10-1=9?

Breathe easy Ohio Buck hunters, the season is finally here! In this episode of THE o2 Podcast, Muntz and Paul sit down with Ol’ Iowa buck slayer Dr. Dan (Dallas) Johnson to talk all things early season bow hunting for Whitetails in the Buckeye state. The guys also finish up some business with Dan from the podcast with Tony Petersen. Dan dives into his favorite hunting controveries. Great perspective is shared by all. Enjoy he first “Cool” front rolling through Ohio this upcoming week. Be safe. Wear your harness and tag us in your pictures! 

ALERT- Welcome a new sponsor to the O2 podcast family. What’s the difference between beer nuts and deer nuts? Beer nuts are 49 Cents. Deers nuts are just under a Buck….I’ll see myself out. 

[00:00:00] So

Let's go, what's up everybody. Welcome back to the O2 podcast, Paul, Andrew, early morning, buddy. Here we go, man. Yeah, this is it. This is our first AM intro ever. Normally we're buried in the basement at freaking 10 o'clock at night. So look at us, man. I'm bright eyed. Bright eyed, bushy tailed, ready to rage, man.

You look good. Thanks, dude. Appreciate it. Go Wild shirt on, turkey season hat. You're all Oh, man. Ready. I am ready. I had an eventful night last night. I texted you at freaking 11. 45 last night. We're gonna, we're gonna dive, we're gonna dive right into the ads. Because this is like an awesome intro ad for Blackgate hunting products.

Blackgatehunting. com. Dude, that thing, that camera, I've got it out in deep in the woods in Southern Ohio.[00:01:00] Dude, I got two little, but not little, this is a good deer getting all over each other. I sent you this. I'm like, dude, look at this right in front of my trail camera, beating the crap out of each other.

So we're going to put a picture. I'm going to try to put them together for a Instagram and to go wild video. So check that out. Use the code Oh two podcasts black and honey cameras. The quality on these is wild. And then they've got their new herd watch program. Have you messed around with that?

A little bit and it's very beneficial from what I can tell. Oh my gosh. Yeah. For those of you that are running multiple cameras, this is something that that you're really going to like. So check out their website, blackgatehunting. com, use code O2 podcast. We see there's a lot of listeners buying those cameras.

So thanks to, thanks you guys for supporting a good old Ohio company. And it's nice. You talk about people buying them. It's not just you and me talking when they get them. They're like, dude, these pictures are legit. These are incredible. So yes. Yeah, it's no, it's that's. That's the best ad right there.

[00:02:00] Like it's, it's, it really is amazing. So the other thing that I just pot when, and this is, I like when our worlds collide, right? Our friends collide time to go wild and Timber Ninja. So Jason read awesome Timber Ninja pumping stuff up. If you're buying something off of their website, it's Oh, it's Ohio.

Ohio is the code free shipping on all your orders. Months. They were out of the C one, the carbon sticks. I needed them. I wanted them. So I had to go wild. They have them in stock right now. So check out time to go wild for all of your timber ninja products. Man, what else they got? Freaking everything.

That's what else? Afrack. And I'll tell you what, I I picked up one of those meat lugs the other day. So I'm pretty stoked. I will get it. I. Can now confirm to you that you can fit deep bone deer in there. And then for me, it was more than one. There you go. Okay. Yeah. On the board. Midwest gun works.

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or Paul the exhibition, right? We've got And I'm telling you, seeing the crop starting to either be close or coming off means those fields are going to open up, which means you're going to be able to get out and call the coyotes. So I know it's deer season and it's going to be the best part of the deer season is upon us very soon.

But I am also looking forward to that. And I've got a suppressor that I fingers crossed will be available soon. That was an ordeal getting that thing in certain months in the [00:04:00] making. Yes. Yeah. And we have one more, Paul, we have one more. We talked to these guys a little bit ago, but in Ohio, if you got private land, we are allowed to bait.

And we, after we talked to Mike talk of itch, we need to take deer out of this ecosystem specifically does, but we're at work a little bit here with this company called deer nuts. So we are, I love that name, man. It's like beer nuts, except deer. Deer go nuts over it, but this is a revolutionary nugget type of product attract that natural or nutritional supplement.

It's got the acorn flavor, so it's very enticing, tasty, irresistible to the deer pack with protein all kinds of good stuff. I'm waiting for a bag to show up at my house and give it a whirl. But man, we'll be able to throw some of that out with a black gate camera and show you how it's all done. But deer nuts.

Check them out. Let's see what the website Kent nutrition group people making it. So [00:05:00] deer nuts, they put a lot of effort into this. They said, it sounds like they've come up with a really neat product. So it's so excited for you to see it, how it works. So we'll and it goes through gravity and trough feeders, perfectly sized for tossing on the ground.

Good stuff. We'll get you more information as time goes on, but check them out. Deer nuts and sounds good, man. Where are we at with news from around the state? Andrew Bunce killed a couple of deer over the weekend. Good for you. We don't want that to make news. Back on the Sano, a couple of does yeah, ladies.

Wait for that in a second. Hang on. I'm giving you time. Bill in dead air. 6am, man. I don't know. I got nothing on the news front. I put absolutely no effort in into that. So Conkles Hollow to hold annual fall foliage open house. This will be October 14th and 15th from 10 to 4. So I know we get into hunting [00:06:00] and a lot on here, but there are people who listen who might not be super avid hunters or if you're just not ready to get in the woods because I don't know it's the quote unquote October lol.

There are other things to do in Ohio and I don't, have you noticed that the leaves are turning quick this year? Is it drought related? Is that what it is? Is it heat stress and drought? And okay, I think so. Because the trees in my neighborhood in central Ohio it's. It's wild, man. Just the last couple of days.

And I feel like we're almost to the peak, which is way earlier than it normally is. I feel like normally it is the like third week of October. But man, stuff's changing and in the trees to shut shutting down when they don't get water for extended periods of time. That's got to be a major component of it.

But regardless, get out there and see, check those leaves out. Maybe just go with the family, whatever for so a little national news. We're going to take a trip east to Washington, D. C. here. Andrew, the House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a[00:07:00]

couple of weeks ago, there was some funding that was polled for shooting sports in schools and funding those programs across the country. It passed with a 424 to 1, so I'd like to

It's good to, it's good to see that the president is expected to sign that bill and into law, but that will amend some earlier legislation to clarify the prohibition of use of federal education funds for weapons training is how they listed it. And that's, so that's where the funding was pulled from the archery and shooting sports program.

So that will be back in there, archery, hunting, other shooting sports continue to be. protected across this great country. We've talked, you gotta, you don't want the legislators getting involved, man. And the stuff that we love, keep it out of there. But in this case, it was a good pause.

I think we'd like to also highlight a lot of times is when our DNR officers do something great. So I [00:08:00] got one here. The Mississippi flyway council has honored Brad Turner as a while or waterfowl protection officer of the year. They recently recognized Brad Turner as the waterfowl protection officer of the year, and he's been serving at Ohioans as a state wildlife officer since 2007.

Let's see what County is that it's set in here. That's pretty cool. Cause we're not known as a massive duck or waterfowl state, but for the Mississippi flyway guys to. Recognize that. That's awesome. Turner was assigned to Sioda County before being transferred to Provo County in 2010. You guys know how we love to butcher names from around the state, but officer Turner of Rossburg graduated from Mississauga Nawa Valley high school in dark County.

Say it again. Yep. Come again. Yep. Missinagua. Sure. And 2003, he received his degree from hockey college. More information on a lot of these stories from ODNR at [00:09:00] OhioDNR. gov if you want to check into that. One other thing that ODNR is accepting applications for geologic research grants. Some more information on the H2O, Ohio H2, Ohio wetland project happening up in Northwest Ohio.

So lots of stuff happening there. Okay, Paul, you got it. Let's recap. Let's start with your entry into the weekend, man. I did get access to some private property here in Lincoln County, which is pretty cool. Went out there, scouted a couple of days before. It was fun, man. Nice. I saw some deers, saw some deer.

It was just, it was nice to get back up in the saddle and I don't know, getting the kinks worked out. It was climbing the tree is getting easier and easier. This is my third year doing it. You'd think that I'd get used to it at some point, but yeah, it was good.

Nothing nothing of note in my hunting over the weekend. I laid out, went out that once for probably five hours and. Yeah you [00:10:00] had the eventful week and weekend. We're both drinking coffee. That was the weird pause there. Sorry. Oh. Yes, and as I always have 12 different things going on okay, so I got a lot of stuff going on in life.

I just not able to make it out Saturday Sunday. I actually had plenty of time to just get out to the woods. So I got up and got out there early. I think I was in the tree at six. Legal shooting light was like, don't quote me, but it was like six 45, but even six 50, even at that point, it wasn't, it was too dark where I was at too much leaf cover.

The moon was pretty bright, but I just couldn't see anything. So it was sometime about seven o'clock or so. I'm on a property that is, it's private. It is a lottery that I was drawn for locally. And so I have the month of October. And so this episode that we're about to, the real good part of the episode, not just [00:11:00] us jokers talking is that we got Dan Johnson.

And Dan will talk in this process. We talk about this property in particular on how you would attack a property that you only have for a month and arguably not the best month of the season, but leading up, right? It's just to get better and better as the weeks go on, days go on.

Yeah. Opening day. So I go out and where I decided to set up is about 90 acre piece of property. There's a very, there was a big cliff side. I don't want to say it was straight down, but the topography, it was. Where we're at in central Ohio. That was a good drop. I looked at the other day.

There's about 100 ft of elevation change and over. I don't know. It was steep. Okay. Now I've been on this property one time prior and when I went out, it was very apparent there was areas with acorns that were just Throwing out of the trees, not a whole lot of ag on the property nearby. There was some corn[00:12:00] on neighboring properties, but it's got some terrain features, it's got cricks, it's got some like CRP area.

That's not super developed anyways. I decide I'm going to hang camera and put some sticks in a platform near these Oaks and it didn't take long to get a couple of pictures coming through on that camera where the, it was always the evening. And Dawn, or, dusk and dawn, but the nothing crazy antler wise.

There was a couple that, I mean in my book that were going to be shooters, but I think, maybe once or twice I saw, and it was, they were off in the distance and the camera was not a black gate. So the quality of the image was not great. Any who, I get out there and I set up. And I'm sitting there the very first thing, Paul, I don't even know if I told you that there was a large bodied deer about 60 yards off and it was too dark to tell you what it was.

All I could see was the body and it was big.[00:13:00] The silhouette moving through it was technically legal shooting light, but it wasn't.

But it didn't take long and all of a sudden there was, I don't know, three, four dough that were moving my direction and then all of a sudden this squirrelly little fork point comes from the other direction and kind of scares them off and eventually these dough do move back down in. All right. So everybody, if you listen, I am a meat hunter.

I am trying to fill my freezer this fall. Probably more than ever. It'll sound like a hunt a lot, but I have a very structured when I can go. So I don't, my first goal is to fill the freezer and I like, I don't know if it's target panic. I don't know if it's just me being a head case, high strung, whatever it is.

I got to get some of these cobwebs knocked off. I can shoot in the backyard all day long and just drill that target. But when the moment comes, I have [00:14:00] I get nervous and I'm not afraid to admit that I have always been nervous. It doesn't matter if it's a dough or a 200 inch deer, which I've never seen 200 years.

So that might be next level nervous. But because myself

the Hey, I gotta get this stuff worked out. So I have these dough come in, I'm like, here, we're gonna take this dough. Remember, I'm set up on this kind of bench with this huge drop off. I shoot the dough arrow goes right through and I hear her crash not far away. So this was a fixed blade broadhead.

I think it was an iron will. No, I know it was an iron. If anybody wants to know the shot was about 21 yards. It's not the best place shot, but it did the job. Arrow went right through. I'm I got down, right? And I went and found her because I had heard her crash tagged her. I couldn't find the arrow, [00:15:00] but I knew where she went and she didn't go far.

It was Troy Fowler's dead. Deer don't run to a T and I didn't find the arrow. There wasn't a whole lot of blood. But being with us, I also realized when I found her that it was on this cliff essentially or very steep bank. And I shouldn't say cliff. If there's anybody listening that it's like from real area where they have topography, they're like, dude, you are a total sissy.

That is not a clip, but anywho, I'm like, I look at my watch. It Paul is literally like seven 45. It's still pretty cool out. So I'm like, I'm just going to climb back up in that tree. I had all day, like I had to be home at four o'clock. That was my time, which I know that's like when you should be going back out to the woods.

But regardless, so I climbed back up in the tree and I'm sitting there for a little bit. I had myself a little bar took a leak out of the tree. All of a sudden that little forky comes back. I'm sitting there eating, it's not a chocolate [00:16:00] bar, but it's like a, it's called a barbell, right? It's chocolate flavor, whatever.

This forky is just right in my wind. I've just pissed out of the stand. He has no idea. No idea. So stupid. So stupid. And anyways, he moves on and then there's more dough. I got this whole time. I feel like there's deer. I can see deer in the distance on the way. And there's so many deer on this property.

There's no understory because they are just browse that down. And I'm sitting there and I'm like, And I have another dough come through and I'm like, Okay, I'm filling the freezer. I've got time. It's in the morning. It's not like nighttime where I'm gonna have to. I knew I was gonna have to take him home and butcher him.

If I take this shot and take this deer, we're gonna Get this out of here. So I go through the process. I do it again. This time. Okay. This is earth shattering for me, Paul. I [00:17:00] used mechanical. I used a severed broad head. So I'm going to talk to Nate over at Missouri woods and water. And those guys he's on the severed.

Bandwagon. We've heard things from some other very credible sources that these were high quality, made of titanium or whatever. Mechanicals. Mechanicals. So I decided I'd get something. Give him a job. All right, we'll give it a shot again. I was not super happy with my shot placement, but the Arrow went right through and probably the mechanical having the larger cutting diameter did enough damage to get the job done.

That doe runs the other direction from the first one. I see her go down over the cliff, and disappear. 9, 9 [00:18:00] 30 in the morning. 9 30, I think

I'm like, I'm going to get down. I'm not doing any more of this, but I'm, it's whenever I got time, I'll just go, I'll go find them. So I go find the second one tagger and then I'm like, all right, let's go back to the truck. Regroup all that kind of stuff. It took me three hours. I looked at it last night on the map.

I, I had to drag each one of those deer about 400 yards. My goodness. Yeah. A quarter mile. That's not far. And it took me three hours to get them both out because it was up that damn hill. I had my little sled trying to pull them up the hill. It wasn't working. Couldn't get my footing. I ended up like taking my tether, my tree tether.

Harnessing around and just doing like a yank, take a couple steps, a big pull, big pole, and then dude, that about killed me. And I'll tell you what. So there's a bunch of things I learned in this and thought about, Hey, I'm very, I think it's rewarding when you do that and go through all that work and [00:19:00] then put them in the freezer, like when you go to eat that it's just going to taste different, whatever.

But you earned it hard work. Definitely. Excuse me, the other thing is when we talked to talk and he's people, please take those and we need to take more dough to get them out of the system. And the overall health will be better. It will hurt. It'll be better if we can start back that down. I see why people don't take those like in that situation.

If there's, you know me, I work out a lot, 56 days a week. It's very intense. That put me to the test. Really put me to the test where I'm dragging those out and 3 hours later, 3 hour workout of dragging these damn deer out. And by that point, it was getting warmer. It's 80 80 degrees. Whatever. That was a lot of work, man.

If you can't pull an ATV right up, which you couldn't on that property or truck or anything. That's no joke. So I was [00:20:00] busy. I couldn't come help you. My bad. No, it's all good. So bad. And it was one of those things like I, I enjoy that kind of stuff, but I, now I see why people are, would be hesitant to take dose had even if they hadn't gone down that cliff, it was still going to be a little bit of a drag and stuff.

It wouldn't have been near as bad, but. Going up that Hills was rough. So that made me think a lot about that. And any who got him back, got him cut up, got him in the freezer. We're on the board two for two and yeah. What a week on the board, man. Next week, I got my lottery hunt, so see what that is.

Yeah, I'm leaving for a hunt down in Southern Ohio, gosh, tomorrow. Tomorrow morning. There you go. We've got nine fingers today. Nine fingers, Dan Johnson. We talked, so we piggybacked. [00:21:00] We wanted to do the hunting controversies with Dan and Tony. And we missed some of that. Dan's got really good perspectives on controversial stuff and he's not afraid to talk about it.

And it was a really good talk. And we also did, we did a lot of preseason strategy preparation. That early season hunt that we're all into. Dan's an exceptional hunter. Very accomplished. So yeah, I think really gonna enjoy this episode. So it was great. It was it was a ton of fun.

So months. What else, man? What else we got? I think that's it, dude. I think it's it guys. One thing I was, cause I'm an idiot and it's really early. We talked about that deer nuts. I do have a website. I was going to ask you about that, but I wasn't sure. Hang on. We're gonna edit this out. I don't care if you edit it or not.

People know it. We're dumb. Getdearnuts. com. Getdearnuts. com. What a [00:22:00] name, man. Oh, I love it. Love it. Yeah. No, I don't have a whole lot more. I appreciate you guys. Interacting with us as you guys are harvesting stuff, put us, put pictures on there. One of the things, we get Dan Johnson, Tony Peterson, some of these big name guys on there.

That's great. We want to hear from the people in Ohio. So I want to hear your story. I want to hear set up on the cliff. How was your drag out? Was it publicly and privately? And have you been watching it for a while? All that kind of stuff. Let's talk about it. And help other people. I think we can help each other pick up little tips and tricks.

And, I don't know if anybody learned anything from me. One of the things that you tell you that little bench was money. The acorns were money, but the cliff and the drag was not like they got into consideration. I don't know, but there you go. Yeah, good stuff. Yeah. Thank you so much for listening to the show.

Find us on Go Wild O2 podcast. Find us on the gram, the dot O2 dot podcast. Check out the website if you feel so inclined. O2podcast. com. Thanks. Take care, everybody. Good luck. [00:23:00] Hope

What are we going to talk about? I don't know. What do you want? What do you want to talk about? No, we're like

30 seconds into this. Hey, let's just let's give them just. Let's just fluff his ego here a second. Let's talk about, let's talk about fall turkey for just a little bit. All right. You have the floor, Paul, go ahead, bud. Don't shoot hens. That's all I can say. I'm just, I don't even, I don't even know that's that's controversial in and of itself.

Damn, not shooting hens. I like turkey hens with dogs, which is pretty fun. It's pretty cool. I did it for the first time last year. Is that legal? Is that legal? It is not in every state though. Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Kentucky, I believe there's, I'm not sure there's a handful of States that you can hunt turkeys with dogs, but it's pretty cool.

It's a pretty wild way to do it. Okay. Let me ask you now, let me ask you a question. Yeah. Do you [00:24:00] shoot. Are you the guy kind of guy? Yes or no. Who shoots birds out of the roost? No, that is illegal in Ohio. I know that for a fact. Okay. And this is the reason I'm going here because hunt turkeys with dogs won't shoot them out of a roost.

Now is there an ethical debate in there anywhere with shooting okay, it's illegal to shoot a turkey from the roost, but a dog. Can run it down and what do they do? Do they fly up into the tree? No. So the dogs run the dogs run in and they can smell 'em like 300 yards away.

So they run in, they break up the flocks. And then when the dogs break up the flocks, they just sit down and the hunters have those GPS collars on them on the dogs. So they'll hear, you'll hear the dogs barking and then you go and you sit down where they, where the dog broke the flock up [00:25:00] and then, so you sit down the dog, they put them in burlap sacks.

You just like the dogs just getting burlap sacks and then you call the turkeys back in. And it doesn't work. It's not it's not a given, right? It's not just like shooting fish in a barrel. Like it's still a lot of work. It's there's still a lot of, margin for error. Last year, the first hunt that I did, they came in, we saw them probably 80 yards away.

They never got, never came into our call and they all just grouped up and took off. Interesting though. Yeah, it is. It's a neat way. I'm sure that there's people out there that are like, Oh my God, savages. A lot of people don't like shooting hens because of the population issues throughout the country.

Which I think that, I think I'm probably at that camp now, but that's it. That's all the turkey talk for this deer hunting episode. All I heard was dogs and sacks and I you've hijacked this from the start. Now I'm over now. Thanks Dan. Thanks for indulging. We had. Our show there with Tony a couple of weeks ago, talking about controversial topics.

So this is tying right in. And I [00:26:00] actually, Paul and I have talked about this. All right. So we're going to go a little bit off the cuff and it's going to relate to turkeys, believe it or not. So Dan, we work with X vision, which is thermal optics and Paul and I've had this conversation as far as ethics go legality.

I don't know. So don't anybody quote me on any of this. I have not talked. I've not looked into this at all. If you roost a bird. At night when it's flying up right into that tree, what is the difference between that and using a thermal optic after dark to figure out where they're at in the tree, which I think is I'm almost positive.

That's a legal in most States using thermals to find game species. I could be wrong. I think you're probably right. But I know like in Tennessee, I talked to a game board and he was like, yeah, you'll for sure get arrested. I'm not going to try it. Yeah, no I'm not. Brewston, I guess they don't always gobble.

It's in an hour of turkey call at night, but and I definitely, I was going to give off a heat signature. Yes, I can definitely see [00:27:00] it with deer, but they get up and move in the middle of the night, right? That bird, it should be there the same place at night when you roost it, they shift quite a bit.

They'll shift some, but like hundreds of yards or in the same tree. Depends if something dumps them where I can. So the question though, is this, the question is, What's the difference between roosting a bird and using thermal imaging at night to locate them? Is that the question? The way that I roost deer, or roost deer, roost turkey.

Heard it here. New strategy, roosting deer. New strategy, coming soon. It is,

you go, at last,

While they're coming back to roost. And then, at least where you're starting off, you can hear the fly up into the tree, but you may not see them, but at least you have a good [00:28:00] place to start the morning thermal like walking into the woods with a pair of thermals, I whatever, like what these days, that's my answer to everything, whatever, whatever, if there's not a law about it, there's going to be a law about it. Everything because there's guys out there now who are driving the roads using thermal imaging to locate deer at night when in Iowa, it is legal to shine, you can spotlight deer at night. You just can't, you can't have a weapon in the car with you.

So in my opinion, there's no difference between thermal imaging and shining. I don't know, man. Yeah. And that's exhausted by these types of conversations. We're going to, we're going to wear you out the deer part is interesting. So I was screwing around with the thermal this summer, and obviously it's outside of season, not [00:29:00] hunting.

I'm just looking right. It's really cool what you can see through those things at night. You see a rabbit. I've got cool video of a Bobcat walking through in the middle of the night, the deer when they had the velvet on their antlers, cause it's got blood and stuff running through it, you see their antlers now at this time of the year, when they're starting to shed.

Everything's a doe. So I don't, I don't even know how you could use it. You could, you obviously could locate them at night, but if you don't, you just couldn't tell if it was a doe or a buck once they shed that velvet because it's all looks the same. There's no heat coming off those antlers.

So it's an interesting topic. And, I think like anything, there's tons of tools and things out there for people to use. They just have to do it smart by the law ethically. Yeah, which brings me to crossbows. So Dan I know you love crossbows and I'm going to play devil's advocate on this, right?

Because I know, and I want you to hear out my side of it. And in Ohio, we've got a crossbow, crossbows are legal through the [00:30:00] entire archery season. I've heard you talk, people that are on either end of the spectrum, generally young, old females, people can't pull back the bow where they're injured, that kind of thing, or can't get enough draw weight.

It makes sense, but maybe not in the entire archery season. And All that kind of stuff, but I know that in an attempt to get people to hunt more, is it not a viable option in, in, in trying to recruit and that what is it three hours or whatever, bring more people into the industry. And here's my story, right?

I had. I've been upright compound hunting for a while, had a string of bad events or just bad luck or whatever. I just, I went and I got a crossbow. I regained that confidence over a couple of years. Like I know what I'm doing. I can get on some deer. I'm I, all right. I'm ready to go back to the compound.

Now I needed those couple of years. And when you look at the whole thing, [00:31:00] like my interest in it has gone a hundred fold, I've spent way too much money on stuff. So the industry is. Enjoying some of that, we got into this podcast and stuff. We've talked to a ton of people I've learned so much more that little stepping stool for me to regain that confidence and get back into hunting, as more than just, I might hit a deer.

Like it's just gone totally, it's just blown up for me. So I don't know, I see both sides of it, but what do you say? Let's go. All right. So there's a whole bunch of different little things that I got to talk about. I don't give a shit and this in with all due respect. I don't care what as a non resident.

Of Ohio, like if I'm going to come to Ohio, I'm a non resident, so I have to follow whatever rules and regulations are set in place, but I don't [00:32:00] necessarily get the right to vote on any of those rules and regulations, if that makes any sense. In the state of Ohio, if there is a a crossbow, crossbows are allowed in the, are, count as archery tackle, and you're allowed to use them, I don't care.

Great. That's great. I live in Iowa, where crossbows are for kids, the youth season for late season hunts. When you say there, when you say they're for kids and late season hunts and stuff, is that by law? Yes. Yep. Yep. So by law a kid can use a crossbow during the youth season. A kid I'm not sure if they can use them during the actual archery season as a youth, but I know during the youth specific season, they can use them.

If you are, I believe, 65. Or it's either 60 or 65. I think [00:33:00] you can use a crossbow. All right. If you have a doctor's excuse saying you got a bad shoulder or something, whatever you have pain, when you draw back a bow, you can get a doctor's a note. To get a crossbow use a crossbow during archery season fine with all of that late season has a, the late season muzzleloader season after shotgun season here in Iowa, then it goes into what we call the The late season or the primitive weapon season.

A lot of people call it the late muzzleloader, but you can use a bow. You can use a crossbow. You can use a muzzleloader in that late season. And so it's a primitive weapons tag. It's who's pushing them. So right now.

In the state of Iowa, there are, there is legislation being pushed by crossbow manufacturers to politicians and the, and then they're lobbying. They are paying lobbyists to lobby our politicians here in Iowa [00:34:00] to get a crossbow season because they know that by their calculations, if this passes, they're going to make this much money.

Okay. It has nothing to do with whether or not the natural resource. needs another weapon to be introduced during the archery season. It has nothing to do with if the hunters in the state of Iowa are asking for this. It has everything to do for I guess you would call it special interest groups. And so these crossbow manufacturers are hiring lobbyists to try to get this passed in every state. Okay. And as a resident of Iowa, I don't want that. And that is I am a believer and take this how you want to take it that a crossbow is not archery. That's my opinion. I don't care if you use one.

Iowa offers the ability to use [00:35:00] a crossbow in the late season, but I just don't feel that it belongs in the in the archery season. There you go. What's that? I ran or did I dodge the question? Did I answer it? No, I think there's no answer. And it's, there's a lot of opinions and thoughts when I look at Ohio and I don't know, I don't know enough about Iowa but like we have a lot of deer.

For us to allow that crossbow, I don't have any problem if it means it gets somebody's confidence up or it allows somebody, take their first, animal or whatever. I don't even care if they take a big one, right? If that's on there. What they want to do, like we have enough deer here.

We just got, and it was last week, Paul, or a couple of weeks ago, we had Mike talk of it, Johnny's our state deer biologist, like he's pleading people to take more does because we have so many deer. I don't know until there's a point where it's like, we are, we need to start back in that the other crossbows introduced into Ohio.

I want to say [00:36:00] it was like, I want to say it was like mid nineties months. We've talked with someone about that. No idea. Yeah. I think it was mid nineties.

So I think it's definitely a huge conversation over here. And maybe it hasn't helped, if you, if they've been around for 30 years and we still have way too many deer and not enough hunters and all that kind of stuff, that maybe isn't the answer, but if you take them out, I wonder, I would like to know that, how many deer are taken with a crossbow every year.

Yeah. Yeah. And there's ways to figure that out. We should have been more prepared. Here's a statistic from, reference Ohio, the Ohio country journal. I don't know if that is a big news. It's fake news. No, I'm just joking. I'm sorry. Ohio Country Journal. If that offended you.

Yeah. Anyway, according to the the Ohio's Country Journal during the 2020, 21 deer season, 48 percent of deer were [00:37:00] taken with archery equipment. Now I'm guessing that including 30, okay, here we go.

Using a crossbow and 15 percent using a vertical bow. Okay. So 33 percent of that, or 48 percent of all deer, 48 percent of all deer were taken with archery equipment. Of that 48%. This doesn't make sense that the math is off on this because it wouldn't be 33% and 15% because that equals 48%. So that would be the way that I'm, you're reading that to me, it sounds like 33% of all deer were taken with a crossbow.

33, yes. 33% of all deer were taken with a crossbow and 15 using a vertical bow. Okay. So obviously. More people are going to go to [00:38:00] crossbows. Now another question, and I don't know if this is the direction that you want to take it, that needs to be asked, is You know, we hear this R3 all the time, right?

We got to get new hunters in, we got to get new hunters in, but where are they going to hunt is my question, right? Because we're coming into a time where I would say that the average number of acres that a single hunter has access to is more acres. By himself, then it has been, and that number continues to go up.

That's an assumption on my point. That's a guess. As more people are buying land strictly for deer hunting, they are displacing all of these hunters other hunters. They're locking it up for themselves only displacing [00:39:00] other hunters, and I'll talk to, in Iowa specifically, that they all get pushed to public and then public is overflowed, is overflowed, whatever the word is, has too many hunters on it now, because Iowa only has less than 2 percent of its total landmass Is public hunting or I would say is it's public land.

Some of that publicly and you can't hunt because it's that counts like state parks and boat landings and things like that. So the question is, you mentioned, Hey, it's a good idea to use a crossbow to get people into hunting. I don't know if anybody out there other than using the, Hey, we need more voters out there.

Hey, we need as many people because you know that the anti hunters there's millions and millions of them and there's not as many hunters right now. Do we really need more [00:40:00] hunters? That's the question. Can the landscape support more hunters or is it just going to crowd everybody else?

And so I think that's a valid question that a lot of people don't talk about. I think Ohio, as far as our public land goes, we're very going to, we're going to be very similar to you guys. Like we don't have much. What is it, Paul? Two and a half percent of all 4. 8 is that's public.

Then how much of that's hunting about half of that, right? Yeah, probably. Yeah. So I think it's two and a half percent of all the land is actually huntable. I don't know. I feel like Ohio does a pretty good job. We did. We have a lot of lotteries and. Like I won one this year, Paul won one.

And what do you have two weeks at that one? And I've got a week at mine. And they're all over the state. It's not just one area. The other mine's a metro park. It should be like real good, everything I'm hearing, I only have it for a [00:41:00] week, but it's definitely a sweet opportunity. And I'm going to try to take advantage of as much as I can.

It's right during the October law. Probably nothing happening, but dang it, you are tired. I was just trying to get you fired up, man. And you're just like sitting there, let it go. I'm just biting my tongue. The moon's not going to be right either.

Moon phase, probably not going to be wearing the right camouflage, right? I don't have all my specter. I have to get all the rest of that figured out. But no, so I don't know. I feel like there's a ton of room for hunters. We have or like most big cities population in the urban areas of the deer is just ridiculous.

And so a lot of these cities are starting to figure out programs and stuff too. Help manage that. But I don't know. Do you think we all have the same type of the leasing issues and stuff that dancing in Iowa? No doubt. Yeah. You drive. I wouldn't bet that you went through that. You went through all of that way before.

I will even went through all of that. Yeah, we're, we're pretty [00:42:00] liberal with our out of state licenses. Anyone can come because it's over the counter, buy a deer tag over, over the counter. And, if you drive around in certain areas and especially Southern Ohio, what was it?

Base camp leasing, I think is the name of the company. And I'm not hating on anyone. But they have these yellow signs that they put up when they lease a property and they're everywhere. 15 years ago that wasn't, you might see three or four properties, but now it's just it's one after the other, one after the other.

And I, you've got more outfitters and I'm saying any of this is a bad thing, right? You've got more outfitters, you've got more out of state hunters. That's what's, that's the right heavy is the crown, right? Dan. When you're a big buck state, you're going to have people coming from out of state and I guess that's good and bad.

And it's never going to stop because the revenue is too great. And you talk about and this is, I'm going to get, I'm just real quick on the R3, you talk about hunting hunters, right? The popularity of hunting is falling off of a cliff in this country and it's been doing that for a long time.

And so here's the numbers in the state of Ohio. I'm going to go attend your gaps, 2011, [00:43:00] 2012. These are all hunting licenses, spring and fall. 423, 990 fast forward to 2022, 348, 144. That was the number of hunting licenses sold in the state. So that's the drop. And I'm sure that not all states have had that precipitous of a drop, but when we talk about hunting is conservation and how conservation North American model of wildlife conservation is funded in the state, it's directly related to the sale of hunting licenses and all the trappings, right?

All the things that come with that. And that's based off of like the. I followed your cup, your camera followed your cup. Keep talking. I'm sorry, but so all of that, when you talk about Pittman Robertson dollars, the windfall profits or, windfall excess tax from the federal government coming down, we're talking billions of dollars over, the 75 years that it's been around, the less people that use that resource and that participate in hunting that directly relates the amount of money that [00:44:00] our state governments get to use.

for conservation work. What's the fine line? I don't know. I'm not, I can't answer that. I'm definitely not smart enough. But I think when we start as hunters, when we start talking about, we need fewer hunters. I think there's a serious issue on the back end of that. If we cut the number of hunters in half and the funding that would drop from that, like you, this, that's a serious problem.

And I don't think you. Don't always get what you, or I don't know what the saying is. Oh yeah. There, there are repercussions, blowback that we don't, that, are unforeseen, but, and it's oh shoot. I just lost my train of thought. I think it's like this cycle that it's just outta,

I hate.

Said, you know what, I'm gonna, I'm gonna get, gets passed on to his children or he dies, it gets passed down to his children. They either sell [00:45:00] it or, hopefully it's someone local and someone who lives on it and takes care of it. Or the other thing is they keep it and they have an outfitter run hunts on it or they lease it to another hunter.

Meanwhile, the old man had four or five other hunters on it who had permission to hunt. They all get kicked off. And so where do they have to go? In an area like Southern Iowa, they don't have anywhere to go other than public and public is already smashed. And so we have that aspect of it.

If you, I feel like, again, whether you're leasing, whether you go to an outfitter, whether you are a landowner you come into an area in any state, you buy a chunk of land and it displaces, if you're the only person hunting it, but it displaced two hunters, right? It's just this, where are people going to hunt if [00:46:00] we are taking larger stacks

of land to take up for ourself, right? And I honestly think it's. It's the big buck craze, right? Everybody wants to shoot a big buck. How do you shoot a big buck? You kick off other hunters and you pass them all deer, right? And then you yourself and other you will you'll benefit from that you change everything and so I just I hate to say it but I just feel like it's gonna it's everything that we are currently doing in the hunting community and in the hunting industry is leading us to down a very bad road.

Along with those statistics that you mentioned about drops of hunting licenses, because as leases go up, as outfitting prices go up, people are and private land [00:47:00] is gobbled up permission goes out the door in certain areas, they go to, they're going to give it a try on public for a little bit, then they're going to find out that hunting public is tough.

And then they're going to give up, right? And so I look at it as more of a, of an access. We need to find farmers who are willing to do walk in programs. We, over, over outfitting and leasing. What's easement. Where, people won't build like like behind my house right now, there is a giant field.

It's going to get developed at some point in time and into a housing development put it in a conservation easement, allow hunters to go on it. And so I think that the big answer to try to get tags up is to get. Access up and finding ways to do that. And also, man, I don't know the big buck thing is it's a big deal.

[00:48:00] And the way that we market in this industry and the way that we are so focused on ampler size over experience, unfortunately, it's, I feel it's just a slow, it's a slow death. Yeah. So it's going to break the back of the hunting model in this country, without a doubt. And you're getting, you're seeing some of that shit move into the Turkey world, which makes me sick.

And I fight it every chance that I get, but I'm not going to fight it here, but yeah, man, it's, it is it's opportunity and it's experience. That's the, that's the. Those are the two main, benefits and, the detractor there, but man it's so you wanted to say something.

Dan, I think you covered a couple of things there. So part of that, the idea of, generational farms being sold off urban sprawl, right? We see it all the time. Columbus is booming. A lot of these cities are booming where they just keep moving out and it is, and the seventh generation kid that has no interest in farming or just looking for the paycheck.

I don't know. That's like a whole nother topic. I think [00:49:00] when you talk about the big buck craze and the hunting community, do you consider yourself part of that problem? Yes, a hundred percent. Yeah. I can't lie. Like I love big antler deer. I love chasing big mature whitetails. And I know that the reason Iowa is the way it is I'm, I am a product of my environment, born and raised in Iowa.

I live in Iowa, and I get to see the benefit from all of that, right? And so that is why I don't want anybody messing with our Rules and regulations, adding additional deer seasons, adding adding any seasons, adding crossbows, adding air guns giving non residents, like non resident landowners, the ability to hunt every single year and skip out on the non resident draw.

That would instantly, I'm [00:50:00] talking overnight, the land prices in Iowa would skyrocket and it's all south of interstate 80. It's all because a majority of the mecca of Iowa is south of interstate 80. Everything north is all egg. And so there's still pockets of good deer hunting up there, but there's certain parts of the state where you can see five straight miles standing on the ground because it's so flat and it's so barren because of it's just all egg fields, you'll see a hog confinement or something like that in the distance, but that's it.

And so we're taking a whole state now we're cutting it in half. And then we're cutting it in half and then we're cutting it in half and just to answer your question about the big butt craze.

I, I think I'm part of the problem, but I also [00:51:00] think that the message that I spread. is celebrating all deer hunting and not just big bucks, right? Big bucks, dude, from a business standpoint, they get attention. They get downloads. And how do I make my money? I sell advertising. And so the more downloads that I can generate, the more advertising that I can sell, the larger the, my paycheck is based off of that.

And Yeah, that helps. It definitely helps. But I also like to celebrate the guys who go out for the first time ever and shoot a spike or a doe or a kid's hunt or something like that. And I know, I think in a way, All hunting media is part of the problem. If I had, if I was to cast a very vague, broad shadow on everything, I think that all hunting media in some way, shape, or form is [00:52:00] negative towards the overall goal.

But there's also really good messages that can be shared in stories and experiences that can be shared in that as well. And so it's honestly something that I think about every day. No, I think you're, and you're right. And it's because of the idea of sex cells, right? Big bucks are sexy. They don't put little spikes on the front of the magazines or any of that kind of stuff.

It's the big ones. It's what, and I didn't mean to direct that as you being part of the problem, we're part of the problem. Who do we have on? We bring a lot of times we bring guys on that know how to find where big deer are. And we want to talk about it and figure that out. Oh, we try to balance it out too.

And get, other things other people on to talk about doe population, all this kind of stuff, but definitely a sex sells type of industry. It's just, I am shooting the first 40 that walks by my tree saddle. We know Don, if I can be done deer hunting, Dan, by nine a. m. [00:53:00] You're on the ground.

I'm going to be at Dan turkey on. So the same way you guys are like the same, I'm going to text you me like a shit's easy. I'm going to have a little like

you're going to be, you're going to be standing two feet behind it, two or three feet behind it with your arm really stretched out. Yep. With a fisheye lens on your camera. But let's I got this controlled hunt again, bleep that out. We've controlled hunt part out. So it's in it's in a river County.

It's a property that the state just got access to. They bought in 2019. It opened up to hunting. I believe 2021 was the first hunting season that was open to. So it's a limited draw. This is a big buck County. It's 2, 900 acres. There's going to be four other people on this property from my understanding.

Could be more, but they, so they could bring, they bring a guy. So there could be eight people at any time I've had. I it's I've gone down once I put trail cameras [00:54:00] out. Dan, you want to guess what he sent me pictures of from his trail cams? One guess, a couple of gobblers, dumb ass bird, a couple of gobblers.

But I've gotten three, three bucks on there. I've won one. I would say is that like what three and a half years old. I think he's a good deer, not super huge, but he's going to be good, but there are like, there are really big deer in this area, but here's the thing.

I get 10 days and it's the, Oh, I get 14 days. You get the first 14 days of the season, which is not ideal. There's not a lot of ag on this property. It's super hilly. So I've wanted to take this approach and it hasn't really worked out cause it's three hours from my house, right? It's an ordeal to get there.

Where, you know, that, that quote from Abraham Lincoln, where he said that if I had eight hours to cut down a tree, I'd prepare, I'd sharpen my ax for six hours. So I wanted to really be prepared and piggyback off that statement you put a real out on Instagram today that I thought was fitting for me.

Someone [00:55:00] asked how do I kill a deer? In the beginning of the season and you're like don't hunt because obviously you're not prepared. If you're asking me how to do it, you're not prepared. I thought that was a really interesting perspective. So talk about being prepared for the beginning of the season, which I mean, it's we're four days away from the opener here.

You ain't prepared. You're not getting done right between now and Saturday months. Yeah. I'll be honest. I want everybody and I hate to use your platform to go promote my platform, but I just recorded a podcast. It's going to come out tomorrow. I don't know when this episode is going to launch, but it's going to come out on Wednesday and I.

I interviewed a guy who killed a buck on opening night. I think it was opening night. If it wasn't opening night, it was like two days later. Anyway, I think it was opening night though. Here's what this guy knew about this buck. He knew where he was bedding. He had him on [00:56:00] trail camera Five out of every seven days.

So he knew where he was going. He knew he was coming to this green patch of beans. He he knew that there was some acorns mixed in there that some nights he felt that this buck wasn't the nights that he wasn't walking in front of his trail camera, he was going to an acorn, a tree somewhere, an oak tree somewhere.

Then he hit in the beans. And then coming back in the morning. So this guy had this deer pegged. He also had two additional years of information on this particular buck, right? So he knew everything about this deer and he knew that he needed a south wind to get into the tree stand and make it happen. And so it's a book at that point.

It's an instruction manual laid out before you. But research years of annual patterns, like [00:57:00] all these things matter when it comes to trying to shoot a deer early season, especially you either have to be really close to their bedroom or find a food source that they're coming to in daylight. And so the people who are very successful.

In the early season or people who are on top of all of that stuff, me, I don't do any of that quite yet. I have my trail cameras out right now so that when I get to that late October timeframe, when I go to check my trail cameras, I can start putting the pieces of the puzzle together then and try to attack them during the pre rut.

But there's. The guys who are not in the pre rut, the rut, they can get away with a little bit more pressure is not as I don't feel any way, like the closer you get to the lone rut, the more pressure you make into a property public, private, whatever, and the deer will [00:58:00] accept it because they're horny, right?

And I feel like Yeah you have to be on point and know a lot of things to, to knock down a deer opening week months. You got a lot of Intel this year, cameras out, you've got a lot of spots pegs. So Dan, if you've got. moderate information on some deer that you're willing to harvest or kill across your property.

Are you going to go out and risk blowing something up? Or are you just meh, I'll see you in the, I'm not anti, I'm not anti early season. Of course I am right place, right time. Gotcha. And right now all my trail cameras are telling me is nocturnal movement. Inconsistent movement, right?

And so I know that when late October, early November, when the deer are on their feet, and they start going into this pre rut [00:59:00] chase where they're checking scrapes, they're making sign they're getting downwind, they're starting to scent check doe groups, they're going to be going through specific terrain features.

To do that. And that's where I focus my energy is on these specific terrain features and how to access them. Yes, by pure luck I could go in there and run into him some night in the early season, but I would rather. I would rather have deer movement, not just like 15 minutes a day. I would rather have like multiple hours worth of deer movement every day.

And you get that the later into the season you get before they're up. So piggybacking on Paul's question. I've got a property I have essentially a lottery. I have one month to hunt it, Dan, and it is the month of October. Okay. So obviously things should get. In theory, better as the month goes on, [01:00:00] I went out there today.

I first time I had access to it was this week. I hung a camera. I picked a spot, tried to use all my little tidbits picked up along the way. There's acorns fallen. There's paths galore that I swear it's the freaking deer. Port a potty there's just piles of shit everywhere. So I put it up in a tree that all signs indicate this is going to be good, right?

Thermal should be good wind direction stuff. I go out there, let's say I go out this weekend. It's my, the first time I get out there and I have no luck. I know your farms that you hunt generally are pretty, you got a pretty good handle on them, but at what point do you move off of something like that?

I don't want to be going to the same stand every time. Just. And burn it out. I only have a month though. And the property, I don't know how many acres it is. It's decent size. We'll call it a hundred, 150, but are you the only person who was hunting it? I [01:01:00] don't know that a hundred percent but I'm trying to find out and it's one of those things like, okay, this looks really good.

So I just pick a bad day. I did hang in camera. So hopefully I have a little bit of an idea of what's moving through there leading up, but if it doesn't work, if it's not a good spot, is it something where you're like, All right, we're going to move. We're going to try to find another one and hang and hunt here.

Maybe come back to that one later in the month as things ramp up, or do you sit at a few times, you don't just go one and done. Do you, I don't know. What do you think? And a good spot is a good spot and a good spot can be a really good spot if you have good access to it. And so the better, the access, the more you can hunt that staying location.

For example, I have, I had, I lost this farm, but I was able to come off to a field edge and drop down to a low point in this draw and walk [01:02:00] like 200, 300 yards straight into the timber in the lowest point possible. Then I would take a hard left turn, 90 degrees, walk straight up a hill and get to a tree stand that had a that was into a bedding area.

The wind would blow out of the west, the thermals would hit, and I would, my scent just went straight up, and I would drop up milkweed or something like that, and it would just go straight up in the air. And it was a lot tight set. Now I could even hunt that property on a South, a West, a Northwest, a Southwest, any West, if I came out of the North of the South, it started getting a little tricky and iffy West, Southwest, Northwest.

And the reason I could hunt that stand so many times. Throughout the year, and it was good. It produced deer movement every single day, and it just like sometimes it just [01:03:00] wasn't the right

location as good as it was. Now, if I had to walk through that bedding area to get to it, it wouldn't be near as good, right? And if you're, if your access route to that location, do you have access routes on multiple wind locations, or is it a stand that is just one wind specific? I need to sit and study it a little bit.

The access seems really good, right? Okay. Essentially it's like a mode path back through this area. It's like CRP, but it's not super thick CRP, even if I had to walk through it. And I think I, depending on which. Way. I come in, I got a parking spot. Like it's, it seems to be really good.

I also didn't muck around in the property too much. Like I had an idea of where I wanted to go. And this is probably one of my problems is I'm not super open minded to like, [01:04:00] once I see something I'm honed in on it. And I can say, we'll talk about this later, but because I like when you read my maps and then tell me where to go and I don't go there.

And then I see, but the, yeah. Hey, it's one of those things like I didn't want to screw up everything out there in case I have to move once I found this one spot and I was just like, this is good to try to, I've heard Mark and some of the other people talk about, find a spot and then find the tree.

I made sure to do that today. Don't just find a tree that looks nice. Make sure that there's a, a good portion of things that. Lead you to believe that area is good. And I don't know, I'll, I hopefully a week from now, I'm sitting here with a nice big deer down for you, but your trail cameras are going to tell you a lot.

I feel if that trail camera is in the right spot coming through whatever reasons that you're, you put your tree stand there, your trail camera is going to tell you a lot Ohio or did you throw off some corn at all? It's. I don't think it's I'm not, I don't think [01:05:00] I'm allowed on that property.

Yeah, they don't let you. Oh, okay. So it's no baiting on that property. Okay. All right. Okay. So you can't do that, which, okay. So if that's not the case, then your trail camera should tell you a lot. And if there's something moving around in there, the next time you like, I wouldn't recommend going in and checking that trail camera just to check that trail camera.

I would recommend going in and hunting it. And checking the trail camera at the same time, it's a self cam. So it'll whatever. Okay. So what's it telling you so far? It's been there for about six hours, so not much. Oh, okay. Okay. I'll know it's going to tell you something. Now, one thing I did do out there and this is Oh God, I can't believe I'm going to do this, bringing in turkeys into this conversation.

Here we go. Dan, I'm an idiot. Okay. I don't know much about turkeys, but I know when you're out and you're looking for them, if you find big [01:06:00] piles of, where they're scratching, they're out digging for whatever food, and I'm going to be real honest with you, I was looking at what could have been a scrape today.

Or maybe it was turkey scratching. I don't know. I have a footprint in it. It's been pretty dry here lately. So there's not a whole lot of a lot of hoof prints around anywhere. There was an area that looked like maybe it could have been a hoof that had run through. I don't know, man. I am so bad at finding scrapes.

I hear you guys talk about finding scrapes or making mock scrapes. And I didn't make my own mock scrape by that camera. So we'll see how that works out. But how do you find, how do you find scrapes? Dan in the woods, walk with your head down. First off you have to know what a scrape is. And what it looks like, I would strongly recommend going to Google first and getting caught up in the bare basics.

It's like a 15 year old boy trying to figure out the female [01:07:00] anatomy. Like it's like one of those books that kids have where it's you open it up and you read a sentence and any time. There's a picture you push that picture. So it's Johnny got into the car and then they have to push the car emoji.

And so this is a scrape. A scrape is that's what you need to do. Do you, are you an office fan? Mine office man, office fan do you ever watch the office? You have seen those, you seen the one where Dwight goes up to Toby and he's like, where's the clitoris? And that's what I'm like, I feel like I'm asking you right now.

Yes, Paul, I just took it there, but so that's all. Let's hold hands. I'll show you, I just, I have found scrapes in the woods. We'll go bring us back. I have found them from time to time, but I'm walking around this today and I'm just like, instead of just like grid searching or whatever, trying to find one of these what am I looking for?

Just walk down the paths or looking for that low hanging[01:08:00] looking branch or. And I tried that and I just didn't really find a whole lot. And I'm, so it's either, there's no bucks out there, which is probably not true or I'm an idiot, more likely true. So we are just coming out of velvet, right? So velvet's probably, there's still deer, I would say as early as last week that we're still in velvet.

Okay. So I would say that. started now is when rubs and scrapes are really start going to start to pick up and you're going to start noticing them more now that these deer are getting hard horn. And so here's what helped me. And it's it's going to seem simple and crazy, but it's hard to do, especially when you are like, I don't know, I only speaking from my experience and that would be a busy person, three kids, right job just activities up the ass and so get in [01:09:00] there and if you think you found a scrape, slow down.

If you think you found a rub, slow down and stop. And say, why did this deer rub this tree? All right, stand where that scrape is, or that rub is, and just look around. Look at the flow of the land. Knowing what you know about how deer use their nose to work through an area. Say to yourself, just, Hypothetical situations.

Imagine something in your head. Imagine a deer coming out of this bottom or off of this point, coming down on, I guess what you would call the military crest, and walking it to a food source. Oh, he stopped here because this is what he did. He was bedded on this point. We're in this thicket up here. And then he was going to come up to this ag field or this acorn tree.

And he stopped here and he laid a scrape. Or maybe he's crossing from the other ridge, but he, knowing what I know about deer, they don't [01:10:00] go straight down and straight up, right? They use the terrain in their favor to catch all the scent they possibly can. And so I would just recommend really slowing down and observing as much about the property in the surrounding area as possible.

Slowing down. I have trouble with that, but I need to do it in a lot of things in life. That makes sense. The only other question I had for you, Dan, Mr. Emperor, the do we give deer way too much credit? And here's my thing. I I'm trying my hand in trapping, right? I got a whole bunch of coyotes right through my backyard.

Am I, and I have a trail cam back there, right by where I was setting this trap the other day. I set the trap, dug in the dirt, all that kind of stuff. Nine minutes, Dan, nine minutes. There was a dough in there. Not in the trap, [01:11:00] but right there. I'm like, yeah, all this stuff we talk about access and scent control and wind direction, nine minutes.

And I know it's a dough. Okay. It's not a freaking booner, but what the heck? I don't know. Here's what I'll say is they can't make the decisions. Obviously that we can make, they can make decisions like. If I'm scared, I should run. If I'm horny, I should breathe. If I'm hungry, I should eat. If I'm thirsty, I should, drink, right?

But they have thousands and thousands of years of evolution and genetic coding in their body that is, that tells them every single day in the most binary way possible. If this, then this, if I smell danger, then I run. If I, and I think [01:12:00] a lot of this is a theory that I. Have gathered.

It's just a theory and it I wrote an article about it, man, several years ago about the potency of scent. And if I, let's say I am in the, if I'm 20 yards from a deer and he walks, this deer walks downwind of me, catches all of my scent, boom, gone, right? But if I'm 200 yards away, My scent has had the has had a lot of dilution, right?

I think that's the word I'm looking for where dilutes and it just becomes less potent and less potent. So distance from me to that deer plays a huge role and then also time. So if I'm walking through the woods. And then a deer walks through the woods a couple hours later, my scent has diluted to the point where it's [01:13:00] probably not perceived as such a huge threat, right?

They can, it's almost like they can tell time and distance based off potency. Have you ever been in a tree and a deer's gotten downwind and it stopped dead in its tracks? And then turned around and walked the other way. It got every ounce of you in his nose. And then there's other times where they'll put their head up, their sniff.

They know something's, they know something's not right. And they'll sniff and they'll sniff, but they're not getting what they want. They're not getting like this all of a sudden danger. Maybe your thermals are pulling up a little bit and maybe they're just getting a very small amount of you.

And then they just keep going through. Man, they are designed to live in the environments that they're, they've evolved to be such, so good at living in so many different places. And they [01:14:00] do, they do that by surviving all these different environments. And I want to say we, we give them too much credit, but to their credit, we they are built perfectly to survive in the environments that we only visit a little bit of time throughout an entire year.

So if that if that means anything, everything comes out of your mouth means something Dan, I have one more, one more question. Would you take a frontal shot on a buck linear bone? Oh yeah, 100%. If it's from the ground, yes. If it is from a tree stand and he's 10, 20 yards. Yes. Anything past that?

Probably not. I'd probably have to wait until he gave me, got closer or gave me a broadside shot. But 2021 was a, yeah, 2021 [01:15:00] was a. Snort wheezed him in and he was at 20. He was getting ready to step out of this maple tree. I was at full draw, took a hard right, walked right to me with his head up, shot him right in his chest and he took two hops and died.

And yes, I am a huge advocate. Now you gotta know what you're doing, right? You gotta be a good shot. You have to know angles a little bit, right? This deer was above me. Or he was on the uphill slope of where I was at. If he was on the downhill slope and facing towards me, his head would have been in the way.

And so I wouldn't have been able to take that shot, but he was walking down. So he w he wasn't, I was at about 18 feet in the air, 15 to 18 feet. And he was probably 10 feet lower than my tree stand. So there was five feet of incline where he was at. And so his head was up and I saw white. [01:16:00] And I saw his chest and I buried it right in front of the NDA did with the 3d printed deer where they could take the arrow and they have like channels through the deer and they could stick the arrow through to show hunters where if you've got, quartering two or straight on or quartering away or broadside and where the arrow would go, have you ever seen that video?

I have not. Fascinating. I'll have Fascinating. And then they would turn it around and then on the, on, they would, on the backside of the deer, it was just organs and ribs. And where. It was really neat. And that's what you're talking about. Knowing angles like yeah. And that's, that was very, I think that was very well done video, but yeah, you'll check it out.

If a deer is quartering away from you and you hit him back and you think, oh shit, I just got liver maybe. You got to know that you probably got one long coming out the backside. If he's coming towards you and you're back, if he's quartered to you and he's back and you hit back, then you got straight guts.[01:17:00]

And so it's important to know those types of things when you take your shots. Cool stuff. Monty, anything else? No, not right now. I'm tired. I'm ready to go to bed. Are you going to shotgun hunt this year? Do you do that second season? Me? No, I don't. I don't shotgun hunt. I, eventually I will once the kids start to get old enough, but I'm not going to I don't shotgun hunt.

Really what I like to do, especially on this new farm that I have, is let everybody else shotgun hunt. And then I'll come in there late season when the deer are just stacked on this farm. And then try to put myself in position for a late season beer. It's cause you guys get two, two residents. You get two tags.

Is that how that works? Yeah. So I get one archery buck and then one firearm buck. [01:18:00] But if I use that firearm tag in the late season, it's a primitive weapons tag, so I can use my bow for that as well. Gotcha. Good deal, Dan. Thanks for your time, man. Good luck. Now, wait when do you guys open up October 1st in Iowa?

Good luck on Sunday. You want to plug your plug, your stuff, your feeds, whatever. Everybody knows you're special. Yeah. I don't, all I'll say is this, I will say the O2 podcast here, along with, all the other podcasts that are on the sportsman's empire network, man, I'm very happy with the group that we've that we've become the community that we've created, and I will put the content coming out of the sportsman's empire up against any other outdoor podcast platform. Any other [01:19:00] podcast. Outdoor podcast, period in this space, I feel we are killing it now. I may be a little biased, but dude, there's so much good content on the network and I feel people need to check it out.

Yeah, definitely. Good stuff, Dan. Appreciate you, man. Hey, good luck this season guys. Yep. You too. Thank you.

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