Well, I have. Okay. So have you hunted anywhere kind of in the southeast? Yes. Mm hmm. So what would you say the comparison is from the southeast during, I guess, terrain to what you're used to up there in Wisconsin? Uh, the one thing that amazed me the most was that, uh, the deer were so freaking tiny. Haha. I'm pretty slow. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I shout out to my true buck in the southeast this year, um, on the public land challenge with the hunt and public guys. Yeah. And when I got up to the deer, it was just amazing how small it was. I think it was a hundred and a pound stress. Um, for comparison, my biggest deer up here, um, weight wise, um, dressed, bottomed out of 300 pounds, you know, we never got a total weight on it.

17:43Oh my God. We get some pretty big box up here. Um, but they got to get to maturity to get that big, you know, um, yeah. But, uh, so it's a, it's a big difference. Um, but as far as the deer go, I didn't see no difference. I mean, deer, deer, wherever you go, the bed to same, the, the feed to same, the move to same, you know, um, it's just a matter of what you get for pressure. You know, and, and what you haven't trained, you know, but, uh, when, when I went down there, um, um, my first time in the southeast was this year. So when I went down there, I, uh, first thing I hit with swamps and they were so freaking nasty. Um, yeah, I was in way steep crap constantly and I wasn't really getting on deer. And I think I could have got on to something if I kept on it. Um, I was hunting with a partner and we just collectively hashed it out and decided to try the, um, like pine woods, you know, that area just had a lot of pines.

18:45You know, so, um, that for me is easier, easier to read than the swamps. Swamps are hard, you know, and that's what I hunt the most, but I'll admit that they're hard. So we went to the pine woods, which I thought would be a lot easier. So I looked for, you know, um, thick edge versus open areas. So you had an edge, you know, and I looked at the onyx oak, oak, I look for, uh, creeks and I found an area that was really thick and had a creek coming through. And when I put the onyx, um, oak on, I saw that all the creeks had oaks along them. And it's like all the logging operations didn't cut the oaks along the creeks. Uh, I went in her acorns were dropping and you could see where the deer would be bedding where that creek went into the thick stuff. And I, um, there wasn't a whole lot of sign, but I set up there and, uh, ended up hunting the same spot for five days because I was seeing like, uh, this totally public because I was seeing like, uh, two or three, um, good bucks a day, you know, and, uh, ended up on the last day.

19:46I, uh, I should have a really nice block, uh, coming in in the morning, but I was seeing as many a 25, 30 year a day. And, uh, I was the only one seeing that many deer. It was, it was amazing, but they're better just like I thought they'd be just based on the terrain. And I did, um, cause it drives me not to hunt the same spot twice more or less five days, but you can't leave if you got that kind of action, you know, um, but I did, um, midday go do some scouting and stuff. And I went and looked for other spots with the same kind of scenario and pretty much found the same kind of sign, but just never hunted it because of what I was on to. Um, but the, uh, my point is just based on what I'm, um, no, here I went down there and get right on dear, dear, dear. Well, everybody, everybody kind of makes it out that deer tougher here, tougher there or easy here, you know, and as it do with how many deer there are and how much pressure there is. Yeah. I mean, that, it's funny. You say that because I was thinking that when I asked the question, like, how different

20:48it was down here compared to out there. Cause you know, we, I have this jet out that I've been saying since this past year season that I'm convinced that deer in my area are psychic. They know when I'm coming before I ever even think about going and it's like, I know that's not the case, right? But I have three years of history now that at all the spots that I've hunted, which I don't hunt them that much. I like, I really, really don't. And they will, they, they'll stop daylighting consistently probably around, like mid December and then as soon as seasons over, the next day, they're all out there just frolicant around. I mean, I've got buck showing back up and I'm like, dude, what did I do? And it's got, in my opinion, it's just got to be deer density plus you, you hit it right on the head when you were talking about oak bottoms with, you know, crossing the creeks and everything with all the oak trees. Cause I talked to my taxidermist when I killed a buck last year and brought it up to him because we weren't seeing any movement, you know, and it was warm down here. And there was a ton of acorn crop.

21:50And I'm like, dude, where are these deer at? Like where, cause he's very well versed with the area. And he was like, they're in the oak bottoms and he's like, they're going to go in a spot where there's plenty of food. They don't need to run around to rut because all the deer are going to the food. And he's like, the problem is a lot of those places you can't get into because they'll set up on the perfect wind. And it thermals and all that other stuff draws everything into them. They'll know you're coming before you're even anywhere near him. So it, it's funny to hear you say that all that worked. Cause I mean, it's exactly what I was being told during season. But yeah, it makes me feel better for sure going up to Wisconsin and knowing what I know here. And I mean, what, so like the area I'm talking about, is it, is that like really thick, like mixture of different types of trees and stuff? Or is it mostly, oh, it's mostly pines? I mean, what, what would you say? There's a lot of pine up there. There should be some oak up there. You should have a variety of tree types, you know, it's not,

22:54as good as where I'm at. Okay, so they're none of the state is way better. But, but Washburn County ain't bad. You know, you got a lot of bears up there. And you got a lot of books up there. Why are you going to tell me that? So, um, they won't bother you, but they do eat a lot of deer. Yeah, bears actually a lot more deer than, than people think. They ate the fawns quite a bit, you know, yeah. So, the deer density probably isn't as high as what it is where I live. But the deer up there grow pretty big. There's enough energy here that come from up there. I know, I personally know a guy in that hunted in the Bayfield swamp, which is right down the street from where you're going. Yeah, shot two 200-inch blocks. Now, that was in the 90s. We shot them on back-to-back years in the same swamp. Dude, that was 30 years ago, but that gives me some hope.

23:55I mean, I've seen I had a guy reach out to me from that area. And he listened to, I guess, one of the episodes I was talking about it. And he was like, hey, so you're coming up my way, right? And I'm like, yeah, what's, uh, what should I expect? And he sent me some deer from the past like five years. All of them are bigger than anything. I've shot and bigger than almost everything I had on camera this year. So, I'm like, you know what? I'm just going to go. I mean, I'm not, I'm not going to have time to go up and scout. So it's going to be show up, go find the sign, figure out where they're at. So basically do it old school, which I typically only do on public. And it's, I mean, I haven't killed anything on public yet, but I have come across some pretty decent deer over there. So I don't know. I mean, I just, you saved bears, man. All I can think about now is walking in in the morning and just having this giant bear just in front of me. Yeah, it's very, so I mean, they're black bears and that is not like, they're dangers. Yeah. Yeah. So what about those wolves? I mean, that's, that's something that I've heard a lot about is the wolves up

24:58there are just gnarly. Like they, they really do a lot of damage on the population. Is that, is there any sort of plan to sort of mitigate that? Or they just kind of run wild? Uh, you know, the states like, uh, probably slightly more liberal than it is. Conservative and the literal genus to, you know, give all the wolves a hug. So nobody's haunting them here. And, uh, and they're getting a little out of control, um, move through an area and then they move to another area. And if that guy's getting pictures of deer, they're probably not right in his area. Okay. You might have a few, um, but you can never see him. You'll see the tracks, but you'll see. You ever hear him? Oh, yeah. You'll hear him at night. What's that like? Cause I've heard coyotes here, but I've never, I've heard of wolf. How one time in a zoo. And it was gnarly, but I also was actually kind of cool. It's kind of cool. I'm excited, man. I'm so excited. So like, typically weather wise, what would you say first week in November is

26:02like up there? Should I expect a lot of snow and be frozen solid or is it kind of, uh, hit or miss? Snow is hit or miss at that time of the year. Um, should be, uh, pretty cold for you though. I mean, it can be as cold as like, uh, 15 or 20, uh, and it could be as warm as 50, you know, um, so it's kind of that time frame where you really don't know exactly what you get to do. Um, but, uh, is what lives in. Okay. Well, I'll pack everything that I need then. I want to know that you're going to have to look for when you go up there is that, um, the deer you're used to seeing, um, these deer are way bigger body. So, um, you might be fooled in thinking the racks are smaller than they are. Kind of the same way when we go down, down the southeast, the racks will way bigger than they are. Yeah, you know, um, that's why I like them so much.

27:06Your eye shot was probably like 120 inches and it was a mature buck. I, you know, from my standpoint, looking at that deer, I would say it was 150. What is that different? Yeah, um, the 110 pound deer versus, you know, a deer that's, uh, 180, 190 pounds, you know, dude, that's going to be so, okay, what is like? What's the, um, what's the regulations for like out of stators? Like, say I come up from Georgia, I kill a buck, what, what would I need to do to legally bring everything back to Georgia? Uh, I, yeah, I don't know what it is about. Remove it from Wisconsin. It's probably other states you have to worry about that you travel through. Uh, there's a lot of states have rules about, uh, you have to, uh, um, not take any spinal cord back or any brains back. You know, so you have to cap the skull or, you know, so you might have to, if you want to get a mould, you might have to have a tax term to skin it for you.

28:07Oh, okay, that kind of thing. And that's because of the CWD and it's a gay rule because, um, the, the deer, uh, the CWD is throughout this whole country now. It just, yeah, every place they check for it, they find it. So it's ridiculous. I mean, um, you can't bring Wisconsin CWD in Georgia, CWD, you know, it's just stupid. It's, yeah. I mean, we had our first case last year and I, I did a podcast on it, um, talking about like, you know, we can bait in Georgia and that's like a culture down here. I mean, it's to the point now that if you're not putting food out, you won't see anything. It's really that bad. And I saw that they posted. They found their first case and I jokingly was like, well, guess we're going back to no baiting because you know, that seems to be the fix for everything yet. All these other states that have it, they still have CWD. So I don't know if that's going to, I mean, what, I, I do want to ask you like, what is your opinion on all that? Do you think that there's anything we can do? Do you think that it's as bad as they say or because I don't really take it that serious, but I also, you know, I've had one episode where I talk about it.

29:09So I don't really know a bunch about it. I'll tell you, I got really involved with it with it when it came to Wisconsin because Wisconsin is the state that really blew it up and tried to make all these other states get paranoid about it because it's, because CWD was out west since the 60s over and out the longer than I'm been alive. And nobody ever cared, you know, until it came to Wisconsin. Then all of a sudden they cared, but there was a place in Wisconsin in Madison, where they do research, where is documented? They had brought deer in from Colorado that had CWD in their study in it in their labs at a university and a mule deer that had CWD escaped. Or the hub of our CWD is, and they've tried to sweep all that under the rug, but it's gotten out from research. But any who they, at the time we got CWD, the governor we had was pushing really

30:17hard to lower the deer numbers. And it was scots and the hunters have to agree with it. So by saying it's a disease, he was able to override the hunters, votes, stuff, right? So his fix was to kill every single deer. And I mean, just like lower the property to kill every single deer. This was the plant in the southern half of Wisconsin. And it was killed the deer to save the deer. I was just the most ridiculous thing in the world because the studies were showing that CWD is a prey on. It's not something to living. Yeah, leeches into the soil. And you bring deer back in, they just get CWD again. And at the same time, 24% of the herd has a natural immunity to it. So you're going to kill those too. Yeah, you don't know, right? The whole thing is ridiculous. So anyways, people fought back so hard they stopped to kill them all thing. But before they stopped it, they killed a lot.

31:17They gave unlimited tags. They had, they started with people shooting them like I got a helicopter. You know, as shark shooters or bait and stuff. And then they, then they, um, then they stopped that because of a public outcry. Yeah, but just pictures going around these giant mountains of dead deer. And then they're trying to tell us. So if you don't do this, these zero kill people, if you'll get this, uh, uh, like that, I can't think of the name of the disease. Mad cow disease thing. Yeah, something, yeah, something like that. And they're, they're like, it'll, it'll morph into that. It could, you know, and it could potentially kill massive amounts of people, which is not true. Yeah, there's no scientific basis for that at all. You, you're so many deer that have CWD and the way butcher shops work. Everybody's eating some CWD and with scouts against everybody. Whether they want to admit it or not, I mean, I don't even test my deer. I just eat them. I don't care. So, um, any who, um, the deer grow to an old age and die.

32:20And, uh, some of them die as CWD that, I mean, there's a lot of people who make it out to be a joke. Like I hunt on a CWD area. I've never seen this dead deer bubble lot. And I get what they see, but I have been the properties that have it really bad, like in the hub. And you'll find that deer land around from CWD, but, um, but there's still a good population. I mean, we're, we're, it came here and it got just on a hand. They used to go their hunt deer and still see lots of deer. But, um, like my area, um, didn't even have CWD and it decided to kill all the deer here because it was a joint in a county that had had, uh, see us had found one deer that had CWD. So any, any county had joined in one. So, um, they gave, um, you had to shoot a doe to get a buck. But unlimited takes free. And every doe you shot, you walked around the handful of doe, doe tags, every doe you shot,

33:22they gave you a sticker that was, um, good for like a couple of years to shoot a buck. So you do, all right, we had a neighbor who shot 34 doe, he got 34 buck tags and killed 34 bucks. And as you can imagine in a couple of years, it was hard to find a deer. Yeah, we're kind of rebound and, um, they're still killing a lot of deer with doe tags and stuff, but they, they calm down and it's back to one buck with the bull, one buck with the gun. But we've just got like mismanagement with all that stuff, you know? Yeah, so that, that is one thing I wanted to ask you is like, what is the tag system now? Because I read somewhere that, like you said, earn a buck, but then somebody else told me that it's not that new. I mean, that's gone. Yeah. Okay, so when I get out of state, just get what the typical hunting license, when you buy your license, it's going to ask you, um, what county you're hunting.

34:23And it's going to, you're going to get a statewide buck tag. Okay. And then it's based on whichever county you're in, they're going to have a number of doe tags that they allot you. Wow. Okay. And then you're going to have to specify whether you're hunting public or private, and it takes your, the doe tag, the buck tag will be good anywhere. Yeah. The full tags are only good on where you specify you want to use them. What kind of land? Okay. And what, what kind of land? Got you. But what's good part is, first time hunters in Wisconsin get a, um, a reduced tag. Um, I reduced the license. I don't remember what it is. I know it was $85 for $80, but I think they raised it slightly. And that's a really cheap for the first time you go. Yeah. And then even a second time, it's only like 150 or something like that. Dude, that's great. That's good. Actually, because I, I think when I looked at it, I've got it pulled up on my phone.

35:24I might be able to pull it up and see what it says. If, I feel it wants to work. Let's see non-residents hunting deer. Let's see, I'll take my bow. Archer says $200. Okay. But it's reduced now. Yeah. And it might be like it's half price. I think that that 80 was a half price from 160. So maybe now it's 100. Yeah. I mean, either way, two or a month ago, I think like, I think it's something like half price the first time you buy it. Okay. You'll have to figure out what a half price tag is. Yeah. That's a problem. I'll ask you if it's your first time or something and it'll know. Yeah. I mean, 200 bucks to go out of state. It's not bad. Right. I'm going to Colorado next year and it's like 800. I'll take the 200 over that any day. But all right. So I want to kind of switch gears a little bit and talk to you about mobile hunting. So I'm getting into that a lot more this year. What would you say is your best tactic for that?

36:26Like from beginning to end, where do you start with that? Oh, I don't know what to tell you. There's so much involved in it that's, you know, that most people wouldn't realize that, you know, like for me, a lot of my success comes from scouting at this time of the year. Okay. Really figuring them out right now and looking at their beds and they're not even home. Right now, they're off, moved off to some food source. I mean, they're looking where they were bedded when, you know, the snow melts. So I also go in and fall in new areas just like you would or like when you go up the washroom, you're probably not going to have, you know, all the spring scouting there because you're going from out of state. Well, I travel around with that too and I don't like that too. And I go in there and I try to figure out where the bedding right. I look at a map, I look at an area of the area, I'll look for like a mat area, I would look all the transitions, the edges, I look for spots where it forms natural points and stuff that

37:26would give a deer the ability to set up a trap. Like you'd have to go down a point to get to them or whatever, put points of trees or mature trees entering immature trees. Were especially where like swamp meets woods. Net area has a lot of wetlands and stuff of creeks, stuff like that. The mature bucks up there really like to be isolated by water. So if you find a thick area that has water like dogwood or something that's growing in water or cat tails or something like that, a lot of times those bucks will be better inside of that stuff, you know. And I'll look at the outside edges of that and I'll just keep moving. I don't have the same spot over and over again. So if I go in there and I don't see them, you know, I'm trying to get to a range from what I assume is his bed and area. And if I don't see him, I assume he's not there and I move to the next spot and move to the next spot and keep moving like that until I either kill him or run out of land is basically how I do it.

38:29And that's been pretty good for me. Now just when you look at my stats, like I broke it down one time, based on my kills, I've got, I want to say like 50 head monks now, I don't know exact number. And I would say probably about 20 over what I'd call mature bucks, five or older, you know, actual mature bucks and when you break it down with those bucks, it's a huge difference between like the really good two-year-olds and three-year-olds, right? Yeah, it's a huge difference. Like the two and three-year-olds tend to come from the rod time frame, they tend to come from funnel stands or they come from a stand that I hunt there, you know, every year once or twice, because it's in a good vetting location or whatever. But when I get those mature bucks, the actual mature ones, like six out of seven maybe

39:31are the very first time I've ever sat there, which is completely different from the immature bucks. Yeah, so it's just like when they get to a certain age, they're so good at reading, you know, where people've been, you know, when you go into a place, you leave an impact with your scent and that impact is much more severe where that deer trusts, you know, like he'll walk across a human trail where people walk all the time to walk up to a food source, you know, all the time. So a guy might put a trail camera out of a food source and he's getting daylight pictures and he's like, oh, at least you're ain't even scared of me, you know, but if he moves back to get a mature buck, when that mature buck hits his scent near his bed and area, that'll freak him out. You know, I look at it kind of like, if you walked on your yard and you saw a bear track and your yard, you'd probably freak out a little bit, wouldn't you? Yeah, but especially around that. Well, you forget about it

40:32after a while. If you walk in your house the next day and the window was busted open and that track was now on your kitchen table, now you'd freak out totally, right? Yeah, when you get that scent near a bed and area, that's the bear track on the kitchen table. Interesting. So what I do is really aggressive, but it's one time I go in there, pick the cherry and get out, and if I don't kill him, I move on to the next spot. That's what that's what my mobile is. And I think most people have a tendency to kind of hunt their way in. And I think we should do that with a mature buck. It's like slapping them on the ass to say, hey, I'm coming for you. I think the first time that deer smells me or knows I'm on a property, I want an arrow flying through his chest cavity. Dude, I got a clip of that. That was so sick to say. What's funny is like, so I've had Tim Knight on the podcast a couple of times. I don't know if you know Tim or not, but he's told me that same thing down here. Like he's killed a lot. I think

41:35he's got like 14, 15 Pope and Young's in Georgia. And he said that same thing. He's like, man, you got all these guys. They're out here. They're shouting and then they hang a stand and they're leaving their sand and then they go in there and they wonder why they can't see any deer. He's like, go in there, find the sign and hunt over it. And I'm like, you're right, Tim. Well, it's like it makes perfect sense. But so the one thing I am curious about, because I did a lot of that this year, especially when I hunted public, I would I'd have a general area in mind, especially the side that I know very well that I've been hunting for a few years now. Don't need any type of GPS or anything. I'd kind of learned where everything's at. But my issue is when I walked in, I'll see a rub. And maybe I'll see a few rubs, right? Or I know there's a food source, but it's late October. It's early November, whatever. So I'm not really thinking of food source, more thinking of rut activity. I also know of a spot that's the transition zone. So you've got really thick pines. There's a fire break and it's open like mixture of pines and and oaks behind me. There's another

42:40fire break into cut pines and then to my left, there's a swamp. So really, you have all the different types of terrain and one and I don't want to say try and be know what I'm saying. You've got different types of areas in one spot. Transitions meeting. Yeah. Exactly. And so I caught myself seeing some sign and be like, okay, I'm gonna go a little further and I keep going 50 yards, find more sign. Like, all right, cool. Well, you know, they're obviously in here. I'm gonna keep going. And then I found one spot set up on this ridge to the to the area I was just telling you about. And granted, it was 70 something degrees that day and it shouldn't have been, right? So it was very warm. But do you think it's possible to maybe go past the sign that you need to see? Like, how do you avoid doing that? Yeah, because I don't look at sign. I look at it. I look at it, but I don't look at it like people. And what I mean by that is is 95% of the sign that lay down at night. So the mature box are getting out of their bed. Like the ones I'm killing in bed and areas.

43:46When I pin it down, I know where the bed in area is. That deer gets out or out of the bed room, expect them. Moves to me 75 yards and I kill them. It's usually closing time when I kill them. How much further are they getting? You know, sometimes they get further. Sometimes it's, you know, half it on, but the majority of them, it's right around that last 15 minutes of daylight. You know, when I'm shooting them, 15, 20 minutes of daylight, they're not getting much further. So you've got to push that envelope. So for me, big sign in the woods just tells me there's a big deer there. Now I'm getting like, okay, I need to hunt this area down. But then I'm really studying the maps. I'm really scouting the property. I'm really looking hard at exactly where would these bugs be better. And that's right. So I want to focus on bedding because that is one thing I've struggled the most with is being able to go in and be like, oh, there's a deer bed at there. Because in my mind, you know, I'm thinking like if you go where there's a field or corner or

44:48whatever, you can kind of see it push down. Like you can see where something was better there. But if you're in the big woods or you're in swamps, how do you, what do you look for? Like if you're looking at a map and you're saying, all right, I'm going to go over here and I'm going to scout. Where do you typically find that these deer are better at? It's really going to be relative to the terrain. What are we talking about north? Are you talking about down by you or? I guess really just in general, let's talk up north because I feel like I could take what you've seen up there and try to at least use that a little bit here and sort of adapt it to what we have here. Okay, so if you go, we went up to Washburn County. That's in your senior in the big woods area. I'm going to look at that woods and I could care less about anything that's a chunk of woods. Okay, you're going to live in the woods. They live in the edge. So I'm going to look at where the edges are. And then I'm going to look at how that terrain's shaped. And I'm going to look at like, I'm going to look for high and low elevations on that area. I mean, if it's really steep,

45:52I'm going to look at the top third of the leeward sides of hills. If it's hilly area, if it's not hilly and it's lower in swamp areas, which I think you'd find more up there and you'd find that to be better. Even if you found hilly stuff, I think you'd be better off down by the swamps. They're going to isolate them, especially around wolves. They're going to isolate themselves with those swamps. And the more the pressure, the more that's true. And they'll look for islands that are within the wetter areas. When you get down in the low flat, almost water level land, if there's an island in there, it'll change the vegetation. You'll have some bigger trees. You can kind of see that. See it on a map. You can see with your eyes if you're up high. Those spots will have bedding off the tips of them. They'll, like the tapering points coming off. The bedding along the edges, like where that swamp meets the hardwoods, that'll usually be there. There'll be some sort of

46:52changing that line, that transition line, whether it's a point coming in or whatever. And if you're looking at a map, you'll start to see if the swamps kind of grassy. You'll see an area of thicker brush. Those will usually be the bedding areas. Then you look at how they come out of that into the hardwoods. Really, you get an eye for it after a while. You can kind of look at a map, know where they're going to be, and that's where they're going to come out of. To answer your question. So yes, how do you determine, and I think I know the answer to this, but just in case I'm wrong, how do you determine the direction these deer are moving? Are you going in there and you're just expecting to bump them and see where they run, and then kind of go from that? Or are you looking at maybe their tracks, or you can see the trails, and you can assume like, okay, I know he's bedded in here. He's got three trails going off in different directions. Obviously he's going to go in and out. Is the trails coming out of the bedding area and the sign coming out of the bedding area? Generally, when they go into bedding, they go in a little different than they come out. They like

47:56to circle downwind, smell it, check it out before they go in. So it gets a little harder in the mornings, but in the evenings, they just seem to get up, go from point A to point B, and those B trails coming out of whether they're leaving. Generally, if it's a point going out into a swamp, see there's a point of hardwood trees that taper off into swampy trees, right? He's going to bed towards the tip of that and let you go down that tip towards him, and he's going to monitor that point, right? For you or for wolves or whatever. And generally, he's going to get up off of that and go into that woods, like go up towards oaks, go up towards fields, go up to whatever, but enter that woods. There are some that go the other way for whatever reason. Sometimes they eat stuff in the swamp or they do things this way. But for the most part, they generally go that way. So a lot of times when I'm on land, I have been on, I'll go hit those points, those bedding points, bedding features, whatever, and kind of creep in and look for a sign coming out and then set up as closes like

49:00deer guessing where those beds are, which would be right at the tip. Gotcha. Dude, it's amazing how smart these deer can be. It really is. Like I hear your guys like you explain this stuff, and I'm like people look at them like they're just goats, but I mean, I do give them a lot more credit. Like they they're so good at surviving. It's crazy, especially the older box. And that is something I learned this year is I had a seven-year-old buck. First time I've ever hunted a deer like that. And he I've hunted this spot for two years now. He never daylighted, not once. Even when my buddy was hunting over there himself, and I wasn't, he's still never daylighted. And I have a video that you can see this deer here, the trail camera, which at the time I didn't know there were stuff going on with it, but it was making a very, very small amount of noise, right? And I went there and tested it, and I couldn't hear it. I'm like, there's no way. And then the next day I got a video of him,

50:00and he comes in middle of the night, right? And immediately clocks that camera, and I can see his ears shift to it. And he just straight jumps, and then runs off, and I don't see him for a month. And then I took that camera out. A lot of other things happen, you know, because like I was saying, a corn's heat, whatever. Also, the neighbor was building a box blind in the middle of deer season. So, you know, that also, yeah, that definitely helped. I finally got this deer to daylight after season, but the thing that was crazy is like how smart he was, because he would follow, and I've got a couple of cameras over there, and he would follow the trail that I would use to get in. And then he would follow the trail I'd use to get out. And I never picked up on it till this year, and I'm like, dude, no wonder. I was like, you're, you're going to make this tough on me, because I only have really one point of access. I can change it a little bit, but if I wanted to really throw this deer for a loop, I'd have to, in a sense, go on county property,

51:05and walk in, because where I'm at, so this actual spot down here, it's like this little finger woods that's between two big open patches, and there's a thick into my left, really thick stuff to the right. So, I'm in a spot where it's open, and they use it to travel through. In front of me, there is, I call it a marsh, it's really a field, but when it rains, it turns into like a big wide open marshy swamp kind of thing, and I know these deer go through it, because I've literally watched them do it. And it's just nuts to me how, I guess, intentional their movements seem to be, at least the older deer. So, I mean, is that, that's got to be something you've seen, like hunting the bigger older deer that you have, is it one of those deals where, or I guess, you know what, let me ask you this, have you ever had a deer that's really thrown you for a loop, and you had to go outside of the box to kill them? Well, usually. So, mature box, I mean, usually finding the bed isn't that hard, it's the figuring out how to kill them thing, because usually they've got a setup to bust you.

52:11You know what I mean? There's like an aha moment when you figure out where the bed in like, well, this is a smart spot, you know? But the bigger the box, the more they kind of lock in areas, or like if you jump a good three year old or something, he might relocate a whole new area, but when they start getting like five, six, seven, like they're just describing, they seem to lock into areas, because they like get smarter over time. They start, you know, like, I can go out in the marsh behind my house, I can show you a hundred different bed and areas that are torn up with rubs. There's probably about ten of those that mature box will bed. It's all two year olds rip up all those bed and areas, and I call those like nurseries, you know? The mature box picks certain areas that they're like, I don't know how to say this, but like when I shoot like a six, seven year old deer every time they're full of, you know, projectiles, they got wounds all over them, they got a crooked leg, you know, let ball out of their shoulder, just about every time. And those deer are learning

53:14some hard life lessons, you know what I mean? And they get real paranoid of all of the bed. So like when you look at how it does bed, they'll go to the same area over and over and over again. Buck will go in the old bed, like, just like people kind of, they're like the guy, he just worries about himself. He's not worried about the crew. Those bed in that circle, they alarm each other, they're worried about each other. The buck goes out there, he worries about himself, so it puts his back up against an obstacle, he looks down when, you know, he hides himself in a spot, he'll actually bed to watch an access where you enter the woods. They do that quite often. Yeah, that's how that happened. Yeah, so there is paranoid thing, you know, this paranoid entity, and you got to look at them like that. Like for me, if I take that whole public land or the whole property you're going to with it, maybe even if it's private, if it's being haunted, I look at it as an okay, what isn't anybody haunted? And I scratch, I scratch off 90% of the map of where I think just that's where

54:15people would go, that's where they expect deer, that's where we're going to go. Some guys will go to the middle, some people go over here, some people like this ridge because it's right here, but nobody's going like in the parking lot and going 100 yards down to the parking lot along the road. And that's got some good, good terrain there. I'm going to check that out. So I find a spot where people don't go, because when you go into woods and you hunt a spot, your scent is probably there for 15 or 30 days depending on the weather. So anytime that deer comes through, he sees with his nose. We see with our eyes. So it's hard for us to comprehend that, but he's getting this image that this is where people go. This is where somebody's out to kill me. You know what I mean? Somebody came in here. They're okay with that on trails that you access, because they get to learn. This is an access trail. You know, that's where people move, but when all of a sudden that sensor's coming into an area where they live and they let they're going to freak a little bit. You know, I mean, the bear track. I get disabled. So that's the whole mobile thing. You know, shifting in and you know, moving to where they are,

55:18just cutting it down. And then even if I get into an area and I don't kill them, or maybe he's not home, when he comes home, like because they'll not bend this spot for two days, it coming the third day he does, you know, when he comes home, my sense just outside the back door, he's like, oh crap, this ain't good. So he moves, right? So I literally take these big swamps, and if they only got 10 spots to hunt in, by the time I'm, I'm hunted five spots without seeing them, I'm like, all right, this is getting good. There's only five more spots you could be. You know, it's instead of the, oh man, I'm not seeing nothing kind of thing, you know. So just to circle back to the betting area stuff, if I'm scouting around what I want to look for is basically a spot that, because I'm trying, I try to think like, like you were just saying, like a buck that wants to be in a secure location. So look for something that would maybe provide that, also look for sign and trails. Is there anything on the ground that I could like,

56:22you can say it's a leaf. If you went on at this time of the year, you'll be able to see the bets, some of the good spots. Okay. There's some spots based on vegetation, especially now where you're at, where you might not be able to quite see it. But there's some spots you will. Yeah, I'll tell you what made me good at this is going out every spring for the last 50 years, looking at this stuff. Really? I look at those bets every year, every time I go into a property and look at them, and I'm always looking at new properties. I do it, you know, three, four times a week, I go sell properties this time of the year, every year. Yeah. And I go look at those bets over and over and over again, where they live, how they come out, where could I set up? I do this over and over and over again. And then when I don't do it, and I walk into a property, say I go to a different state, or we have a channel, or something, or I hear about some buck on a property I've never been on. Yeah, look at that property. And almost subconsciously, I'd rather go to be right

57:23there. That's where they're going to come off. That's crazy. He had the sixth sense. The hardest part about it is that some of the really biggest Europe shot, the biggest and oldest ones have come, they've been in a spot with no sign. There's no rub lines coming out of it or anything. The three biggest buck I ever shot, that buck, I watched him bed in the same spot for two years straight. There was an open area. It was an open pasture that had no cattle in it for like 10 years. And they can, you know, with thick grass, but you couldn't get near to them. But I could see it from a distance when I would hunt. I'd watch it get up, come out, move around, and just trying to figure out a way where it isn't going to get far enough in daylight, because there's no trees or nothing that just grass. You know, I ended up killing that thing by crawling on my hands and knees up to its bed and jumping up on the shotgun and shooting it in his bed. But I even picked up the year before I shot him. I picked up one of his sheds in that bed. He bedded there so often. He'd bed there like almost every time it was a west wind. And my point was

58:29that in a hundred yard radius around that bed, there wasn't a scraper or rope. So you never know if you were just looking for sign. And what I've seen and what I get out of this, now I can't think like a deer, but I can, I can, you know, kind of try and figure out what I see. And unlike the public land and the areas that I do a lot of my hunting, they're heavily pressured and there isn't a mature buck in every property. So I have to go find a mature buck to hunt. So those bucks have no competition. And when they're rubbing in bed and areas, it's usually competing for other bucks that are same age class. So that's what two-year-olds rip up bed and areas like crazy on public land. But now, the reason I assess that is because when I've been on private land, that's well-managed and has multiple mature bucks, those mature buck bed and areas are ripped up. All the beds are rubbed up and stuff, right? So it's really relative to

59:30what that deer relates as competition. And then at what time of the year he's bedding there. So if they're bedding there and pre-rut, I don't care if he's the only buck around, he's going to do some rubbing. You know what I'm saying? But outside of that pre-rut thing, you know, then there might not be rubs in those beds or a lot of sign. But that buck that I was just talking about, he bedded there and there's still no rubs or scrapes or anything near that, that's fine. Yeah, he sounds like he was just in a perfect spot, he didn't need to show people like, hey, this is where I'm sleeping at guys, you know. But it's fun on all of that. If you think about it, if he left big rub lines, come on, either with the hunting pressure we have up here, he'd die. Sure. You wouldn't know that old. So maybe it's like genetically the ones that don't do that are the ones that get big and old. Yeah. He's not never thought of it that way. It's crazy to think they're like, especially, see, this is why I like doing this whole like this part of the podcast is talking about this stuff because I mean, this past season, man, one of my spots I

1:00:35had, I actually had one of the one of the bigger bucks show up this morning, he's still got his rack on him and I'm like, dude, it's freaking ended February. What do you do? And that's not normal around here. But during the, I'd say early October to early December, this was the year that I saw the most sign and I have got it on video. I got a million photos of them laying down scrapes, rubs, fighting all that. I've never seen that on this property before. And when you were explaining like you've got bucks that will tear, tear stuff up and then, you know, when you see a lot of that, it's not just normally one deer is probably a few that are all the same age class. All of these deer except for one were three and a half, four and a half years old. There was one five and a half year old that super smart deer, but they were all roughly the same size. And, you know, it makes perfect sense because I had five scrapes. So I'll kind of give you a little explanation of like bottom talking about is seven acres, seven acres that backs up to hundreds,

1:01:43I mean, hundreds of big woods. And I've got this one little clearing. So only one that is within, I don't know, quarter mile. I've looked on the map just to verify that, but it's this one little clearing. And for years, I'd have maybe a scrape, maybe two scrapes, right? This year, I had five scrapes in a U-shade that you've got two access points. So like you got the woods here and there's two trails that come up to the opening. And at both edges of the trails, there was a scrape. There was another tree about 10 yards down. There's a scrape right in front of my stand. There was a scrape right next to my stand. There was a scrape. And then there's other access trail. Another scrape. I killed the buck that I shot last year while he was hitting a scrape. And I've never, that was the first time I've ever done that. No mind you, it was a spike. It's a little guy that go wherever, however, I can't be my hand correctly. That one. But you know, it's just three years not killing a buck. And I'm like, Lord, I'm gonna take whatever you sent me, right? It was one of those years. But I say all of that to point out, like you're absolutely right, that there was a group of

1:02:50bucks that decided to come over this year. And they were roughly around the same age and you could see all the sign. And then I found three scrapes on a ridge that's about 40, no, no, no, 40, probably like 80 yards away on the back end of the property, that they were still scraping and putting down sign in December. And I'm talking like car hood size, like they had just hit it the day before. So it, you're dropping so much knowledge right now, I'm gonna have to relisten to this and be like, okay, so what did I miss? There's so much to it. But one thing I want to ask you about public links, I know you do hunt a lot of public land. I heard this thing one time or an argument somebody was making where they said, there's two different ways you can look at public land. Either you go in a mile where you think no one's gonna be. And that's typically what I hear on other podcasts and like people say, oh, you got to go deep. Where the deer at? Or you could, like how you said, there's a spot of 100 yards from the parking lot that I personally have seen

1:03:51more deer that way. Like I saw 160 inch 10 point five years ago. I was 150 yards from where I parked. I could see my truck. So what's your experience with that? Like I know it's kind of subjective, deer obviously going to be different. But in a general sense, do you see more, I guess, do you see more deer or big bucks closer to parking? Or do you see them deeper in? Ever since the Onyx closer to parking? Yeah, we know. Four Onyx, I saw in both places, you know, but before Onyx, remember I'm an old guy, the deer would be, I mean the hunters would, you'd rarely see one in the middle. You know, one is a very large woods. And if you did, they left an hour before dark or half an hour before dark. You see the parking lots clear up before closing time. I would just bog on my mind. But I mean, Onyx is really giving people the bravery to go deep. And cell cams have really changed things too because people threw them all

1:04:57over a place. But they also tip off their hands. You know, I'm not hunting the spot with a cell cam because if there's a cell cam there, that guy knows if that deer's there. And if a big one is showing up in daylight, he's hunting it. He's going to be there. So why would I even want to throw a hunt at that? Because that guy's constantly going in there and educating that deer. So that's a good thing to know where he's hunting. And then you just go around him. But I find little pockets all over a place. But the one thing is it's where people don't go. It can be deep. But a lot of people do go deep. It can be deep. It could be across the river. It can be something that's overlooked. A lot of the spots where I kill bucks nowadays are like really thick, low brush areas where you couldn't hunt on the ground because the brush is too thick. You can't have a tree because there is no such thing. And I find a way to kill them. You know, sort of living in some place where nobody

1:05:58hunts them because of the terrain. So they're moving in there in daylight. I just have to figure out a way to get in the tree, whether I have to take my strap on my tree stand and pull three trees together to make a tree big enough to me. Hold my stand off the ground or whatever I have to do. But wait, wait, wait, what? Yeah, I've done that. Yeah, these small, bushy trees and taking the strapped them together and put a stand on them so it doesn't shake. You don't understand it. But all you have to do is a lot of these deer I'm shooting. I'm only getting six or eight feet off the ground. You got to be able to shoot over the brush and not be right at eye level with them in the tangles, you know. I'm finding ways to hunt that stuff. So literally, my job is to find the deer and right where he's living and then figure out a way to hunt them, whether it's on the ground, whether it's finding some way to be elevated, whatever and do it without dropping any scent there before it hunt. So it's not an easy task,

1:07:00but it's something I've been mastering. Yeah, so what is your idea on like scent control? Because I used to be a major freak with it, like really bad. And now I've kind of gotten to the point where I mean, I might use something just to make myself feel better, but I really stopped caring as much. I mean, I used to, I'll tell you how bad it was. I have a tote that I would, I use this thing called camo dust that I would dust down all my clothes, seal it. And I'd never wear any of it. I'd wash it again, do the same thing. And then all year long, I'd be using that green, what is it? Hunters, forget what it's called, but something you buy it while right? It's that, you know, scent killing stuff that you shower with. I'd only wash my clothes and scent killing pods and just all the crazy stuff. And I was still getting blown at it. So I finally, I literally one one day this season got blown at and was like, dude, I did all of this stuff. Why am I, I'm still getting caught? It's the wind. And I knew that, but I also knew that it was a little bit

1:08:05shifty that day. So like, what is your, I guess what's your opinion on that? Do you care a lot about scent control? Or do you just play the wind and not really worry about it? So I don't believe the scent control at all. I don't think there's one thing you could possibly do to fool a deer's nose. And there's lots of reasons I believe that. It's kind of like politics when I tell you to trust the politics, the science, the people telling you the science in scent control are people working for scent control companies. Whenever you talk to somebody outside of those scent control companies that knows anything about science, they tell you it's hogwash. And really, how a deer smells is so much different than how we smell. That it's hard for humans to comprehend. But there's bend tests. There's been things that have done that are just amazing. But just some things I've observed, like there was a study done on bears, bears smell real similar to deer. You're coming out of their dens. See, I'm a big bear hunter too. So that's why I keep track of that stuff. But

1:09:07they were coming out of their dens in the in the north woods and they're hungry. So they're collared. So the scientists are watching where they're going, right? And they're seeing a trend where these deer just want, or these bears will just wander. And all of a sudden they'll stop and turn 90 degrees and go directly into the wind. And they're watching these bears go as far as 10 miles straight to a food source into the wind. That they smell quite often. It's like when you're going to kill deer or something. But they're going to a food source directly into the wind up to 10 miles that they're smelling. So where you wouldn't smell it from a hundred yards, you know what I'm saying? Another one like with dogs, I'm big into detective shows. Not like makeup ones, but were you actually like the chickens? Yeah, yeah, exactly. I watched this one where this guy, he was a serial killer and they're looking for him. And they got a tip

1:10:14that he was in the small town in Texas. So the FBI and stuff go down there and they raid this place, they kick in the door, they go in there and there's nobody in there. Place is empty. So they went in and out of this room like a hundred times. They go and get the manager to hotel. They got to get them from home or whatever. He gets down there and they're like, you know, tell us about this guy. They only left like three days ago and he hasn't been back. He ran out of money. We kicked him out. What was he driving? He didn't have a car. He was on foot. He took all this stuff. It just took off. They're like, okay. So they go through the room and the room's been cleaned, completely cleaned down for next guest, right? But nobody had stayed here yet. And they look under the desk and then the garbage can. There's one single item. It's a soda can, a coke can, laying in there empty. They call them made in and they ask her if that's hers, how that got in there. And she says, well,

1:11:15that's from the guy that was in here. You know, it's a crappy motel, you know, as you could imagine, right? Yeah. She's like, well, if it's one item like that, I don't, I'm not going to throw a garbage out for one item. She says, I just left it in there. And they're like, okay, so they take this can out with it. They put a glove on. They take the can out and they bring in a canine and they have this dog smell this can. And they take them outside and there's hundreds of people walk it up another sidewalks. This is three days earlier, right? The dogs are smelling the pavement. Follows that guy's scent up the sidewalk, cross the road, across a lawn, down to a creek, and then kind of loses it at this creek. It goes up and down the creek, all sides. Also, down the other side, he picks it back up, runs up the hill to a tent. This guy's sleeping on the hillside. And they bust this guy. That's crazy. Yeah, you're going to beat that nose. I mean, then literally there's nothing you can do. I mean, a long time ago, I was contacting myth busters and

1:12:22trying to get them to do something with scent control. And they did. I don't know if it was from me or not, because they never answered me directly, but I sent them messages and they did. So I was very intrigued on what they did. And I was watching it intently, but it got taken right down because they got threatened to get sued. So what happened was you can still find remnants of it, though. If you Google it, you'll find pieces of it. Yeah, you won't find the whole show because they took it down. But what they did was they went to, I gotta be careful here, not the name of the company, or I'll get sued, but they went to a clothing manufacturer that makes carbon clothing of past them. What do we have to do to use this product? What do we need? So they're like, you need this, you need this, you need that, you know, blah, blah, blah. So they sell them the whole gauntlet. So they take three guys. You've ever watched myth busters? Oh, yeah. Okay. So they take three guys. And they got one where they haven't worked out and get sweaty and not change,

1:13:23they have a mac nasty. Then they have one guy who they have shower and we're clean clothes. Then they have one guy that they do the whole thing. They scrub this guy down that rubber boots, the whole thing with the, everything that was suggested by the scent control company, right? They have more everything. So then the first test they did was they had them walk the same length of distance and the same terrain, the same type of elevation. They tried to assimilate it as much as they could, the same for each one of them. Yeah. And they put the dog on it and they had them stand at the end of the trail. And so how long it took the dog to find them? And what's funny is in each test, the dog phone, the person wearing the carbon suit first. And then they did another test where they had a box on a hill and they had a guy sit in it.

1:14:29And they give the dog the guy's scent and then they walk the dog down, wind it like a hundred yards. Until they hit the scent when the wind had been hit them and they timed how long from there it took them to run to the box and catch the person and caught the scent control guy first. Almost like you had a thinner order where it was easier for the dog to run. Yeah, the dog looked up, ran right to him, right? And they released that those findings and the scent control company threatened to sue. So they went to him and they said, listen, we went to you and we asked you, here's our messages, what to use. And you said to use this stuff because they were saying they used it wrong. Basically, yeah, he's the product wrong. And they're like, well, we didn't know you're doing the show. If we knew you're doing a show, we would have told you a little different. Here's what you got to do. And they said this on the show because they did it like a follow-up. Yeah, they're like, okay, they said we have to tape the seams. So they taped the seams on the gloves. They had to breathe through a mask that had a respirator on it.

1:15:33So it was going through a filter. They had to tape everything. Their eyes couldn't show. They couldn't show any skin. They taped everything. They taped the boots. They taped the seam where the belt is, right? And then they completely scrub these guys down and power wash them before they have them go out, right? Absolutely same results. The exact same results. Now, one difference. And it was funny that the dog found the scent control person first, but it was literally a matter of seconds. It was seconds. So it really was. It didn't matter. Right. Exactly. But when they got them with the results and they put it out there, the scent control company started a lawsuit and then they just agreed to pull the show down if they dropped the lawsuit. But you still find remnants of it if you Google it. Is this scent control company still in business? Yeah, it's one of the big ones. I figured that. See, that's what's wild, man. It's like, I hear some guys. I'm not going to name

1:16:37anybody, but I hear them be like, well, I don't worry about wind. I just throw on my suit and I'm good to go. And it's like, hey, if it works for you, great. You know, I've tried that method. I have haunted with the wind at my back and thinking that I'm, you know, invisible. And I didn't see anything. I didn't see squirrels. Like, it was that bad. So I like, I'd like to read something for you once quick. If I can find it. I'm just looking at it today. This is a. Hold on a second. Just get a second here. I actually did a journal a few years back and I logged all my interactions with deer and I broke it down as it into what happened centralized. And it's it's pretty cool. This is going to be good. Yeah, you're going to like this.

1:17:40I'm happy. I splined too cheap to get glasses. These are ones of fun. I lost the phone box. Nice. I know the feeling, man. I've been wearing contacts since I was 12 years old and I take them off and it's I can't seem nothing. It's terrible. So I thought it was right here. Sorry. No, you're good. I had like, it was something like I saw in a season of 66 hunts or 68 hunts or something like that. I saw something like 130 total deer

1:18:40and I think of that 130 that I did not shoot. Proximately half of them either crossed my cent trail or got directly downwind to me and it was something like 12 of them reacted harshly. Oh, wow. We're actually reacted at all. You know, from downwind and other ones that crossed my cent trail. It was like five or six reacted from the cent trail, you know, but I had actually I had a journal that just logged everything I saw. So I just went through the journal and went back and and and did the math and it was funny because there was a whole one I did that because I wasn't the only one doing journals and a whole bunch of percent control people were doing journals and we compared notes and it was almost identical. The number of deer that smelled me downwind was almost identical to these guys that carried the bend, the toe, the sprays. There was like no difference and they were like, there's no way you only get busted that much in a life.

1:19:44There's no way you get busted so much. I thought it's supposed to cover everything and even if it did make a difference, the way I hunt you couldn't use it. I mean, I'm going to swap this if you just wash yourself off and you clog the suits. You know what I mean? Yeah, it just like I've always wondered, you know, because I mean, especially when I first started hunting, dude, I it's crazy. I look back at it and I used to think that I'd want to wind it my back because I, you know, I didn't know, right? Like growing up, all I knew about hunting was my uncle who went up to Wisconsin every year and killed some pretty decent deer, but he didn't teach me anything. So I'm playing deer hunter, you know, like those, those CD games that we used to have back in the 90s. I'd be playing deer hunter too and big game hunter and stuff on the computer and so I knew nothing about it. So once I got into it, I'm thinking, okay, I have this bottle of dough and estrus and I need the wind to be at my back because I'm going to spray it and it's going to go miles and it's going to bring all these deer in, right? Didn't happen. The one thing that did happen was I

1:20:47remember this, like it was yesterday because it was so impactful, but I had the wind in my face and you want to talk about not knowing anything. I had this, I think it was Wish or Teemu or something, like 1980s Vietnam, like, um, camo leafy thing cover, I guess you could call it. And so I took two nails nailed it on two different trees, spread it out and I had a lawn chair that I was sitting in with my rifle because I wasn't bow hunting at the time. And I'm sitting there with the wind in my face and I'm like, all right, it's kind of windy, I'm good, I'm all covered, they're only going to see my head, they're not going to know. I'm going to spray some of this dough and estrus. It was like 20 mile an hour when in my face and I go, next thing I know it comes back and hits me fully in the face and I'm just like, I have to go on my mother in law's place after this. My wife is going to kill me and that goes to show like then to now and hearing the stuff

1:21:47you're saying, if, if I knew what you were saying now and what I know now back then, I probably could you know, can save from it a little bit, but it was the same stuff. I used to do the spray and pray stuff all the time. I'd get the bottle of, you know, that orange bottle at Walmart and then sweat going up the tree and I'd be like, all right, I'm good and then get blown at, you know, 20 yards behind me or in front of me or whatever it was. And so over the years, like, I just have gotten to the point that even the best stuff, it doesn't work. At least not the way that they claim. It might help a little bit, but you can't need to do those. I rude awakening to it was, you know, back in the early 90s, I was a pretty young guy. I started really killing big boxes and drawn a lot of attention. Yeah, I said doing shows and working for product manufacturers and stuff and I'd be hanging around with some people who I really looked up to. I mean, you see, I said TV shows and stuff and they'd air some of my stuff on their shows and stuff and we were

1:22:51sitting around before a show and these guys are really well known. You know, if I told you names, you'd know everybody that I'm talking about and they're like, Dan, you've got to stop telling people, send control, don't work. I'm like a don't and they're like, yeah, I don't. But if you ever want to make a living at this, you have to have that. You don't just like hunting doesn't make much money. So you have to have a sent control manufacturer. You have to have a spray manufacturer. You have to have a camel manufacturer. You have to have a bull. If you're not doing those things, you're not making enough money and you're just like taking half your paycheck and throw it off the window. You just spray some crap on your boots and you get paid. You don't do that and and they were like bitter with me because they got a show and it's funded by sent control and I'm saying that stuff off of the show. Like, you know, you're going to you're going to draw attention to from our product manufacturer and they're like, we don't believe in it either. They're like, it's stupid. But you spray it on. You get paid. You don't. You don't. And that's the way most of

1:23:55those people in the industry look at that. You don't and a lot of people going into this, probably yourself, you watch those shows. That's how you got started. You're watching it like, how do I hunt? And it's like a brainwashed or over and over again. Well, first we go to spray it on. So, you know, I always mocked it and I'd piss a lot of people off. I get a lot of hate mail, but I have fun doing it. I'd like. Yeah. I'm a very first public land challenge. I knew there was going to be just like crap ton of people watching that show. So when we got the truck, when we're getting ready to go out, I go, well, the first thing we got to do is spray down and I pull up some deep woods off. I got so much hate. Oh, man. It's so much hate. Hey, it works just as good. They might just think you're out there camping. I mean, I will say, dude, like, and I don't want to say anything negative about the industry or anything like that. It's got it. It's good and bad. But I did learn that, you know, because I've been doing this now four years and I learned that the first year that because I went into it, you know, I did this

1:24:57mainly because I just wanted to and get to know people in the industry and, and, you know, my friends in it and maybe do something with it. But I thought that it was going to be like, everybody's rooting for each other that it's all true. Nobody was lie. Everyone's a godfaring man, right? A year goes by and I'm like, wow, this is not what I thought it was. And, and that's not to say there's not great people in it. Like you, you're great dude. You know, you shoot people straight, you're, you're not out here feeding people crap. But I know people that that do. I know a lot of guys that do. I know some people that one year they're saying, oh man, this broadhead's the best. Next thing you know, deal falls through and they're shooting something else like, oh well, this won't even better. It's like, dude, you're just saying that because they're paying you. You know, I've been guilty of it. I've worked with one broadhead company, loved it at the time, had some issues with it, left it, worked with another one. And now I love that. It's the one I was using before I went to the other company. So like, you get what I'm saying? Like it's, it doesn't

1:25:59shock me at all. I probably know the guys that you're talking about, honestly. And that would, that I get it. You know, I mean, it fits your, it fits your livelihood and stuff. I understand you got to do that. But I personally couldn't live with myself. If I'm telling somebody that something's going to help them in the woods, knowing they're going to use it, knowing they're going to rely on it. And I don't even believe in it. You know, so I give you credit for that. But look, man, before we sign off of here, I want you to give a shameless plug for everything you got going on. I know that you run B stands. So tell everybody where they can find that and where they can find you. And dude, I do want to say thank you for coming on because it's hilarious. I have to tell the story real quick of how this happened because I messaged you, I think we've been friends on Facebook for a little while, but I messaged you last May. Hey, Dan, run this podcast. I'd love to have you on. What do you think about like July? You know, because June was booked out. And

1:27:05you hit me up a month ago. Yeah, man, hit me up when he gets a little closer. And I'm like, Dan, that was that was like eight months ago, man. You know, are you free? I have so many freaking messages that I miss. Oh, yeah. And then they pop up and I don't even realize I'm looking at an old one or whatever. Yeah. Well, and a guy like you, like I honestly, you're one of those, so there's like a group of people that you'll, that people will message. And I know better, right? Like the big dogs and stuff. A lot of times, you don't hear back. You know, and so when I hit you up, I'm like, all right, I want to try, but if I don't hear back, not a big deal. I get it, you know, and then you hit me back and I felt it was hilarious. I wanted so bad to be like, buddy, that that specific ship has sailed. But if you are open to February, I'd love to get you on. So I appreciate you taking the time. I really do. Like this is going to help a lot of people myself included. But yeah, go ahead and

1:28:06give us a shameless plug and tell everybody where they can find you. All right. Well, I'm speaking of shameless people in this industry that screw people over. I no longer work in tree stands. Oh, really? Locked out of the tree stand company. Yeah. So I'll probably go work with one of the other companies now. But if you want. No, that's fine. That's fine. That's fine. It's just starting to get out now. But if you want to find me, the YouTube channels by the best, I do have a website that's kind of cool. It's a forum base that's like a Facebook for Hunters. It's not as big as it used to be, but before Facebook, it was just the biggest thing around. That's hunting beast. If you just Google hunting beast, you'll find all that stuff. The YouTube is probably the most interesting for most people. Yeah, those YouTube videos you put out are very helpful. I've watched them quite a few times. It's not really like me out there saying,

1:29:11look what I shot. Look what I shot. It's educational. It's like helping people grow as Hunters. God, you're doing all the right thing, man. You're doing it for the right reasons. I love it. Well, Dan, thank you for coming on, brother. It was a great episode. I would like to, if you're available, I know you're very busy and all that, but I would like to do another one. Maybe summertime, go over some of the stuff you're seeing. Definitely, definitely talk about some more of the Wisconsin stuff. Like I said, I've been to Wisconsin. I've been to Shaboy again, plenty of times my brother lives up there, but I've never hunted it. Actually, I want to ask you one other thing, because this is just part of my friends, but this chaps my ass. What is the deal with these albino deer? Why can't we hunt them? Because my dad sent me a picture of one when he was up there, and it was a nice buck. It was beautiful white, and I'm like, it's not worth the jail time. What's the deal with that? Yeah, it's really the tree huggers stuff like to see them. They like to look

1:30:16at them. We've actually, by my house, have a population of them, whether or not really albino, but they're completely white, so they're considered albino, but they're actually like white phase, like you see a white phase squirrel or whatever. So they actually have white fawns, and some of them are increasing, and because nobody's shooting them, those are starting to take off. So there's one area around here where there's like 13% or 14% of them are white, and sometimes you go by a field and there'll be seven white deer out at once. It is kind of cool to look at, but and they would dial pretty quick. When they had that time frame where they wanted to kill all the deer in Southern Wisconsin, they opened up albino deer. They did for three years. In that three years, I shot an albino doe. I got him mounted, and I shot at him and missed another one, and I had an albino buck walking up to me, and it turned about 50 yards from me and walked

1:31:20with my buddy and he shot it. And I'm at home because my buddy died. You left it to me. That's awesome, but he died, but they you've got them out. Right, exactly. It's kind of a cool memory, but they had opened it up permanently from then on, but only in the CWD area, but then somebody in Western Wisconsin shot a famous giant albino buck, and the liberals went crazy. The tree huggers went crazy, and they did this thing were to get the governor who, because our DNR is run by the governor. The governor is the one who changed law to get him thrown out of office, so then he got scared and he changed it back to he can't shoot open up. He is, man. Well, hopefully within our lifetime, they'll open some type of season for that, because that's what I told my like, you know, she's she doesn't mind hunting, but she also doesn't

1:32:21want it up stairs like all my stuff's down here in the basement. And I told her one time, I'm like, listen, because we have him here too, you know, we got pie balls, we got albino's. They're very, very rare, but they do exist here. And I was like, five C1, I'm getting a full body now. I'll take a loan out to get a full body. I don't care what you say. It's going in the living room by the fireplace. We're going to see it. And she was like, okay, if you shoot now by now, you can do that. I was like, all right, all right, one day I pray about it all the time. We'll see. But anyway, man, yeah, I'd like to see one up there. I mean, they're they're I do enjoy seeing deer, you know, like, yes, I like hunting them and stuff, but I like to just see them too. I mean, I almost hit a buck two days ago, driving to work in those little two-year-olds, the letters rack, all that stuff, and it was cool to see. I don't I don't see them much. So when you get to see them, it's especially out of season. It's like, dude, all right, they're still around, you know, not just on the camera. They're actually actually real. So I don't know, man, but anyway, thank you for coming on. Thank

1:33:25you for all the info. I'm really looking forward to the next episode. And everybody go follow Dan on everything he said. If you want to learn some stuff, Dan's the man, the best way to put it. So appreciate it, brother. Oh, thanks, pro man. Hey, guys, I just want to say thank you for listening this episode of South East and Bohunter Podcast. If you don't mind, check us out on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, YouTube. Give us a like and review. Make sure to subscribe and all of that. And, you know, I have to give the thanks to our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. None of this would be possible without him. And, you know, I just want to remind you of that. So I'm looking forward to this next episode. I hope you guys are too. And thank you again.